Joy Luck Place

Time for my review! (As Daniel P. requested, haha.)
My cousin and I had been trying to meet up and try Joy Luck Place for the past two weeks but our work schedules have been conflicting up until yesterday afternoon. It had actually slipped my mind that today was Chinese New Year and that many families were celebrating yesterday so I’m glad to have gone on a special day. We ordered shumai, scallion pancakes, pork with Peking sauce, and shrimp with garlic sauce. The shumai tasted fine, nothing too special. The scallion pancakes were tasty, but seemed a little overcooked. I had only ever tried pajeon (Korean-​style scallion pancakes), but they had good flavor. I had ordered the shrimp with garlic sauce. When it arrived to the table the aroma smacked me in the face. Once my plate stopped steaming (because my mouth has zero tolerance for hot food) and I finally got a bite, I enjoyed the incredibly well-​flavored shrimp with my favorite combination of green peppers, onions, and mushrooms. The spice was just on point. My cousin had ordered the pork with Peking sauce and the sauce on that bad boy was just fantastic.
Why four stars? I had much higher expectations for the shumai since it is such a standard to Chinese cuisine and as someone who doesn’t particularly favor eating pork over other proteins this dish is one of the few that I do enjoy and was hoping would be much better. I can’t speak for the downstairs portion of the restaurant, but the main floor is kinda tight on space since another patron had to ask me to scoot over so she could leave.
Final verdict? Solid food in a good location. Hope they configure a better seating arrangement though!

Had high hopes for this place after reading reviews. I ordered salt and pepper shrimp based on reviews. If the authentic Chinese way is to eat the shrimp head and tail on greasy overcooked shrimp, then count me squarely American. Once you peeled the shell away, all you were left with was rubbery, flavorless shrimp. My friend ordered the eggplant and enjoyed it despite it being unpeeled but we both found the egg drop soup completely flavorless. I do wish them well since reviews seem to indicate they offer legitimate ethnic cuisine, but for the price and painfully slow and inattentive service, I’ll take my dining out dollars elsewhere.

Tasty yummy food… chicken fried rice… simply awesome. .taste is much more better than any other Chinese restaurants around Tallahassee. Would recommend it. .but seating space are limited..

Joy Luck Place Chinese restaurant verdict: ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance for a good authentic Chinese meal. In the past three visits, I’ve had about 15 dishes, none of them American Chinese. Some of their recipes are fantastic and some of them are just so-​so. I was looking for a place that I can take my Chinese parents… of course, it’s not mainland China good, but fits the bill. We will have to make a few more visits to weed out the winners from the losers. I will also have to try some of their American Chinese recipes.
Their service is very inexperienced. It is a family owned and run operation and they haven’t figured out efficiency yet which is why some dishes will come cold. Give them some time.
Some other tips: if you like things spicy, you will need to tell them to bring the heat up a notch or two. Also, they definitely use MSG (authentic!). Just tell them if you don’t want it. You can just ask the servers what the best-​selling dishes are to get a better chance of finding a winner.
Salt and pepper blue crab was pretty wonderful but a lot of work to eat (you have to crack the buggers yourself). I suggested to them that softshell crab would make it a home run.
Chinese broccoli (gailan) stir-​fried with garlic was fantastic. They also have a selection of other Chinese vegetables. Just ask since it’s off menu.
Fried tofu stuffed with pork (secret menu) was great
Szechuan green beans was my favorite
Salt and pepper seafood was good. Really, you can’t go wrong with any of their salt and pepper dishes.
Braised fatty pork (secret menu) was tasty but a little tough. I prefer the Dongpo version on their regular menu.
Stir-​fried eggplant was good
We tried a couple of their «pottery pot» dishes and I don’t like the toughness of the meat. HOWEVER, take it home for leftovers because it tastes amazing over Nongshim Shin Ramyun Black ramen noodles (get it at the Asian market). You almost don’t need the spice packet because the pottery pot is already pretty spicy. I might order the pottery pot for takeout just for this purpose.
**update**
I would try these other dishes as well:
Scallion pancake
Sweet and sour ribs
General Tso’s chicken
Peking duck

It is not your typical fast food Chinese take out. It’s by far the best Chinese restaurant in town. We ordered take out last night. got the Seafood delight, Peking duck, General Tso’s chicken, fried mixed vegetables, and young chow fried rice. Everything was fantastic. The duck was very tender! Our favorite was probably the young chow fried rice. It didn’t have that horrible generic taste from usual Chinese places. We definitely be coming back for more! The guy checking us out said the spicy crab is amazing. That’s next on the list.

Great to have authentic Chinese in Tally. Dangpo pork and eggplant with garlic sauce were both excellent, and the dumplings were very tasty. The moment you enter you know you are in the right place when you see a menu in Chinese hanging on the wall, and a number of patrons able to read it. A friend told me to ask for your spice level preference. They will make it as hot as you like it.
We will be back soon!

