2009

Koi Palace Dim Sum Chinese Restaurant Daly City Review

Posted by Food Nut

Share:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • email
  • StumbleUpon

Koi Palace

365 Gellert Blvd

Daly City, CA 94015

Website

Koi Palace Daly City Front

Koi Palace is a popular Cantonese Chinese restaurant in Daly City. The Peninsula is ground zero for some of the best Chinese food in the SF Bay area. It has been around since 1997 and specializes in wide selection of Dim Sum for lunch and special dishes for dinner. They also have locations in Dublin and at the Thunder Valley Casino. Koi Palace Dinner is reviewed separately.

Koi Palace Daly City Dim Sum Cart

Dim Sum Carts

Koi Palace has a printed menu that you can order on, and a number of carts, servers serving dim sum. We had to order only a couple items via the printed menu.

Koi Palace Daly City Interior

Packed to the rafters

Koi Palace Daly City Seafood Tanks

Fresh Seafood

This place is a very busy and a super noisy Chinese restaurant with lots of families and friends eating together. Above average decor for a place like this. Lots of flat screen tvs, big tanks of seafood by the entrace.

Koi Palace Daly City Kitchen

Dim Sum Preparation

We arrived on Sunday at 10am, and had to wait 30 minutes to be seated. Parties of 2, seemed to get seats fast.

Koi Palace Daly City Mooncakes

Award winning Koi Palace Moon Cakes

We came right before the Autumn Moon Festival, so they were selling lots of moon cakes. They were also hand making Dragon Beard Candy.

While we went for Dim Sum lunch, Koi Palace has an extensive, fancy, and expensive dinner menu with dinners for 10, at up to $678. You’ll get top notch ingredients in your meal, but won’t get service like Boulevard. Gather 10 people and have a great set dinner without having to worry about what to order.

Koi Palace Menu pics (Click to zoom in on ANY picture)

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City menu 1

Dim Sum Menus

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City menu 2

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City menu 3

Koi Palace Website menuFull Picture Menu Set

Not all items come on the carts, so you need to check off items you would like to order on the menus. This is especially true in the afternoon around 1pm.

Picks:

Koi Palace Daly City Fish Balls

382 Fish Balls ($5.50) has lots of fish balls, daikon, pork skin, and other goodies. Pretty delicious.

Koi Palace Daly City Shredded Duck Burrito

437 Shredded Duck Burrito ($6.90) was a unique dish, essentially peking duck with cucumber put in a scallion tortia. Good quality ingredients, could have used more duck though.

Koi Palace Daly City Crispy Glutinous Puff

328 Crispy Glutinous Puff (Ham Soi Gok) ($2.60) – What a translated name. Fresh and hot out of the fryer. Crunchy. Good meat filling. Best version we’ve had. Better than Zen Peninsula.

Koi Palace Daly City Shrimp Rice Roll Stuffings

348 Shrimp Rice Roll Stuffings (Shrimp Chung Fun) ($4.50) – Chopped into many pieces, huge fresh shrimp, not too oily. Top notch. Lots of a weird sweet soy sauce. You might ask for it on the side.

Koi Palace Daly City Sticky Rice with meat

364 Sticky Rice with meat ($5.50) – Came under one big glass bowl with decent tasting pork, dry shrimp, eggs, and other goodies.

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Steamed Shanghai Dumplings Xiao Long Bao

421 Steamed Shanghai Dumplings or Xiao Long Bao ($4.50 for 4) were 4 tiny but excellent dumplings. These little balls were cooked in a silver foil wrapper, keeping the internal juice from leaking out.  The meat was also tasty. Not an authentic dish, but definitely worth ordering.

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Wild Mushroom stuffed filo threads

352 Wild Mushroom Stuffed filo threads ($4.50) was a weird looking dish.   The outside was full of super crispy filo threads, the inside had a mushroom spring roll.  The internal dough was also fried.  Could have been better but still worth ordering, especially if you are a vegetarian.

342 Lotus wrapped Sticky Rice ($4.50) had two good sized portions.  It was hot out of the steamer and perfect. One of the best around.  Rice, meat, mushrooms, egg were all fully cooked to our liking.

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Har Gow Shrimp Dumpling

341 Shrimp Dumpling – Har Gow  ($4.50) were four big shrimp dumplings. Perfect wrapper and filling. Top notch, must order item.

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Sharks fin dumpling in broth

385 Sharks Fin Dumplings ($6.50) is not PC these days, but this one was very good.  Large piece of real sharks fin, huge dumpling with shrimp, mushrooms, and more.  Excellent broth.

Koi Palace Daly City Fried Twisted Dough Bun

429 Fried Twisted Dough Bun (Man tauw) ($4.30) – Deep fried bun with sweet condensed milk for dipping. Awesome dish, very good when fresh and hot.

Koi Palace Daly City Mango Pudding

452 Fresh Mango Pudding ($3.60) – 4 little pieces. Another good dessert with condensed milk on the side. Not too sweet, good mango flavor.

