Sampling Forbidden Pleasures

You won’t find J.Z.Y. Cafe if you just look for its sign. The San Gabriel restaurant is in a coral-pink stucco mall far deeper than it is wide, and the place is way down there, a good 100 feet from Valley Boulevard. And your problem’s just beginning once you’re in the mall, because the name on J.Z.Y. Cafe’s sign actually reads “Ling Luen Cafe.”

But it’s worth the search. J.Z.Y. Cafe serves wonderful food, and it’s mostly dishes you’ve never even heard of. This restaurant is an extension of a famous Beijing coffee shop, which still has flourishing branches both in Beijing on the Chinese mainland and in Taipei, Taiwan.

What does it serve? A Cantonese-speaking friend describes its specialty as Peking-style dim sum, for want of a better term. (Dim sum, those famous sweet and savory pastries eaten with morning or afternoon tea, are very much a southern Chinese specialty with no exact equivalent in the north.)

You’ll know as soon as you enter this place that you’re in a different sort of Chinese restaurant. The relaxing color scheme of muted green and vermilion is unparalleled in San Gabriel’s Chinese restaurants. The floor is terra cotta, and the sturdy chairs have carved wooden backs. As waitresses in slinky red silk dresses take your order, you hear haunting, soothing music played on the two-stringed Chinese violin known as the erhu.

And the menu of this particular “cafe” doesn’t list everyday food. It’s filled with dishes whose recipes come directly from the Forbidden City. These are the very delicacies once eaten by the emperors of China and their concubines and favorites. They are, in spirit and execution, anything but common.

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When you enter the place, you see several trays of regal pastries on the coffee bar. Most of these are sweet, such as the wheat flour buns with red bean paste centers or--even better--the sesame-studded rice flour dumplings rolled around a dense filling of Chinese date puree.

But my advice is to delay gratifying your sweet tooth until later. The menu is loaded with soups, savory buns and exotic delights that will demand your full attention.

If anyone in your party speaks Chinese, you’ll be handed a price list written in Chinese. Otherwise, you’ll get an English menu replete with color photos and rather long-winded descriptions of certain dishes. But not every dish is explained, unfortunately.

One dish you ought to make sure to ask for is matai shaobing, or water chestnut small breads--so named because these steamed buns are the shape and about the size of large water chestnuts. You get four delicate, sesame-studded buns, each cut perfectly in half, along with a small dish of intensely flavored minced pork in bean paste to spoon into the middle of the buns. They’re far more refined than a sloppy Joe, but sloppy Joe is the basic idea.

Huntun is a northern-style wonton soup. The dumplings are notable for their pork filling, which has a smoother, pastier consistency than Cantonese wontons; it’s also a heartier filling. Chong youbing is a savory pancake flecked with crisp bits of green onion, and J.Z.Y.’s is flat-out the best version of this snack I’ve ever had. Another great dish is spiced arm pork--garlicky, paper-thin slices of jellied pork hewed directly from the leg joint.

This is one of the best restaurants in the Southland for authentic Peking duck. First, you get a huge bowl of milk-white soup infused with the flavor of duck meat, stocked with Chinese greens, mushrooms and transparent bean thread noodles. Later comes a plate of lusciously crisp skin with a stack of crepe-like Chinese pancakes, green onions and a plum sauce (more viscous than 10-40 motor oil) to make duck skin tacos with. The duck meat--moist, juicy and fragrant--comes out last.

There’s an armload of sweets to try, if you still have room. Osmanthus blossom cake (guihua liang gao) is a sticky rice dumpling with a smooth red bean filling. A sweet sticky walnut paste, served lukewarm, is said to have magical effects on coughs and asthma. But nothing can top ai wowo (lover’s dumplings), three spherical rice dumplings stuffed with a sugary paste made from crushed peanuts, pumpkin seeds and rose petals.

You arrived a commoner; you leave an emperor.

BE THERE

J.Z.Y. Cafe, 1039 E. Valley Blvd., San Gabriel. (626) 288-0588. Open daily, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. No alcohol. Parking in lot. Cash only. Takeout. Lunch for two, $18-$43.

What to Get: chong youbing, matai shaobing, huntun soup, walnut paste, ai wowo, Peking duck (one hour notice required).