Jin Wah Restaurant

Just moved to Beaverton and was looking for a decent Chinese lunch. I ordered the Kung Pao shrimp. It comes with a cup of soup, «fried» rice, noodles and egg roll. The soup was flat but I made it to my taste by adding a bit of salt and crushed red chiles. The rice was OK but really not as good as Panda, ditto for the noodles. The Kung Pao Shrimp was OK but had a lot of celery and water chestnuts/​Actually I think Pandas is better if you get it right out of the Wok.
This menu has all of the right dishes but I am a bit apprehensive about trying them. I spent about a month in Taiwan so I am a bit spoiled by the food in China.
I don’t mind the price being a bit higher but the service is awful. No check back. Did not offer dim sum or a take home container.
BTW the bathroom was not maintained very well — which makes me worry about the food safety in the kitchen. I’ll give it a try for dinner and hopefully it would be better.
Can anyone recommend any other Chinese restaurants in the area?

This is a very popular restaurant but not for the right reasons. Asian wedding? Jin Wah. Family visiting from another state? Jin Wah. Any kind of Asian festivity, Jin Wah. I’ve been here too many times to count. I’ve had them cater food at someone’s wedding, I’ve eaten dim sum here, had dinner here, ate here on V-​day and Christmas. And one might ask, «if you go here so much, why are you giving this place one star?»
On the holidays, we went here because there was literally no other place open. On Christmas it was a 2 hour wait to even eat here. And it’s no surprise how horrible the service was, given, it was extremely packed. Any other time I’ve come here, here are the problems. 1. Way too over priced. Two people eating dim sum, we ended up paying about $ 30 dollars. Eating three dishes during dinner 50 – 60 $. Way too expensive. 2. Service here is pretty bad (however a big thumbs up for how a lot of the staff here can speak multiple languages). I’m talking about «don’t care if you’re here or not on any given day». I have had wrong orders brought out, wrong drinks (also being charged for them getting me the wrong drink). 3. Wait time for food is bad. I’m not saying that on a busy day, or packed night that we expect food to be brought out in a snap of a finger. I’m saying on a normal day, food takes way too long to be brought out. We’ve waited an 45 min-​1 hour + before for fried rice, fish maw soup, veggie dish. 4. WAY too dirty. I mean this restaurant was listed on dirty dinning before, closed because of contamination, filth, insects (do your research). My personal exp here with sanitation: the cups were really dirty, I felt like my plate and utensils was previously just used by another customer. Also bathroom is pretty gross. 5. Food is meh, sometimes it’s spot on, a lot of the times it’s really bad.
Because of those reasons, that’s why I gave this place one star. To be honest, I never go here anymore, and I won’t be for any occasion, it’s just not worth the time, or money and you would be happier at another place.

Service was consistently fast and efficient.
Food is 3 starts — average and consistent.
Recommend this place for lunch and dinner. Good dim sum place.

For Oregon, it’s probably a 2.5−3 stars. For the Bay Area it’s a 1 – 1.5 stars. Growing up eating dim sum in San Francisco and the San Jose area and taking after my Cantonese parents of being super critical of any and all Chinese food, I am obligated to super particular… Take this review with a giant grain of salt.
Chicken feet mush, bland, too sticky, off taste — never ordering it here again.
Radish cake — not enough sausage, dried shrimp, bland but it’s awesome that they fry it up before serving.
Shrimp rice noodle roll — a little dry and cold but tolerable.
Pineapple bun is good. Chewy, not too dense, the milk egg custard inside was good. It came at room temperature but I’ve been spoiled with slightly fluffier, warm and fresh buns.
I tried asking for puh-​er but they only have house tea, no biggie. Depending on who you speak to, you can try Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish and English. — I like it! They seem to have a decent mix of Vietnamese and Cantonese dishes though I admit, this was based off the posted menu items and not off their actual menu.
It’s a large restaurant and it’s decently busy. People seem happy to be there. Typical of a Chinese restaurant, they’re great for groups (3+) and large groups (7 – 10). I suggest that you go with at least 3 people to get a good variety of dim sum/​entrees.

