When I go to a Chinese restaurant, I expect subpar treatment but I certainly don't expect to be treated like utter crap. I had just gotten off a NYC flight , it was past 10PM and I was craving comfort Asian food. The Kitchen is open late and that's pretty much where the positives ended for me. From Yelp I found that they had a menu similar to Asia Pearl so I was thrilled to find a Japanese tofu/scallop dish that Asia Pearl used to serve. We ordered that as well as a beef claypot dish and waited. And waited.... The beef claypot dish came after 30 mins and by that time we were on our 2nd beer. I asked TWO DIFFERENT WAITSTAFF if they could check on the tofu/scallop dish and NEITHER came back to me.. they continued swirling around us but avoided eye contact and pretty much acted as if we didn't exist despite multiple attempts to flag them down. Note that this is after 11PM and the restaurant is about half full. After OVER 1hr15mins of waiting, I walked up to the hostess to inquire about the missing dish and she didn't even speak English so I attempted to communicate my frustration in broken Cantonese. She had zero clue... a "manager" eventually came up and I told him I'd been waiting for over an hour for a dish that I already inquired about several times. After 20 MORE MINUTES the manager comes to our table and said that the kitchen "forgot about the dish" and they could make it now if we're able to wait 15-20 mins. I was so fed up that we just paid, left no tip, and left still hungry. I'll NEVER RETURN HERE again given all the other options in the area. read more

The dimsum here is really good but damn, I wasn't expecting it to be on the pricey side. Is $65 for lunch pricey enough for 4 people?! The place is clean and well, I'd come back here again. I know now what to order but try to keep it at a minimum. read more

Come here if you want to be ignored and treated like animals. Forget the chaotic and crowded entry-way, skip to the waiter who abruptly stopped taking our order and walked away to the replacement waiter who breathed loud sighs and snorts before snapping at us to complete our order faster. The staff here will shove you aside to clean and turn over a table faster. They will spare you no second look once you're seated (who would leave after waiting so long for a table?) As asians we often sacrifice a lot in terms of comfort (loud noise, crowded tables, rude service) for some good food. But The Kitchen will try anybody's patience and ruin a big appetite. The food..? Meh. read more

I have to agree with "Re-Run H." and his review below. I would give it Minus 5 Star if there was such an option on Yelp. To Anita M below....how are you going to give this restaurant 3 stars when your review in essence is the same as "Re-Run H." The stupid waiter in the vest is the most rudest person I have ever known. The food totally suck especially when it came an hour and half later after our order....and we ordered simple dishes like 1) Hor Fun Noodle with Beef; 2) Chinese Broccoli with Beef. Besides the shitty service and the long long long wait for our food, the food was bland and just flat. And the price? It was outrageous for the experience we got! I felt cheated even for leaving a small tip. Save your moolas and go else where. read more

Susy C: Hurry up dinner is at 7! Susy C's friend: What are we eating? Susy C: Lobster SCF: oh okay *drives past The Kitchen* SCF: What the fuck? It's CHINESE food!? Susy C: Yeah, so? SCF: I hate Chinese style lobster! I thought we were going to a bar and grill! Susy C: No, it's Chinese. Calm down. SCF: ahhhhhh you guys tricked me!!! **** eating lobster ****** SCF: Holy shit! This is GOOD! No seriously, i'd come back here for the lobster. everyone else at the table: Uh huh...and you were whining about Chinese style lobster... The dim sum here is also good, get the freaking lo song bao!! When there's a long wait, just down the street and grab some Quickly's to help the time pass. I have to minus a star because they need to get their customer service straight. I've been eating here for over a year now and have always used my American Express card. These past few months, i've been going dim sum with friends nearly every weekend yet the last time THEY WOULDN'T TAKE MY AMEX CARD. They said they don't take it there. Confused, I took out my Mastercard instead. I could've swore they take AMEX, I always use it here and im sure i saw the logo on the door... GUESS WHAT YOU EFFERS! YOU DO HAVE THE AMEX LOGO ON YOUR DOOR! GET YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE STRAIGHT read more

