Lin Jia Asian Kitchen

Fresh, amazing, tender, flavorful meal I would highly recommend it. Gem of a location is at the end of the block so go looking for it it’s worth the search.

Panda Express service at obscene prices. I was rushed and paid a lot for a small amount of food, that seemed to have been already cooked.

No, no, no!
Had the Buddha’s Curry which was a gloppy mess and Salt and Pepper Fish which was greasy and not crispy as described on the menu. The two measly half filled bowls of rice at $ 2 each was a bad joke. Service was poor, the place was empty and the server never came back to check on us. I did get a hostile stare from one of the kitchen guys though. :)
NO, no, no! Unless you love expensive and bad Chinese food.

Had our first experience during a hot summer day. Had the Hakka Vegetable dish and the smoked salmon roll special. The rolls were REALLY tasty as well as the other dish I ordered. We also ordered a Matcha Latte on ice (iced not normally advertised) and was delicious! Great, quick service and really friendly people. Highly recommended.

We are regulars at this restaurant. We walked in tonight at 9:05 p.m. (closing kitchen time is 9:30 p.m.) and were promptly greeted with, «you order will be to go» instead of «hello welcome to see you». We were refused table service and told our order could only be to go. We left in disgust. I am writing the owner regarding our treatment. You will not stay in business treating any customer in this manner. This is the third time this has happened to us this year, and now I am voicing my concern. I nor my guests should be subject to closing earlier than your stated hours. If your crew wants to go home early, then they should clock out or quit if they can’t work the hours listed on your website or front door. Period!
I wonder how many labor hours your employees have been ripping you off for. So, let me get this straight. They are required to probably work until 10:00 to 10:30 p.m. cleaning tables, the floor, chairs, etc. (as I have seen them do while I have dined there — which is not pleasant), so they get to cut that time by 75% and leave early while they refuse more business and slack off to go home early. Sounds like a formula for killing your business. Furthermore, how many $ 75 to $ 100 dinners have you missed in the last hour or half hour that they refused service for? The more I think about this, the more I am really pissed off! You’ll be lucky to get my business again and I can’t think of recommending your establishment for any reason.

Their money noodles and shrimp dish is one of the best things anywhere. We always get extra shrimp because life is too short to muck about. Do yourself a favor and get that good good flavor (ooooh I got rhymes now).

Great food… well balanced Chinese menu… fresh ingredients cooked to order in seasonal vegetables… and organic dive .
Pricey but worth it… owner /​waiter. suggest it and he will have it for you.

Now THIS was amazing Chinese food. It’s pretty upscale. The meat dishes were pretty expensive and I’m not sure I can justify $ 20 for a Chinese chicken dish but the rice and noodle dishes were some of the best most flavorful Chinese food I’ve ever had. Definitely worth going back for the Singapore noodles

Super delicious food and good service. Xo noodles are the best! I come here often. I’ve also ordered their Lin jia special chicken (you have to order 24 hours in advance) and it was worth it!

their wonton soup should make the 50 things to eat in oakland before you die. definitely my go-​to meal when feeling under the weather.

There are so many bad Chinese places. This one is seriously good. It’s food that makes you put your phone away and just nod at your friends while you keep eating.

My favorite Chinese place in the East Bay. Everything is delicious and the ingredients are fresh and high quality. They will try to stop you when they know you are ordering too much – wish I would have heeded the waiter’s warning! In the end it was all excellent – as it is every time we go. The hot and sour soup is my favorite. I don’t typically like hot and sour soup, but theirs is exceptional. Service is pleasant, cordial, and not intrusive.

