J's Kitchen Venice

[lex]

J's Kitchen
1239 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, California 90291
http://www.js-kitchen.com

J's Kitchen is a Japanese American Macrobiotic Deli. There is limited outside seating only. About 4 or 5 two seater tables on Abbot Kinney, which makes people watching while you eat your Zen BLT all the more delectable. Its taken a month or two for J's to catch it's stride, but they definitely had me with the masterfully done BLT. The word is they are waiting on zoning to add some indoor seating, which would be nice because then you could meet a few people there for a bite.

Right now J's is open from 8am to 4pm so its more of a grab and go breakfast and lunch place. The breakfast menu looks right up my alley. I'm heading back asap to get the Mixed Berry Crepe and the Mochi Waffles!

Enjoy!

Happy Cow Reviews
http://www.happycow.net/reviews.php?id=16115

Pics

[atomique]

I saw a posting on craigslist about J's Kitchen looking to hire a vegan chef. I googled the restaurant but couldn't really find anything. I guess it's in Venice... Anyone heard of it?

[lex]

Hey I merged your post onto the original J's Kitchen listing. I know one of the downfalls of a forum is loosing things that have already been posted about, but that's my job to paste them together! I spoke with the owner of J's when I took the pics above. I had met her before at the J's in Tokyo, my guess is she's planning to head back there at some point and will need someone to take over. Right now its basically a deli like inside of Whole Foods, with take out containers of fried rice type dishes and a few sandwiches. There is no inside seating. The concept is really wacky. I wish it was like their location in Japan with seating & a nice menu. You can see their Japanese website above & Menu.

[atomique]

Ah! I should have searched more. You think after a few months on The PPK of people saying "USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION!" I would have done that.

[lex]

Breakfast at J's. I think its called J's Cafe now to avoid confusion with Seed Kitchen or at least that's what it's called on yelp now.

We ordered all 3, they are pretty reasonably priced. Only 4.95 for the waffle or mixed berry crepe, but you want to get the breakfast burrito because its filling the rest are just fun. I particularly loved the Waffle and Crepe, but would have left hungry w/o half the burrito to split. The Waffle is more like candy or something so definitely split it. The crepe is really good, but the whip cream is not for all.

[quarrygirl]

i went here today with jenn and almost puked it was so gross. i got the breakfast burrito and it had a long black hair in it. jenn got a scramble that was so bad, she left it behind. not just that, but the chef was late and we had to wait until 8:45 for her to get there, even though the place opens at 8!

expect a NASTY blog post from me soon! mwahhahaha.

glad your food was good

[atomique]

EW EW EW!

One time I was at a restaurant and I found a really long hair in my black beans. When I showed my waitress she just said "Oh, that's Carla's." like it wasn't a big deal.

[lex]

I was going to email Jen that job posting for a chef they had listed, lol. I'm sorry you both had a crappy time there! What the heck where you doing there on a Friday morning at 8am? We got there at 10:30 so the chef had probably awakened by then. What did you do to salvage your adventure? Hair nets should be a health code requirement everywhere in the world, it happens endlessly.

I don't know what's up with J's. I remember it so fondly from my trip to Japan two years ago. I ate there about a dozen times because it was only one subway hop from my hotel. The chef is the same lady, I met her back then. I know my tastes are off the map lately. I wouldn't recommend J's to just anyone, its got some strange Japanese Marco weirdness to it that I find interesting. Its almost as if those Waffles today were made of plastic or something, but I still enjoyed them and would get them again but only to split with someone else who likes strange food.

I want to blame the city of Venice for strangling both vegan businesses with crummy zoning laws.

We also got their Seitan Salad Sandwich we ate later in the day, it wasn't bad.

[quarrygirl]

you know, the food you got actually looks really good! especially the waffles. while i still intend to write about my bad experience, i am sure i will try j's kitchen again someday soon. i just don't see any reason to eat there when seed is so close.

to answer your question...what were me and jenn doing there on a friday morning at 8am?? foodie field trip!! if you ever want to join us, let me know! we lunch and breakfast together a lot, and it's never too early or too far to drive for new vegan food.

oh, and we did find a way to salvage the morning. jenn took me to the awesome whole foods in venice at like 9am and showed me around. we weren't even hungry, but we still sampled the vegan chocolate from the display case, as well as a few flavors of vegan gelato. that place is insane. i've never seen so many vegan goodies in one grocery store!!!!!!!!

i am SO moving to the westside.

[lex]

We need to do a Mrs Winston's get together!

Some more bad Mark's for J's was that they were turning people away who were checking the place out asking for random items, turned one guy away who asked for breakfast at 10:55. Everyone there is extremely nice, but maybe being on Abbot Kinney and having 1000 idiosyncrasies coming in asking if they have Ginger Coffee, Honey Juice, etc all day long just wears you out. We were commenting that we'd offer them what we had if it was our restaurant and how if it was in another part of town people would stick to ordering what they had.