This place's food arent bad. Hahaha. Sometimes i would go there with my family if we hav to wait a long time for another restaurant we want to go to. Lol usually we go there for dinner. The most previous time inwent was for lunch lol. I absolutely love the mango sticky rice on the dim sum menu! Idk why its called manga sticky rice lol it should be called mango mochi lol. But yeah. The stuff here are gooodd! But i think tjere are better ones too lol. This place's environment is good lol its big and there lots of ppl that go there. I also love these baked oysters they hav theree! read more

The Kitchen - Mango sticky rice dimsum! - Dim Sum Near Me - Millbrae, California

I was on my way to pick up my brother from the airport, and after getting there I find out that he missed his flight, and didn't call me to let me know! Thus the folks and I retreated for dinner here to try to salvage the trip up to SF. I wanted to hate this place. There was no parking, it was freezing cold, and I just drove about an hour around the bay for nothing. Hate was on my mind when we get to the door and it's about 9pm we haven't had dinner yet and it's so crowded that there are 6 groups still waiting for a table with numbers in their hands. Finally when we get seated and I just let the folks order without hesitation. The first dish we get is quail, and I am still feeling the hate. I'm starving and quail is just super hard to eat in general and not very meaty. But nevertheless it was good. Then came the soup. Pumpkin shark fin, crab and some other items. This was delicious! Ok hate starting to subside. Next dish was abalone, which I am just afraid of because one time I had bad abalone. Finally the lobster swimming in butter and garlic and veges came out and I was feeling pretty good. It was a terrifically interesting take on Cantonese classic foods. I feel as if this is the new canton flavors, while previously I had been stuck on the old school traditional canto foods. read more

Enough has been said about the food. It seems that taste is an individual thing. I'll write about the experience instead. My wife's aunt insisted on taking us here. She kept raving about this place she called "Chief Kitchen". Or was it "Kitchen Chef"? She kept using the two interchangeably, so Googling it for directions was a stretch. Now, my wife's aunt has a pretty poor track record for suggesting restaurants, so I was wary. Whatever shine and polish The Kitchen had, it's long gone and dulled to a greasy patina. The first thing I noticed was the waiting area. Chairs lined up along the wall had completely marked up the paint. Quite the visual. We were led to one of the back rooms down a hallway over the dirtiest "office carpet" you've ever seen. It would be impossible to determine the original color. As we sat in one of the back rooms, I smelled cigarette smoke as I died from the humid atmosphere. The Lazy Susan was a simple frosted round glass turntable. As I spun the Lazy Susan around for some tea, I realized the surface wasn't frosted, but coated in grease and oil. A quick scan around the room revealed that all of them were equally filthy. The menus were interesting. "Oh look" I thought. "They went with a distressed, antiqued look for the menus." I was wrong again. The large, charcoal-grey covered menus were covered in something resembling crepe-paper. It almost felt home made. I'm sure it looked fantastic when The Kitchen first opened, but the material simply doesn't hold up. It just looked thrashed. And heaven help you if you don't read Chinese; the menu items are in Chinese/English but the category headings are Chinese only. If you don't read Chinese, menu navigation can be slightly challenging. Oh yes, as another Yelper pointed out, I did get to see the faded green plastic chopsticks. Enough has been said about the food, but I'll just say this: The sweet red bean soup desert thing at the end had a total of about 3-1/2 beans sitting at the bottom of a brown broth with a rainbow slick of oil floating on top. If you're the type that feels that cleanliness is irrelevant, then by all means, go for it. read more

