JJ Cafe

The first time I had lunch at JJ Cafe, we wound up with Caesar salad, lamb curry, chicken steak with black pepper sauce, fried rice with smelt roe, soup, a soufflé and coffee with English tea (yes, coffee and tea mixed together -- it's a Hong Kong thing).

This plain, functional Monterey Park coffee shop has six menus and a blackboard for specials. The main menu alone lists more than 300 Asian and Western entries, including sandwiches, rice and noodle plates, soups, salads and desserts. Then there are the breakfast, lunch, afternoon and chef's specialty menus.

And finally, a night owl menu, served from 10 p.m. until the cafe closes at 4 a.m. Who's running around Monterey Park at that hour? Mostly twentysomethings on their way home from the clubs -- among them the friends I was having lunch with; friends who say this is their favorite Cantonese cafe.

Seafood pan-fried noodles are among the specialties at JJ Cafe.

As for that lunch, I loved the fried rice, which was slightly sweet and crunchy from tiny orange roe. The curry also was good, although the lamb was bony. The juicy grilled chicken steak (which seemed to be thigh meat) was slathered with a tasty black pepper sauce. JJ's Caesar salad was tasty, but you'd never know it was supposed to be a Caesar unless somebody told you. It's iceberg lettuce topped with a lot of bottled Caesar-type dressing, bacon bits and grated Parmesan, and garnished with tomato and cucumber slices.

The coffee with tea, served in a carafe with condensed milk on the side, is so strong that you'll be wired for the rest of the day. The most popular drink, however, seems to be sweetened iced tea with thick lemon slices in the bottom of the glass. At dinner one night, I ordered sizzling filet mignon cubes from the chef's specialty menu. Supposedly, the sauce includes brandy; I didn't taste any, but I did taste lots of chopped garlic. The broccoli and carrots on the side were cooked perfectly crisp-tender. Specialties come with soup and rice or a plate of spaghetti barely coated with a plain tomato sauce that tastes canned. You also can get spaghetti in a casserole with mixed seafood in a mild tomato cream sauce.

Another day, my young companions suggested one of their late-night favorites -- deep-fried chicken wings with spicy salt, which also are available at lunch. They were terrific, except that one in our order was raw inside -- the only failure I experienced at the cafe.

Tender beef brisket over rice with gai lan (Chinese broccoli) and other vegetables would be soothing after a night of clubbing. My friends also like sizzling shredded beef udon with black pepper sauce, a standard fried noodle dish with vegetables, beef strips and a little pepper. Another late night favorite is Indo rice, a takeoff on Indonesian nasi goreng (fried rice). A couple of us split a bowl of baked crispy house special seafood soup, a mild cioppino covered with a thin golden pastry .

I thought the name "stir-fried needle noodle" was a typo until I saw the short, thick noodles that are pointed at one end. They're stir-fried with ham strips and vegetables in one of the best Asian dishes I've had at JJ -- for what that's worth, on a menu of such size.

The fried chile turnip patties also are too good to pass up. The "patties" are cubes of a "turnip" (actually, daikon radish) mixture fried golden brown and garnished with bits of pork, green onion, preserved turnip, beaten egg and spicy seasoning.

I turn in early, so I'll miss dishes exclusive to JJ Cafe's late-night menu, but there's more food on the other five lists than I'll ever be able to eat.

JJ Cafe
Best dishes: Grilled chicken steak, baked seafood pasta, smelt roe and seafood fried rice, stir-fried needle noodles with XO sauce, fried chile turnip patties.
Prices: Appetizers, $4.25 to $7; rice and noodle dishes, $3.95 to $7.95; main dishes, $5.50 to $12.95; lunch specials, $4.25 to $6.95.
Details: No alcohol. Street parking.