Jake suggested after we got the donuts that we could just call it a day and go home and NOT get Chinese food. I gave him the most withering look I could muster. As if! OF COURSE we need to try another Chinese place. Pfffft. It’s all in the name of research for you, my friends.
My choice for this trip was a place called Beijing Wok and Grill which was a pretty quick drive from the Donuttery. Beijing Wok and Grill is nestled into a little strip mall not far from the 405. When we got out of the car I could smell Chinese food right away and it made me hungry.
This is an “order at the counter” type place. The interior is very nice and tidy. They have comfortable looking booths and nice tables plus it’s super clean and not at all like those tiny hole in the wall places that make you question just how dusty everything is. Everything here looks bright and shiny and new.
We were the only ones there in the late afternoon. The owner came up and took our order at the table since we told her we were eating in. Her husband is the chef.
They can do a good Grumpy Cat impression, don’t you think?
There’s a menu above the counter, but this one is much easier to read and hey look – photos (thought this menu is missing on the dishes we ended up ordering)!
On the back… no photos. The “Chef’s Special” dishes all seem to be the more “Americanized” dishes like Orange Chicken, Kung Pao, Chicken Teriyaki and the like. There’s also a few Korean dishes on here as well. I pretty much avoided this side of the menu.
You can also check out the take out menu which has actual written descriptions of the items, particularly the traditional dishes from Northern China: side one and here is side two.
[boiled chinese dumplings with shrimp and pork / $6.95 for 12 pieces]
What caught my eye about this place from my Yelp searching is their homemade dumplings which are made in house (and apparently right when you order them, but I did not confirm because I forgot to ask). They have two kinds, one with shrimp and pork and one with fish. The fish dumplings will cost you a buck more.
The filling of the dumplings is a mixture of pork, shrimp and chives. It’s seasoned nicely and the filling is juicy and quite tasty. You can’t really taste the shrimp at all and just adds to the flavor of the dumpling’s filling. The wrapper is soft and chewy and really yummy. I felt like it had a nice consistency and wasn’t gummy at all. Really tasty little dumplings!
The dumplings were T’s favorite dish (until I told him there was shrimp in the dumplings and he got a bit of a horrified look on his face).
[fried pork spare ribs with garlic sauce, tossed in garlic, onion and chinese sweet wine sauce / $9.95]
Little fried porky bits sounded very appealing to me that day, so I got the fried pork spare ribs. Some pieces were deceiving and had pieces of bones in it, while others were bone free. Didn’t matter to me after awhile as long as I got them into my mouth. The outer batter that encased the pork goodness was crunchy and adhered to the spare ribs quite well. The Chinese sweet wine sauce was almost like a sweet glaze on the ribs, coating them in an extra layer of deliciousness. There was so much flavor and I adored these spare ribs. They were my favorite item of the whole meal!
{pretend there’s a photo of chicken wings here}
[fried chicken wings with hot spicy garlic sauce / $9.95]
The other meaty dish was an order of chicken wings… and somehow I don’t have a photo of it!! I feel like I really honestly did take a photo of it but since it’s nowhere on my camera, I can only guess that I dreamed and thought I took a photo of the wings. DAMN.
The wings were fried and the skin was crispy despite being covered in a garlic sauce. The description listed it as spicy but I didn’t detect any heat (maybe they went easy on us). The sauce was garlicky and delicious and the wings were quite meaty. They were Jake’s favorite item from this meal!
[dry ja jiang noodles with pork / $6.95]
The last item we ordered was the dry ja jiang noodles. The noodles are also housemade and had a really bouncy, delightful chew to them. I wanted to control how much topping was put on so I ordered them “dry”.
T thought we were trying to trick him into eating mushrooms and squid ink since that’s what he thought the side sauce looked like. It’s actually a mixture of diced onions, zucchini, green onions, pork sauteed with ginger and garlic and mixed with a black bean sauce. It had a nice flavor and tasted yummy with the chewy noodles. I think I would have even liked the noodles with a little sesame sauce or by themselves!
When we were done with our meal, the owner came over to see how we were doing and how everything tasted. We told her everything was delicious and Jake told her that we were from San Diego and we didn’t have food like this back home and she chuckled and agreed. We found out she and her husband had moved down here from San Francisco to be closer to their family. She was so nice and welcoming – it really made our experience feel nice and homey. We’d definitely come back!
Beijing Wok and Grill
17431 Brookhurst St
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
(714) 968-5888
Homemade noodles and homemade dumpling wrappers and the filling looks so good too! Whyyyyyyy do we not have places like this in SD! The last dish you posted, the noodles with fermented black bean sauce is my dad’s favorite dish in the world. My grandma used to make it for him and when we moved to Canada where there are more Asian grocery markets we spent months buying ever jar of black bean sauce they had until my dad found the ‘right’ one 🙂
Hi J.S. – It is such a shame we don’t have places like this down here! Homemade noodles and dumplings, we need it here! It sounds like your dad really was on a quest to find the perfect black bean sauce! Glad he finally found it then, haha. It was a tasty dish, especially those chewy noodles, yum.
Ohh… I would kill for some delicious dumplings and hand made noodles! Why can’t we have these things here in SD? Maybe someone will start a dumpling truck and drive down for us.
Dumpling truck!! Why doesn’t that exist here! I feel like there’s a truck for everything else haha. I guess we traded good Mexican food for good Chinese. We need both in San Diego.
Those dry noodles look so good….I want to try that. WHAT? T doesn’t like shrimp?
Haha….”pretend” there’s a photo….. ; )
Hi CC! The noodles were so good! I really liked them. T has this thing, he’s very anti-seafood if he knows it’s seafood. If it’s snuck in then he doesn’t seem to mind it. Imagine that! I have gotten him to eat plenty of things he thinks he doesn’t otherwise like. I’ve been trying to teach him about letting go of preconceptions, haha. It might be working.