Do yourself and your family a favor & skip this joint, no matter how hungry you are! We are only saving you time and unnecessary troubles that are guaranteed to come up from being a patron to this restaurant. This place was introduced to us years ago when it was under different & BETTER management, when the dim sum offerings were still decent. After the management changed, my family and I took one last visit before calling it quits for good. Unfortunately, this year's Christmas day, we decided to have dim sum for brunch. The wait at the Mayflower 2 blocks away was over an hour (we should have stayed regardless; we are regular patrons to the one located in San Francisco). Anyways, we were all starving so we decided to suck it up and go to this joint to see how long the wait was. We placed our party down and was told the wait was going to be about 30 minutes so we decided to stay (THAT'S HOW HUNGRY WE WERE!!!). There were 6 of us in our party and we all stood outside the restaurant, next to the door. An hour passed by and we were all wondering what on earth was taking so long. When we walked in to ask about our table, the hostess told us that she had called our number MULTIPLE times. LIAR! Know how we know she lied? There is an exterior intercom system. All 6 of us stood outside and listened to EVERY number that was being called and repeated. NOT ONCE WAS OURS CALLED. Fast forward to 10 minutes later when 3 people from our party including myself confronted the hostess about her mistake. SHE DARES TO ACCUSE US OF LYING AND TOLD US IT WAS OUR MISTAKE FOR NOT LISTENING SINCE SHE CALLED OUR NUMBER MULTIPLE TIMES!!!! I explained to her that there was 6 people in our party and that she needs to rephrase her accusation if she believed that NONE OF THE 6 of us heard our number being called. She flatly refused and kept accusing us of lying to her. She refused to admit that it had been such a busy morning and that she is human, AND may have possibly made a mistake and SKIPPED over us (WHICH SHE DID!). Sadly, she chose the wrong family to piss off that morning and soon enough, she had roweled up our entire party and her colleagues had to intervene to apologize on her behalf. What's WORSE than this hostess was that NONE, NONE of the managers even cared or took notice of our disgruntleness nor did they make any gestures to resolve the issue. NONE! and there was 4 of them working that morning!!!! Needless to say, we will be passing the word to ensure others skip this place and save their money for a restaurant that is going to respect their patrons. For a place that does not serve $1.00 dim sum, they need to realize that they ACTUALLY need to provide EXCELLENT (or just provide it for starters!) CUSTOMER SERVICE to uphold their business, EVEN IF YOU'RE ASIAN! ***AND BEFORE YOU WANT TO ARGUE THAT THIS PLACE IS PLACED UNDER MICHELIN'S AWARD, WHY WOULD MICHELIN BE ANY SORT OF INCENTIVE TO EVEN TRY THIS PLACE OUT? MICHELIN IS RELATED TO THE WORLD OF AUTOMOTIVE, NOT RESTAURANTS. PLEASE TRY TO BE A SMARTER CONSUMER BEFORE YOU SPEND YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY, ESPECIALLY AT PLACES SUCH AS "THE KITCHEN"*** ^^^^In regards to the Michelin awards, I have gotten comments on how I should respect and edit my last words since it SUCH a respected award. Here's the thing. This restaurant HAS changed owners and therefore the quality of the food and the service has ALSO CHANGED. Just because the wall has the award hanging on it DOES NOT mean that the recent owners have earned it. It means the PREVIOUS owners did. As I mentioned, we used to frequent this restaurant for dim sum BEFORE the change of ownership. And please remember, Michelin is NOT the only respected award in the culinary industry. There is nothing to suspect here. If I do not enjoy the service that a place has to offer, I will make it known to save others the time and money from having a tragic experience. Please read the other mediocre reviews on here before suspecting mine to be fraudulent. read more

I really enjoy my experience here at the Kitchen. I ate here for my Chinese New Year dinner and all the meal my parents order was off the roof top. High quality Chinese food! The soup we order was around $120 but it had fresh Asian herbs and was so Delicious ! My favorite dish of all was the wasabi chicken and pig intestine. Definitely worth the Michelin star recommendation! read more

Come early no reservations needed. Know David? No reservations needed. they recently remodeled this place to add more tables and no back room. to be honest, this place has its hits and misses. on some nights its totally fabulous, on others, peh peh peh. :P my fav dish is the cold chicken with ginger, pig stomach, and wasabi appetizer. its yum! another recent favorite is the goose liver fried rice. here's a tip, if things are bad, just tell the head waiters. especially david or sonny. they'll do something about it, especially if you're like or are my mom. who wouldn't believe a Chinese "tai tai?" read more

