Jiu Bbq - New Orleans Louisiana

We have a group of friends finishing up a late night event and needing a very late night dinner. Many restaurants closed early and I called to confirm they were still open. We got there and the store manager Danny quickly settled us a set table, We mentioned that it's our first time here, and we ordered some skewers, then we didn't know what else should get, Danny was so helpful and offered help to accommodate the rest of items in our budget. Some friends can't take the spice soup so asked Danny if the chef could make a non spicy soup that was not on menu, and he also accommodated it, great foods and good service. We will come back definitely.

TLDR: A hole in the wall with hole in the wall entrees amongst mundane, average dishes. Standouts were the eggplant fried rice and the cabbage and lamb hot pot. Why the lower rating? Service was lackluster, and there was inappropriate notice that only orders over $40 could pay with card. Hen Jiu Yi Qian is an excellent late night munches kinda location, something you'd expect to find in Asia. Although they feature skewers and smaller portion'd dishes, there are also entrees that can be ordered. Our table ordered the cabbage and lamb pot, pickled cucumbers, eggplant fried rice, and spicy cold noodles. This is a smaller restaurant, and when we entered we were able to be seated immediately around midnight. There were many open tables, but they put us at a table behind a large party. Getting in and out of that location was a pain, and the table behind us consistently disturbed me despite my chair being all the way up and me having sat sideways. While they brought us water, they were slow on refilling the water, and the staff that were there were focused on eating their dinner. I'm not sure what their priorities were, but we felt like we simply existed. What made up for it? Surprisingly, the food! I have to admit I wasn't excited to eat what I would consider pretty standard Chinese dishes. They provided complimentary peanuts, which were salty and moist as expected. Our first dish to dig in was the eggplant fried rice, which took me by surprise. There may have been cumin, but there was definitely hints of cumin. I didn't notice too much eggplant in the fried rice, but the taste was so unique I couldn't help but fall in love with it. It is on the stickier end but not sticky rice, and it holds together very well, with few rice grains falling off individually. The lamb hot pot came next, and the lamb tasted so strong I would've believed you if you told me it was freshly butchered an hour ago. It was most definitely on the gamier end, and it is unlike most other lamb at other restaurants. Other than that, the broth was on the saltier end, and there was tofu with noodles. The pickled cucumbers were alright. They had hints of vinegar and sugar, but they were quite mushy and not crisp. Tolerable but not outstanding. The spicy cold noodles were as expected and a less sour and spicy version of Korean cold noodles. I can't say which version I like more because it tasted pretty average to me. Overall, there were standout dishes amongst the average ones but poor service. In addition, card is only accepted on orders over $40, but there isn't good signage so you wouldn't know unless you walked up to the cashier and paid.

Services is fine, Food that's need to improve. if you are there for drinks and listen to Karaoke that's fine. But food quality is an issue for me. Hope you guys can make changes on that.

One of my favorite places for skewers spicy cold noodles!! I do miss when they used to have the electric grill to cook the skewers yourself, but the skewers now are still flavorful texturally decent. I was a little disappointed with the crawfish as the sauce itself was very watery to me, and the peppercorns overpowered everything else. Maybe I had envisioned a different dish, but I would have liked a thicker sauce for the garlic taste to be more prominent or match the peppercorns. Overall, this is definitely still one of the places I'll be frequenting for quite some time for skewers

All the skewers are very good, the grilled eggplant was really disappointing.They weren't doing the skewer grills when I was there and they didn't have grills or hotpot available either ?