I see, thanks for the correction.
It’s usually pork, not beef.
If we are talking the dish photo above by Mr_Happy, with the same name, then it should be beef.
The pig one tends to show up elsewhere.
I just saw multiple pomelo skin dishes offered on The Kitchen’s menu. Not sure if they are good, if they are available at all.
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Is it even pomelo season yet? Didn’t think the citrus fruits were in at this time.
Evidently pomelo have a long season in California- there’s a grower down south whose website gives the local season as from early fall to mid-spring. I saw some big ones in a Vietnamese market in Chicago last week, and they did have a USA sticker on them.
(The main citrus fruit that doesn’t at all obey the usual rule of a winter season is Valencia oranges.)
Oh wow go figure. I just usually see them in droves around Chinese New Year so figured they were mostly a late winter fruit.
Back again after not having dim sum at KP for a while. Noticed that they revamped the dim sum menu and was intrigued by a few items.
I went early in the morning and their kitchen was running at full throttle. Got a lot of items super fast!
Starting off our meal, I got the fish fin jumbo buddha dumpling in broth. A nice hot broth to start off the foggy Daly City morning, there was a few fish fin slices with a nice texture (I find it quite similar to shark fin actually, not quite sure how they do that with these fishes), a slice of ham and fish maw within the dumpling. The broth was quite savory and went well with the dumpling.
The classic shrimp, pork and mushroom siu mai. The pork seemed to be made in such a way that the whole dumpling isn’t some sort of meatball but nice chunks of pork with mushrooms and shrimp pieces scattered throughout.
Up next were these funny looking dumplings. The Spinach and shrimp dumplings has an interesting exterior, you can see flecks of spinach in the wrapper. I liked the dumpling, but will probably opt for chives instead next time. The spinach texture is still a little on the mushier end than crisp when compared to things like chives.
The open faced shrimp dumplings with XO sauce! The dumplings were juicy and that extra hit of XO does the job nicely for an extra savory and slightly spicy punch.
Up next were the crab roe sea bass and shrimp dumplings. I had it a few times where the interior filling was less than juicy and a little oversteamed, but this time it hit the mark.
Yes yes… why am I order a Shanghai dumplings at a Cantonese restaurant… well I always liked the savory flavor of KP’s XLBs and I still find them enjoyable. This time the exterior skin was just a little less pliant and seemed more dry. Also they seemed to have switched over to the rather hard to pickup spoons versus the little aluminum trays.
Got the shrimp rice roll and they did a good job as well. Shrimp was still succulent though I probably should have added the soy sauce before taking the picture…
Following that I saw they had actual pineapple filled pineapple buns (normal pineapple buns are kind of a misnomer as they don’t actually contain pineapples but the cookie crust kinda looks like the skin of a pineapple). I recall Koi Palace made the Empress Dowager’s Crab dish with real crab so … something like that here?
Anywho, the innards of the buns was a pineapple custard that is like those pineapple cakes from Taiwan. The top was crispy and I found it to be a nice sweet treat though more of a curiosity order than anything else.
Another curiosity order are these matcha buns with lemon. A matcha hint on the outside with a lemon curd like interior, I found the bun to be pretty tasty.
These are the grilled chive and shrimp dumplings and the texture of these dumplings were quite nice. Crispy on the top and bottom but with a pleasanty chewy wrapper that wasn’t too thick. The chives had a good bite (unlike the spinach) and the shrimp just helps rounds things out.
This was on the little special menu that is printed out (possibly daily). This Shanghai style stir fry has a special element where the noodles actually contain fish. The noodle was a little spongy due to the added fish; not sure how to best describe it but it was unique. I do prefer the regular noodles due to the additional bite but this variant was quite fun.
At the end of our meal, the little trolley cart of tofu pudding was passing by and hey why not?! winter is coming soon…
Velvety soft, the tofu pudding was nicely done.
Also ordering the sugar egg puffs, they were freshly presented. Hot with a nice eggy interior! I went to Cooking Papa somewhat recently and they weren’t making them at the time 
And finally ending our meal, we got the pomelo, mango, sago pudding. Honestly, it reminded me of the mango pudding with some sago added and some pomelo on top. The evaporated milk gave some additional sweetness and body but I could have done without.
Overall, I still think Koi Palace is still the gold standard to compare dim sum items around the bay. Most items were served piping hot and didn’t feel like they sat around. Unique items are seen alongside classics and things just seem to be revamped over the years and don’t feel stagnant.
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Fascinating, could you taste it or was it more of a texture thing? Great report overall. How was the wait?
