Joy Luck Place

Joy Luck Place
Cupertino Village
10911 N. Wolfe Road
North Wolfe Road, Cupertino, California 95014
(408) 255-6988

Vitals:
credit card accepted
good for groups
kid friendly
M-F: 11 am-2:30 pm and 5:30 pm-9:00 pm
Sat-Sun/holidays: 10 am-2:30 pm and 5:30 pm-10 pm

Restaurant serving Cantonese fare and some of the best dim sum around. Dim sum is a breakfast or brunch type meal in which you eat a range of small dishes with tea. If you come for dim sum, come either early (before 11 a.m. or after the lunch hour), otherwise there is a long wait. It’s best to go with a larger group so that you can sample a lot of different dishes.

What is nice about this place is that many waiters walk around with carts filled with different items and you can flag down any of them to take a peek at their fare. Don’t worry if you don’t speak Chinese, the servers are more than happy to lift the covers of the little bamboo steamers to show you what is inside. You won’t get a detailed description of what is in a particular dumpling (general statements such as “shrimp and pork” or just “shrimp and vegetables”), but the portions are small enough that you can indulge and try many different things. Hopefully, you’ll remember what you liked AND what it looked like. It's easy to lose track of how many dishes you eat as the waiters are very proficient at taking away the steamers. Depending on the size of the dish, the dishes range from $3-6 each, but be careful of the dishes on the special cart (with the roast duck and other specialties such as seaweed salad), those dishes can be pretty expensive.

The following are some favorites:

• shrimp dumplings (har gow)
• pork and shrimp dumplings (sui mai)
• congee (rice porridge with pork and preserved egg)
• fried taro dumpling with meat filling
• barbecue pork buns (cha su bao)
• lotus leaf rice – glutinous rice with pieces of pork
• steamed Chinese broccoli
• fried dumpling with chives
• spare ribs with black bean sauce
• doughnuts
  

For the adventurous, try the chicken's feet. As long as you don't mind eating something that actually looks like their feet and the pieces of cartilage and bones, the feet have this amazing flavor.

At night Joy Luck serves traditional dishes that are delicious, but the dishes are a bit on the pricey side. I would rather go to Joy Luck for the dim sum than for dinner as there are cheaper options in the complex.