Part of the reality of the food industry is that restaurants come and go at a dizzying pace. And while some websites are able to curate and keep tabs on the restaurant "transactions", there inevitably are some that fall through the cracks. Such was the case for Jinlin, a new Chinese restaurant that had taken the place of a popular Korean BBQ, one I had noticed closed for an extended period of time. Always down to trying a new restaurant, I quickly packed in a fellow resident and mosy-ed my way down Pembina to Jinlin.
Indeed there are touches like the old BBQ pits and the central buffet area but Jinlin has done a nice job of retrofitting and repainting the area. Modern and sleek would describe the large banner overhanging the main windows while a similarly sleek billboard towers on the street. The interior is similarly sleek with large wooden tables, plenty of walking room and comfortable chairs. And despite it being mid afternoon there was still a steady trickle of customers walking through.
Jinlin offers two (or rather three) lunch options. As with most Chinese restaurants there are two options, a predominantly English speaking one and a Chinese traditional menu. It also disappointingly offers a lunch buffet featuring a myriad of menu items for those wanting to eat en mass. Seeing some of the same items on the main menu and the buffet makes the skeptic in me wonder if quality is being sacrificed and they are simply taking buffet items and serving them as sit down options. Nevertheless the Chinese menu is an impressive array of traditional dishes that span the majority of the major Chinese provinces and cuisines.
One of my markers of Chinese food, Jinlin's Deep Fried Chicken came up short. First off the quality of the chicken was subpar with it lacking the usual springy-ness one would find with fresh chickens; rather the meat was rather tough and chewy. Certainly the cooking style plays a factor too with the skin a roasted rather than deep fried crispy consistency. And while certainly I cannot fault them on the size of their portions, there was not enough flavour in this dish to warrant a recommendation.
Stewed Meat Balls in Brown Sauce is a bad name for what amounts to a tasty dish. A take on the traditional "Lion's Head" Shanghainese dish, Jinlin takes large ground pork and ham meatballs and braises it in a soy and Hoison based sauce. The key here is the moisture the chef was able to infuse into the meatballs giving it a tender and gelatinous texture which plays perfectly with the crunch of broccoli. The addition of Chinese mushrooms works to soak up a lot of the sauce making each bite a burst of salty and sweet flavour.
These pan-fried Pork and Chive Dumplings were a nice offering from Jinlin. The large plateful of potstickers are elegantly arranged and bursting of flavour. It certainly seems they are homemade as they are chalk full of fatty pork and sharp chive flavour, a steep contrast from the minimal filling found in a lot of restaurants. The best part is the soup that spills out from each bite, filled with greasy, salty and sweet flavour drawn out from the filling during the cooking process and collected in the not too thin but not too thick wrapper. Delicious.
I always make an effort to order from the hot pot section and went with the Stewed Pork Ribs with Potato & Beans. Although not presented in the usual claypot fashion, this stew had monster flavour despite the small and merger pork ribs. The doughy potatoes and crispy green beans are well cooked, tender and soaked in the starchy braising sauce. But I have to criticize Jinlin here for giving the smallest pork ribs one can find: bony and completely devoid of flavour. And while it helps to infuse flavour into the dish, I could not help but feel a bit shortchanged by it.
Jinlin is a mixed bag of Chinese cuisine. Almost mirroring the restaurant's dichotomy between being a sit down vs. a buffet restaurant, the food here hits the polar extremes of good and bad. The flavours are dynamite but I wonder if the poor quality meats are a marker of buying for its buffet rather than its sit down crowd.
Comments
Post a Comment