Jin Jiang Shanghai Restaurant

First time here and the food was pretty good! The service was pretty fast and the quality of the food was fantastic.
The ginger beef was really good and the seaweed yellow fish was delicious.
It’s definitely a would eat here again place!

Recently discovered this gem. I’m a huge fan of Shanhainese food and for burnaby, this place is quite good. It’s attavhed to a Best Western, so it is a little hidden and hard to find if you dont know what you’re looking for. Always busy during lunch time, but the wait is never too long. Their XLB’S are good with lots of soup still in the bao when you bite into it.

My family comes here all the time. The stand out dish is the pan fried steam juicy dumplings… sorry I don’t know what they are called. They are like the Sui ling boa with lots if juice inside, but this one is pan fried until it crispy and when you bite into it (be careful juice will jump into your face) it’s do juicy.
Everything else is ok… no complaints… which is rare for me :)
Oh service can be better.
Spoke too soon… complaint wise:0

A follow up to my own review; we phoned two days ahead on a separate occasion to get a reservation. They turned us away yet again to say that they could only offer us a table at 10pm. What is the deal with this place? Either they are truly that smokin’ busy, or they are just extremely exclusive.

My family and I went to this restaurant because we heard that the food was really good. We booked the table a day before since we heard that the restaurant gets busy. We wanted 6:30 but they told us either 5:30 or 7:30 so we booked for 5:30. We ordered quite a lot of food and the food was good; however, the service was terrible.
When we finished our meal, they cleared the table and wrapped up the left overs. About 10 minutes later, the waiter came by and told us that it’s time for us to leave and he went off somewhere. I understand that they want another round of business but he was very rude! We were all ready to leave but we had no bill. The waiter came back 2 minutes later and we fully expected him to have the bill with him. Nope! To my surprise, he started collecting the teacups; but only from half of us and left. At this point. since the person was so rude, we simply refused to ask for our bill, we just waited. He came back 2 minutes later again, still no bill and proceeded to pour the left over tea from the remaining teacups all over the glass turn table and then left with the teacups. Is that the way tables are cleaned? left over tea?!
He never came back. Another person came by and asked us to leave again. This time we said we need our bill. She was annoyed and told us to pay up front! We told her that we have no idea what the total is and we need the bill so we can figure out how much each of us have to pay. She finally brought us the bill but was not happy about it!
We have never been treated like this at a restaurant! or anywhere else for that matter! That was the worst service experience I ever had!!!

The green onion pancake with Chinese donut and egg was the best we have had in North America thus far. The turnip dumplings were flaky and excellent. The soup dumplings were a bit doughy but the flavor was excellent. Snow pea leaves were very delicious. Not too oily and just crunchy enough – not overly wilted. The hot soy milk wasn’t overly sweet, nor was it bland. We just went yesterday and plan on going again!

I’ve been here a few times but the last time I came the service was the worse I have ever experienced.
Once the order was in and food started to arrive there was a dish we didn’t order and we informed the waitress we didn’t order that. She took it away without saying anything then comes back and says are you sure you didn’t order this? Of course we would know if we did or not. It clearly says on the order reciept they taped to the table.
The manager was rude and pretty much pushed us out the door because it was close to closing time.

Review of 4 star is solely on the «xiaolongbao’s»!
So juicy, so delicous, so plump! I actually like this more than DTF: O gasp really? I think so? hmm just a slight hint of hesitation. But yes. the XLB’s here are solid! I would come here, and just order 5 rounds of that.
One order only has 6 pieces. so yah. 30 is about right ;)
Each 6 is still about ~$ 7, so still a pretty loonie+ for each dumpling. But worth it! very worth it!
The other shanghainese dishes are pretty average. or at least nothing jumped out at me.
Funny location, but haven’t had trouble finding parking. It gets pretty busy, and waiting time gets quite long during weekend 11AM-​1PM. I would recommend calling in for reservations :)

Each time I come here I am never disappointed by the food! Authentic and delicious.
I don’t have one favourite dish I have several! One being the dandan mein dish. Their set dinner combos are a great value.
Above normal noisy when the restaraunt is full of customers
What’s keeping me from giving a five star is that the staff can be a bit rude and snobby

They have good steamed xlb but the fried dumplings are the worst. Even TnT has better hand made wo teep.

This restaurant was recommended to us. It is in an unorthodox location. It looks like it’s part of the Best Western hotel along Kingsway. Everything we ate was great but the service was only okay. It took a while to get seated and we weren’t sure why. It seemed like some people who were coming in after us were getting seated before us.
We ordered the minced beef in a pastry roll, beef noodle soup, xiao long bao, milk toast, green beans, pan friend udon noodles and a larger cha siu bap (I can’t remember the exact name). We weren’t disappointed with any of our dishes but the stand out ones for us were the minced beef in a pastry roll and the larger cha sui baos, A note of warning, if you’ve never eaten a xiao long bao before be careful because there is broth in them and they can be very hot and spray!

