King Tsin Restaurant

Love this place! Great food! The dimsum was pricy to me, maybe I’m just use to other places prices on dim sum. But other than that, it’s great.
Service was amazing our waiter was making jokes with us, and helpful he didn’t get mad when we asked what something had in it. They also have a full bar! With great draft beers

A very disappointing meal! First they changed the recipes of the menu. This place has been open for over 35 years. The recipes and food made this place unique and delicious. Now the food is mediocre. Our sizzling rice soup was cloudy. They also took a main staple dish off the menu which they were known for called Pan Touch Chicken. Just a very bad dining experience. The positive I will say is that their staff was gracious and friendly. It’s really too bad they felt the need to change recipes that they were known for. I came here for the food. I live 40 minutes from this place. My advice to them go back to the basics. Go back to what you’re known for. Needless to say I won’t be coming back here.

Excellent cumin lamb and egg flower soup! Service was alright a bit uptight! And not sure if they understood what I was asking at times.

As I mentioned recently, we had relatives in town from overseas. The Mother and I got together with them for a late lunch at King Tsin Restaurant. It was a dietary need of one of the relatives that we came here for lunch as they cannot eat meat, and they can eat seafood. It had been quite some time since The Mother and I ate a meal at King Tsin. It was a Sunday and King Tsin does not offer lunch specials on Sundays. So we ate family style, quite appropro for us.
When we walked in, I inquired if Albert Lou was still part of King Tsin Restaurant. I was told he was, and King Tsin is now part of a partnership with China Village.
We were greeted, seated and given menus by the server. I inquired about the pork dishes. The server tried to steer me to the braised pork shoulder. I resisted and opted for the less expensive bacon cut pork with veggies to share. The rest of the family chose shrimp with veggies, green beans with garlic, rice, and a deep fried fish plate for us to share. We started with a seafood soup that hit the spot before our main dishes came out. Our relatives had their caregiver travelling with them, so she served all of us our rice and fish while we passed the other dishes among outselves.
I must say we were quite impressed with the quality of our menu choices. Wow! It was so good, the green beans were nice and crisp. The deep fried fish was nice and crunchy – not at all greasy and not fishy in taste and smell. And the other dishes were quite good, and I got to eat most of the bacon cut pork and veggies as it was a tad bit too spicy.
I do believe it is safe to say we will eat at King Tsin again on a special occasion, especially when we have relatives visiting us from overseas.

Food was very cleans and delicious. Will definitely visit again. Try the garlic eggplant and chili fish

Finally we made our way to King Tsin. We were greeted by familiar faces!!! If you knew what I mean ;) good food, good quality, and great menu. A lot in the menu, take some time to read but since I’m familiar with Hunan and Sze chuan dishes we ordered some really delicious food! This is my place now for weekly spicy food fix.

My family came here for the first time two days ago since the recent owner and chef change. The dishes that I remember as most enjoyable were the seafood soup and the green onion sesame bread. The main attraction stir-​fry dishes all seemed to be a tad too salty or too bland. We ordered one of the chef specials, the clay pot duck. It has a chili pepper symbol on the menu so I expected it to be spicy and in fact it was «ma la,» or the numbing type of spicy. We ordered a fish dish which turned out to be a huge portion of fish fillets on a bed of soft tofu with black bean sauce. The fish was amazingly tender, however it was a bit too salty for my taste. It’s easy for my family to be critical when it comes to Chinese food since that’s the only thing we make and eat at home, but we will probably still go to King Tsin as a close, convenient alternative to the now ridiculously crowded China Village on those occasions when the house is void of food. It sounded from the interaction between a table near us and the host that some people are regulars, which is a good sign for a restaurant.

wow，I like the Chinese spicy food here, is taste very nice, I try a lot of Chinese spicy food restaurant in the Bay Area, King Tsin Restaurant is the best one I try. especially the Hunan Stir-​fired spicy shredded pork, dry wok spicy organic chicken, and the slice rib eye with gold broth taste very good. Is a nice place for someone who like Chinese spicy food. Come here taste it, very nice place.

