JN Kitchen

This is one of the worst restaurants EVER! Got a table and sit down, NO WATER or HOT TEA, first Chinese Restaurant ever offered any drink, and they do not offer hot tea.
The restaurant is dirty, I have no idea why it got the grade of «A», it is as dirty as «D» restaurants. Some of dirty Chinese restaurants offer good dishes, but this place is dirty and crappy food.
Expected to have skewers, this restaurant does not have ANY skewers. Ordered few dishes, ALL of them are not qualified. Pictures on the menu and actual dishes look so much different. When one of dishes delivered to my table, I said «WTF is this? Did I order this crap?»
Saw some flies in the noodles, asked the waiter and waitress what they are, they said it happened during the cooking process. Asked if it is normal, they said it is not normal… and wanted us to finish the dish… HELL NO, returned that crap!
Again, I am warning people, this horrible restaurant, avoid it if possible. It is the worst Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles. You may get sick!

Original owners (and cook) are no longer there. Very sad as the food is just not as tasty. Won’t be coming back.

OMG!!! Never had this bad Lamb skewers ever ever! I order grill lamb chop, grill lamb skewers, grill squid, basically just dont order anything grilled or skewer here, taste so horrible!!! Only thing you can eat here is the house hot peppery.
So, I will never ever ever ever come back!

don’t bother ordering their lamb kabob! it’s pre oil grilled than bbq so GREASE is the word.
won’t be back ever.

I don’t get all the bad reviews? This place is awesome! It’s significantly better than any of the other Asian Skewer places nearby!
I’ve only been here twice so far and I’ll definitely be back again! I first come here in desperation after the first 626 night market basically ran out of food and I was pretty much about to go into full mental breakdown mode if I didn’t get Asian style lamb skewers somewhere & somehow! We had to wait over an hour to eat once we got there (apparently some other people also had the same idea), but it was worth it!
Ok, yes, it’s not the cleanest inside and the smell of some of the items seems a little intense (possibly from the frog soup???), but it’s meant to be a hole in the wall place. The skewers are amazing, the option of menu choices offered is fantastic and it’s super cheap! All the basic skewers are around $ 1.20-$ 1.50 a piece.
Overall Rating: (⁴⁄₅)
FOOD:
As for the actual food, some people are complaining that they use the same seasoning on everything. Personally I don’t mind much because all the meats taste distinctly different and the seasoning they use is pretty much the reason why I wanted these type of skewers v. s middle eastern ones in the first place!
My 3 favs/​must haves are:
1. Grilled Lamb skewers, super juicy with a perfect amount of seasoning.
2. Grilled Mussels, \I don’t know what else to say besides «yummy…»
3. And Grilled Squid, it comes chopped up on a plate rather than a skewer and also has a good amount of seasoning that kind of sticks to it like a breading.
Also, I love the hot sauce that comes with most of the skewers/​grilled items! It looks like the standard Sriracha you usually get at any Asian restaurant, but this sauce isn’t as spicy and is different somehow…
The only item so far I’m not too crazy about is grilled octopus head, which is too flavorless and chewy… and also for some reason it’s actually octopus bodies & NOT a heads!
PROS:
* Cheap!
* Great service. Though pretty much none of the staff speaks English you can still get by, food comes reasonably quick and the owner is very nice and friendly!
* One of the few Asian skewer places you can get to from L. A :)
* Delicious seasoning and sauces!
* Large amount of different types of skewer & grilled item options.
CONS:
* Very hole in the wall… i.e. not the most cleanliest/​pleasant décor.
* They don’t serve diet coke :(

As we first walked in, I noticed this restaurant had a very authentic northern Chinese feel to it – including lack of air conditioning and the smell of stinky tofu being prepared.
Out of all the items we ordered (lamb skewers, jian bing, and sesame pancake), I felt that the most authentic part was the seasoning on the lamb skewers. It was like they imported the ingredients straight from China. However, I thought the lamb meat on the skewers were a bit too thick compared to what I was used to (thinner chunks) — or perhaps they were just being cheapskates in China. The prices were somewhat reasonable at $ 1.30 per skewer.
On another note, they also serve bull’s testicles on a skewer! This is the place to go if you want all kinds of meat parts on a stick.
The jian bing, or Chinese crêpe, was much too salty and the crispy wonton wafer inside wasn’t really crispy enough. Normally in China, they also serve it to you in a plastic bag, and you eat it straight from the bag, despite it being almost too hot to hold. It felt a bit strange eating it all neatly sliced up on a plate using chopsticks, but that’s generally what happens to imported street food.
All the staff here spoke with a northern Chinese accent, so I was pretty confident they knew how the food should taste. The owner was nice enough to let us charge our smartphones there and also gave us the password to their wifi.
Tip: try to get on the good side of the owner!