We had been coming to this restaurant since it first opened was not as well known. The food is good. But you can get this food and this quality or better elsewhere. What sets this restaurant apart is the racism they serve you at the front door if you don’t speak Mandarin.
I’ve tried on our last two occasions to get a table here in English while my Chinese speaking husband was parking the car. I was told by the manager (same lady both occasions) that the wait would be an hour.
When my husband came in, I told him about the wait. He decided to ask her in Chinese. Miraculously, he managed to get us a table for 4 on the spot and walked right in after her. What???
Today was my second attempt. The same lady told me that unless I have a reservation, there is no table. Then she said maybe she will have a table but it would be at least an hour. I looked at the wait list. There were only 5 names ahead of us. Then she pointed to the door, told me to pick up a business card and make a reservation next time if I want a table.
My husband walked in just then. He asked her in Chinese. Her response to him was 10 – 15 minutes for a table of 4. Excuse me??? I might write this off to ESL on her part but unfortunately, her English is perfectly fine.
My husband was willing to wait the 10 – 15 minutes. I was not. We left. If you speak Mandarin, go for it. If not, well, I’m afraid they make too much money to want yours.

This was a case of already going towards this direction, and a recommendation from a jeweller I met, as we were chit-​chatting and I had an urge for Shanghainese food. Over-​shooting Metrotown, this place is practically across the street from the Steve Nash Fitness World, or next to Lordco (directions given: check!) and on this day… there was parking available. Walking into this place, it’s weird, as it’s in a motel like complex with a holy place next door, you will know if you have ever come in here. Stepping in near 2PM it was packed on a Sunday, but at the same time this place surprised me by its roominess! I am used to these restaurants where you either are sitting side by side to the next table, or almost, bumping shoulders and elbows, but this place… it has room where you can really stretch those wings.
It was almost the close of the lunch service, we were sat at a pretty big table and I allowed my mother to make the order on this day. They have all your normal Shanghainese dim-​sum flare. and so we ordered deep fried Chinese donut to go along with our savoury and sweet soy milk, an order of their XLB, and this weird order of what they call moon cake stuffed with pork. When our waitress took our order, we were warned that the last dish would take upwards of 20 minutes, we weren’t in a rush, but it was good to know this or we wouldhave been flagging people down wondering where our food was.
Lately I have been having some… ok… just passing grade XLB… so to see this arrive first, and in a metal steamer (used to seeing the wood) I wondered how these pockets of meat were going to be. They did not disappoint, as the wrapping/​skin was thin, didn’t rip on contact of picking up these things to eat. Take a small bite, and release the soup, there was a good amount, the spoon test passed, as it filled it right up with juicy, meaty goodness. The meat inside, nice firm bite, flavourful, but not overpowering, pretty good, I was not looking forward to the rest of this meal.
Oddly enough, the next dish that came was the Chinese donut, where I’m used to seeing this thing come with, or after, the soy milk, and just seeing it lay at the table waiting for our liquids, I had to try it just on it’s own. Probably one of the lightest Chinese donut’s I have had in the Lower Mainland, this thing was fluffy, not overly crunchy, and not oily compared to some cesspools that I have had at other places that really weigh you down. Whoever is making these in the back deserves credit, making this like a fine pastry, with a slight chew, this would be a guilty pleasure all on it’s own.
The two hot bowls of soy milk were a good size, and very smooth if you understand this liquid. The sweet one stood out, for not being sugary sweet, but just a hint, it was very clean, the savoury one had a good amount of seaweed, and bits of Chinese donut, each soup scoop was almost a guarantee of more than just liquid, not bad… would recommend.
The last dish was the moon cake with pork, and it was surprising. Three nice rounded baked items, a little browned on the faces of these delicate looking things, not until you bit in… did you know exactly how this thing was going to be. This pastry ‘moon cake’ was layered very well, as the piece held its own, but layers of crumbs would come off after each bite, and once you bit into the centre, there is a good layer of pork (that is probably the same marinated meat as the XLB) that is infused with the pastry. Not try one bit, and watch your tongue as when I bit in the meat was boiling hot, with enough moisture keeping the heat spreading within my mouth. Think about it like a hot pocket… and this thing was juicy, not XLB juicy… but it was good, just be patient when you have to order it.
There were some slip ups, as in the food coming out, where we waited quite a long time for the hot sweet soy milk, and by that time the Chinese donut was cold, but the prices were very reasonable. I was reading other’s who reviewed this place, and maybe this place is back on a upward change, as to my visit on this day.