I came one noon with two Mandarin-​speaking friends, motivated by all the news to the effect that King Tsin can be regarded as the second coming of China Village. We ordered from the lunch menu, which is tailored for the American palate. The result was A-​OK in the sense that we got exactly what we ordered.
My lunch special choice was the cumin lamb, served with white rice. (There are alternative rice choices, but our server didn’t ask us whether we wanted them.) The lamb itself was delicious. It was preceded by a first course consisting of an egg roll, a tiny bowl of egg drop soup and a shredded cabbage salad. These three items were served on a contemporary white rectangular plate that would not have been out of place at a Kimpton Hotel bar. Unfortunately, all three of these mini-​bites were kind of generic. They seemed to yell out «lunch special at a Solano Avenue Chinese restaurant.» This is why I said that we got what we ordered.
On the other hand, I was quite happy with the lamb, also as I said, and I liked my friend’s dumplings — she ordered a large bowl of steamed dumplings as a main course. We also had some appetizer pancakes with chives; these are like the appetizer pancakes at China Village, but not as good (in my opinion). The net result was an OK lunch that was at least vaguely disappointing.
Next time we’ll be by for a more serious mea that includes the braised pork shoulder as well as a couple of other China Village signature dishes.

2 of the chefs and some of the wait staff left China Village down the street, and came over to work for King Tsin. The cooking has really taken a great leap forward. The fish soup with a layer of dried peppers is my favorite. It is not as spicy as it looks. The broth is rich and clear, and the chuncks of fish are mild and succulent.
Another discovery was a braised porkshoulder that falls off the bone into an amazing sauce that is just packed with flavor. There are so, any delicious dished. You have to try the new King Tsin.

Food is good, customer service is rude. Told them there was a fly in their vinegar and he dismissed it and left the vinegar on the table. Just watch what you eat here.

What a great improvement to the menu. Fans of China village have a excellent alternative without the loud crowds. Execution is as good as cv has been with much of the same menu with a few new ones tossed in. I really like the beef stew in noodles for lunch. Personally I’d like to come back with s group to give their full dinner menu a go.

This place is a treasure. They are really giving their neighbor, my former favorite, China Village some lively competition. I love so many of the dishes: thousand pepper fish soup w mung bean noodles; vegetable A; pea shoots; kong cai; black pepper beef; the Best salted pepper fish fillet I have ever eaten; ma bo crab with soft tofu…
Come with a big posse of hungry, adventurous eaters; the food will not disappoint if you like real Sichuan and Hunan flavors!

I’m literally driving back home in tears with my fiancé. I cannot believe Albert sold, (the waitress said he partnered with the chef from China Village, but I feel in my heart there is no way!). I ASKED HER, I really was adamant in asking the waitress if the pot stickers were the SAME since they were «Under New Management». She smiled and said «Uh oh no, they changed the pot stickers but people complained and they’re still the same.». I said «You can’t change and still be the same.» She replied, «Oh I mean they went back to the old way.». LIES! ALL LIES!
I asked what is the difference between the Salt & Pepper chicken wings and the spicy chicken wings since they were on the same line on the menu and of course «Are they dry fried??».
«Oh no difference.». «Huh, what do you mean no difference?». She finally catches on and said «I mean one spicy and other is not but no difference. Yes both DRY FRIED.». LIES! ALL LIES, LIES, LIES! They are fried in a batter that tastes exactly like fried prawns which is puffy. THERE’S LITTLE TO NO SEASONING (including salt and pepper) except for the massively spicy chili oil that the fried dough wings are then tossed and oiled in.
You have ruined a huge part of my childhood memories with my family and you should be ashamed. The pot sticker dough is thick and horrific. Oil dribbled out down my hands when I bit them. The pork contents were dry and mealy and disappointing. The green leaves inside that I guess were supposed to be shallots tasted like used tea leaves.
Thank you for stealing a college students $ 20, for hiring people who don’t know the menu and basically lie to get you to stop asking questions And lastly I tip my hat and thank you for ruining a portion of my day to spend with my sweetheart.
So unfair.

It’s totally unfair for Unilocal to include reviews from several years ago, as this restaurant as of May 2015 is under completely new management, and the food has been transformed. You can ignore any reviews from before then.
China Village, just down the street, is rightly considered among the best Chinese restaurants in the Bay Area, and both the head waiter and a chef from that restaurant are part of the team that has taken over King Tsin. If you like real Chinese food, as opposed the Americanized gunk that many restaurants provide, King Tsin is a great find. I highly recommend the Chef’s specialties such as Braised Pork Shoulder, Thousand Pepper Fish, Cumin Lamb, Lamb in Sichuan Sauce plus the excellent Scallion pancake.
The foodies haven’t yet found this place so you can always get a table there and get quick service – unlike, alas, China Village, which is justifiably hugely popular. Service is attentive and friendly, and there’s a full bar. Highly recommended.

This restaurant under same name on Solano, but food change to szechwan cuisine. Very nice open area for spicy food restaurant ！ most spicy restaurants are small and air circulation are not good, but here is very open and clean. Foods are very yummy！ love the new changes!

King Tsin… I so wanted to become one of your regular «subjects» but alas I can not recommend you after two visits.
New ownership, new waitstaff and kitchen staff. I understood from one of the new owners that the new chef was from the highly respected China Village down the street, but unfortunately the meals I had here lacked the same attention to detail and delicacy of the dishes at China Village. Maybe we’ll try again in a few months to see if they have had a chance to improve.
Here’s what we had:
Cumin lamb lunch special. Iceberg lettuce salad with peanut sauce dressing (meh), cup of soup resembling hot and sour soup without the hot or sour (added vinegar from the table), and a vegetarian egg roll. Cumin lamb (with long grain white rice on the side) was decently spiced but loaded with way too much bell pepper, and I was unable to finish (this never happens!) due to some of the pieces of lamb not being sliced — about ¹⁄₃ of the lamb was in large ball-​like chunks that looked really funky.
Pan fried chive turnover. A bit too watery on the inside, and a bit too greasy. Flavor was passable but not very strong chive flavor.
Spicy pickled mustard green & fish filet in clay pot. This is our go-​to soup at China Village but here some of the fish was overcooked and some was undercooked, possibly due to improper defrosting before cooking. The pickled mustard was not cut into bite size pieces so you end up chewing on large pieces of this very salty vege. Took this home to finish cooking the fish.
Manila Clams in Black Bean Sauce. This was a disaster — there doesn’t seem to be any quality control. In this case the clams were cooked and then served to us without anyone realizing there was no edible clam meat on the entire plate. I’ve never seen this before in decades of ordering clams. We sent them back and decided to try something «safe» — salt and pepper prawns.
Salt and pepper prawns. Heavily battered and deep fried yet the batter was not crispy. We expected a minimum of batter or none at all and stir fried. Had to take these home to crisp in the oven.
Stir fried «morning glory» aka Chinese watercress. This was a bit greasy and undercooked.

Bummer. The old owners sold.
I called in my usual order: potstickers, Mongolian beef and generals chicken after a hard 4 days in a row at the hospital. To my dismay, the potstickers were definitely NOT the same ones I’ve been eating since 1976. The other items aren’t worth comparing. I’m super bummed!
I will be forever sad to never have those potstickers again I’ve been eating since I was 5. I wish the old family well and am sorry to see such nice people, excellent food, and a piece of East Bay history go.

The change in ownership and menu has left me no choice but to take this place off of my list of restaurants to hit in the east bay! Damned shame too because it was a rare gem on Solano Ave with top shelf dim sum. Now there is no dim sum and all that remains is OK Chinese food.
The second star is because they have prawns with string beans on the lunch menu.

Very cool, relaxed ambience. Came for brunch with the family. Looks like the old owners are back :)
Great chinese doughnuts and soymilk. Wonderful potstickers — homemade! Also enjoyed the dumplings. Chicken wings were fantastic, not greasy at all and very moist. Def better than average — we will be back!