Zen Peninsula Lunch Dim Sum Restaurant Review

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.

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.

You can easily pick out Chinese catonese restaurants, as most have tanks of fresh fish, crustaetions.

This place is one of the few to serve fresh eel from the tank.  $19/lb and approximately 20lbs each equates to a meal much more expensive than French Laundry!

Menu pics

Dim Sum Menu

Special Menu

Website Menu

Picks:

Pork Buns ($2.60) - 3 small ones to an order. Texture and meat were above average.

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.

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 crunch and the meat flavorful. It has a ton of fat but, life’s short right?

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

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

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.

Sesame Balls ($2.60) - Warm, not straight out of the fryer.  Filling was not too sweet.  Pretty average.

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

Pans:
None

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 and Joy Luck Place.
This high quality dim sum, this is a very good choice for lunch.  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.  They also list a lot of vegetarian items.

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