Tried it again after last try. Ma La Tang (Spicy soup with various ingredients) disappointed me so bad that I decided this was my last time to eat here. The ingredients in the soup shank a lot. It used to be many seed weeds, dried tofu, and seafood. Now they put a lot of fish balls and meat balls instead (n they don’t taste that good either). BBQ items are okay, nothing I particularly liked even the lamb skewer I used to order multiple times.
The price is still cheap, but so does the environment. The cups are dirty. I asked to replace. The replacements came still dirty. I forgot to bring cash this time so I had to go across the street to get money from ATM. The owner and the employees are nice but that’s not enough to keep the customers.

Checked this place out with the gf, and I gotta say we were not impressed. Had the lamb skewers, chicken skewers, quail egg skewer, steak, and some pancake type thing.
The biggest problem with the food was that they use the same seasoning on all their meat skewers so it ends up tasting pretty much the same for the most part. The lamb skewers were good. The steak was low-​grade quality so I didn’t even eat it (disclosure: i’m a hardcore Mastro’s aficionado so my thoughts on steak might be skewed… no pun intended), the quail eggs were okay but not amazing, and the best protein was easily the chicken skewers. My gf ordered this pancake thing which took FOREVER to come out of the kitchen. We actually thought they forgot about it, paid the bill, and were going to leave, but then they brought it out. I’m glad they did because it was really good, and quite possibly the best thing I ate there. I’d tell you exactly what it was, but my gf ordered it and she did all the ordering in Mandarin which I do not understand.
This place is small, but it was not busy when we went there. The issue for me was that it did not have a pleasant smell inside. I think the place might be poorly ventilated so it smells like whatever they’ve been cooking there for however long they’ve been there. Was sort of unappetizing to both me and the gf.
It was worth checking out, but I don’t think i’ll be coming back. Hopefully I can find those pancake things somewhere else.

Everything’s on a stick! Good place if you’re ever in the mood for Beijing-​style street food (e.g. traditional lamb skewers). Also beware, not really good for healthy eating since everything (even the vegetables!) are deep-​fried in vats of oil. Only pro would that be it is really, really cheap.

Just realized that this place has two different business names on Unilocal.JN Kitchen and 818 Shaokao (Same exact address). So I am placing my review on both.
This place barely deserves a 1 star. If I could, I would rather give it no stars or just ½ a star. I came with a friend to on a week night because she wanted to get some lamb skewers. It was unforgettable (in a very bad way.)
Giving the place a «C» would be too much of a compliment: The place was very small and not very clean. The tables were packed together to allow for a single aisle from the entrance to the backdoor. The walls were covered colorful papers listing their specialties. They were the same items on the menu which made it seems like the papers were there to cover up the probably dirty walls. The table was sticky and the tap water they served had particles and oil floating on it. So we decided to get a Coke instead and brought in my own bottle of water. The flooring towards the back of the place leading to the back door was unfinished. Yet they keep on bringing out tables and chairs to seat people as more of them arrive. If there was an emergency, we’d all be goners.
This place is not a French restaurant so the meal should not take 3 hours: The food came out extremely slow. It could have to do with the place having one cook for the skewers, one chef for other items, and one waiter. So it doesn’t make sense for them to keep packing people into the place when they couldn’t accommodate all the orders. It was very obvious that the waiter was treating some of the regulars better than the other customers. They got their food before the rest of us and when we asked for our food, the waiter just told us that it’s «coming soon». I didn’t want to make a scene because we don’t want to have lamb «roach» skewers.
All you need to open up a restaurant like this is to buy some dry chili powder: The casserole we ordered lacked flavor. They should use real soup instead of just plain water and dump some fish balls in there. My instant noodle tasted better than that. All the skewers were flavored using the same chili powder. The meat was dry and rough. Before the end of the meal, our jaws were already tired from chewing on those rubber-​like meats.
Who needs liquor license? You can always get by if you don’t get caught: This place sure proved this to me. They would hide their beer behind the other beverages in the cooler and served it to their «regulars» by pouring it into plastic cups.
So for those of you who want to get some average priced food, which will give your jaws more exercise than it needs for the week, with the same flavors and sip on some nice, cool beer out of plastic cups while sitting there for 3 hours as your food is slowly served, then give this place a try. As for me, I think we can always do better and have more decent food choices. I won’t be coming back again so I hope this review serves as heads-​up for those who are about to try it.

