Little Joe's Express — Restaurant in Alameda

Little Joe's is the sleeper neighborhood restaurant. A very unassuming sliver of what appears to be your run-of-the-mill greasy Chinese spoon establishment actually turns out some fantastic Cantonese cuisine.

With a 5 year old, our standard test Chinese fare (to see where this particular restaurant falls on our scale) is fairly, well, standard, but they are executed well here.

The house special fried rice comes with diced bbq pork, sections of chicken thigh meat, slices of beef, and 3 or 4 large prawns. The dish isn't too greasy, didn't taste of stale cooking oil, and doesn't leave a pool of oil on the plate, which means the chef is cooking with high heat and a swift hand.

Cashew nut chicken and broccoli beef are our other yardstick dishes, and Little Joe's are served with satisfyingly fresh ingredients. The cashew chicken had evenly cooked vibrant zucchini, celery, and a few button mushroom halves. No old, yellowed celery stems or squishy squash past it's prime, and a very generous scattering of cashews that didn't force us to ration each scoop.

The beef with broccoli had tons of fresh, crisp broccoli (almost too crisp, could have used 30 seconds more cooking time!) And thankfully, slices of tender beef that hadn't been given the usual Cantonese treatment of baking soda to puff it up. I'm not a fan of pillowy puffy beef so they win points for leaving the beef and chicken unadulterated!

The establishment is small and very bare-bones; we ate under a flourescent light with a tv showing a sportsball game so the gemütlichkeit, or ambiance was not supreme, but the food was done very well and we knew what to expect. Take-out seems to be the preferred way of enjoying their food, but don't be dissuaded by their sparse...

I've ordered from here 2 times and had a different experience both times. The first time everything was oowee delicious! I got shrimp egg foo young, some kinda Hawaiian chicken dish I think, fried wings and something else. It was all very good. The second time I got shrimp egg foo young again, honey walnut shrimp and chowmein and it was all pretty average. The egg foo young the first time was very flavorful but the second time it was pretty bland. The same with the honey walnut shrimp dish; it was very plain lacking flavor; the same with chowmein. Tbh the second time it tasted like there was no MSG on my food; I don't have any problem with cooking with MSG and I think it's a wonderful flavor enhancer for dishes; my dishes the second time all seemed to be lacking umami. Maybe they left off the MSG the second time? I'll still go back again though. The people who work there are also...

If you are hungry for gourmet Chinese food, and you need to feed a family of hungry little monsters on the fly, Little Joe's Express is just the place for you. I was driving kid #1 home from music class when I got a call from mom to pick up dinner ASAP. I pulled over and made an order on the convenient Mealkeyway app, and 10 minutes later I was on my way home with two bags of piping hot food. Conveniently located on Encinal near Franklin Park, the owner is an absolute sweetheart of a man. Food is 10/10 on the delicious meter. Picky eater #2 absolutely loved the wonton soup. Little Joe's is my family's new go-to for...