Oh I got there right as it opened. No wait lol
And regards to the noodles I thought it was more of a textural element. You can faintly taste the fish but its not really noticeable.
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The brand-new Noodles & Things in Millbrae carries these fish noodles. They said they will have them at the original San Mateo branch soon too. Both locations open till 1 AM. Be careful with those $2-3 toppings; you might end up paying close to $40 out the door for a bowl of noodles there.
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How was noodles and things? I tried going twice, but the line was too long so we went else where.
Anywho, new year, lets get dim sum and just wanted to see if anything really changed.
Started off with the beef balls and well they seemed pretty much the same as before.
Steamed radish cake with some XO Sauce.
Gotta keep the XO rolling. XO steamed shrimp dumplings are still delicious probably due to the XO…
The shitake with pork siu mai.
The crab roe and steamed seabass dumpling.
They changed up the small XLBs now that they come in a set of five. I personally still enjoy them, but you can probably get a better variant at your Taiwanese XLB shops.
The fish fin jumbo buddha dumpling in broth is still one of my favorites (okay I just like soup…) If anyone was wondering, its not from shark fin just some large fish that has similar textural fin like property as shark … but… I have no idea what fish that would be since the shark family have cartilage mostly and other fishes are bony…
For something entirely different, we tried one of their special of the day. This is the steamed rice noodle roll with soft shelled crab. I thought it was mmm… okay. The crab was quite crispy, but I didn’t think the flavors worked that well with the soy sauce.
We normally don’t order the multicolored XLB’s but this time on the menu they had a separate order for the colors and we opted to try the Pork/Beef/Chicken variety though I… ate the pork one so I can’t tell you about the others! Ack oh well haha, folks thought they were quite similar to the pork with slight textural differences from the minced beef/chicken.
Following that we tried the minced pork and chives potstickers. I thought they were fine but could be more juicy. I can’t recall which store on Clement street but they did a good rendition of this.
And ending our meal, we opted for some steamed bbq pork buns.
Overall, I think Koi is still the dim sum gold standard of the bay area with the classic items.
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We went a few weeks ago for the first time in a while. I was going to write about it but it fell through the cracks. We went New Years week during the week and the lines were crazy huge and the wait was longer than 1 hour. We were super impressed with our meal. It’s so disappointing to have a restaurant you really like that is unable to maintain QC. And it happens frequently unfortunately. But based on our last meal at KP, they are maintaining the high standard we have come to expect over the decade we have been going there. Even with overflowing crowds. Everything we ordered was excellent, as good or better than we have had in the past. People knock their XLB, and in the past we though thought they are usually, though not always, very good. On this last visit they were perfectly executed- perfect skins, filled with soup, excellent flavorful filling, highly well balanced and satisfying. On the visit before this one I felt they were overloading the food with MSG, but not so on our last visit.
I suggest going right when it opens if you can get everybody to wake up on time. Yeah they usually have very good QC, though when I went on New Year’s I was a little disappointed (I’ll post pictures later), but the wrapper on the shrimp dumplings and one or two other dumplings were … mm… gooey. I don’t know if it was due to a sudden drop in temp that week but wonder if that wrecks the quality of the wrapper.
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Longer than one hour is not even consider abnormal (New Year or not). Going early is definitely worth it. The wait time scale pretty bad, and it can be difficult to explain to other people. For example, if you go there at 11AM when they first open, you may not need to wait or less than 20 min. However, if you go there at 12:00, then expect 1-1.5 hour wait is normal.
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No, I suggest 9 am Sunday lol. Just drink more tea to offset the lack of sleep. But yeah, definitely avoid peak hours.
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I agree. 9AM for Sunday, 10 AM for Saturday, and weekday 11AM – whenever it first opens. To me, if you are 30 min away from opening is fine too. Say 9:30 AM Sunday, but the lines only get longer and longer.
The truth is that Koi is not any worse than many other restaurants too. I know many Ramen restaurants that the standard wait time is >1.5 hour. Marufuku Ramen at Japantown is usually 1.5 hour wait time even during opening. Many Din Tai Fung restaurants have long time. Koi is nothing.
Should I bring my newspaper and bird cage? 
Ha I’m sure the wait staff would more than likely hurry you up and free up the table.
Actually its kinda strange, I do remember seeing Vancouver and Toronto (as well as in Hong Kong) have some early dim sum discounts but guess no one goes early enough? or there probably isn’t enough competition for it to warrant early dim sum discount … that or they make money regardless of the hour.