Do not expect good service if you do not know anyone who works there. Food is good if you know what to order that is not on their regular menu. Carpet is kind of dirty. We enjoyed a dinner very much after a long time not visiting them. The steamed fish was outstanding. The goose feet clay pot was very disappointing. It had rotten flavored sea cucumber in it - not appealing. Then, we visited there again last week. The steamed fish is still good. But, the Peking duck was disappointing. I guess their cook must had another bad day. Basically - very inconsistent cooking and service can lack here and there. Meh. read more

Waited over an hour for a table and while waiting I saw a server stop TWO families asking for a bigger tip. If your service is bad and service is average why would you demand tip. Also, food came out wrong and asked the staff about it. Manager comes and raises her voice with us instead offering to just take it back to serve us the right plate. Would not recommend this place for their over priced average food. I'm surprised how busy it is for how bad the service is here. EDIT: LEFT TIP ON TABLE AND ON THE WAY OUT SERVER ASKED FOR TIP SO I GAVE HER A MOUTHFUL ABOUT HOW THEY CANT DEMAND FROM CUSTOMERS WHEN THERE WAS TIP ON THE TABLE. read more

I love the food from this restaurant. You can find special dishes which you can not get from other restaurants in the Bay Area. Even I hate the long waiting time, I may go back. Some of the dishes are a little bit expensive, but they taste so delicious. Good to try! read more

Food is below average. Service is TERRIBLE. The waiters and waitresses are all so rude. I go to a lot of asian restaurants and I am used to getting that typical bad Chinese restaurant service but it was terrible here. One of the waiters knocked down my cup of tea and it spilled all over the table and didn't even acknowledge it. He looked at it and continued what he was doing and walked away. Not on apology and he didn't even come replace all of my wet things like my napkins and plate. The manager was also screaming and yelling at one server, literally causing a huge scene. When the food comes the server will literally push us to put the dishes down and not even say excuse me. I seriously do not know how this place is run. On top of all that, the food was not even good. They charged us for random things that didn't even order and also messed up our order as well. Do not come here ever read more

Scammy Restaurant Our experience at this restaurant was very poor. It is unbelievable how scammy it is: Firstly, we ordered 2 lbs of seafood, they ended up claiming they gave us 3 lbs of seafood WITHOUT confirming with us first. We did not find out until they gave us the bill. I doubt it was 3 lbs and it was just a way for them to inflate the bill. Secondly, they __require__ a minimum 10% tip. Why call it a tip for such poor service? If you feel like getting a bill which is 50% more than what you would expect, and if you feel like giving a minimum required tip, you should visit here. I will not go to this restaurant again. read more

Too loud of a place. Food was only decent. Service wasn't too consistent. Only a decent place to eat if you have a good amount of people in a group. And finally, I was charged twice with out any notification. read more

Better than Koi for dim sum. Really impressed by all the sweets they make here especially anything with mango. Like mango mochi, mango pudding and a mango drink they serve in a bowl. Prices are decent (cheaper than Koi) and the wait is not as crazy. It may not be perfect (restrooms can be cleaner, service could be better, etc) but it's my fave place for dim sum. read more

I came here for a Chinese New Year dinner with my family. We had a special order of "bucket dish" (an assortment of abalone, pork, chicken, sea cucumber, etc) , but greatly disappointed by the stinginess of the meat given. Sorting through the bucket, I only saw mostly vegetables and very little roasted pork or chicken; abalones were in mini size, extra order is $15 a piece (came with 6 with original order). The bucket dish order was $188, but I felt like I can have better things if I just order regular dishes for the same amount of money. That was definitely a gimmick and not worth it. The bucket dish looked nothing like the picture from the poster. I felt scammed. We also ordered other dishes, some of them were okay and some were not bad. Although the taste was not bad in every dish, I still think this place is a rip-off , especially on their "special order" menu. If I am coming here for dinner next time, I would stay away from ordering the luxurious seafood dishes. Regular dishes are better deals. read more

