James A.
Yelp
Famous for their hand sized soup dumplings, "Juicy Dumplings" is a small restaurant located in San Gabriel Square, next to a tofu house and many empty storefronts. It came on my radar because of their soup dumpling, so when we needed to be in the area for a Saturday night, our group of four agreed to meet there.
We were seated right away and given a laminated card with a marker, and two picture menus without prices. It's a cool way to provide pictures for menu items, without having to constantly update the expensive picture menu because of price changes.
We got 4 hot waters (provided in large plastic glasses which was appreciated), and a coke ($2.20, only from a can since they don't have a soda machine, obviously no refills). We ordered the following and they came as they were prepared.
Juicy Pork/Crab bun for $9.49 each (2) - this is what they are famous for and it came last. You really have to eat it two stages: first sucking out the juices with a straw, then tearing the skin apart. It is unique, but the ratio of skin to soup seems wrong to me. wouldn't get it again.
Juicy Pork/Crab dumpling $16.99 - comes with 9 pieces and is expensive. But the dumplings were very good, well crafted and the soup inside was delicious.
Green Beans $14.99 - wok fired green beans. Plenty given and was good.
Shredded Pork with Garlic Sauce $15.99 - garlic sauce at a chinese restaurant can mean a lot of different things. This version uses a lot more chilly oil and vinegar than garlic, and was very red hot in looks and flavor. It used finely diced pork loin pieces.
House Chow Mein ($12.99) - another case where you can't be sure what Chow Mein is. In this case, it was spaghetti noodles which I don't want to eat at a chinese restaurant. But my co-diners liked it a lot, especially for the flavor, quantity, and price.
Steam rice is $1.50 per bowl.
It was enough food for the 4 of us with leftovers. There is an open kitchen where you can see the expert dumpling makers apply their craft. The XLB is very well crafted, consistent thin skin even at the top. But next time, I would skip the expensive soup dumplings (maybe it is cheaper if no crab?) and stick with the classics.
There was a small annoyance with one of our waiters, who repeatedly asked me in broken english that he wanted his tip in cash (once I produced a credit card to pay). I can think of a couple of reasons why he would want this, none of them deserving more elaboration (better not to know I think).
So final thought is that it is a good restaurant, but with multitude of great chinese restaurants in the SGV area for better prices, it wouldn't be a place to go out of the way for (like what we did here)