There are always interesting new restaurants opening up in San Francisco and Mister Jiu’s was one of them on my list to try out. After some friends and I learned Mister Jiu’s offered a tasting course with a minimum party of 7, I immediately reached out to them to schedule a reservation.
Their tasting menu consists of 9 courses with an add on option for their Smoked Tea Leaf Duck.
Quail Egg with Caviar
The first dish of the night was a quail egg topped with caviar. It melted in your mouth and the caviar was a nice touch. I thought this first dish was great but would have loved more caviar for some extra saltiness.
Charcuterie Platter
The second course was a charcuterie platter that included pigs head, cured ham, chicken, and beef tendon with this amazing sauce. My favorite of the four was the beef tendon and chicken.
Hot and Sour and Spicy Soup
The next dish was one of my favorites of the night. It was a take on the classic hot and sour soup and included tofu skin and Dungeness crab. This dish was sooo delicious. It was very peppery with the use of white pepper and also had smoked mushrooms that blew us all away. I’d recommend ordering this dish for sure.
Salt Baked Trout
The next dish was a salt-baked trout. This course was another favorite of the night among my friends. It included roe and greens toppings and just wow, so good. The fish was so juicy and flavorful and a big hit at our table.
Tendrils greens and stems with uni
I unfortunately didn’t snap a picture of the next course but it was another well received dish. It was a classic sautéed veggie Chinese dish but topped with marinated uni in this amazing sauce that I couldn’t figure out. I could have just eaten this for the rest of the night.
Steak fried rice
This course was sooooo good, I could have eaten this whole bowl by myself. The name says it all, mouth watering steak fried rice. Definitely a crowd pleaser.
Moo shu mushrooms
I thought the next course was just average. It may have just been just ok for me because while I like mushrooms, a dish just of mushrooms alone is not really appetizing to me. I felt this dish was more filling than it was worth.
BBQ Pork
I hate how full I was by this point because this course was phenomenal. I sadly could only fit in one bun. For this course, you had to build your own pork bun and use different provided sauces. I would definitely order this dish again the next time I come here, one the best of the night.
Tea Leaf Smoked Duck
We added on a half size of Mister Jiu’s tea leaf smoked duck. It was delicious but once again we were all so full by this point in the night that I don’t think we were able to enjoy this as much as we should have. I would recommend reserving this tasting course with more than 7 people.
Dessert
For the dessert course, our menu had stated a specific dish but everyone was allowed to choose their own dessert. Below are some of the desserts we ordered:
- Black Sesame Cake – my favorite out of the three I tried.
- Silken Chocolate – This was silken chocolate topped with crispy chocolate pieces. Delicious but very very sweet, could only eat a little bit at a time
- Whipped honey with grapefruit sorbet – delicious, would recommend this one as well
Overall Recommendation
Overall I highly recommend dinner at Mister Jiu’s. Despite some hiccups I had with trying to make this reservation, it was worth all of the effort for the food. I think the tasting menu was a bit too much food for our party of 7, towards the end of the meal it was hard to enjoy the best two courses. However, we were all blown away with how delicious and elevated each course was.
If it were up to me, I’d make the charcuterie plate and salted fish dishes smaller and completely remove the moo shu mushroom dish from the tasting course. If you do decide to try the tasting course, come with at least 8-9 people. If you decide to order off the menu normally, then the top dishes I would recommend would be: the BBQ pork, the hot and spicy soup, the salt-baked trout, and the steak fried rice 😀