The lady manager in the front desk is rude, rude. She made the experience to eat there is bad. I called and made an reservation, but it is not on the reservation list!! She did not apologize, but gave us a number To wait ! Our party has 2 elder people in their 90s. The lady saw it and did nothing to correct their mistake. When we ask for their manager, she said she is the manager!! She was very very rude. I guess if their owner Is not there, the manager can do anything she wants. All I can say is she is not suitable to work in service . read more

This review is just for dinner only. This place has one of best quality Chinese food I've tasted in the bay area! They have some pretty creative Chinese dishes that you probably can't find anywhere around here. I highly recommend the Dinner Date set course. This dinner set is a 6 courses meal for only $39/person. The dinner course consist of: - Roasted Squab - its basically a roasted mini chicken. This dish is just like any other roasted squab in any other chinese restaurant... good! :) - Shark Fin w/Crab meat in Pumpkin Soup - this dish was very good! They give generous amount of shark fin. It is served on a mini prop up bowl that's heated up over a fire in a can. The soup might burn if you let it heated for too long. - Steamed Boston Lobster w/Garlic Sauce - I actually don't remember how this one was like (its been a while), but i'm pretty sure its good. Can't go wrong with lobster. - Braised Abalone w/Sea Cucumbers - this dish is also pretty good. It's a small sized abalone and is very moist and tender. - Diced Oyster Rice Soup - this one is very clean and refreshing. It's basically rice drowned with clear soup and topped with crispy rice. I know sounds weird but quite good and surprisingly flavorful. - dessert - the last time I had dessert with the set course. They ran out of whatever desert that was listed and the chef created a specially made mango dessert. It was cold mango soup with variety of different tapiocas and beans. This one was also surprisingly very delicious! Overall, its difficult to find a good chinese restaurant, but The Kitchen is one of the few good ones! The Dinner Date set course is the way to go if you like chinese seafood with a twist. read more

I've been hearing about this place for a while now. People were raving about how good this place is and I'm not sure whether the staff has changed or their expectations were just different from mine, but overall my experience here was so so. The food is good, don't get me wrong. But it's just as good as Koi Palace, HK Flower lounge, Grand Palance... and the list goes on. Point is, its average. There was nothing amazing that would make me say "Hey, you HAVE to go to this place". I've never been here for dim sum so maybe it's different. Service wise, a lot of the wait staff will only speak Chinese. Our initial waiter came over and when we tried ordering in English, they didn't even acknowledge us or made any hand gestures for us to wait. As soon as we spoke, he just turned around and walked away. 10 mins later another waiter came and took our order, however they got it wrong. We didn't bother going through the effort to correct the order, and we're fine to always try something different and new. Given that there's some fantastic other options in the same area for Chinese food, like Wonderful on the next block over, I'd say we probably wouldn't be rushing to come back anytime soon. read more

This review is for dinner on 8/7/2013. The worst dining experience I've ever had in any restaurant! The server / hostess didn't care about the customers, or maybe just those non-Cantonese speakers. We were pretty much ignored for the whole night. We ordered our food around 7:40pm, which includes an apetitizer, a tofu dish, a beef dish and a fried rice. However the dishes came out to our table by 15-20 minutes apart. We had no choice but to eat one course at a time without our fried rice. We waited until 8:20pm and still no fried rice in sight. I asked a manager to check if the fired rice was actually cooking, and he said it's coming right away. Another 15minutes passed, we decided to pack all the left over and asked for the check. The manager just took my credit card and didn't even apologize for their delay. In any other restaurant this whole meal should have been free, but the Kitchen still dare to charge me 40 dollars. I would never come back to this place. As a Chinese and a Chinese food lover, I feel sorry for this pathetic place. read more