EPIC chuar feast.
We ate so many skewers we could have used the wooden sticks to build a fire. =P
My friend was dying to try this place (reminds him of good memories of Beijing). Good thing it was open late (till 1am!). Small hole in the wall place, limited seating and definitely not good for big groups. The owner can speak a decent amount of English, but the rest of the workers pretty much communicated with us using hand gestures. But everyone was friendly. Meat takes awhile to come out. Since they start grilling after you order.
*Lamb skewers: A bit tough and fatty. But ok. My friend pretty much overdosed on these. $ 1.50 each.
*Chicken gizzard skewers: Good. Chewy.
*Taro skewers: Yummy. Covered in sugar and grilled till they were soft.
*Yellow croaker: I liked it. Fish was tender
*Quail eggs: Can’t go wrong with these
*Squid balls: Not memorable
*Fish tofu: Good.
*Beef pancake: Not good! DO NOT get any type of breads/​pancakes here. They are prepackaged and microwaved. Very tough and dense. The slices of beef were gross and tough too.
*Sesame pancake: See above.
*Cold cucumbers: Good. And the portion was very genrous. Covered in a bean curd sauce.
*Grilled veggies: Onions, bell peppers and mushrooms. Good. Soft.
**Note: If you don’t like spicy red seasoning, or it gets too overwhelming tell them to not to put it on the meat. They put it on EVERYTHING! We had to start wiping it off towards the end. It makes everything taste the same. The meat tasted fine just simply grilled.
The meat skewers are the winners here and cheap ($ 1.20 — $ 2.00). Don’t deviate from these and you’ll be fine.
CASH ONLY

Writing this review just so I remember where to find this place. Best lamb kabob, and this restaurant is truly authentically Chinese. Whenever I’m on a business trip in Santa Ana, I actually drive an hour specifically to go there to eat – and I’m from San Francisco, where there’s plenty of Chinese food. Not many places are quite like this place though. If you are truly looking for an authentic Chinese hole-​in-​the-​wall restaurant, this is it.

I love this place. I came here to get some skewers for the fiancé to try. They don’t really speak English but I just point and give numbers of how many I want.
5 Lamb (all the fiancé)
6 Chicken Gizzard (my favorite)
2 Chicken Heart
2 Quail eggs
2 Chicken
I love the chicken gizzard. I know it sounds nasty but it seriously tastes amazing. It has a chewy texture that I dunno I love it!
The quail eggs are soft and delicious… I think everyone needs to try the chicken gizzard and quail eggs.
This is a total hole in a wall.
They don’t really speak English but I could tell they try.
The owner is actually a martial artist from China. I saw him sitting in the restaurant and he looked familiar and he was in Jet Li’s Fearless! He played the first student of Jet Li’s character. He also teaches kung fu. Pretty awesome. He owns several restaurants in the US and Hong Kong and makes sure they are all doing well.
JN doesn’t have a lot of customers but it’s a really great skewer place. They make it then and there for you. It’s not already made and then given to you.
PARKING: Street parking. Tons and free.
Things may be easier for you if you spoke Chinese or bring a Chinese friend.
Cash Only.
Overall, I love this place.

The lamb skeler isn’t that good, i think this is the same restuarant was in the alhambra chinese parade vendor, the lamb skewer in that day tasted better and tender. is cheap only about $ 1.75, understand you would need to eat like 10 or more if you wanna get full in a empty stomach.

For YangRoChuar (lamb skewers) in America, THIS IS THE SPOT.
I lived in TianJin for 6 months, and have taken numerous trips to China. I had just come back from a trip with a friend, and we were craving some lamb skewers, so we decided to come here. This place is LEGIT. These guys don’t know ANY English, and their Chinese accent is so heavy you can tell they’re straight up from the motherland.
As soon as I walked in, I hesitated to speak in English, but resorted to Chinese when I realized they gave me a blank stare for being a white guy. We tried about 10 lamb skewers, 4 beef, and 2 Tu Dou (potato). The seasonings all reminded me of TJ, and I even got to talk with these guys about where they’re from in TJ and how it tastes really similar.
Many people might not like the gamey taste of the lamb kabobs, but if you’re in for a fix of lamb BBQ from some authentic Chinese guys, this is where it’s at.