Lin Jia is a pretty new Chinese restaurant in the Lakeshore Ave. shopping area. This used to be my old stomping grounds second to Montclair Village. Located right near Mandana and Lakeshore, parking can be a problem at prime times. We just got super lucky. We came here with a party of 4.
Looking over the menu, I’m a little taken aback by the prices. This sure ain’t Oakland Chinatown, with prices like Fried Rice for $ 14 and many Beef and Chicken dishes in the $ 18 to $ 22 range. The selection of offerings seems slanted to the non– Chinese customers looking for a little something more than the normal Panda Express offerings, but a little more in the food as to what might be perceived as exotic. But not too authentic, so as to leave them wondering, «What IS that kind of meat?» Or «Why is that fish looking at me?» No, there’s no strange tidepool animals on this menu. The interior gives that more upscale feeling, rather than that dingy but authentic hole in the wall place. I came here with my sister and 2 other friends that suggested the place, and we didn’t see any non white people besides the workers in here. But hey, maybe the foods good anyways, let’s see.
We started with Canton Wings ($ 12). OK, version of fried wings, but you get just 6 – 8 pieces for $ 12. Then we shared a big bowl of the Corn and Chicken Soup ($ 12), this is $ 6.50 even in Reno! OK, version, could have used more chicken. I’m not that big a fan of fried rice, but my friends wanted the Imperial Fried Rice ($ 14) and Beijing Shrimp ($ 21!). Last we had the ubiquitous Honey Walnut Shrimp ($ 20!). We all shared family style.
The fried rice was, well, fried rice. The Beijing Shrimp seemed like a version of General’s Shrimp, with its sweet and spicy sauce. The Walnut Shrimp were actually done well, for this common dish (it’s even at Panda Express). The main thing was to spend time with our friends, so that was good. But if you’re knowledgeable in Chinese cuisine, this may be a bit pedestrian for your tastes, though the food is still decent. I thanked our friends for dinner, and a good time was had by all, but as for the food, I’ll probably go elsewhere to find my more exotic Asian cuisine … cheaper too! I left my camera in Reno on my last trip, so no pics this time …

Continues to rock my world. Great joint for a group of up to six. The menu has a couple of really killer highlights like the KFC and the singapore noodles. Try to get the bacon fried rice!

I’m hesitant to give a bad review because the service/​staff were excellent and incredibly nice and friendly. But here goes…
This is not authentic Chinese food. This is Chinese food catered to American tastes, and this shows. I think I was the only Chinese person in the entire restaurant, which is usually a sign for me that it might not be up to par. But the Unilocal reviews suggested that it would be pretty good, and I have been looking for a Chinese restaurant with organic/​hormone-​free/​natural meat. So I really, really, really wanted to love it.
The kou rou (pork belly) was decent, not bad, but not great.
The KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) was really not great. Way too much breading, syrupy sauce was too sweet. Not unlike orange chicken at a lot of restaurants. And if you’ve had real Korean fried chicken (bon chon), this is highly disappointing.
The Cantonese noodles were a little bland, not horrible, but not incredibly tasty.
Overall…meh.
There is SO MUCH good Chinese food out there! If this is the best Chinese food you’ve had, please please go explore and eat more.

I want to say Lin Jia is Asian food for non-Asians…get my drift?
The food is mostly Chinese-​ish but they try to add a bit of Korea, Japan, SE Asian with items like kimkatsu sliders, tamago tofu, papaya salad, etc. It could be good if done right, but in reality, hard to pull off.
Since I was at a loss, I decided to go with the three most popular dishes on Unilocal.
First up is the KFC (Korean Fried Chicken). Now, I can see what they tried to emulate, Korean sweet and spicy fried chicken, but the flavor was very one note. If you’ve had the original before, it’s one of the best things you can taste. I know Lin Jia’s version is supposed to be a «fusion» but it was so sub par compared to the original. The chicken had only chili paste (gochujang) taste, no sweetness or nutty taste which is supposed to balance out the flavors.
Next is the Money Noodles. These are bean thread noodles with egg, shrimp, scallion, bean sprout, woodear, housemade xo sauce. This was the only dish that I thought was pretty good. Of course once again, I’d just rather eat any sort of non-​fusion Asian noodles but these weren’t too bad.
Finally, the Salt and Pepper Fish. These were pretty bland. Actually, salt and pepper which are in the name of the dish were pretty hard to find. Very forgettable…
In the end, fusion has been disappointing once again. I will always try but ⁹⁄₁₀ the original versions will be better.

Great service and great food… I’ll come back here for sure. Highly recommended the Rou Rou– pork belly cooked with hoisin sauce.