the kitchen was bit tough to rate....the taste was fantastic...every little dish i sampled was seasoned and marinated to perfection, and satisfied my tastebuds sincerely....the sticky rice wasn't bland...the spare-ribs were soo tasty....the meatball like items were soft and yummy.... my gripes...dim sum is all bite size small tapa style eats....when cutting spare-ribs or chicken...do not shatter the bones....it makes it very difficult to eat...it was bit tedious trying to carefully chew and pick out the shattered pieces of bones...while it was hot and tasty...difficult to eat any bone-in items...one clean cut with a sharp cleaver please~!~!~!!!.... another warning..do not get any items hand carried in a tray....cold and not fresh....ladies will hand carry a tray with one or two random items..trying to hustle them to a table...i was the unfortunate victim...the fried spring rolls tasted like yesterday's leftovers....be wise and get the items from the carts..and it's a good sign that food is fresh when you see a large batch of the same items that roll out in a cart.. *if you don't speak cantonese..be ready to use lot of hand signals and facial expressions to communicate with the waitresses read more

Do you want the good news or bad news first? GOOD: - Creative dishes like stir fried cow's milk and egg white with pine nuts. - Delicious dessert soups like the papaya soup we had the other night. - Food is cooked with enough "wok hay" BAD: - The slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow service - Expensive prices - Unfriendly, unattentive waiters - Not charging 15% gratuity on the bill for a party of 20, BUT writes in 15% gratuity after swiping our credit card. WTF?!!! - Being charged for a 9lb (YES, NINE FREAKIN' LBS!!) for a delicious fish and not being told. Each lb cost $22... you do the math. Yes, the food is good, but that's about it. They are slow, they are dishonest, and they are sneaky. The fish we got was split among two tables. There was no way we ate a 9lb fish. Normally when people order seafood, they'll physically bring the fish over or tell you how many lbs they charge you. It was our fault that we didn't double check with them but it tells you how dishonest these people are. What they do is "cheat the scale." I know restaurants usually charge you an extra half lb or lb to make more money off you, but cmon!!! That fish was NOT 9lbs! And while we tried to ask them about it, they insisted the fish was that big. PSHHH please! read more

Rating Dim Sum only! Everything is so fresh! Many choices, but a must have is the thousand layer cake. It's a steamed dessert filled with custard and other deliciousness. The rice rolls are pretty good too. Along with the steamed beef balls. Came with my family and ordered a table full of food. Even though it was Memorial Day, we got a table rather quickly (strange). If you're in the area, this is a good choice for dim sum! read more

Came here most recently on the way to the airport to fly off to the Motherland (and awesome Chinese food). Ended up getting diarrhea from some of the food here, which is definitely not something you want to have when you're flying SFO-HKG coach. I'm not one to remark on service (especially at a Chinese restaurant), but the waiters were seriously sub-par. When your kitchen puts out spoiled food, just take it back and bring it to your manager. There's no point trying to argue with the customer that its still edible. They ended up comp'n the dish (Fish Roe Sauce on Pomelo Leaves), but definitely not a good experience. My pick was for the fried oysters. The oysters tasted fresh, but the way they prepared it pretty much ruined this. All you could taste was oil with pretty much no other seasoning. When you pay this much for an oyster, It should taste better than bathing-in-heat-lamps stuff you get at buffets. Only redeeming dish was the Macau Pigs Foot. Very flavorful (especially with the vinegar for contrast), but a bit overcooked. For a restaurant that took boasting to the next level (with prices reflecting this), pretty disappointing meal. read more

Went here once again because it was close and was somewhat encouraged again because reviews were okay. Dim sum (the usual shu mai, beef balls, tofu wraps, etc.) is so so, 2-3 stars. Regular Chinese was the same. But the service without fail is just horrible. And not in the standard bad Chinese restaurant service kind of way but really bad and consistently so. There's no order to the lines of people waiting, no waiting list sheet, and the people in the front just really don't care. Tonight all we ordered was some fried rice. Fried rice for crying out loud. And it took 34 minutes to come. There were 5 parties that came after us and we're served before us. No apology, no let me go check for you, no we're really busy tonight please be patient - even in Chinese which we could have understood. I get it, if I had a Chinese restaurant that had all sorts of cool dishes and some jerk walks in and orders FRIED RICE maybe I'd be tempted to make them wait too. But I wouldn't do it. Since I'd care about my Yelp ratings too much. So no stars for you. 0 Stars. That averages out to 1 Star. read more

