E.N. Z.'s Profile

I have mixed feelings for this place. Since in general, everyone started with the good things, I will start with the reasons why I don't offer the remaining two stars.

Jo Jo TaiPei has to have better services. During the first opening month, the entire service crew was a chaotic scene. They didn't have the experience to handle a continuously busy crowd (which is good for them, but bad for the customers). We had to wait and wait and wait, to see many waiters, waitresses, hostess walking and talking busily, but not tending to the tables. I had enough time to observe to realize the problem is due to the lack of management experience of allocating workers.

The good news is that this is getting a little better now. The part really annoys me is the waitress always try to sell me these other things which all belong to a higher profit margin items. They charge you for green tea - which other Chinese restaurant in town charges you for tea!! Then they charge quite a bit of money for the appetizers. I see that a lot of the reviewers here complained about that misleading charge. After dinner, the waitress tries hard to sell the shaved ice desserts or drinks. Again, although I turned them down each time, (I always order extra main dishes). I just hate that they really push hard for the sell.

That costs them one star for me. The other is the quality of food. There are a lot of good, great dishes here, however, the stinky tofu is definitely, definitely not stinky nor tasty. You need to know what you are ordering in this place. Not all the dishes are great tasting.  So does the XLB. Both are considered Taiwanese staple food, but failed to impress me.

Regardless of these two issues, I loved their pork sandwiches (the best lotus buns out there!), the best beef scallion sandwiches.  The beef noodle soup is good.  Basil Eggplant is very yummy. Salted Duck is very lean and tasty. I am forgetting what other ones I've had there...

It is definitely an interesting place. I will go to this place instead of Shangrila's in Belmont. This place offers more interesting choices and despite the salesyness of the waitresses, they are quite pleasant versus the bland look you get at Shangrila.

Quality went down here!

I am not a professional baking chef, so I don't know the exact terms. However, I can definitely tell you that  their most incredible strawberry cake has changed its ingredient! The cream tastes not as good. I don't know if it was the milk or the butter that's gone down in quality, but it lost its original light, whipped cream taste.

The azuki cream buns over the years have shrunk in size by half.

I don't know, if it dropping fast on my list... Regardless, in the Boston area, I still like its:

Shoku Pan - bread
Breadpudding
Curried Donut
Fruit Tart
Creme Bulee

This is a review just for their brunch service which to many is their secret.

One excellent attraction is the fact that it opens earlier than other brunch places. At 10:30AM - it is one of the very few Sunday gourmet brunch places available.

I sampled the banana milk drink. It is quite yummy. The banana taste is from real ripe bananas. The tiny black "spots" from the banana flesh is in the drink. I can't believe I've never thought of this combination at my own house. The drink is not very sweet, even with some ice, it is quite creamy and rich.

For the entree, we had the Tortilla Espanola and the Hamberguesas de Kobe. The tortilla espanola tastes heavenly. It is really scrambled eggs with thin slices of potatoes and onions baked in the shape of a cake. The eggs are moist and the mix with the potatoes, onions were incredible. It also comes with a very healthy, delicious salad greens with white raisins and pine nuts.

The Kobe mini burgers were cooked medium rare with a wonderful sweet sauce. The entire thing is juicy and tasty.

We were very happy with this experience. There was no wait lines. We can't wait to try it again!

Don't be misled by the other reviewers, this place is good for more than just the jeans.

Owner Riccardi has his sense of style which is a blend of casual and formal wear and playfulness, funkiness. The store definitely reflected his sensible fashion style.

We were serviced by Riccardi each time. He was like a friend, suggesting, helping us to find extremely flattering outfits. They do carry very interesting jeans, but they also have a good selection of Vivian Westwood shirts (one of my favorite's).  

I gave it four stars because I thought they do lack a little on the women's clothing. To me, a girl's wardrobe should contain some funky casual outfits, but also some girly stuff. I sense this shop lacks a little feminine touch to attract me to buy more things there. (which is not a bad thing!)

Excellent food and service! I am surprised that Chris didn't see any more Asians. I was amazed to see the amount of Asians there when I dined there recently for weekend Brunch.

I have had dinner there as well, both time the food was consistently superior. The waitress was super nice. Some restaurants won't allow the party to sit down if not all people are present. For my party of 6, the latest couple arrived an hour late. I was the first to arrive. The waitress immediately seated me.

