Soong Soong - San Jose

braised pork belly with preserved veggies

Found out this restaurant when I was searching on Yelp about any Hakka restaurant. And surprisingly as it turned out that they actually serve the braised pork with preserved vegetables (mei cai gou rou). This dish is very work extensive so even though I tried to make it before I would rather just enjoy it.

So we suggested that place to our friends and they agreed to meet us there for dinner. We were there on a Sunday evening around 7 pm. The place was pretty busy. People came and went with their take out orders. It’s a good sign.



Once we were seated we were given the all Chinese character menu. I don’t read Chinese. But I can match the characters. Ha..ha.. Beside we already looked at their menu online which had some pictures on. That helped a lot. We already had a few dishes on mind and we let our friends picked a few more. Their online menu was pretty extensive – similar to the Chinese menu. But just like their online menu, the Chinese menu only had a few pictures. Don’t go to restaurant hungry because you’ll end up like us ordering eight dishes for 4 adults and 2 kids.

beef roll ( 牛肉捲餅) aka beef burrito ?

The highlight was the braised pork with preserved vegetables (梅菜扣肉). I was glad that turned out better than expected. Now if we feel like it we don’t have to go all the way to San Francisco ! Another item was the beef pastry roll which I didn’t try but looking at the way the kids devouring the whole roll I could safely say it must be good. The other dish which was surprisingly on the menu was the honey walnut prawn which turned out to be wonderful. The prawn were decent size and crunchy even with all the sweet mayo sauce covering it. This dish was also a hit with our crowd.

honey walnut prawn

The mediocre dishes were the spicy wonton. Hubby said the other place in Cupertino did it better. I think because Soong Soong used the typical Szechuan chili which had a strong spiciness to it. And I think they don’t use or use less MSG here that’s why it tasted homely. The West lake beef soup was okay. It’s like egg drop soup with bits of beef here and there. If you don’t like soup thickened with corn starch then you should avoid this one. The garlic eggplant dish was a surprisingly on the mediocre category. I loved eggplant and it turned out that this eggplant dish used more fried potato than eggplant! Why ?? Eggplants are not expensive. The stir fry hor fun was also on the okay category because the hor fun seemed home made and a bit too thick for my taste. The kids love them though. We didn’t have anything to take home for this dish.

The last dishes were not exactly horrible. The three cup chicken was a homely dish. Something my mom would cook at home. The reason it was on the bottom was because the chicken were not boneless chicken. And I think they use like a natural chicken so the meat was a bit dry and chewy. So that dish had the most left over.

Soong Soong
3680 Stevens Creek Blvd
San Jose, CA 95117
408 243 8868