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Issue date: July 21, 2000
Co-owner Susan Tsai displays one of Jing Jing's spicy Szechuan dishes.
@vcredit:Margaret Kaye
Comfort and spice are standards at Jing Jing
Comfort and spice are standards at Jing Jing
(July 21, 2000)
By Jim Harrington
There's no doubt that Jing Jing is downtown Palo Alto's most cherished "old favorite" Chinese restaurant. Palo Alto. You can debate whether it is the best Chinese eatery, but not whether it is the most popular.
Jing Jing draws heavy crowds for lunch and dinner seven days a week. It also does a booming take-out and delivery business. The restaurant has won so many readers' choice polls from our sister publication, the Palo Alto Weekly, that the award for Best Chinese Restaurant might as well be renamed the "Jing Jing Award."
Jing Jing doesn't need any gimmicks. The helpings are large and the prices are low; the service, friendly and the kitchen, quick. But what really sets Jing Jing apart from other good Chinese restaurants is its commitment to the spicy cuisine of Szechuan Province.
How serious is the commitment? The easiest answer comes from a quick scan of the menu. The hot-and-spicy items are listed in red on the menu, while the dishes that my timid mom would like appear in black. There are 31 dishes listed as house specialties--and every one of them is in red.
Jing Jing means it when something is labeled hot. Order the Hunan smoked pork ($8.50), a dish of sliced smoked pork with leeks and bamboo shoots in hot oil, or the Jing Jing Special Prawns ($10.50), which has prawns and fresh mushroom in spicy black bean sauce, and you'll taste the fire. Specialties such as the dry sautÇed shredded beef ($9.25), Szechuan pepper chicken ($8.50), and the twice-cooked pork ($8.50) are some of the best items on the menu.
The most popular dish could well be the Kung Pao Beef, another house specialty. The dish ($8.50) is loaded with plenty of meat, and enough red chilies to make the lips tingle, although it could do with more peanuts. To help cut down on the spiciness, eat it with a mound of sticky white rice. It's a simple but effective meal.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Start the meal off with an appetizer. Skip the standard egg rolls (two for $2.25) and go with a few of the hot numbers, such as the won ton in chili sauce (12 for $4.50) or the bom-bom chicken ($6.95), which is cold shredded chicken cooked with soy sauce, chili oil and peanut sauce, an awesome triumvirate.
After that, try the soups. The hot and sour soup ($4.50 for two people) is tasty, as is the wor won ton ($4.50), which contains lots of large and doughy dumplings filled with pork. The restaurant also earns its status with tasty renditions of Chinese-American standards such as lemon chicken and mu-shu pork. The lemon chicken ($7.75) is a decent choice for a main course, although the sauce over the battered and fried chicken strips is too watery and needs a more distinctive sweetening flavor. The sweet-and-sour chicken ($8.75) is better, and the cashew chicken ($7.75) is also nice. Along the same moderately spiced lines, the mu-shu pork ($7.75) is a safe entree for the entire family.
But don't go to Jing Jing to play it safe. Turn on the heat with the great orange peel beef ($9.25), which combines citrus with fire, or the Szechuan pepper chicken ($8.50), where diced chicken is sautÇed in a brown garlic and chili sauce that contains a surprising touch of sweetness.
Jing Jing, 443 Emerson St., Palo Alto; (650) 328-6885. Hours: Sun., 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., 4:30-9:30 p.m.; Mon.-Thurs., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., 4:30-9:30 p.m.; Fri. & Sat., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., 4:30-10 p.m. Credit cards are accepted.
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