I had frequent this place in the past and had no bad experiences prior, but this last visit was disappointing. My girlfriend and I came in to dine and were seated by a waitress. There were very few people seated and no other people waiting when we arrived. 10 minutes after we were seated, a white family entered and were seated next to us. After another 10 minutes passed, we observed that not only had the family been attended to before us, but they placed their order and received their appetizers by that same waitress. Moments after another waitress came to take our order. When we politely asked what was the reason behind the delay for our order and why the family who entered in after us were served before us, we were told we did not request service.
Now I hate to make this an issue about race, but being that we were the only African Americans in the restaurant, that definitely does come to question, especially when being lied to and offered an illogical BS statement as to how we need to ask to be served when already seated. And even if that were the truth, that is horrible customer service! Regardless of the excuse, we wasted close to 30 minutes on a slow evening just to finally be offered service, for something that we had never «asked for», but was told we needed to. As you can suspect, it definitely rubbed us the wrong way so we decided to leave. I will not be eating there again.

Best Chinese! I’m not generous (at all with five star food reviews… über doesn’t matter)
Food– succulent, savory, fresh– straight up consistent yum! Had: 1. kfc– wots here in this lettuce cup? 2. Beef steak 3. Money noodles. Everything delicious.
Convenient– ordered online for pick up
Consistent– whenever we’re in OAktown, we try to get over to ling jia.
Service– competent, sweet– owner is super cute. Makes awesome desserts.

One of my new favorite Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area.
1) very fresh ingredients and preparation
2) Korean Fried Chicken is delicious
3) they have amazing dishes you don’t normally see at other Chinese restaurants
4) the restaurant is very clean and has a pleasant atmosphere
5) the Dragon-​Phoenix (don’t remember the exact name) dish is great
You will not be disappointed.

Decided to try this restaurant based on the good reviews and we were very pleased with our choice! The food was fresh and delicious, and the presentation was deliteful — two of our seafood with vegetable choices came in small noodle birdnests.
It is right on the corner and the street parking can be a challenge — there is no lot — but the tasty food is well worth any inconvenience. Very friendly staff, and we liked that the water left on tables was taken outside and poured on the flowers and trees. We went Thursday around 5:15 pm and it got busy around 6 pm.

Best chinese food I ever had, chicken was organic and surprisingly, tasted like chicken! The staff and owner were extremely friendly, even though my friend and I arrived just before closing time (my bad).
Super good, and reasonably priced for the quality! Organic and homemade chinese… you don’t see that everyday.

Enjoyed this restaurant with four generations of a Chinese-​Taiwanese family: my 93-​year-​old grandfather, my parents, my siblings, and my 5 year old and 2 year old child.
Here were the dishes we enjoyed in order of my personal preference:
1. Yi Mian (chewy noodles with shrimp, scallop, shitake.): This dish blended its ingredients together perfectly so it didn’t feel like you were eating something just tossed together. The chewiness or should I say slurpiness of the noodles melded with the tender juiciness of the scallops and were accented by the taut texture of the shrimp. Not too salty, yet very flavorful and full of umami.
2. Dumpling soup: This soup impressed the most probably because we’ve all had dumpling soup hundreds of times. But, this soup was light and flavorful at the same time. The dumplings were delicately made and carried a generously rich meaty heart. Such an addicting dish.
3. House-​made potstickers: Yes. Just yes. A favorite for the kiddos too. Forget shandong, try the potstickers here.
4. Hakka Vegetables: These were fine. Nothing spectacular, nothing bad. I would probably look for a different vegetable dish next time.
5. Kou rou (pork belly): Great thin buns and very tender pork belly, but the pork belly was cut too thick and thus overpowered the buns with saltiness and meat.
6. KFC (korean fried chicken): Meh, these left something to be desired.
We now have a restaurant we could go to again when my family visits. Thank goodness.

One of my issues with the Bay Area, is that due to an extremely high number of Chinese residents, it’s super hard to find gringo-​friendly Chinese restaurants. I can easily count fifteen Chinese restaurants within a mile of my house, but all of them are dingy, oily, and lacking on the organic, grass-​fed kale I crave at times.
This brings me to Lin Jia! A refreshing, new age, innovative menu; dishes and décor you’d imagine on a first date in a crappy romantic comedy; a unique blend of all Chinese cuisines with the added fun of papaya salad, pork belly fried rice, and Changsha beef filled bao.
Epic find, again proving that Oakland is not just cheaper than SF… it’s also way better.