King's City chinese and sushi — Restaurant in White Bear Lake

02/25/2023: Quaint little restaurant with Chinese and Japanese flair with Hmong hints. Good first experience! The Daily Specials chalkboard menu and Special Menu insert is pricy but the main menu was averagely priced. Family-owned. Don't expect Grade-A speedy service but visit for the experience and local support. Chefs came out to check on everything and were very friendly and kind. Will visit again for the sushi, Wings and Seafood Laab Salad.

*Garnishes are a hit or miss as you can see with photos posted by everyone. Flavors are good but maybe a hit or miss because a few empty tables that weren't cleared yet had plenty of leftover food which caught my attention. Our visit was good though.

*Must-try dishes: Spicy Chicken Wings, Seafood Laab Salad & Ghostbuster Roll

Spicy Chicken Wings $14.99 appx: Large Wings, deep fried, tossed in house Spicy sauce. Very flavorful and beats the value of other restaurants. Spice level-medium. Didn't get jalapeños like other reviewers though. Chicken Pad Thai $10.99: Generous portion for value but more on the tangy. Prefer more sweetness to balance the sour but delicious! Fresh East Coast Oyster (dozen) $30 (Uni optional $5 each): Very fresh and cold, large oysters on a bed of rock salt, topped with house pepper sauce and gold leaf. Uni was fresh and sweet which is worth it and necessary for the oyster. Overall, needs more house pepper sauce or at least an extra sauce ramekin on the side to pour on the oysters cause it was bland and didn't get any lemon wedges. Ghostbusters Roll $15.99 appx: Spicy! Very tasty with the perfect amount of ghost pepper house sauce. Generously portioned and the flavor was delivered! California Roll $5.50: Again, generously portioned. The daughter enjoyed it and ordered another Roll. Seafood Laab Salad $19.99: Should be called Sashimi Laab Salad because the proteins were raw (didn't know). So worth it! Lightly dry seasoned. Prefer more of the seasoning w/a wedge of lime and a touch of fish sauce. Personally added a touch of soy and it tasted splendid. Didn't get spiral daikon or flower like other reviewers. Worth the value and...

Almost 2 years ago, tried them out, after the ownership change. Food was great, and a welcome update to the local comparable places. But then there were subsequent problems with missing items, some major, in already paid for orders. The capper came when I showed up at the appointed time for a to go online order, and had to wait an hour and a half for it. So we crossed them off the list. Today, over a year later, decided to give them another try. On-line menu still weird - demands what kind of rice on the side for a fried rice order (?) Order came back with a 50 min time for pick up, not unexpected on a Friday night. Arrived exactly on time, to be told that the order had never gone to the kitchen. Sigh, a 25 min. wait for it to be prepped. Odd that the previously packed place was only 2/3rd full on a Fri. night, but seemed well staffed. Staff was responsive and friendly, but not apologetic for the problem. Took food home. First found there was no rice included at all for any of the three entree's. Sweet and Sour chicken was inedible - fryer grease was many, many days past needing a change. Smelled bad, looked bad, tasted worse. Someone was heavy handed on the red coloring in the sauce - deep blood red that actually left red stains on skin. Egg rolls had that same rancid grease essence - and whatever was in them had turned to an unidentifiable mush. Kung Pao was to be "medium" in spice level - it was rocket fuel, so also could not be eaten. We also eat Thai a lot, so have an idea of what the levels may indicate - and this was at the top. Fried Rice entree was good, and the only edible portion of the meal (even if we didn't get the extra side of rice(!) promised on the menu). So out of 3 entrees, one order of egg rolls, all for $54 almost all had to be thrown out. Cross this one off your list. Any of the competing places are far more...

Our long journey with King’s City is coming to an end. We have supported this place since they reopened 5-6 (?) years ago, both dine-in and takeout. But after tonight, we’re done!

I did an online order to be picked up at 7:00 pm. At 6:35 I get a text that it’s ready to be picked up! What?! Why do you have a spot to schedule the pick up time if you’re just gonna make it right away anyway? I called the restaurant to discuss it, they said they’d make a fresh order, but when my husband went to pick it up they had not. That explains why the entrees were cold and globbed together and the egg rolls were soggy and greasy. You are required to fill in a heat/spice level for your entree, so I checked “hot”. There was absolutely NO heat, NO spice, NO seasoning whatsoever. Again, why do you bother having this as an option on your menu if you are not going to abide by it? I also put into their “Order Notes” section that we did NOT need utensils - why be wasteful (and save you a little money!) with those little packets when we were eating at home. Well, guess what? There were utensils in the bag! Again, why is there a place for order notes if you are not going to read them? And there’s an automatic card fee for paying online, plus a fee for the third party service. Not happy I paid a tip for the food being made almost a half hour before the scheduled pickup time either. I paid about $8.00 for all these, and for what?

The food was marginal, my husband’s beef was quite tough. It is because of this long, slow decline in food quality and lack of consistency that we’re done. Cannot tell you how much we absolutely LOVED the place and their food for the first few years. We’d keep trying, rationalizing with “maybe they were shortstaffed”, maybe this… maybe that. It’s clear that they are now a shadow of their...