Okay, whoever letf good review about this place. you guys are CRAZY… I even hate myself giving them one star cuz they don’t deserve to get ANY star!!! Okay, here is the thing. you can’t ever never mess up the fried rice in Chinese restaurant and this place is very rare place that doesn’t know how to make fried rice… if you wan Chinese food from here. I recommend to go Panada Express

I was visiting Portland and this happened to be the only place open when i was driving around late at night. To be honest, I wasn’t over impressed with this place. I have spent significant time in Asia and China specifically. The Vietnamese portion of the menu was not authentic by any means. The selections were in fact Vietnamese, but the phở has almost a more ramen noodle feel than Vietnamese style. Unfortunately, the Cantonese food was not much better. It wasn’t authentic in the least, and was pretty much your standard American take-​out food. Not good, not awful. The staff was very attentive and friendly and it wasn’t awful, just not at all what you would expect from what looked to be a promising location.

As always VERY bad service. I’m Asian so i do understand that most Asian restaurants you will not get service but this place is worse then the worse I’ve been to in a long time. Food is ok for burbs but not worth being ignored & treated like you are bothering them. This will be the last time I go here. I wish I could give no stars.

We came here on our way to Hillsboro. We wanted good dimsum. I’d say this is average at best. Overpriced potstickers $ 7.25 really?! We order bbq pork it was pink in the middle, which was no big deal. The pork really had no flavor — my dog loved it.
If I come back I think I’d order some Vietnamese food.

Ordered pad thai and mixed meat clay pot. The clay pot entrée was a first for me. It’s served with a live Fire keeping the food hot at your table. The clay pot was awesome good.

Jin Wah is a great example of a restaurant whose heyday passed it long ago. Back when the Portland suburbs were a bit of a no-man’s land for authentic Chinese food, Jin Wah was a go-​to for my first-​generation Chinese immigrant family and our friends. Today, with many other better choices in the Beaverton area, we don’t come here of our own volition at all.
If you’re looking for good, authentic Chinese food and don’t want to make the trip downtown or to the 82^nd/​Division area (which, if you are going to eat Chinese food at a place that isn’t Happy Panda, I assume is your goal), then this isn’t your place.

My family and I are regulars here. We get the dim sum and order items off the menu.
Regular menu items come with large servings.
They are always patient with my kids. One time after they were no longer serving dim sum they made an order of barbecue pork buns for my boy because that’s what he eats. They also gave it to us for no charge.
I like the service here too. No nonsense and chill.

The dim sum carts here come around often, so there’s no chasing down anyone for a scrap of food. They had all of my favorites – shumai, tofu skin, soup bun, crispy pork bun, lotus leaf sticky rice, and the welcome addition of a pan seared noodlecart. The Chinese sushi was better than I’ve had at most places – meaty, not fishy. What they did not have was a good variety of dumplings. Overall quality of offerings was good, but much more expensive than I’m used to, even by already high PDX standards. Each medium was $ 3.75 and large were $ 4.75. Back in Philly, we usually spent about $ 9 a person on dim sum, and here it was $ 17 per. The restaurant itself was clean and pleasant, with attentive service.

After last night’s experience, we decided we are never going back. They can’t recover from this.
We ordered food for pickup. When I went in, the woman behind the counter was very rude to us. She acted disgusted that I asked for a receipt and was just generally put out by our presence.
We got the food home and realized there was no white rice for the 10 dishes we ordered (all would normally come with white rice anywhere else). I called and asked if they gave out white rice with the entrees and was told, again very rudely, no. We had to wait about a half hour to eat our food while we cooked some at home.
The prices were high. The food was not good (ignoring the fact it had been sitting for a half hour — it was clearly bad anyway). We will not be returning.

The carpet is gross!!! I walked pass by the kitchen to go to the restroom and saw large amount of spilled water on the kitchen floor and no one bothered to mop it.
The service is great and friendly and that is the reason I left a decent amount of tip.
I have been spoiled with millions of good restaurants in San Francisco so that is why I have not been finding decent food here in Portland. When a restaurant in Portland gets 5 stars on Unilocal to me that is an average 3 or even 2 stars. Rarely I get 4 stars experience since I landed in Portland, Vivi’s the Vietnamese restaurant in Hillsboro is the only one I would give 5 stars.
Now let’s get back to Jin Wah, the food is bland, the fried rice with salted fish and chicken has no salted fish at all and the taste was bland, not enough salt and spices. The vegetable dish with oyster sauce that we ordered somewhat decent but too much salt.
There is not enough variety and choices of dim-​sum.
Too bad this is the only Chinese Restaurant I know in the area.
Anyone knows any good Chinese Restaurant in Beaverton/​Hillsboro area?
I love the service at Jin Wah but unfortunately I don’t fancy their food :(

Yes! Ladies with little pushy carts filled with delicious goodness!
At least that’s what I was expecting — not to say the food wasn’t delicious, but it barely tied me over for my dim sum craving.
We came here towards the end of dim sum service on a Sunday, so understandably, our selection was slim. We had steamed shrimp dumplings, steamed chive dumplings, shrimp balls with mushroom, Chinese donut, Chinese broccoli, shiu mai, and daikon cake, none of them were particularly spectacular. I think for the steamed items, the gelatinous skin got a little too sticky, and the daikon cake was a little too mushy.
The service was OK for a dim sum restaurant — at least they give you everything you ask for, so that was good!
I think next time I return, I’d like to order some food off the menu and see how they compare, and I’ll try to come back at an earlier time to fight the crowd and maybe get better selections from the carts.

Ah, how the tides have turned. We visited for the first time in at least a year, since they were busted by the dirty diners. Where the Phở used to be good enough to overlook their spotty service and poor quality water, that is no longer the case.
We would have liked to start our meal with our appetizer of salt and pepper squid, but to no avail, our dinner came dribbling out of the kitchen mostly one bowl or plate at a time over a course of close to 7 minutes. With the app brought somewhere in the middle of the parade. Gasp, you say? For anyone that’s eaten with my family, there are several people that may be done in that slot of time, before others even get their food. And no sense making people with bowls of steaming Phở wait, we all know it has to be HOTTTTTTT, to be good.
Upon finally receiving my order, I realize the taste of what used to be a rich flavorful broth could only be likened to watered down canned chicken soup broth. It literally tasted like nothing… thank goodness for condiments and many years of know how on flavoring things after the fact. This was my addition dance: lime, bean sprouts, basil, jalapeño, roasted chili paste, hoisin sauce, and sriracha, fish sauce, more sriracha, more chili paste, a few more squeezes of my lime, soy sauce ((((major gasp, sorry but the broth was really wimpy)))) and for good measure s few more basil leaves… at this point I felt like they should have been paying me to fix their FUBAR. You’d think with a new Asian grocery store in the same shopping center they could’ve managed to get some decent cooks.
The water still tastes of formaldehyde, something I’m shocked that they’re still getting away with!!! And the wait staff is still rather surly.
I’ll never return, there is no point with Tan Tan Deli just a few blocks away. Now that’s some mighty fab Phở!

DIRTY DINING REPORTS.
Read it.
I still go here cause it’s convenient and I have not died yet. I’m not a quitter but if someone will wheel me to SE 82^nd area, then by all means.

Anyone who lives on the West side knows it’s hard to find a great dim sum on this side. And unless you’re willing to drive to the east side for dim sum there are only a few choices close by.
Jin Wah is one of those places for me. It’s not the best. But it’s far from the worst. It’s the kind of place I’ll go to when I have that itch without the want to travel. Saturday’s are more accessible as I went on Sunday and there was a 20 min wait.
The variety is decent and much like you’ll find at similar dim sum places. I’ve had my experiences of cold, lukewarm, and food hot from the kitchen so it can be hit or miss depending on the time of day and day in the week. Most of the dishes satisfy my cravings. But their chicken feet leave something to be desired. And those being my favorite part of dim sum they’re a little disappointing.
I havnt been to dinner here in a while but the food is good albeit alittle salty and oily. Dim sum has its ups and downs. I’ll still come back now and again because it’s close unless somone wants to give me their good hole in the wall dim sum location on the west side.

Gotta hit em all
After some recent transgressions from this place, we were talked in to trying it again. We had come for dim sum before, which is pretty good. I know there are better places out there, but screwing up a pork bun is pretty hard, so it’s a good safe bet if you don’t want to wait or drive forever on the east side.
Our most recent visit though reminded me why this places sits solidly at 3 stars.
Let’s lead with the good. Some of the food is incredible. The salt pepper squid hot out of the kitchen is one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. It is sprinkles with MSG or virgin hairs or children’s tears, or something that just blows my mind (I apologize if it isn’t MSG and some restaurants don’t want to be associated with that sort of thing. Also I apologize if it IS MSG as some people just can’t handle that ancient Chinese secret) You gotta try it. They have some juicy flavorful duck. Though the sauce is a little more transparently mayonnaise, they have some of the best Honey walnut shrimp I’ve ever had. Food definitely gets high marks.
Now the bad. Their service is some of the worst I’ve ever had. They make no secret that you are there to buy the food and that is all. You are at best an inconvenience to the staff. The only function of the staff is to prevent you from going back to the kitchen and getting the food yourself, and that I cannot abide. However it makes it cheaper for me to go, because I don’t tip for that. I can carry a plate. I’m not expecting OG level service, but I can carry a plate, you gotta do more than that.
Also the bad. The tap water reminds me of the water that I used to get out of the garden hose on the first hot day of summer. Not in the refreshing way, but in the «Guess when the last time we used the hose was» sort of way. It is disgusting. I thought I was solve the situation with a «Fresh lemonade». Yum, this takes me back to my childhood when I found the reconstituted lemon juice in the back of the fridge and sugar, and likened myself to Louis Pasteur. Coke perhaps is your safest bet. Tea maybe.
So…you’ve be warned.

Two years since my last update, Im sticking with my three stars.
A fellow Unilocaler and I met here for lunch yesterday. The place looks good. The service was friendly, if a bit eccentric. (I was given a pile of napkins which I did not ask for mid meal… maybe he thought I was going to be messy? Dining companion reflected. Hmm. Oooh kay).
I arrived first and was settled by a window with tea and water and given the lunch menu. Dim sum ladies oftered treats but I waited politely for my friend.
Once friend arrived the ladies returned and friend scooped up pork shu mai and I got char siu bao ($ 3.50). We ordered lunch specials which came with tasty hot and sour soup, I got crispy eggplant ($ 8.50)with steamed rice which arrived with a small crispy eggroll. Friend got sweet and sour chicken, fried rice, lo mein, and an eggroll. Sauce on the side.
I looked around for mustard and pink sauce for my eggroll but didnt see any so I ate it plain. It was tasty if a touch oily. Hot and sour soup was yummy. Tea was hot. Rice was fine. The star was the eggplant: crispy sweet sticky crunchy spicy salty hot silken umami yumminess. So. Freaking. Good. See picture. I did take some home. The rest I inhaled.
We stayed a long time and were treated to them staring at us as if we were going to hijack our chopsticks or something. I think they just wanted to make sure we needed nothing and they were ready to eat their lunch. But. Unnerving.
I do like Jin Wah. I dont LOVE it. But. The eggplant is a winner.