We visited this restaurant after reading a positive review in the Tallahassee Democrat.
Not impressed. My wife ordered a shrimp dish. The shrimp were over cooked. I ordered chicken and mixed vegetables, which was okay.
The service was «interesting». I received my won ton soup as an appetizer (nothing to brag about). At the same time my wife received her entrée. She received her egg roll, later, at about the same time I received my entrée.
We visited this venue as a result of positive reviews from out local newspaper.
Lesson learned. Don’t believe a blogger to the Tallahassee Democrat. The food was 2 star. The service was 1 star. The ambiance was 1 star. I’m giving this place a generous two star.

Better service this time. We were all happy with our meal! Vegetable platter, General Tso, pork with Peking sauce, and shredded beef with egg. All very tasty and the lunch portion can feed two people (well, at least two of me). I had to as for a take-​out box!

So my friends along with my wife decided to meet here on New Year’s Eve for dinner. I’m glad we did! This is about as authentic Chinese you’re going to get in the South. I started out with the crab Rangoon and egg drop soup, both were amazing. My wife got the beef in a pottery bowl (very spicy) and I got the sesame chicken. We were blown away by the amount of food we received, and the FRESH veggies were a bonus! No frozen veggies here folks, we watched them chop our veggies prior to cooking! You can clearly see in the prep area from the dining hall. This may be a turnoff for some but I like to see the prep station myself. The cook never touches the food with bare hands and the cook area was extremely clean. I would give this place six stars if I could. This is definitely a hidden gem in Tallahassee! Please go and try it, the food won’t let you down!

Great authentic food with the atmosphere to match. The duck, squid, pepper beef and seafood soup were all amazing. Its more of a family style serving so beware of their large portions but definitely be open to trying anything! We will definitely be back!

Joy Luck is as authentic as it gets for Chinese restaurants in Tallahassee. It reminds me of going to my Chinese friends homes and having dinner made from their mom when I was growing up.
Previous reviews have mentioned the vast menu that extends far beyond the CaucAsianese items that most people recognize. There are multiple specials on the walls that are written in Chinese characters and my wife chose the Spicy and Sour Pork Belly from the wall. I had the Beef Tendons. Absolutely delicious on both fronts.
We kept the kids engaged with the usual suspects.
I

Unique wonderful cuisine. This is a first class choice for the finest Chinese food in Tallahassee.
Great service for well prepared to-​order Szechuan specialties. I had Tofu with mushrooms and vegetables. The vegetables were the usual Chinese restaurant mix (no baby corn, thanks), but they were nicely crisp. The tofu was most plentiful and crisp on the outside with a creamy inside. The mushrooms were wonderful! They were dark and meaty with a potent mushroom flavor.

GREAT service, the gentleman that helped us was absolutely wonderful. Food was served quite quickly and was the best we have received in tally. Will be going back any time we get a craving!

I’m so enthused that a truly authentic restaurant has taken over the large N. Monroe space. Joy Luck Place identifies with their Szechuan roots and Tallahassee locals who appear to branch out toward more adventurous cuisine.
An upstairs dining room awaits you upon entering. For my visit, we had the pleasure of sitting in the downstairs dining area. Which is hot (prepare to sweat) and contains minimal décor. Unfortunately, I don’t remember too much of the upstairs ambiance.
We tried about ten dishes, if my memory serves me right. The soups are generous portions. I recommend the scallop soup. The Pepper shrimp dish was unbelievably favorable. And the Frog Legs were cooked perfectly. We also tried a few variations of pork belly, which were tender and melted in your mouth.
A few things should know:
1) The menu isn’t explanatory. You’re going to have to ask the wait staff what each dish contains.
2) Although the wait staff are in fact, helpful, the language barrier might get in the way of a quick exchange.
3) The downstairs dining area didn’t have air conditioning. So, I recommend sitting upstairs.
Other than that, prepare yourselves for an outstanding meal.

My wife and I were very hopeful about this place when we saw it was coming in. She’s from Beijing and we both have a real taste for Szechuan food. Tallahassee doesn’t have a lot of great Chinese places. Some of the American-​style places are pretty good but that’s really just an entirely different cuisine, like Italian food v. Italian-​American food.
Joy Luck does both Chinese and American-​Chinese well. We had a Szechuan fish dish that was excellent. The fish was fresh and they didn’t pull their punches when it came to spice. The eggplant was also spot on. As soon as we finished our meal we knew we’d be coming back, and probably soon. It’s great to have a place like this in Tally.

This place is great. I’ve been going to China Delight for the past few years, which up until now was the only Chinese place in town that served pork belly, which I love. Joy Luck Place is here now, and their pork belly (Dongpo pork) is even better. I will have to come back again to try the other dishes. Everything I saw coming out of the kitchen looked and smelled incredibly good. The food quality, friendly service, and atmosphere were all outstanding.

