King Yen — Restaurant in Berkeley

Polished Setting, Uneven Fare

King Yen enjoys an ideal location on College Avenue with a bright, well-kept dining room and attentive service. The space is clean, welcoming, and clearly well-managed.

But while the atmosphere suggests elevated dining, the food rarely rises to the occasion. The Szechuan beef, though generously portioned and paired with a flavorful sauce, suffered from tough, low-quality meat—more leathery than tender. A prawn and vegetable stir-fry was better balanced and fresher, but still overpriced at $25.

Service is generally efficient, though there’s a noticeable shift in tone during the final half-hour before closing, with staff clearly eager to wrap up—a gesture at odds with Bay Area norms.

For diners seeking standout Chinese food in the area, Dumpling Express farther down College near Safeway and Philz is a stronger bet. Their handmade dumplings are excellent, the pricing is far more reasonable, and the surrounding options for drinks or coffee complete the experience.

King Yen has its strengths, but food quality and pricing leave it trailing better neighborhood...

We ordered takeout. It was truly terrible. It was expensive too, at about $20/dish for vegetarian items. That’d be fine if it weren’t inedible. It was in fact inedible. The mapo tofu was mixed vegetables and braised fried tofu in a brown soup with no spice. The vegetable fried rice and dry fried green beans were equally terrible—no char, no wok hay, no flavor whatsoever, just sort of steamed, bland, not even fried. It’s just not Chinese food, and it’s not edible. This might work in a suburb of Topeka or something, but this is Berkeley. As a diner, you can do so much better, and for less cost, too. You’d be better served at Panda Express to be honest. Maybe it was a day where no cooks came or for some other reason it was a truly off day, but there’s no way we’re going to try it again...

King Yen is our go-to place for decades of good Chinese food. While they do a strong take-out business, there's nothing like this food directly out of the wok. My personal favorite is their tea-smoked duck, served with feather light rolls. The pot-stickers are excellent. I've tried all their prawn dishes and all are good. The meat dishes are excellent and the noodles are great, the vegetables nicely seasoned and yummy--in short, reliable, and uniformly good. Service is pleasant and capable. The atmosphere is airy, quiet enough to enjoy your company. There's always food to take home (barring certain relatives as dining companions.) Take-out is equally reliable, and actually cooked there! A neighborhood treasure. The next generation is dining...