Zen Peninsula Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review

Zen Peninsula 1180 El Camino Real Millbrae, CA 94030 650-616-9388 Website

Zen Peninsula is a Cantonese Chinese restaurant in Millbrae.  Millbrae is ground zero for some of the best Chinese food in the SF Bay area. It has been around since 2004 and specializes in wide selection of Dim Sum for lunch and special dishes for dinner. They have an extensive printed menu that you order on, and a small number of carts, servers serving dim sum. We last visited in early 2010. Zen Peninsula Dinner has a separate review.

Dim Sum Cart

This place is a very busy and a super noisy Chinese restaurant with lots of families and friends eating together. Typical decor for a place like this. Lots of flat screen TVs. We arrived on Sunday at Noon, and had to wait only 5 minutes to be seated because we called ahead of time. Weekdays are a lot less busy, but freshness becomes a concern if you come too late. You can easily pick out Chinese Cantonese restaurants, as most have tanks of fresh fish, crustaceans.

This place is one of the few to serve fresh eel from the tank.  At $19/lb and approximately 20lbs, this beast costs more than a French Laundry meal!

Menu pics (Click to zoom in on any picture)

Website Zen Peninsula Menu – Be sure to try the items highlighted in Red

Picks:

Pork Buns ($2.60) – 3 small ones to an order. Texture and meat were above average. Ordering during peak busy times ensures freshness.

Shark Fin Dumpling Soup ($3.80) was good. Delicious broth and good sized dumpling.

Fried Pork Dumplings (Ham Soi Gok) ($2.60) – Fresh and hot out of the fryer. Crunchy. Good meat filling. Best version we’ve had. During a weekday visit, it was not as hot, but still of solid quality.

Steamed Spare ribs in Black Bean (pai gwat) ($3.20) – Tender meat and good flavor. Not too oily or salty.

Suckling pig rice Bowl ($6.50) was a dish we had not encountered before.  The pig was awesome. The skin was super crunchy, yet the meat tender and flavorful. It has a ton of fat but, life’s short right? Comes with sweet beans and sugar sides.

Zen’s Roast Pork ($5.50) with a peanut sauce was top notch. Nicely thinly sliced BBQ pork or char siu with a nutty topping.

Golden Kabocha Fries ($5.50) is a top 10 seller, a large serving of deep fried Kabocha squash.  Anything deep fried is good..!  Healthy veggies inside too..

Seaweed and Jellyfish ($5.50) was a very good dish with good sized portions of tender and jiggly jellyfish and slightly salty seaweed.

Pan Fried Turnip Cakes ($3.20) were a solid rendition of the classic.  Good size, nice crust, fully blended turnips, made for a good dish.

Marinated Chicken Feet ($4.50) was a big classic dish of cartilage and skin on a bed of pickled vegetables. Very well done.

String beans with minced pork ($5.50) is a top 10 seller.  A nice tasting dish of chopped up stir fried beans with some bits of pork.

Green Tea Sesame Mochi ($3.20) was a very sweet dessert for those into tempting desserts.  The filling was way to sweet, but the mochi and nuts on surface were good.

Rose Lychee Jello ($3.20) was a very good simple and jiggly dessert.  Not too sweet and just right balance of lychee fruit on top and jello.

Red Bean Lychee Jello ($3.20)  had translucent lychee jello on top and a red bean jello on the bottom.  A nice Chinese style jello with a blend of textures, mild sweetness, and unique flavors.

OK:

Chicken Feet in black bean sauce ($3.20) was average in quality.  Tender and fairly average sauce.

Shrimp Rice Noodle or Crepes (Shrimp Chung Fun) ($3.80) – Chopped into many small pieces, normal amount of shrimp, not too oily. Beef version was about the same, quality wise.

Sesame Balls ($2.60) – Warm, not straight out of the fryer.  Filling was not too sweet.  Not bad, but pretty average.

Glutinous Rice Wrapped in Lots leaf ($3.80) -  Were of average size and filled with decent tasting pork, egg, and other goodies.

Steamed shrimp dumplings ($3.80) or har gow were decent but had a very thin wrapper which made it hard to pick them without full disintegration.

Fried Shrimp Taro Dumplings ($3.20) was average at it had sat around for a while.  No piping hot filling, but still a good amount of crispiness on the outside.

Peking Duck ($12) for half is far more generous than Yank Sing’s mini slices. Quality was fair as it seem like it had been made a while ago, making the meat dry.  Buns  were too tiny.

BBQ Pork ($5.50) was pretty average and very sweet. Get the similar Zen’s roast pork instead.

Pans:

Egg yolk buns ($3.20) were yellow and had a oily, runny interior.  A recent one at Champagne Seafood was far better.

Shanghai style pork dumpling soup ($3.20) were thought to be classic Shanghai dumplings but was a soup with 3 balls of meat in it!  Taste and broth was fine, but someone needs to correct this dish.

Zen Peninsula’s service was a little better than average for a place like this. With less carts jamming the aisles, servers were patrolling more often. The breath of items was excellent, more extensive and more inventive than nearby places Hong Kong Flower Lounge, The Kitchen. 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. If you do not know what to order, look at our pictures and also consider the top 10 items colored red on the menu.  The menu also list a lot of vegetarian items.

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5. The Kitchen Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review, Millbrae