I begrudgingly went here for lunch with a coworker who wanted to «try the new Chinese place on Monroe.» I’m glad I went. The first thing I noticed was that most of the customers were Chinese. That’s gotta be a good sign, right? Second thing I noticed was the lack of a buffet. Third was that the menu was more Chinese than English. Fourth, I noticed the menu included some things I’d never heard of (so, of course, I had to order one of those).
The good: I got the beef and rice with egg sauce, which was very good. It came with a spring roll which was also above average. We split an order of steamed dumplings which were very good, though the sauce was more vinegary than I would have liked. Also, the service was great, and the place has a casual, relaxing atmosphere.
The less than good: My friend got the General Tso’s chicken and didn’t finish it because he said it was too sweet. The sweet tea was definitely too sweet. The dining room was a little too warm, especially for a hot day. And the parking lot is small and narrow. But that’s it for negatives. I will definitely go back.

My husband lived in Tallahassee for a couple of years back in 2006 and warned me that there would be no authentic Chinese food around us. We recently moved back to the area and were pleasantly surprised to hear of Joy Luck Place’s recent grand opening!
We started with the Scallion Pancake. As another reviewer mentioned, I would’ve loved more scallions. With that said, I would still order again. For our dinner we ordered the Peking Pork Chops and Tofu with Mushrooms & Veggies to share family-​style. Both dishes were good and satisfied our authentic Chinese food craving.
Our server was nice and attentive. We were happy with our experience. Joy Luck Place has been added to our restaurant rotation!

Authentic Chinese food has arrived in Tallahassee! If you are looking for take out chow mein or lo mein, this isn’t the place you want to go. However, if you want to try authentic Chinese dishes, head here immediately.
While the upstairs is small (and filled quickly while we were there), there is apparently a huge downstairs dining room where they continued to send diners (an injured foot prevented me from checking out the lower level).
Daniel P. has already posted the menu, so you can see that it is bursting with amazing flavors and ingredients. We started with the scallion pancake, which was the only real disappointment as it was lacking in scallions.
We had an order of West Lake Soup, which was big enough to feed 4 – 5 people. Tasty, and not something easy to find in Tally. We then moved on to a Pepper Salted combo of shrimp, squid and scallops. Wow! It was absolutely fantastic and instantly brought us back to the first time we had it in Portland, OR. The fish was perfectly cooked and seasoned to perfection. Our final course was Eggplant in Garlic Sauce. Oh my goodness, was that good. The very large portion of eggplant was so tender and so tasty. We ended up taking ½ of it home.
Service was fast and friendly, and the waitress was helpful in explaining things (especially dishes that we drooled over as they were being brought to other tables). We can’t wait to work ourselves through the menu.
I should also note that the ratio of Asians to non-​Asians was easily 10:1, so they are clearly striking a chord with the local Asian community (and they’ve only been open a little over a week). Even more telling: a good number of diners were either wearing uniforms from other Asian restaurants in the area, or were people we recognized from other local dining establishments. Not too shabby when you are the go-​to place for others working in Asian restaurants.
We can’t wait to go back!

Brace yourselves, good citizens of TLH. A seemingly authentic Chinese restaurant is now open for business on North Monroe — in the footprint of the Mexican restaurant — and before that, Italian restaurant at intersection of East 3^rd Ave.
Wife noticed the sign up yesterday — it turns out that they opened soft on Saturday. When we arrived this evening, we took the last open table. (historically, the restaurants here also sat downstairs and on the deck. there are no tables yet set up outside, and I’m not sure about downstairs yet).
I initially ordered the Lamb Hot Pot but, sadly, they ran out of lamb a wee bit prior to our arrival. Learning this, I just asked the nice server to surprise me. He wanted to get a feel for what I was looking for — I just told him to surprise me.
Additionally, we ordered two scallion pancakes, Vegetable noodles and a Vegetable fried rice.
All was very good. The scallion pancakes — the noodles and the rice all had great flavor.
My surprise was the Pepper Steak off of the beef menu. Good thing I got this, because I seldom order beef on a Chinese menu (often preferring seafood, chicken or pork). It was good — a smidge too much sauce for me, but very good nonetheless.
I’m looking forward to getting down into this menu, specifically the tendon dishes, the hot pots, Roast duck/​noodle soup, frankly, any of the duck dishes, the Dongpo pork, the poached chicken, and the steamed flounder.
Time will tell, but I’m thinking we’ve got a new player in the Chinese restaurant game — AND — drum roll — there’s no apparent buffet line (who knows, I could be wrong — there might be one at lunch — but it’s refreshing to see a non-​buffet chinese restaurant, isn’t it?