Jazz Cat Restaurant — Restaurant in Arcadia

Finally had a chance to give Arcadia's Jazz Cat a try, and I can honestly say that I like this location much better than San Gabriel's (especially since my friend and I went two days in a row and were able to compare the differences). This Jazz Cat took over what was previously Din Tai Fung. There's parking at the back in the very cramped lot, but if you can't find any - then street parking is your next best bet.

I remember seeing the line being out the door for this location right when it first opened. Luckily it was not too busy when we arrived. We signed up for the waitlist via Yelp and were seated immediately. The restaurant is definitely a bit more narrow in length, with a wider area towards the back. Not sure if there's an upper level for customers as well, but all guests were seated downstairs for that night. Seating is a bit weird as the stoves are all right in the middle of a pretty long table. We sat at a table large enough for 6 people, so we ended up sitting adjacent to one another in order to accommodate all the space.

Menu is the same. They have lunch prices if you come during the day; otherwise, you pay around $15 for the basic soup, meat, and sauce selection. You can choose the "regular" (with more veggies) or T-rex (supposedly 50% more meat) options.

I ended up choosing the T-rex option (more meat for your buck, right?), but was able to compare it to my friend's regular option. And the difference in meat was very minute. He probably had ten slices while I had twelve slices of meat - not a big difference at all! But the vegetable comparison ... he had bok choy, kale, two baby corns, enoki mushroom, cucumber - items I didn't have. That was disappointing.

But besides that, everything else was good. I ordered the creamy milk and corn with the premium beef and the ponzu sauce. The creamy milk and corn has always been one of my favorites - not too heavy, quite milky, and love the amount of corn kernels inside the soup. I felt that it gave the meat a more silky flavor, but that could just be me. Wasn't able to finish a lot of my portion, so I ended up sticking the remainder into my friend's pot. Definitely a good amount of food.

My friend ordered the pork bone with the beef and Thai satay sauce. I can see why people enjoy the Thai satay - a bit spicy, a little acidic ... very good at getting the palate going for more food. He enjoyed the pork bone, but thought that Little Sheep had a better one. I thought the soup was a little bland and lacking in rich flavor. With all the veggies that he had, he was really full and satisfied by the end of the meal.

The meat was quite lean and looked really fresh, which was a plus. (When we went to SG's location the next day, the meat was super fatty.) Workers were friendly and kept helping us refill our soup. Food came quickly and anytime we needed something, we were helped right away.

tl;dr - If you're craving soup or hot pot, definitely come to Jazz Cat. This is probably one of my favorite hot pot places because the soups that they offer are all quite tasty. Price is decent and the amount of food you get really fills you up. They also have other dishes/drinks if you want to order something...

I had a stellar time at this location! It's definitely roomier than the location in Rowland Heights that we sometimes frequent since it's much closer to home, but since we had just finished bowling next door we decided to grab dinner across the street that Jazz Cat was located at. We left our cars at the bowling alley and just walked.

We placed our name down for a table of 8 and waited only 10 minutes before they sat us down at a very spacious back end near the stairs that lead to their second floor seating (very cool). There was definitely more room than we expected, which was fantastic so that we had more than enough elbow space when eating compared to other Jazz Cats where everybody usually sat elbow to elbow making eating difficult.

Our wait staff was prompt in getting our order and I must apologize that one of our members made the ordering process extra long and tedious, but our waiter was more than accommodating, bless his patient soul. Our food arrived and I saw that they updated their pots to these really cute cat shaped ones and they were deeper. Definitely much nicer so that it's not prone to spilling like the ones they had before where the pots were short and thin.

I ordered my usual, pork bone soup with lamb. Still tasty, but not the best pork bone soup I've had, but did the trick! I'd still recommend this place though for the atmosphere and...

I've only eaten to jazz cat probably once or twice before this on valley. Not a big fan of hot pot but mom loved it so here we are. The place is now open , hard to know since the only sign they are open is if you come in from the side parking lot . You can't see from the mains Baldwin if they open or not .

Food : 4 star . Pretty much similar to the other place . You got choice of some protein with alot of choice of the soup base and few choice of dipping sauce . They have the t rex version which gives you more meat and less veggies. Food taste ok to me, but maybe because in spoked with boiling point where they already mix all the ingredients for you. I wish this place have a "recommended" build for your pot. There's like 20 different soup. How the heck should I know which one goes well with which. I'm not a food expert.

Service : 4 star . Not surprising for a new place it seemed chaotic. We were ushered in inside by one staff and was told there actually was no space. So we go back out finding out other people have been getting number , so now we are #4 in line . But fortunately the lady in front desk (who seems to be the only person around here that know what they're doing) understand what happened after we told her and gave us the first seat anyway. Staff is pretty attentive for stuff we need...