Jane G's - Convenience & Consistency in Chinese Food
Since A and I try to eat healthy-ish on weekday nights, Chinese food, with it's sweet sauces and mountains of white rice, seldom makes it into the rotation. We used to justify the carb-heavy meal with the walk to and from Chinatown, but now with sub-optimal weather for walking longer distances, we've definitely indulged less often. However there are days where the craving is undeniable and on those occasions, I've found that the best neighborhood option by far is Jane G's.
The Chinese fine-dining scene is Philly is surprisingly robust with restaurants like Han Dynasty, Dan Dan, and Dim Sum Garden all mainstream and exceedingly popular. Han Dynasty definitely dominates the scene with a stellar reputation and locations in both University City and Old City. In my experience, Jane G's sometimes gets a bad rap as a Han Dynasty knock-off, and I have to admit, I was originally one of those haters. However, now that I've visited more than a few times, usually for the sheer convenience, I've really come around to Jane G's.
The menu is pretty extensive, so I'm only going to post the apps and the special dishes here and the rest will be in the gallery at the bottom. (Also apologies for the fuzzy food image quality - not sure what happened.) Notable - they have an all you can eat hotpot option, but at $35 it's definitely on the pricier side.
We've tried a good amount of the menu here and this time around we went with two familiar dishes and one new one. I picked out the Sichuan String Beans ($12), a perennial favorite of ours no matter the restaurant, and the Garlic Soy Pork Belly ($8), which I recently ordered at Dan Dan and wanted to compare to Jane G's version. A picked out the Mongolian Beef ($17).
Now that I've started blogging about food, I've become more keen to cross compare the same dishes across restaurants. For the string beans, I've recently had two other versions, one from Sang Kee Noodle House take-out and one from the Old City location of Han Dynasty. I have to say that Jane G's version was way better than the other two. The string beans had the perfect crunch without any squeakiness (food squeaking in my mouth is a huge pet peeve of mine), and the saltiness level of the additional pickled vegetables was perfect. Comparatively, the Sang Kee Noodle House version was doused in sauce, losing all crunchiness, and was not salty enough, and the Han Dynasty version also lacked in both crunchiness and salt.
I really enjoyed the pork belly. It was definitely a little messy to eat with bigger pieces than I'm used to and sauce that gets everywhere. The pieces themselves were a little chewier than other restaurants' versions, but given my affinity for crunchy/toothsome meat pieces in general, I didn't find this to be a bad thing. If I had to nitpick, it was a little bit on the sweet side for my tastes, though as you got down to the bottom pieces that were really drenched in hot oil, the spiciness balanced out the sweetness better.
The Mongolian Beef was fine. A tends to like the more American-Chinese type dishes. I used to be pretty vehemently against ordering anything drenched in gloppy sweet sauces, but I've come around to them. I had a few bites of this for variety's sake, but left it mostly for A to devour.
Overall was a delicious meal and really made me realize that I've enjoyed the food every time I've been to Jane G's. There's no reason to be a hater just because it's not the coolest kid in town. A and I will definitely be back before Philly thaws out in the spring.
TL;DR - Great more authentic Chinese food conveniently located for all Fitler/Rittenhouse/Logan Square residents. Something on the menu for everyone.
