Koi Palace Review

Koi Palace was disappointing, though the aquariums at the front are relatively neat. The place is amazing large and was fairly full when we were there but the noise level was fine.

We ordered seven dishes, which we decided on based on recommendations from past reviewers. These consisted of two appetizers and five main dishes which all arrived in a random order. Here's the lowdown:

• Shanghai steamed dumplings. Quite good.

• Pot stickers. Quite good; excellently cooked, fried but still soft.

• Drunken squab. Served cold in small pieces. We found the sauce too strong and the fat/skin to meat ratio too high (due to the way it was cut).

• Abalone slices and sea cucumber. Most didn't like the flavor of the dish (although I thought the texture of sea cucumber was neat).

• Chinese broccoli in ginger wine sauce. Nothing special. Actually not much flavor if I remember correctly.

• Honey smoked sea bass. This had an odd flavor which most didn't appreciate. Everyone agreed it didn't taste Chinese.

• Sampan shrimp. These were large (five inch?) shrimp deep fried in their shell. The shell was too thick to be edible so this required getting very messy with the deep fried coating to rip off the head and the tail. The flavor was okay but this was definitely more work and more mess than it was worth.

We were still hungry at 9:30 and asked for the menu to order something else, but were told the kitchen was closed. We proceeded to attempt to find someplace still open in Daly City for food at ten pm, but that's another story. (We failed.)

The conclusion? I wouldn't go back for dinner. I may go for dim sum, given the two dishes we liked were the appetizers and dim sum type food. Or I may go back if I want to try shark's fin soup, of which they have a wide selection.

Original Announcement

This Thursday I'm planning to head toward Koi Palace, a Cantonese-style restaurant in Daly City with an emphasis on seafood, at 8:30pm

http://www.koipalace.com/

It's actually more famous for dim sum and a wide selection of teas than for dinner, but its dinner component made the top 100 list in the Chronicle and I take that as a pretty good sign. It's also got an insanely long menu so I'll read bring some notes from restaurant critics on recommended dishes so we won't be entirely lost.

Please tell me if you are coming!

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