Yue Kee, Mobile Kitchen

I heard great things about this food truck but what I got was very disappointing. The fried rice had very little vegetables in it, the noodles with spicy ground pork and tofu was swimming in oil and the noodles seemed more like Italian spaghetti than any Chinese noodle I’ve had. But the clincher was the Mapo Tofu which people rave about. It was so salty that neither my friend nor I cared to finish it.

I had one of the worst sweet and sour chicken. It seemed that they cooked chicken, green pepper and the sweet and sour sauce separately. The chicken lacked flavors. Also the chicken didn’t have a lot of meat but was more like a bunch of fried flour. Won’t try it again.

Prices are awesome, $ 5.50 for general tsos and shrimp roll however the chicken was fried/​breaded and sliced into long thin chicken breast pieces (kinda gave me a feeling of chicken tenders) with general tsos sauce over it. But the platter was still good, I just wish they had their chicken cut up into smaller pieces. And there will be a wait because they cook it as soon as you order, which I believe is a good thing– it’s hot and fresh.

I had their Mapo Tofu. It is really good and unique. Althouh it’s not the traditional way of cooking it, it has a tasty ingredient: pickled bamboo shoot. I think they cooked it after order, so t here’s some waiting time.

Momma Yue Kee… You failed me. I was trying to show my BF how awesome your food is and his General Tso’s chicken literally had three small pieces of chicken swimming in sauce… That ain’t right.
Now, I still love your mapo tofu and your eggplant with garlic sauce, but be a little bit more generous with the chicken next time please!

Yue Kee is so-​so.
If you eat here, the best dish to get is fried noodles/​rice noodles because they have the «wok flavour» from being quickly fried with oil in a wok at high temperatures. However, there’s not much else going on flavour-​wise & they use a disproportionately small amount of vegetables or other (non-​noodle, non-​oil) ingredients. The texture of the fried rice noodles was fine.
The dishes with rice are generally not so good.
Eggplant was so-​so. Sauce and flavour aren’t great.
Fish was not good. I’d avoid.
Pork belly was tender & fatty but not flavourful. There wasn’t enough of the pickled vegetable & the sauce was watery.
Portions are large and cheap, but it’s very oily & generally short on flavour & other ingredients.
2.5 stars

For its price it is worth 4 stars — I highly recommend their beef chow fun — it tastes equivalent to what you get in philly Chinatown but for half the price! (~8 dollars in Chinatown versus 4 dollars here!).
Some other thoughts…
Their «fried rice» does not have as much mixed vegetables or egg as why you think of traditional fried rice. It’s less flavorful as well so not as good but again, 4 dollars for most dishes equals its quality.
Call in your order or risk waiting for around 30 minute if there are around 5 people ahead of you.
Otherwise enjoy!
Cash only here as most food trucks typically are!

Nice and cheap Mapo Tofu.

I’ve been going to this food truck a few times a month for seven years now. As someone who grew up in a Cantonese household in NYC eating Cantonese dishes practically every night until I left for college, I can vouch that their food is pretty authentic Cantonese food and it’s why I still go to them. If you’re looking for good Americanized Chinese food — you may be disappointed here.
I’m a big fan of Yu Kee because practically every dish is cooked to order (not meat and sauces scooped out of a vat that’s been simmering all day and plopped on top of rice which is what a lot of the other «Chinese» food trucks do) and priced very very very reasonably between $ 3.50 and $ 5.
My favorite dishes are:
— Sub Gum fried rice (fried rice w/​shrimp, roast pork, chicken & veggies)
— Eggplant w/​Chicken in a black bean sauce
— Singapore Noodles (Rice Vermicelli w/​roast pork & shrimp in a dry curry sauce)
— MaoPo Tofu (Tofu w/​ground pork & shredded bamboo shoots in a spicy sauce)
The Negatives: LONG wait time since every dish is cooked to order, so call in your order if you don’t want to wait. The wait can be 10 – 20 minutes. The owners can be rather short and abrupt when taking orders — it’s just how they are.
Overall, it’s cheap authentic Cantonese food and some of the best you’ll find outside of Chinatown.
The other decent Cantonese food truck is Mai’s on Drexel’s campus on Ludlow St behind the Main Building. I also noticed quite a few reviews suggesting Kim’s. While Kim’s food does taste decent, it’s Americanized Chinese food. To each their own.