BAD Bad bad. The food was a huge disappointment. Nothing was good. We had dinner one Wednesday evening at a slightly full The Kitchen. I was very surprised at how poorly the dishes were made. There was a pork dish we didn't touch. We didn't even take it home it was so bad. I love leftovers, but this had to find the garbage can immediately. The biggest killer was the service. Normally there is some leeway when it comes to Asian restaurants in general, especially for Chinese restaurants. They're not that hospitable but wow is the service fast. Here the service is incredibly slow. It took us a long time to shoo down a waiter to take our order. Once we received all but one of our dishes, it still took an additional forty minutes to get our last dish. This was only accomplished by constantly nagging at our waiter and manager; neither party was really interested. As soon as we received our last dish they handed us the check. Not only that but it took a lot longer to get the check picked up. Quite possibly the worst service in recent memory. ___ Don't come here unless you're longing for prison treatment. The food isn't even good. read more

My cousin's family and my family came here last night for dinner to celebrate my aunt's birthday. We ordered one of the set meals, but substituted shark fin soup instead of what was listed. My favorite part of the meal was of course the peking duck. The buns are soft, fluffy, and warm--like little pillows from heaven. I felt like our meal was a little more extravagant than what you would have at a typical Chinese restaurant. Though I hate proselytizing, I would have to say that I hope that they don't use real shark fin. I've seen a video of how shark fins are harvested and it would be the equivalent of someone cutting off your arms and legs then throwing you back into the ocean. It is really horrible. I really love the taste of shark fin soup, but after seeing that I highly doubt I'll ever eat it again. read more

Of the 5 or 6 dishes we ordered, my favorite was the porkbelly (of course it was). It was nice and crispy and full of unctuous fatty goodness. The dim sum was nice and had a delicate touch. I would love to give this place the 4th star but the service seriously killed it. Yes, we did come in at 2:30 for lunch but if you don't want to serve us, just don't let us sit down -- there are plenty of places that don't close between lunch and dinner service and we would have happily gone to one of those. Don't make us order 2 seconds after we sit down and make us pay before the food even arrives. Aside from the service, I find it kind of tacky to cover the entire waiting area with poorly done, glossy reproductions of the awards you have won. Being so close to the airport, however, I will probably end up coming back here to eat on my next trip to California. read more

This place is always busy so we came early at 5:30 to get a seat, they told us we have to get out by 7pm which is okay. We had the roasted pork knuckle, steamed fish fillet, tofu with mushroom, chinese zucchini with bean noodles, beef with vegetables and they were wonderful! The food has yet to disappoint me,I only wish their service can be more courteous. read more

We were having a mini-school reunion and looking for dim sum up in Millbrae. Fook Yuen was closed for renovations, so we decided to check out The Kitchen. Overall, it was pretty decent dim sum, without too much of a wait. As I've come to expect from dim sum in the Bay Area, the food ran the spectrum. Some of it was good, even really good, while some of it was definitely not so good. Highlights included the har gow, the fried radish cake, the deep-fried dumplings (xian shui jiao), the chive dumplings and sticky rice chicken. Mediocre items included the siu mai (too dry) and the chicken feet (not enough flavor). Not so great items included the shrimp chang fen (much too dry) and the Shanghai dumplings (I suppose this can't be helped, but my friends ordered it). Definitely worth a return trip, as it's probably one of the better dim sum places on the peninsula. read more

Went here on a late night. Ordered the porridge, none left. They asked me to switch, so I ordered the stir fried ho fun. They came out 20 minutes later saying no ho fun left. Then I asked for the check. They charged me for the orders that they ran out of in that check and I had to tell them to fix the check. Wow, if that is not horrible for a dining experience I dont know what is. Not to mention the managers were very rude and did not apologize once. Bad bad bad read more

