King Chef Dimsum Kitchen Baguio — Restaurant in Baguio

I was just dying for some dimsum and happenchanced this place while just hiking around the neighborhood. I didn't realized until I entered that it was a fancy Chinese restaurant. And at that moment, my expectations for dimsum just shot up.

I was greeted and sat down at an empty table by polite and speedy staff. Was handed over a menu and a bit elated to find out that they serve discounted dimsums from 2-5 pm (and it was already 3)!

I was feeling nostalgic so I ordered Xiao Long Bao and Japanese Siumai - almost the same ones I ordered at a very famous resto in Taiwan where the famous Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dines in.

After 10 minutes my order arrived. It was a little disappointing to find out that my Xiao Long Bao had only 4 pieces and yet the price is half of the one that I ordered in Taiwan but had 10 pieces. More disappointing was the taste as it was very gamey. I suddenly remembered that Taiwan pork is world class and of so high quality that Japan imports from them.

The Japanese Siumai where better in my opinion - the texture and meatiness is perfect! Finishing it off with a pitcher of complementary house tea is just perfect.

I wanted to order a plate of Yang Chow but it serves 3 to 4 and I wouldn't be able to finish it. They didn't have single serving.

Maybe I will come back for their other dimsum. But never their Xiao Long Bao - I'll just save them up for my next Taiwan escapade. Once you tasted better ones, the others just becomes overpriced...

My friends and I went to King Chef Baguio since we're craving Chinese food and we heard lots of good reviews before. It's also near our accommodation. The dimsum was great. I especially liked the hakaw. But things went downhill with the sweet and sour fish fillet. I was really looking forward to this one since this is my go-to dish in Chinese restaurants. However, after the first bite, I immediately know it was weird. It tasted undercooked. I heard the table beside us complain about the same thing and called it 'malabsak'. I just knew it tasted weird. Both of our tables asked it to be remade or replaced. They accepted. But while the other table received their replacement dish right away, we were told that our order will take a while since there are lots of orders on queue. We have the same request. I asked for other options like having a replacement dish that's easy to make. But they again said that the order queue was too long. Implicitly meaning that our order will not be prioritized. I was shocked since the other table received theirs right away while we were asked to wait for who knows how long. We eventually cancelled our order. We shared this feedback with the person in charge. But I was really appalled since he mentioned na babawi sila the next time we go there. With this experience, I'm not even sure if there will...

This was our second time visiting King Chef because of their 35% off dim sum promo from 2–5 PM.

It’s in the same building as The Orchard Hotel, with a separate entrance but still connected.

We came around 4 PM and were greeted by one of the staff. We were seated right away and handed the menu. While deciding what to order, they served us complimentary house tea.

What we ordered:

King’s Fin – our favorite! ★★★★★

Hakaw – ★★★★☆

Pork Siomai – ★★★☆☆

Xiao Long Bao – ★★★☆☆

I also ordered beef balls, but I think they missed it—hehe.

The staff were friendly and accommodating. They’re also a tie-up partner of Pag-IBIG Loyalty Plus, so if you order a minimum of ₱800, you get a free Almond Jelly with Lychees. Because of that, I added another King’s Fin and Japanese Siomai (★★★★★) for takeout so I could claim the freebie. The almond jelly was tasty, but I wasn’t expecting the portion to be that small—just three pieces of lychee.

Half of the restaurant space was being used for a seminar, separated by a white cloth divider. So while we were eating, we also got a “free seminar” in the background. The only downside was that it was quite noisy.

When we return to Baguio, we’ll try more of their dim sum...