Joojak Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

The Xi’an experience - Joojak restaurant - Kingsway This restaurant is run by a lovely couple where the wife Regina is the front of house & her husband the chef behind the scenes cooking up DELICIOUS & I cannot stress that enough, delicious dishes , soups (yes soup! Their broths are quite flavourful) hand made dumplings, noodles, sides, sandwiches and main dishes. We spoke to the owner she makes the dumplings by hand! You cannot go wrong with your order here. It’s a small restaurant and they are often packaged especially on the weekends. But it has a very welcoming vibe to it. So today’s dishes we enjoyed are: Lotus roots - this is MUST TRY for everyone. The lotus roots are tossed in a fragrant chilli garlic and spring onion sauce/dressing and they offer a wonderful crunch as you bite down. You can just go on chomping down on them. Delicious and healthy for you. Lamb burger - these Xi’an style perfectly toasted on the outside with the perfect crusty and inner doughy texture of the bun combined with the yummy slices of lamb and generous capsicum (bell pepper) are another wonderful starting dish. These burgers are loaded al the way. You can also try their pork burger which is equally if not more juicy than this and it’s a decedent journey for your taste buds for sure. Do try it with their signature chilli sauce on the table just to add a little something to the pork burger. Spinach hand pulled biang biang noodles - THESE NOODLES!! These are one of the perfect main dishes to try. The noodles are long wide and flat toasted in some light brown ish sauce aromatic sauce and topped off with a little chilli powder, garlic, bean sprouts and bok choy. The best noodles I’ve ever had. They have an unbelievable velvety smooth texture and an excellent mouth feel to them. I could eat bowls of this dish. My mother really enjoys it too! Chicken wings - these are mouthwatering perfectly fried chicken wings wok toasted with chilli potato slices , black beans, chillies, and very fragrant peppercorns. You have to try it to believe it. Other excellent dishes to try are: Their chicken in chilli oil Any of their dumplings and soups Wok fried shrimps Anything else the owner recommends to suit your taste buds. **this is NOT a paid post, my mother and I genuinely cherish this place & visit it at least x2 a month

Thank you...

What is happening to this place? I used to like it because some dishes are unique local cuisine and you can’t easily get it anywhere else. After today’s experience, I won’t return nor that I’d recommend to my friends.

I called in today for take out order as usually and asked if picking up in 25 min is okay to which the owner said yes. When I arrived on time food wasn’t ready so I waited patiently while paying the bill. Ten minutes later I went back and was told my food was given to some other customer … I was stunned because I was just there right in her face 10 min ago how can you mistake me for another person. The owner called the other customer and ask to have my food returned and ask me to wait again. I waited initially but I didn’t feel comfortable accepting food that had left the restaurant for 20 min so I asked for a return. Owner tried to talk me into accepting the food but I declined politely again. Up to this point, I’ve wasted an hour of my time and still hungry. As I’m getting my money back, owner looked at me as if it was all my fault that made her so busy and led to the misplaced order.. and told me she shouldn’t have accepted my order in the first place. Excuse me?

Mistakes happen I get it. I don’t want to comment on the small space and unclean environment, poorly run and the fact that they don’t take credit card for payment. When I placed an order I knew all that. But the service quality has declined dramatically. You don’t blame customer for placing an order at rush hour if you accepted the order. And you don’t blame customer for the mistake you made handing food to someone else. And you don’t blame customer for not being comfortable with food that had left your restaurant for 20 min. You just can’t.

I don’t know what had happened to this place and the owner. What I know is that I don’t feel welcomed or valued as a customer here. I won’t go back again....

First time trying, we ordered #1 Chinese burger #7 beef wrap #17 mixed veggie noodles & #35 mouth watering chicken for pick up

Taste 1/1* Wife enjoyed the Chinese burger, whereas I personally found it underwhelming as it wasn’t balanced, all I could taste was salty pulled pork and baked plain bun Beef wrap on the other hand was pretty tasty, though small portions, it’s one of the better ones we’ve had, well balanced with good amount of spring onion and hoisin sauce Veggie noodles were tasty, wife liked it, I prefer my noods more Al Dan te, though I understand it could’ve gotten soft due to the travel time Chicken…mmm mmm mmm, one of the tastiest mouth watering chicken we’ve had, again small portion, and slight disappointment when we found pickled veggies underneath (aka even less chicken than we first thought), the taste and aroma was amazing once you get past the introduction of vinegar

Value 0.5/1* Kind of torn on this one, as most portions were definitely lacking, some dishes taste made up for it

Service 1/1* Friendly, and always nice seeing owners/chefs who take pride in their work

Cleanliness 0.5/1* Looked like things could be cleaner

Overall/Revisit 0/1* Would not return for the same dishes, but would consider going back to try other dishes if given the opportunity

Paying for ambience? Above and...