Leji 99004 Downtown Diner

Attack of the clones!

Although cloned sets of the LEGO modular buildings are nothing new (I bought my 1st bootleg set back in 2016) The closure of Lepin in 2019 threw the Chinese clone scene into disarray. Though you can still purchase a version of any modular from aliexpress. What brand you will get (if any, as unbranded sets are a thing now too) can be a bit of a crapshoot. Though King is the true successor to Lepin, there are new brands popping up constantly. Into this mess steps yet another new player in 'Leji'

After seeing the Diner listed at a couple of sellers for around £20 less than the usual price. I decided to take a risk. I knew I wasn't going to be getting Lepin, but was still curious what the deal was. So lets see what my £39.99 buys exactly...

The parcel took around 3 weeks to get to me from China and was tracked all the way. Upon opening the package we find 2 instruction books, a tan base plate and 6 numbered bags of parts. A good start, numbered bags always make these bigger builds go faster. Something that was sorely lacking on the earlier Lepin sets.

The first problem is found once we start tiling the base plate. It's hard to capture in a photo but the white tiles, and indeed ALL of the white bricks, vary wildly in colour from an almost perfect match for LEGO, to a kind of milky off white. The black tiles too, are a shade duller than they should be. There is also a higher ratio of scratched pieces than I have been accustomed to from Lepin.

An example of the very noticable shade variation.

Other problems in this first bag were silver jumper plates, where they should be dark grey and also any trans clear pieces were quite dull and/or scratched. I actually swapped the worst ones of these out for spares from my own collection. The worst offender though was a melted plate.

It's not all bad though, I had zero missing parts in this first bag and clutch power is excellent throughout. Not sure where Leji is sourcing these bricks. I have a feeling with the colour variance that some of these parts are seconds from the factories that supply one of the bigger bootlegers.

With the diner interior starting to take shape, the set actually started to grow on me. Everything is so well designed and we get nice little details like the grill pieces used for bacon and the gumball machine, there is a lot of character packed into this ground floor.

The exterior too, is very different from anything else in the modular line with its curved front leading to the side staircase. You can see I've already put the chef in his permanent position.

And speaking of minifigs, we get 6 included in this set. 2 for each floor. The ground floor gives us the chef and a roller skating waitress with a tray.

The yellow on the minifigs is noticeably a shade darker than the originals, but otherwise they are reasonable facsimileis.

It takes 2 bags to finish the ground floor, the brick built 'Diner' sign in pink is the obvious stand out feature, but the entire build is impressive with its curves and unusual building techniques.

The brick built sign really stands out in pale pink.

A better view of the curved main window and the side staircase.

You can see some of the other details at the rear of the building, there is a corner door that opens up under the overhang. The hand rail and lamp at the top of the staircase holds better than you would think. It's very well designed.

The first floor contains a small gym and boxing ring. The red 'canvas' Is already in place here and you can again see the variance in shade. There is a dumbbell rack, a weight bench and a water cooler squeezed in there too.

The finished ring is a little small but to be expected in such a limited space.

The punch bag is my favourite part of this floor. Its attached via a loose ball joint and moves around quite freely.

The minifigs for this floor are a boxer and a gym patron. There was a left arm missing here so I added one of my own spares. The female gym goer has a smiling and dripping sweat alternate faces.

The exterior of this floor looks pretty great. Nice, full length windows and the 'brickwork' wall, which is simply achieved by 1×1 and 1×2 tiles attached to plates.

The side wall that faces the staircase is nicely detailed too, with some unusually built windows and an AC unit to keep those gym goers cool!

Apart from some windows, the back is pretty plain apart from the intricately constructed spiral staircase that leads up to the second floor. Although this is a repetitive little section to build, the finished article looks great.

The top floor of this 3 storey building houses a small recording studio. Tying in with the 60's theme nicely. It's an impressive feat fitting 3 separate businesses into this one building.

The floor plan contains a recording booth, control/mixing desk and a lounge/waiting area. We have an armchair with a table. 2 blue rugs and drinks cabinet.

The inside of the recording booth contains a brick built microphone and uses technic racks to represent soundproofing.

The control room contains a mixing desk and a reel to reel recorder.

The completed floor. Just the roof to go!

 

The completed floor has a small balcony along with the same 'brickwork' effect as the previous floor. The decorative front, ends with a nicely done rounded top.

All of these bricks were fine with minimal scratches and no missing pieces at all. There is only one female minifig in this part of the build.

This (pretty plain) female minifig has alternate smiling and unhappy faces. 

There is a rear balcony where the entrance is located. There is a handrail and a ladder for roof access. You can also see the rear and side windows that are the same as the previous floor, minus the AC unit.

The last bag contained the roof which is fairly plain. The white curved ceiling sits above the recording booth. There is a skylight made from a full length window piece and an aerial. Indicating that this may actually be a radio station rather than a recording studio. The hand rails that form the top of the ladder are a nice detail.

Also in the final bag is the last minifigure and his pink open top car.

The minifig is a rockabilly type with a plain red guitar and alternate smiling and singing faces.

And lastly the car itself.. this would be a fantastic little addition to the set, but this version Is let down by variance in the pink parts used to build it, most noticeably on the hood piece.

So there we have it. My first (and likely last) purchase of a Leji set. Though the finished building itself is fine, and luckily, the decorative colours on the outside of this model were consistent so the finished building actually looks pretty great.

However, the build up of lots of small niggles as I went, really marred the experience after being spoiled with my last couple of Lepin sets. I'll leave you with some shots of the finished build.

Thanks for looking as always.. 

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