Dinning at the B&B is well worth the money. The brunch is particularly reasonable in price. I sampled a few different things from my party, I was very impressed by the chef. I am looking forward to another visit so that I can write more in depth about my dishes.

I was greatly disappointed with Dok Bua after being a loyal customer for many many years. Their portions got smaller and they lost some of my favorite dishes. I have been looking for an authentic Thai place as a substitute. S&I turned out to be even better than I had imagined.

I only went once this week (although I would like to go again very very soon). And although I am not Thai, having only visited Thailand a few years back for a couple of weeks, I sense that this is the most authentic place in the entire Boston area.

My Indonesian fried rice was to die for! The rice is flavored sticky rice (the best I've ever had). The chicken noodle soup (with ground chicken) has the best soup - thick (in terms of tastiness) fragrant. The waiter (or maybe owner) was prompt and friendly. They also have loads of Thai language Vogue like magazines for eat-in diners to browse.

It is definitely a great experience to eat at S&I. I highly highly recommend it. Oh, it can get spicy (the right amount spicy), instead of the regular very tamed taste at places such as Brown Sugar, Kao Sarn. Be prepared for some good stuff!

I am not rating for their Shabu. I heard about their Taiwanese breakfast, so I went there today to try it out.

I guess this place is really owned by the Taiwanese people. They advertised their smelly Tofu (steamed or fried) to be just like the way in Taiwan.

From my ratings you can tell I am not excited about their food. First of all, they only service the Taiwanese breakfast on weekends. I went on a Saturday which is the first day of the two-day weekend. I arrived at 1:15PM, ok, let's say at 1:30 the latest. They were open from 11:30AM. They already ran out all their soy bean drinks long time ago and their congees.  That's very interesting because when we were there, no other new customers came and there were only one other party there. I think they didn't stock up their stuff. I was put off by that.

We ordered the Tofu Vege shreds. The trick of the tofu shreds is to make them tender instead of chewy. The tofu shreds at Shabu Village is only a tad short from tasting like rubber bands. The seasoning was not right too. They put too much sesame oil.

We ordered the fried smelly tofu. It smelled right, but it didn't taste right. It was not crunchy on the outside (somewhat mushy) and the inside was rather empty. It smelled much better than when I actually had it in my mouth.

The other dishes we ordered were all mediocre at best.

The layout of the restaurant is not very appealing. The cooking is in plain view wtih all the tools and buckets and sauces placed here and there at the Shabu counter. Plus, since the Shabu counter is rather low, I can see more of the disarray. I had the feeling of eating at a cafeteria instead of a nice restaurant.

The food is alright if you can take the service. I was going there almost every weekend for two years, and I am Chinese myself, they never smiled, nor acted friendly. I was tipping well, but after that kind of treatment, continuously as if I interrupted an argument, I can't even go there anymore.

The service is inconsistent in terms of the speed. Some nights they are very very slow. Other times, they are super fast, as if they want you to leave immediately. On winter nights, the little space can be very stuffy and smelly even for me as a Chinese person!

I endured this for quite a while because there wasn't much quality Chinese food around. But I am not willing to take their attitude and the ambiance forever. Now I hardly go there. There are so many great Asian restaurants opened up in Boston and greater Boston area... Why do I have to face the sour faced waitress to ruin my dining mood!

One last comment, this place like Chun Shin Yuen can get boring very quickly due to their never changing brunch menu. I got the sense that they felt they were doing so well that they needn't improve or change anything - hence the attitude.

The most famous soup has a strange taste to it. It tastes sour. My special with Chilean sea bass was undercooked, so that the meat still stuck to the bone. Now if you know a little about cooking you would know that Chilean sea bass is one of the easiest to cook. It tends to leave a buttery soft taste to your mouth. Not here, although undercooked, it was tough and not fresh tasting.

I am not going there for a while. I only decided to try it again because I got disappointed with Pho Pasture with them changing their names to Les and I detected a change in their food quality (a definite decline).

Don't know where to go now for Vietnamese unless I go to Dorchester...

I am so glad that a Jamaican place made it across the river!

The food is home made, very casual but very good! Try their beef appetizer (I forgot the name), it is very tasty.

Their menu items are limited in choice, but you can't go wrong with any of them. I highly recommend you to try them out, but not too late in the evening. My first time, I got there after 7:30 and the place was already closed. We ended up eating at the Full Moon.