I usually come here for dinner, haven't tried their dim sum yet. It's one of my parents favorite restaurants, so it's one of my choices for a family holiday celebration dinner. Yes, this is a typical busy Hong Kong style restaurant, so they try to have as many tables/seats as they can, with little room between tables (dinner). In general, the food is excellent. As proof, the place is usually packed while many other nearby restaurants are empty, so you should expect some waiting time (remember to get a number when you check with the hostess, they'll call your number when the table is ready). In my opinion, The Kitchen is ten times better than Koi Palace. read more

Been coming here many times! My last trip was the worst, in terms of food quality, accuracy and service! We ordered a braised tofu with fish, and there were only 6 or seven small pieces of fish, for $16??? We also ordered half of a ginger sauce chicken which never came! We kept waiting and waiting for it to come, and only realized that it was never entered the system after 45 mins we started eating! Worst part is we spent 10 mins looking for a waiter to come by to inquire about the status of the missing dish! After we called for the check, they were supposed to serve us free sweet soups as a dessert. Every table around us were getting it. Again, ours never came, never offered to us! Our bill came out to be $101 for 3 people ordering 1 soup 3 dishes! Because this unpleasant experience of dining and their lack of attention and service. Instead leaving no tip, I gave them $5. Something better than nothing. When I was leaving! The greedy cashier lady stopped me and asked me in a demanding tone to tip her mandatory 10% of bill Minimum! In front of other customers! How Dare u? Is that how u approach your paying customers? How about saying " thank u for dinning with us! you only tip us $5 for a $100 bill, May I Know if there were something wrong with our service???" Then I would nicely tell you. Instead of talking to her nicely about why, I yelled at her for no service! WHERE IN THE HELL SAYS THAT? U THINK U ENTITLE TO TIPS? Because I walked in and dine there? Tips = well served and satisfied ME (the customer)! Food is overpriced and service is seriously lacking! I hope the owner reads this and retrain your staff about customer service! Will serious consider not coming back, there are plenty of options of good Chinese food around! read more

I don't remember the kitchen to have outstanding dim sum but didn't think it got worse. Went there because there was no wait line. Well... the saw the lady passing by with the chives and shrimp dumplings (2 plates) and asked for one. It came with some hair (eye lash or something) We asked the switch it right away. Then she turns around and pick the hair out and gives to another table. I know they would probably do it but at least not in front of us... The hair parade didn't stop there. Midway through a shanghai dumpling, I found another long white hair in the middle. I lost my appetite and just wanted to leave. The price is not that great either. I will probably not return since there are other better options in the area. read more

The food is really great. We love the taste. However the staff's behavior were really bad. They are really impolite to these customers if you give them the low tip. My family had a dinner with 6 people. The bill was $192. My mom count the wrong amount so she left $18. Their staff look like threw these tip on table. They talk Chinese with the rude face. They can explain to us what was happening but they didn't. Especially the guy at the receptionist. I hope you guys enjoy the food but be careful with the staff. Make sure they don't let your feeling down. read more

I'm Chinese, and I kinda get used to the services provided at the chinese restaurants. But I still need to advise you to prepare to be yelled at or bad mouthed when you eat there, someone might drop a F bomb for you too. Have fun and enjoy it. ' read more

Pretty good overall, and I like the fact they're open late. I was craving some good Chinese food after my flight from Mexico! For 3 people, we ordered the jellyfish and beef appetizer, Thai Style vermicelli (mi fun), fish head clay pot, and this dish that has a bunch of mushrooms and other veggies in it. The portions are huge, and we ended up taking a lot of food home that we could continue eating for like 2 days. I really liked the jellyfish; not too oily and spicy like at some other places and the beef was flavorful. The vermicelli was my other favorite. It has shrimp, chicken, eggs, and some beef in it, along with some bean sprouts. There was such a variety of mushrooms in the mushroom dish-- I highly recommend it if you love mushrooms! The only thing I didn't like about it is that it was drenched in sauce that clearly has too much cornstarch (pretty typical though). The fish clay pot was pretty good. There was a lot of leeks in there that makes it smell amazing. There's also complimentary dessert soup at the end. Not going to talk about the service because it's pretty typical Chinese restaurant service. However, they are quick and well-staffed. read more

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