Koi Palace Daly City Sugar Egg Puff

464 Sugar Egg Puff ($4.30) – A signature dessert here with powered sugar on top. Crunch and fresh out of fryer. A must.

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Yau Tiu

Yau Tiu ($2.80) – Chinese deep fried doughnut is usually eaten with congee. This one was freshly fried, piping hot and really good.

Koi Palace Dim Sum Daly City Steamed Daikon Cake

345 Steamed Daikon ($4.50) – We ordered this by accident but found it pretty good. More of a hot daikon pudding than the traditional pan fried cake form.

OK:

Koi Palace Daly City Roast Duck

154 Hand Roasted Duck ($5.50) was and ok dish. Quantity was ok but the meat did not taste special, pretty average.

Koi Palace Daly City Steamed Daikon Cake

333 Steamed Daikon Cake ($3.60) – A good dish, not a lot of meat mixed in with Daikon. Did not taste home made.

Koi Palace Daly City Sesame Balls 2

441 Sesame Balls ($2.60) – Warm, not straight out of the fryer. Filling was not too sweet. OK, but not awesome.

Koi Palace Daly City Mango Pudding 2

451 Pan Fried Pumpkin Cake ($3.60) had 4 very sweet and sticky cakes with pumkin flavor and very sweet insides.

Pans:

None

Koi Palace Daly City Tea Pot

Tea Pot Warmer

Koi Palace’s service was a little better than average for a place like this. Servers were patrolling more often, so refills came often, although you still had to bark for a server to order. The breath of items was excellent, more extensive and more inventive than nearby places in Millbrae. Zen Peninsula is the other place that comes close.

Koi Palace has high quality dim sum and a superb choice for lunch. Go early, right when it opens or around 1:30pm, as this will reduce your wait time. You can also call ahead and get a number by phone.

If you do not know what to order, use our pictures as a guide.

Koi Palace on Urbanspoon

Restaurant.com $25 Dining Certificate for $10
Entertainment Book 2 for 1 restaurant coupons, food discounts, and much more

Overall Rating: (Excellent)

Come Back?

Food Rating: (Excellent)
Service Rating: (Good)
Atmosphere Rating: (Very Good)
Value Rating: (Very Good)

Guide: 0 = poor, 1 = Fair/Average, 2 = Good, 2.5 = Very Good, 3 = Excellent , 4 = Extraordinary

Alcohol:Full Bar
Attire:Casual
Hours:M-Th 11am-230pm. 5-930pm. Fri 11am-230pm, 5-10pm. Sat 10am-3pm, 5-10pm. Sun 9am-3pm, 5-930pm.
Parking:Lot
Reservations:Yes
Prices:$3.60 - $32
Share:
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • MySpace
  • Twitter
  • email
  • StumbleUpon

Related posts:

  1. Koi Palace Restaurant Dinner, Daly City
  2. The Kitchen Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review, Millbrae
  3. Hong Kong Saigon Seafood Harbor Dim Sum Restaurant Review, Sunnyvale
  4. Joy Luck Place Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review
  5. Asian Pearl Peninsula Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review, Millbrae

Posted on September 28th, 2009
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed.

8 Responses to “Koi Palace Dim Sum Chinese Restaurant Daly City Review”

  1. Diamond Harbor Seafood Restaurant Review, Foster City, 94404 | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] is similar to Hong Kong Flower Lounge. While the food is solid, they do not have exotic items. Koi Palace and Zen Peninsula have better dim sum and a much wider variety. Entertainment Book 2 for 1 [...]

  2. ABC Seafood Dim Sum Restaurant Review Chinese Food 94404 | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] the workers for most requests, but they did refill us and change our plates. While the food is ok, Koi Palace, Zen Peninsula, and Joy Luck Place all have better dim sum. ABC Seafood is located at 768 Barber [...]

  3. Shanghai Dumpling King Restaurant Review, San Francisco, 94121 | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] around and ask if you want them. How can you say no. Fluffy and hot out of the fryer. Better than Koi Palace’s more expensive [...]

  4. Dynasty Chinese Seafood Restaurant, Cupertino | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] restaurant and wonder how dinner would be. The dim sum is some of the best in the SF Bay Area, but Koi Palace still ranks higher. Hong Kong is home of the [...]

  5. Hong Kong Saigon Seafood Harbor Dim Sum Restaurant, Sunnyvale | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] be had with early lunches, and when the place is crowded and has a lot of turnover. Top notch spot, Koi Palace, starts fulfilling individual orders rather than dish out product that has sat. We would still [...]

  6. Champagne Seafood Restaurant, Lunch, Dim Sum, San Mateo | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] Super Egg Puff ($3.50) is not as nice as Koi Palace’s but still excelled with good crispiness and sweetness at a lower [...]

  7. Koi Palace Restaurant, Dinner, Daly City, 94015, Chinese Restaurant | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] in Dublin and at Thunder Valley Casino. We came for dinner and have previously reviewed their dim sum lunch. Our return trip was in late [...]

  8. Zen Peninsula Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review Millbrae, 94030 | Foodnut.com Says:

    [...] This high quality dim sum, this is a very good choice for lunch.  Asian Pearl Peninsula and Koi Palace better Zen Peninsula’s quality. Call ahead and get a number, this will reduce your wait time. [...]

Leave a Reply

Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name.