Yue Kee is a stalwart of the Penn food truck scene. The truck might appear battered and dodgy, but its food is tried and true. Nothing fancy, but everything is cooked-​to-​order and about as good as food truck Chinese food gets. I like the various egg foo youngs and fish dishes here. The waits are long here so most of the regulars know to call ahead to avoid standing outside for 10 – 15 minutes (or longer during the lunch rush).

I love this place. For a grad student living on loans, this is the best place to eat. You get a ton of fresh cooked food for a very very cheap price. Most of the things on their menu are $ 4 – 5, and since I’m vegetarian most the food I get is $ 3.5−4. And these are meals that leave you full and satisfied. The portions are very big, you could even save half for a late night snack.
I’m sure they use MSG, and are high in sodium and oil, but just imagine you get a fresh cooked meal for just $ 3.5!
I always come here to get food during study sessions. I even considered eating here for every meal and not buying groceries anymore. Thats how much I like it!
My favorite is the eggplant tofu.

Huge selection for a food truck. My favorite is ginger chicken, that not even many store front Chinese restaurants have. Prices are also very good. Quality may not be good enough for some Chinese lovers, but not bad for a food truck with so much selection.

Always always always always always call ahead. If you do that and remember how little you’re paying for these dishes, you will be a fan of Yue Kee too.
In my opinion, Yue Kee is not the place to go for sesame chicken (or similarly Americanized Chinese food) or eggplant chicken. Stick to Kim’s for that. At Yue Kee, my go-​to dishes during my Penn years were the spare ribs in black bean sauce (which generally sells out by 6:30PM so have a back-​up when you call your order in so that your tears of shock are not audible over the phone) and the mapo tofu. Surprisingly enough, the spare ribs dish never left me wanting in terms of meat: vegetable:white rice ratio. The mapo tofu, in my humble opinion, was also very delicious and rather authentic, as the bamboo shoots definitely provided a welcome contribution to the flavor.
These two staple dishes from Yue Kee were an all around great addition to any study/​cram sesh I had in Huntsman, Commons, or the high-​rise computer labs. If you’re in a rush and don’t want to veer too far off Locust Walk to Kim’s, or if you want a mean mapo tofu or homestyle spare ribs, call ahead (15 minutes) to Yue Kee!

Passable, not-​quite-​authentic Chinese food.
Plenty of food, but there is a definite focus on quantity over quality. Several of the sauces they serve over their food taste «cheap» (think frozen Lean Cuisine) and I often try to scrape them off. But there’s just so much that the food is swimming in it. The rice, oddly enough, is sub-​par too — flavor is off and texture is a bit hard. Expect a long wait and rude service during busy hours, too.
Sorry, Yue Kee — Kim’s is only half a block away.

When you’re a poor college kid making $ 7.5 an hour washing ethidium bromide off test tubes and budget $ 20 a week for food, this is definitely the perfect Friday night treat.
Weekly college food budget:
$ 3 — penne pasta
$ 2 — pasta sauce (Ragu you ma boo thang)
$ 4 — apples
$ 4 — bananas
$ 2– eggs
$ 5 — YUE KEE!!!
Man what can I say, you drop $ 5 up at this joint, you can get ANYTHING YOU WANT. No waiting for restaurant week deal bull and dropping $ 35 + tax and tips. Let’s face it, you only get dragged out to restaurant weeks because you need to pretend to care about whoever you’re dating, but at that point, the relationship isn’t worth saving anyways.
$ 5 gets you mapo tofu/​general tso’s chicken/​sinagpore noddles/​pepper steak. They even give you a fortune cookie! Killer deal right there. The service can be slow, so it’s best to call in to place the order beforehand. Once you get there, you can just walk up to the lady and say what you ordered. Usually it’ll be ready.
The food is pretty fresh, I’ve seen the Yue Kee couple shop at BJ’s in the Philly suburbs. If only BJ’s could sell Yue Kee in bulk…

I have been eating here at least three times a week during my college life, so this speaks of how much i like this place, as a poor college kid.
I never got food poisoning from yue kee but I got it from kim’s before, so I think food quality here is a little better here.
I always got their tomato beef with extra egg in it. Unlike other chinese place, they make this dish into more like a broth dish. So the end product is a warm broth with tomato, egg and beef on top of the rice. So good!
I have also liked their brocolli shrimp when I was on a diet. Make sure you ask for no bamboo shoot if you don’t like canned bamboo crap like me.