Their lamb skewers are DELICIOUS.
I keep going back to this place, again and again, just for them. The first time I went there was right around their grand opening. It is such a cozy restaurant! They have the stoves close to the tables, so you can smell your food as it cooks. They also have a flat screen television mounted on the walls, so you can watch TV as you eat, the way some people do at home. It’s a very comfortable and homey place to be, despite the small size of the restaurant.
Their lamb skewers are the BEST. That’s usually the only thing we order when we go there. It’s loaded with cumin, and you can have it spicy or mild. The taste is pretty authentic, much like everything else they have there. They have all sorts of skewers (beef, yam, chicken, etc.), and most of them are $ 1.20 with the exception of a few, such as lamb, which is now $ 1.50. The only downside to the food is that the meat on the skewers are a little on the small side, and because they’re so addicting, you won’t be able to resist but to order more and more. It’s a little hard on the wallet, but I think it’s worth it.
Their employees are very friendly as well. The service, combined with the cozy atmosphere and great food, makes me wonder why there aren’t more people eating there. Perhaps it is because it’s so easy to miss. A small shop sandwiched between larger hair salons and stores, it’s not hard to drive by without seeing it.
I highly recommend dropping by and checking out this place (and order LOTS OF LAMB SKEWERS!) If I could, I would go every day, just to have them.

We came here to try out their skewers. Both cook and waiter don’t speak any English or Cantonese. But there is English on their menu so you can just point to what you want and it’s okay. I Unilocaled before I came and know they are heavy on their spices. Since I can’t eat too spicy foods, I made sure they didn’t put tons of spices on my skewers. We ordered a total of 15 skewers of various kind. IMHO, chicken was the best and lamb came in second. They were actually all very tasty. The only one that wasn’t that good was their taro root skewer. The meat skewers were all tender and juicy and full of flavour. It was wonderful. We also had a bowl of their specialty soup noodle. It was also very good. I would recommend this place to anyone who likes grilled meats. Will definitely come back again next time when we are in town.

If Mary had the little lamb in JN Kitchen, the song wouldn’t have had a happy ending because lamb is what they love on skewers. JN Kitchen specializes xinjiang style skewers, which is some what of a rarity in SGV to me since most Chinese establishments are either Cantonese restaurants or Taiwanese restaurants.
The skewers here are like the Chinese version of yakitori, except everything here is prepared heavily with spice. This place is definitely a legit Chinese skewer joint. It totally reminded me of my visit in Chinese late last year. Hell, this place might actually be better.
Here are some of the items I’ve ordered.
Lamb rib (Yang pa)
Lamb (Yang ru)
Stinky Tofu
Chicken (Gi ru)
Chicken Gizzard
Some might not used to the heavy spices, so wash it down with a soda or beer! These guys don’t speak much English. Well they didn’t speak it at all. Mardarin is the only language they speak, so I had to point and use my broken Mandarin or Putonghua. However, you can always point out what you want on the menu and you should be good to go as hand gestures are the universal language. My verdict? Well… let’s just say that I will definitely come back for more.

HEN HAO! HEN HAO! (maan… I had Chinese characters but Unilocal didn’t show them… bu hao!)
Continuing from our post-​Lent food adventures, we decided the next best thing to hit up are definitely kabobs! This place is legit. Their kabobs (according to my friend) hold up well against Chinese street kabobs back in the motherland.
The small but inclusive place is nice to just sit back, pop open a beer and just relax. It is opened til midnight, and seats small parties (so I definitely don’t recommend bringing more than four people with you here).
We focused on two items: lamb and squid kabob skewers. While they had plenty of other options, these were the ones I wanted to tackle. The squid kabobs were $ 5 for five, and that was a minimum order. A lamb kabob was $ 1.20 I believe, so my friends and I shared a plate of ten. While it took a bit for them to prepare it, once they arrived, I was impressed. The kabobs were DELICIOUS! The lamb wasn’t chewy and had a great amount of spice to it. Even as a non-​spicy individual (sadly), I was still able to really enjoy the flavors.
And of course, you can’t enjoy Chinese kabobs without beer on the side. Unfortunately, they only had cans of budweiser available… so it was limited in options. However, they also have Chinese yogurt which was cool and refreshing after the meat.
Food is great, and service is good. Ordering and communicating with the workers will def. help if you know how to speak Mandarin, so bring a friend that can. Street parking is available outside.

