A & J Restaurant

Simple décor, it’s exactly what I would expect a Chinese restaurant to look like — but cleaner. The lady workers here are pleasant and they recognize familiar faces. I’ve heard one greet a few customers with a «welcome back!». For lunch on a weekday, the place is pretty lively. There is no line out the door, but there’s a good number of patrons.
The food:
1. The beef noodle soup is mediocre. Not exactly mind blowing but the portion is huge, the meat is tender, and the tendons are tender.
2. The century egg with mushed tofu is refreshing. An interesting dish to have on the side if you like century eggs.
3. The sweetened soy milk is great.

This is based on quality of food. They are listed as one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles for beef noodle soup. But I wasn’t very impressed with it. You get a choice of thin or thick noodles. To add heat to the broth, they use chili oil. I thought it made the broth too oily. And the broth itself wasn’t very flavorful. I just felt like it was missing something. Oh and they don’t give you very many vegetables. Only two leaves of bok Choy for the bowl bowl. But I couldn’t put my finger on it. My dad ordered the beef and tendon soup. And he said that the tendons were not tender. The beef was ok but that could also use more flavor. Oh and the tea wasn’t that strong. I don’t even thing they changed the tea bag when we asked for a second pot. We also ordered the pan fried dumplings. And I thought the filling needed more seasoning, a touch of salt and maybe even some pepper. Not sure I would come back. I prefer other places to this one
Unilocal 100 Challenge (8 out of 100)

Living in the 626 area, I’m still surprised by the hidden gems around the area. A&J is a surprising contender for good Taiwanese food even though I’m rarely in the area where Live Oak and Las Tunas intersect.
They give you a paper checklist to choose which dishes you want. You may need to ask the waitstaff for assistance because the checklist doesn’t include a description of each dish. If you know what you want walking into the restaurant, then you’ll have a very efficiency dining experience.
I always order the beef noodle soup and the beef rolls (as I always do at any Taiwanese restaurant), and I wasn’t disappointed. The noodle soup is very delicious and filling and the beef in the noodle soup is tender and easy to chew. The beef rolls taste just as expected from a Taiwanese restaurant; you won’t be disappointed by the flavor produced at this venue.
The staff is extremely friendly and the restaurant is very clean. The overall experience was positive.
I highly recommend anyone looking for a satisfying Taiwanese experience at A&J restaurant.

Super solid Taiwanese food. I find it odd that a lot of people don’t know about this location and have never heard of them when they were on Valley! Plenty of my friends are like, «Oh! Just like the one in Irvine!» Yes. Except they were in the SGV long ago before that, silly goose.
Everything I’ve had here just really hits the spot. Beef tendon noodle soup with thick/​wide noodles, thousand-​layer pancake, dumplings, XLB’s, and my personal favorite, the pan fried beef bun.
As people have said, they have a Chinese-​English menu, but the ordering menu is purely Chinese (and has been for years. They should really fix that). If you’re adamant about ordering on your own and you can’t read Chinese, I find that price-​matching is a quick way to find what you’re looking for then just match the characters. If you don’t mind speaking Chinese to the waitress (mine is shit, after all) or pointing to things on the menu, then the waitress can mark it off for you.

When it says noodles in the menu, it’s literally just noodles and there’s nothing else. I honestly don’t think it’s worth this much money. Plus the noodles are just okay.
The service is just okay. The pancake is okay. Nothing special. I’ve been to Taiwan before but I don’t see many Taiwan food here.
There’s definitely better Chinese food in Chinatown.

Dim sum food & serving style, small plates only, but the special thing is that it’s available all day!
Traditional dim sum is only available midday.
The steamed vegetable dumplings are like tiny versions of jiucaihezi — (chive, egg, tofu, & bean-​noodle calzones), but in dumpling skin instead of bread. Great surprise. Delicious bite size delights of my favorite thing!
The turnip cake is great, love it.
It’ll have many dim sum faves, but it also has big noodle and dumpling soup bowls, enough for a whole meal.
Interior is not that nice. Def more of a low key snack place. It’s in kind of a dingy strip mall but don’t be put off. Go in there! Food is still satisfying and staff is nice.
Just a super low key casual spot.

The beef noodle soup is delicious. For me, the most important part of this dish is the noodles. The worst thing that can happen with cooking the dish is soggy noodles. This place makes it perfectly. The noodles are also handmade, which is the only way I’ll ever have it. Thick, handmade noodles provided at an adequate quantity is all I can ask for. The beef is okay; it isn’t my favorite but it doesn’t make or break my decision to eat here.
I didn’t like the spicy wontons. They were clumped together and small. I’d prefer larger ones with thicker skin, and prepared in a more flavorful sauce. I wouldn’t get that again.
I have only been here once, as it’s out of my way from everything else, but I’ll be back to have my beef noodle soup and try new things off the menu.
Although…if you speak Chinese to them upon entering, they might give you an all Chinese menu list. I can speak it but not read it. I ended up having to have the waitress mark my menu list for me because I only found one of the items I ordered that I could actually read… I’ll just ask for an English one next time.