Pan fried pork dumplings are full of juice and hard to eat. Best approach was to cut in half, sacrifice the juice and let cool. Not very good.
The steamed dumplings (xiao long bao) are great.
Thick noodle with shredded pork had gailan or something and real pork and bit pork floss. It was alright, but kind of boring.
Our bill $ 23 plus tip.
No credit under $ 50.
I’ve peevishly had the lamb dumplings which were interesting but not awesome. Wife really liked them.

I’ll start off this review by saying that the food is good. Actually, the food is really good.
My latest visit here really pissed me off. First off, we were told the wait will be an hour but miraculously they manage to give us a table. Thanks for the table.
Ok, i’m Chinese, but i don’t speak Mandarin, meaning that I have no idea what you are saying to me. So i order as is and point to the things on the menu. That’s fine, we manage to get the things we wanted.
Here’s the boiling factor. I went to pay the bill and there is a sign there «Credit card and debit card is only accepted for bills over $ 50». No where did it say that on the front of the premises. I never carry cash on me so we managed to all scrounge up enough to pay the bill. The bill was $ 38.10 and we gave them $ 40. The server comes back to our table with the bill and the change and then TAPS the leather cover. WOW, what did you just do there? They proceed to hover around the table and mumble something in Mandarin. I ended up searching through my pockets to find another $ 2. But the nerves of this server to TAP the leather bill fold. I’m not sure if they’re trying to escape some taxes but be warned. CASH ONLY, unless you spend over $ 50.
If you have bad customer service, it’s the same as having shit food. Sorry, not sorry.
OH Yeah i forgot, remember to make reservations cause they are booked FULL and will tell you to leave without a reservation.
Apparently my Caucasian Sister in law experienced some racism here as well as my Chinese brother in law was able to get a table instantaneously where as she was told one hour (not sure if it’s true but that’s what i was told).

Food was okay. Nothing amazing but okay. Soup dumplings were the best part of the meal. Service was barely acceptable. We were ignored most of the time. Good thing we got our food quickly. Why accept credit cards if you need to spend $ 50? How can a couple people eat that much during lunch? Please bring cash just in case you cannot order enough food!

I’ve watched this place slowly but surely self destruct over the past couple of months.
First it was the food, which went from «pretty good» to (literally) «rotten.» The only exception being the xiao long bao, those were still good on my most recent visit a few days ago. Everything else was either too sweet, salty, oily, or bland.
Then there was the service, which went from «average «to «this is %$#%$ ridiculous.» Let’s just say if you like servers that look and act like brainless, rude zombies that don’t give a crap… boy have I found the place for you!
I’m literally counting down the days until they go under.

How has it taken me this long to try this place? I’m always on the hunt for Shanghainese Restaurants, so I was stoked when we found this place near Metrotown! It’s located near Safeway and Wholesale Club!
The food is here is authentic Shanghainese fare. They have two seperate menus, one for appys/​snacks, and one for entrees. The entrees menu only start after 12 pm. We ordered a bunch of dishes, and all of them turned out to be really tasty, albeit rather salty. I was hit with excessive post meal thirst afterwards haha. And strangely enough, I didn’t even mind haha
The place is huge and was already packed with diners at lunch hour. It’s pretty clean too! Overall, a solid Shanghainese restuarant in Burnaby! I’ll be back!

For those who are interested in Shanghai style dim sum, this place is decent.
I do like their beef pastry wraps, especially the minced beef pastry cakes. They’re giant wraps with good quality cuts of beef with fresh tasting veggies and the wrap itself had a lightly toasted taste to it — not really greasy tasting which was great.
I tried another pastry cake wrap made with eggs and it had Chinese donuts. I could definitely taste a bit of the egg flavour on the wrap itself, but it was a tad oilier than the beef wrap. Non-​meat eaters who are a fan of deep fried Chinese donuts should enjoy it.
Their steamed Shanghai dumplings aka XLB tasted okay, a bit bland but better than average — and they were larger than average in size when compared to XLB at some other Shanghai restaurants.
The dandan noodles soup with peanuts looked promising, but there was too much thick peanut sauce. It didn’t taste like soup as it was too thick which was like a chunky peanut butter sandwich.
The Shanghai noodles with very greasy. One would have to drink tea to wash it down for sure.
Since it’s located at Best Western Inn, there is plenty of free parking.

When I found out a Shanghai Restaurant was opening a few blocks from my home, I was ecstatic. I was really hoping that Jin Jiang would blow the competition in the area out of the water, but it didn’t.
Food is good, but isn’t the best out there. The Fried Donut with Egg and Pancake was average. The fried donut was too crispy, oily and overcooked. The pan fried wontons was a little plain. The XLB skin was made nice and thin so it didn’t rip as I picked them up with my chopsticks so that’s a plus. The XLB’s were the best items on the menu. My husband liked the Green Onion Pancakes, but since I’m not a huge fan, I thought they were average. I’ll go back to try their noodles next time to get a better overall feel of the place.
Note: Jin Jiang takes credit cards, but only for bills $ 50 or more.