Joyee's dumpling house-4S Ranch

I really don't want to tell you how good this place is because the wait is already long enough. In one week I went here three times for lunch! Try the snow peas, that don't resemble any snow peas I haver seen but they are delicious. Also the pepper steak. The wonton in spicy chili oil are Golden.

First time and we’ll be back! The dumplings are delicious! Service was really excellent. Restaurant is clean. Food was fresh, well seasoned and large portions. Highly recommend.

Joyee’s Dumpling House - 4S Ranch location (B- ) A nice surprise to have a decent Chinese food restaurant in Rancho Bernardo! I’ve known about Joyee for a while, but hesitant to try thinking it would be another Americanized Chinese restaurant and apart from Xiao Lung Bao, Cantonese wonton, and har gau (shrimp dumpling), I’m not a dumpling fan. But with encouragement from Penny, I took the plunge and gave it a try. We ended up having lunch there two days in a row! The 4S location is bright, clean, but pretty small with limited inside seating. There’s a few outdoor tables, but we sat inside given the outside seating only had a view of parked cars with no air conditioning. Service was prompt & efficient. Day 1: The appetizers Xiao lung bao (B- ) : ordered this purely to “test out” the restaurant. It was “not bad” I won’t order again because the overall experience isn’t much better than Wei Chuan frozen XLB and definitely inferior to MiLa. The skin was thicker than desired, the soup plentiful enough, the meat was a little too hard, but the redeeming quality was that both the meat and the soup had good flavor and tasted fresh. Beef wrap (B- ) : flavor was good, but I prefer the Taiwanese version more, with hot beef while this had cold beef like from a deli, reflecting the Northern China style. Flavor wise was fairly good, with the hot, crispy yet chewy scallion pancake wrap contrasting with the savory beef and the cool lettuce in the middle. Would have been nice to have a touch of sweetness (like the Taiwanese wraps) but nonetheless, still satisfying. Pork sticky rice (B- ) : I guess my food bias is really showing because I definitely prefer the Cantonese style, where the flavoring from the rice is more from the meat, while this version has a much stronger soy sauce taste. The pork tasted fresh and was nicely marbled. Not my favorite rendition, but not bad. At the end of the meal, we concluded, even though it’s not a great restaurant, it’s the best we have that’s less than 15 minutes drive from home. And, we didn’t get to try any wok stir fried items, so we definitely needed to return. Little did we know the next day, at around lunch time, we would be in the area with my daughter and her boyfriend, looking for a light lunch prior to a Torrey Pines hike. So…let’s try out their stir fried items! Day 2: Stir fry Pork pan fried buns (B- ) : similar to the xiao lung bao, the meat tasted decent, maybe a touch underseasoned, and soup should be more plentiful. But the bun needed help, lacking the desired crunch & crispness on the outside, while overly soggy on the inside. Fried rice noodle with beef (B ) : this was good, similar in quality to Convoy area Chinese restaurants. It was served piping hot, decent “wok hay” with steam still coming out from the noodles. The beef was fairly good, a touch under seasoned and a little tough, but acceptable. The noodles were cooked pretty perfectly and adding their house chili oil for a little heat definitely increased the enjoyment. Green beans with garlic (B ) : also made with fairly good “wok hay!” The seasoning evenly coated all the green beans for a good mixture of savory with sweetness from the beans. This was my daughter’s favorite dish, while I preferred the fried rice noodle. Given the proximity of the restaurant, we’ll definitely be back. It's been a few months since I’ve been to Ju Feng Yuan and I’m curious how these two would compare. From memory, I think Ju Feng Yuan would win on the XLB, but a rematch on the wok fried dishes would be interesting.

Got food to go from this location. Gentleman behind the counter was very nice, and I did not feel like I was rushed at all despite phone calls coming in. Ordered at the counter, was told food would be done in 15 minutes and happy it came earlier than promised. He also walks out from the counter to give you your take out which I thought was a nice small detail touch. Overall location is fairly small. Ordered cumin lamb, hot and sour soup, green beans, and beef rice noodles. All were excellent. Would come back. Parking is easy as it is in a plaza with ample parking.

t’s been a long time since we have been to this restaurant. They expanded their menu. There are tables inside and outside. It is a small restaurant. The scallion pancake was delicious, light and crispy. The prices of the dishes were reasonable. The server was nice and efficient. Our food came fast.