Say what you want about Yue Kee, they do what they’re supposed to, and they do it well. Sure the service could be nicer, but the food is cheap and tasty, and that’s all one should ask for.
I almost opt for something on the right side of the menu (daily specials) that is generally $ 4. The beef chow fun gives the most food for the price, but be prepared for a ton of oil. The chickens (sesame, grandfather, general tso’s) are decent. My favorite is definitely the eggplant tofu though.
If you get nothing else from this review remember this: call ahead during busy hours. Thank me later.

I’ve heard so much about this food truck! People have told me over and over that it’s. the best.
I may have gone before (but it must not have been memorable if I can’t remember if I have), but I (re)visited yesterday. I ordered their lunch special set, which for $ 5.25 comes with a soup, egg roll and your choice of a dish. I got the snow pea with chicken. The catch with the lunch special is that it’s not really a great deal. The snow pea with chicken would be $ 4, the soup $ 1.25, so all you’re really getting in the special is a free eggroll (which I could care less for to begin with).
The snow pea with chicken was good, but that was about it. The hot and sour soup looks like (and I guess tastes like. I only took 2 sips) hot and sour sauce dumped into some water. It’s a red-​ish color, when traditionally, it should be more of a brown color. The eggroll had veggies and shrimp. I took half a bite before giving up on it, but to be fair, I was never a fan of eggrolls to begin with, so a bad eggroll becomes a really bad eggroll in my books.
Oh, and the Mapo Tofu everyone talks about. My friend got it, and I tried it. It was authentic, but slightly on the salty side. But, for $ 3 something bucks, you can’t really complain.
So… the verdict. I still prefer Kim’s Oriental. Maybe just the familiarity of it now at this point since I go at least once a week. Leaving you with my fortune from the fortune cookie I got: «forego the eggs and wait for the hen» (something like that).

I really want to love this place as much as everyone else seems to, but the overall experience has just never really been worth it for me.
Now don’t get me wrong. The food here is great! Very authentic dishes, and the price for a full meal is usually only $ 4! You honestly can’t get any cheaper than that, and I highly doubt that you’ll be able to find a more cost-​friendly dining option in University City. The potato beef is a solid choice if you’re looking for a starchy and meaty meal to fill your stomach.
Unfortunately, the service here is terrible. The woman who normally takes the orders is pretty rude, and sometimes she doesn’t even acknowledge whether she heard your order or not. The last time I went, I ordered Fish with Garlic Sauce and started waiting. After 15 minutes of standing in front of the truck, she finally gets around to telling that they’re out of garlic sauce and that they can’t make the dish. I then proceeded to wait another 15 minutes for them to make me a new fish dish with another kind of sauce. I knew that their garlic sauce shortage wasn’t something that they had just found out about, so why couldn’t she just tell me that at the beginning?
I ended up waiting for almost half an hour to get a dish that I «ordered.» Personally, I find that level of service unacceptable.
The chef is a pretty nice man though. He sometimes runs the whole truck by himself, and he’s always very polite to the customers.
Be warned! Yue Kee takes a very long time to make its dishes. If you’re thinking about getting food from here, call ahead and get them to start making it before you show up. Otherwise, you might wait anywhere from 10 — 20 minutes for your food.
I guess it’s true what they say: Cheap, Fast, and Good. Pick two.
Yue Kee. Outrageously cheap. Great Chinese food. Terrible and slow service.

I can’t complain about this super convenient food truck. As a undergrad selling my soul to none other than Huntsman Hall every night of the week during the school year, it’s always comforting to know that Chinese food is just 2 minutes outside. I’m personally a Kim’s fan, but there are many reasons to why I stop by Yue Kee every so often.
Pros:
–Call-​in order; call the lady with the order, and 15 minutes later, the food is guaranteed ready, saving everyone from miserably awaiting for food outdoors
–Lunch special is a great deal! Comes with a tasty soup or soda of your choice.
–Saves $$$! I’m convinced that Yue Kee costs less than Kim’s
–Fortune cookie; on a sad, dark day, a good fortune is worth more than almost anything!
–Mapo Tofu is delicious! And an awesome deal at $ 3.50 a la carte
–Hours, hours, hours! I think it’s been open til 9pm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this place closed…
Cons:
–Do not get the Chicken Thigh Rice (Ji tui fan)…So disappointing. I literally got a huge chunk of chicken thigh over white rice. And I was almost too embarrassed to eat it in public
–Do not wait here. The lady will take her to time to prepare the food. My first time was on a cold wintry night awaiting my food outside, and I learned my lesson after watching four people pick up call in orders before I got my food
–The couple there are not the friendliest.
–The gas that the truck makes gets me headaches (just do call ins!)