Open for more than a year, 818 JN Kitchen is tiny. Their dining room can probably only fit 14 to 16 people at one time and part of the kitchen where all the grilling happens is the size of a phone booth. What it lacks in size, 818 makes up for in a variety of tasty skewers and other foods that will definitely not break the bank. In fact, most of the menu items were priced at $ 6.99 or lower with skewers that range from $ 1.20 to $ 5.00 a piece. After my group settled down and checked the menu, we placed our skewer orders and decided to share some other dishes as well.
The first to arrive was the Special Home Guoba Soup. It was the least popular dish of the table. The soup seemed more like a gravy than broth and no one knew what to make of the torn pieces of what seemed like crepes that filled the bowl. I was pretty ambivalent about it myself. I didn’t dislike it, but I was fine with just having a small sampling before moving on to the next dish.
A plate of Oil Pancakes soon arrived. Another thing that Northern Chinese cuisine is known for is their breads, which is why this made it to our table. Unfortunately, I would have been fine without it. It was very dense and dry. Perhaps, this oil pancake wasn’t meant to be eaten alone, but torn in pieces and dipped in a stew or hot pot? Whatever the case may be, the oil pancakes were disappointing.
The next two dishes turned everything around. First, there was the Beef Pancake, which was a Pac-​Man looking sandwich and one definitely worth chasing and devouring. Basically, you had something like a roast beef with cilantro and green onions between a toasted sesame bread. One is a snack, but two or three of them could be dinner. What are sliders again?
Then there was the Cucumber Salad with a sesame paste. It was so refreshing and I loved that the cucumbers were so crunchy and juicy. Our table loved it so much, we ordered a second plate just so everyone could get second helpings.
The last two dishes we shared arrived in between the skewers. One was the Pork and Leek Dumplings. The dumpling wrapper was thicker than I would have liked and although the filling was a bit oily, it still had good flavor.
The second one was a plate of pickled mixed vegetables, which was also both refreshing and crunchy. These vegetables acted as the perfect foil for the highly seasoned skewers, almost like a palate cleanser.
So now let’s talk about the skewers. While I did mention that Xinjiang is known for their lamb skewers, there’s actually quite a variety of other grilled meats offered at 818 JN Kitchen. Along with lamb, there were organ meats like lamb kidneys and chicken hearts as well as chicken, shrimp, quail eggs, corn and even yellow grouper.
The first skewer that hit my plate was the lamb. Considering the meat had a dry rub of cumin and chili peppers, the flavors were intense. One of my dining partners created a mixture of soy sauce and chili sauce in a plate to dip her skewers in and I soon followed suit. It added even more zing to the meat. As for the lamb itself, it erred more on the dry and chewy side, but that worked for me.
My next two skewers were the Chinese sausage and quail eggs. Although the Chinese sausage was a bit salty, I would order it again. Like the lamb, it was both chewy and also bold in flavor. It was actually almost cute seeing the little quail eggs on the skewer. They were a bit over boiled, but I still enjoyed them.
The grilled steak wasn’t on skewers and the meat was a bit tough, almost like jerky, but still no complaints from me.
Next to last was the grilled corn, which wasn’t seasoned at all, but perhaps, it’s not meant to be.
Last, but not least, was the grilled yellow croaker fish. Of all the skewers, this was the mildest in flavor. I’m not sure whether they forgot to crust it with the cumin and chili pepper or they did, but the cumin and chili just did not adhere well to the fish skin, but in the end, it was crispy and the fish meat was quite delicate.
To end, there are a couple of things I do want to point out. One, the quality of the meat may not be up to par for some. As long as you don’t expect tender cuts of meat and are fine with the meat being grilled to the point of being chewy, you’ll be good. It’s really all about the bold seasoning that make the skewers the stars of the show.
Also, since the same cumin and chili pepper seasoning is used and depending on how many skewers you eat, they all may start tasting the same. I think ordering the cucumber salad and/​or the mixed vegetables and eating them in between the meats can give your tastebuds a rest in between bites. Finally, English is pretty limited at this restaurant, but the menu is in English, so there shouldn’t be a problem pointing out what you’d like to order.
Overall, I really enjoyed my meal at 818 JN Kitchen and I didn’t even have to sell my car to pay for my share of the meal.
To see pics, go to: