J. Zhou Oriental Cuisine

As the younger sibling to Happy Harbor, a long-established Rowland Heights dim sum and seafood restaurant, J. Zhou Oriental Cuisine opened at the District at Tustin Legacy in 2014. Described by local media at the time as a “flashy, over-the-top Chinese restaurant” with a “stink” of durian, J. Zhou was included (without stars) in California’s Michelin Guide for five years, a point proudly referenced on a sign just inside the front doors. While the restaurant remains opulent, its culinary, service, and pricing issues have been widely documented in online reviews – criticisms we felt were justified after our own experience.

On one hand, J. Zhou has all the trappings of a classically luxurious Chinese fine dining restaurant. Rather than plain white tablecloths, the ones used here have a white-on-white glen plaid pattern, and look remarkably good given their potential for years of sauce-induced stains. From a marble-topped circular service bar to bejeweled chandeliers, fancy display shelves, oversized paintings and multiple semi-private rooms, every decor detail reflects the sort of old school, showy craftsmanship that has been discarded at newer competitors such as Palette Dim Sum in favor of simpler finishes and video screens. Servers wear suits and initially appear hyper-attentive, in our case saying “thank you for coming” so early and repeatedly that they sounded almost surprised to have people occupying tables in the spacious main dining room.

This isn’t necessarily a quiet restaurant, though. On our visit, raucous groups occupied two of the semi-private dining rooms, one seemingly a large business or social organization hosting rounds of cheers, the other a group of performative ladies who acted as if they were using their phones to film a Real Housewives episode and social media promos. Under the right circumstances, arriving at J. Zhou might feel (for some people) like being part of a local cultural scene in a way we haven’t witnessed at other OC dim sum places in years.

Two leatherbound, photograph-filled menus – a larger one with “family-style” dishes, plus a smaller one with dim sum and dim sum-adjacent items – are available all day. The big menu is quite impressive: Entire animals and mollusks are often gorgeously presented, alongside sometimes eye-watering prices ($324 for a whole rotisserie pig, $74 for abalone, $47 for bird’s nest chicken soup). There are thankfully plenty of affordable options, too, such as cold cucumber (~$9.50), shredded pork with stir-fried noodles ($20), and fried rice ($20 to $23), each generally at prices a little higher than Din Tai Fung or Paradise Dynasty equivalents.

J. Zhou’s smaller dim sum menu is accompanied by a paper ordering sheet with 88 individual items – a lot by Seafood Cove 2 or Capital Dim Sum Seafood Bar standards – though here, you may find multiple options crossed out when you visit. While the reconciliation of what’s listed and what’s actually available may lead to disappointments, such as our attempt to order atypical baked crispy chicken buns ($9.38) that weren’t crossed out but were out of stock after a quick server check with the kitchen, the majority of the items were at least listed as available when we visited in the evening. And there are some compelling choices, to be sure.