Not bad quality for the cheap price. CASH ONLY though.
The room is clean and very quiet on a weekday lunch time.
We had some cold dishes, which were pre-​made and came out super fast. The noodles were made to order so they took a little longer. The beef noodles are definitely the deal. A lot of quality meat, very soft and tender. And full of flavor. Great to have noodle soup on a cold California day!

I wanted something new and close and tried this place out. Maybe cuz I was expecting better but I was a bit disappointed.
My friends ordered bed stew and it came out smelling and tasting like pizza. Buzzard, I know!
As for me, I liked my dish but I was expecting a little more for what I’m paying. It’s literally just noodles. Some places say noodle but they have some kind of meat in it. Maybe that’s how Taiwanese restaurants are?
Service was kind of horrible. Took them a long time to get us the bill. If the service was better, I wouldn’t mind too much…
Parking was okay though.

Wow, nothing but good things to say about Arcadia’s A & J’s beef noodle soup. I’ve been to their locations in the Bay Area and this puts them all to shame in the best way possible. Although highly touted as a Taiwanese establishment, their menu denotes their beef noodle offerings as Szechuan-​style beef noodle soup. I haven’t been really exposed to many Szechuan-​style beef dishes but if they’re all like this I should definitely change that.
The broth here is phenomenal. It’s dark and stewed with spices, skimmed of grease so it’s a clean finish as you sip it. Not overly laden with sodium, either.
Noodles come either thin or thick, it’s all personal preference. Either style has the «QQ» al-​dente texture that is the hallmark of exemplary noodle shops. I usually get the half beef/​half tendon bowl. The ratio of beef/​tendon is spot on and generous. I’m tempted to go back and get the 100% tendon noodle bowl because it’s so soft and flavorful. The only thing stopping me is how tender the beef slices are, stewed for hours where it just melts in your mouth.
Also, service here is AMAZING. Best service from any Chinese place I’ve ever been to in my life, hands down. They’re polite and attentive. If you don’t speak Chinese don’t be intimidated, they make every attempt to be communicative.
Will be coming back many times over.

Great spicy beef and tendon noodle soup. The broth is flavorful and the fat noodles go so well with it. The tendon was amazing. So soft.
Had the cucumbers. Good starter for a couple of bucks.
Make sure you have the spicy wontons. Sooooo good. The sauce is sweet and spicy and the wrappers are so soft and thin.

I had higher expectations for this place due to the reviews. For the food we ordered I would give it 2.5 stars, but the service and cleanliness gave it a boost.
Spicy wonton (3.5÷5): my favorite out of the three
Wonton noodles (2.5÷5): I got wide noodles and it was a little undercooked and the soup was okay
Zha Jiang mien (²⁄₅): my bf thought it wasn’t very flavorful

This place is a bit hidden from the main arcadia area that all the other taiwanese restaurants.
The food was mediocre in general. The been noodle soup tasted like it needed a few more hours to develop more soup flavor and the beef pies were lacking in seasoning. The beef noodle texture was also not chewy enough.
The minced pork with tomato sauce was surprisingly tasty.
Place was clean and spacious which is a plus compared to many other 626 taiwanese joints.
Cash only.

Yum yum yum! I’m going back here Saturday for the second time and my mouth is already drooling.
I’m going to order the fried beef dumplings; what I call the Taiwanese hamburgers. You cannot believe how tasty and juicy these are! Definitely the meat wonton in spicy sauce and the veggie dumplings. I might try the beef noodle soup this time and will have the spaghetti with meat sauce, the cucumbers and something else. This place rocks!
It’s a good thing some of us speak Taiwanese or it would be a point and hope experience. The service was fine and the food was homey and delicious. I was quite satisfied and comforted after eating here.
I wish everyone could enjoy a good meal with good friends.
Didn’t get the soup because we ate too much. See my photos of empty plates. We ordered a ridiculous amount of food and we may have thought to leave one bite of a bean curd.
They’re very nice people who work there. We got there at 1:00 PM and had to wait about 10 — 15 minutes for a table but appetizers came fast. Don’t bother with the steamed dumplings, they’re not wonderful but get the other stuff. Enjoy!

This restaurant is hidden inside the rite aid and good will plaza. It’s pretty random especially since there aren’t any other restaurants in that plaza except for A&J. I love how this restaurant is super vegetarian friendly, I never have problems picking an item to eat here.
Servers here are really nice but they know very little English, so there might be a language barrier there if you don’t speak any Chinese.
They’re very known for their beef noodle soup, so I suggest you try that since it’s so popular. I came here with my girlfriend and we split 3 dishes:
Vegetarian delight: comes with mushrooms, bean curd, and gluten puffs. This also comes with carrots which I didn’t really like because I don’t normally like carrots. This dish was also pretty salty, but hot sauce balanced it out. There weren’t a lot of mushrooms or bean curd in it, a majority of the dish only consisted of the gluten puffs.
Steamed Vegetarian dumplings: these were really yummy because the skin wasnt super soft and flimsy; they were were comparable to din tai fungs dumpling skins. The insides of the dumpling were really delicious as well; it had a variety of ingredients in it.
Spicy wontons with red sauce: I didn’t actually eat the wontons, but I had the skin of the wontons and it was bomb. The sauce had everything to do with it tasting good, it had a very delicious flavor to it, but it wasn’t that spicy.
All three dishes only cost around 12 bucks. It’s super cheap but only because they give you small portions. It’s great for sharing a variety of dishes and if you’re not like super hungry. So if you eat a lot, I suggest you stick with the noodle soups.

Ordered their wide noodles in spicy brisket and tendon. It is not as heavy as Bull Demon King’s, but still plenty flavorful. On a continuum, I would put A&J’s between BDK and Luscious Dumplings.
Their pan fried beef buns are like XLB, you have to wait for it to cool or else you’ll be burning your mouth with the juicy filling inside. Delicious.

I’m so sad to give A&J a poor rating, but their food quality has declined by far. Honestly, between two people, we tried about 5 dishes and they were all pretty bad. The dish that kept me coming back to this restaurant was the spicy wontons, but when we ordered it this time, half the wontons didn’t even have meat inside, It was just skin! The scallion pancake was so thick and doughy. The pan fried pork dumplings were soggy. how does that even happen?! They are fried dumplings!!! The minced pork noodles with sliced cucumber was barely mediocre, flavor was too bland. It was a major fail. and my husband made me promise him to never come back.

I came here with my girlfriend after visiting the Alhambra Farmer’s Market. We wanted to grab a quick lunch and she was craving some spicy wontons :) It was lunch hour, but there was no wait. (The rush came a little after). The service was okay, no complaints here. We had everything we needed.
We ordered:
— Wontons with red hot sauce. $ 4.50
I really enjoyed the wontons. The spicy sauce was perfect. Great price :)
— Noodles with tomato sauce
This was good, tastes like chinese spaghetti: P
— Seaweed and bean sprouts with vinegar sauce
This tasted really light and refreshing. Enjoyed the flavors and the texture. Tasted fresh!
— Shaved ice (original) with Taro, egg pudding & rice cakes
Yummy! The shaved ice could have had a little more flavor… or maybe we should have gone all out and put condensed milk on top… but it was pretty good. Mixing the taro in with the shaved ice made it better. The ice wasn’t that sweet, but the toppings balanced it out. Next time I’ll try a flavored shaved ice with condensed milk, condensed milk makes everything better: P taro was especially good. Rice cakes are really chewy.
Overall, decent service, good food at great prices! I’ll be back to get the wontons, shaved ice & try something new!

One of my favorite Taiwanese restaurants! They have the best spicy wontons — the sauce is soooo good!
We also like:
Bean curd with thousand year old egg
Pan fried beef bun (comes with 1 large bun. Watch out as it’s extremely hot and juicy!)
Dan dan noodles
Noodles with ground pork, bean sprouts and cucumber
Their cold cucumber salad in garlic sauce isn’t as good as others we’ve tried, but maybe it was an off day? My fave is from Wang Xing Ji.
They give you a paper checklist to mark items off on, which was a bit challenging because it’s entirely in Chinese and it’s not numbered, although the menu is. I was able to match the Chinese characters from the menu and order that way, also using prices as a reference. You can also give a verbal order to the server. They’re very friendly even if their English is a bit limited.
Parking is really easy since it’s in a large shopping plaza.

Disappointing. This food is 78% tasty then leaves you wanting for more. It’s not salty or spicy or balanced. It’s almost tasty… enough to make you feel like you’re missing out, which is maybe worse.
I’ve been to the location in Diamond Bar and it’s really good! This one is nicer on the outside but the food is so bland. The chili sauce wasn’t spicy or salty enough. Too much star anise in the meat. Beef roll was depressing. The thick noodles were done really well tho. Nice and chewy.
Middle of nowhere location. Waste of stomach space. Super overrated. Won’t be back.