King Bee Chinese FoodLot 24 Blk 11 Commonwealth Avenue
Brgy. Holy Spirit, Quezon City
+63 (02)376-9402 / +63 (02)990-4688
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King Bee Chinese Food is a family owned corporation, which started as a restaurant inside a mall in Cavite. It gained following and recognition, that in 2001, they decided to have a stand alone restaurant in General Trias. From then, it has branched out - in Rosario (Cavite), Antipolo (Rizal), Sta. Rosa (Laguna), then to Metro Manila - E. Rodriguez, Las Pinas, and the newest branch where blogger friends and I had dinner last Friday - Commonwealth Avenue.
I wasn't at all familiar with King Bee Chinese Food, but for someone who often passes by Commonwealth Avenue, seeing a big restaurant this side of the Metro made me want to eat there the moment my siblings and I saw it was already open.
The Commonwealth branch is their biggest, which can house about 400 diners. I wasn't able to take a picture of the facade, but let me give you a short tour before I proceed with the food.
Dining Area (First Floor). It was already late when I took this picture so the tables weren't "dressed," but it was spacious and tables are definitely good for families and big groups.
Also in the first floor is where diners can see aquariums filled with live seafood, which are used to cook orders. Hmmm, fresh seafood!
Dining Area (Second Floor). This area looks more traditional with the round tables and Lazy Susan.
On this floor are two venue rooms, which can be used for meetings and family celebrations. The room includes audio-visual appliances, and diners can actually do Videoke if they want to. Of course, there is a fee to pay if you want to use any of the venue rooms, but that fee is consumable, so it was also like have the room use for free.
I arrived quite earlier than my companions, so us early birds were given this plate of Kropeck to munch on. I am just not sure if every table is given this as a complimentary munchies, but reading up on blogs, I learned that the restaurant serves complimentary hot tea.
We had a Lauriat-style dinner that time, and we had:
Wintermelon Soup. Before it became a hit milk tea flavor, Wintermelon already made its name as a popular dried fruit candy or as an ingredient for Hopia Baboy. The whole presentation of this soup was pretty stunning - serving the dish in a deep wintermelon fruit, which was actually cooked - not fresh. Around the wintermelon bowl were shrimps and finely shredded chicken meat, but inside the bowl were more shrimps, mushrooms, pork, and bits of bacon. The wintermelon fusion was interesting and I did like this soup to start off the dinner.
Dimsum Platter. Consisting of Pork Siomai, Chicken Feet, and Bird's Eye Siomai... It was such a great Chinese appetizer! I wasn't able to taste the
Pork Siomai as there were only four pieces (we were 8 in the table), but a friend said it was really good. Well, just with how it looked, it was bigger than the typical Pork Siomai I have seen, so I am quite certain it would be good. The
Chicken Feet was something very unique; I do eat chicken feet - as a roadside barbecue and/or as a viand at home, but at home we always cook it Adobo style. This one we were served had black beans (taosi) and a special Chinese glaze, which was super flavorful. The meat on the feet was very tender, but what I liked most was that even if it was super tender, the chicken feet looked complete and it hasn't disintegrated. The
Bird's Eye Siomai got its name based on how it looks like - a bird's eye. Inside of it were small pieces of shrimps, which was good in itself, but tasted much, much better with the chili toyo-mansi dip. Now I want to taste King Bee's Hakaw just to check if there would be any difference aside from the aesthetics.
Yang Chow Fried Rice. Typically in Lauriat-style dining, rice doesn't really play a key role, but since Filipinos love rice, we were also served rice. This is my favorite kind of fried rice because it's packed with goodness yet it goes well with any viand. Just with this picture, it would seem there were two pieces of shrimps, but actually, this one's a goldmine - it had a lot more shrimps and other meat inside the bowl.
Sauteed Crystal Prawn Balls with Cashew Nuts in Taro Nest. My favorite dish of the night. The prawns were cooked perfect, the carrots, jicamas, and bell peppers were crunchy! The jicamas were also sweet (means this one's very fresh) and it had this very thin sauce coating the ingredients, which made it super delicious. The cashew nuts added more dimension and texture... and the taro nest wasn't just unique, it was great tasting, too.
Sliced Beef with Broccoli Flowers. Always a hit with the Filipino diners, I loved that the beef slices were big, the sauce was just right, and the broccoli flowers were super crunchy.
House Specialty Roast Chicken. At first I thought this was fried chicken, but it was actually roasted. The skin was crispy and the meat was flavorful enough to be eaten as is... but there was a dip served alongside.
King Fish in Thai Sauce. Seeing the cherries and unripe plus nearly ripe mangoes made me doubt how this dish will taste, but it all worked pretty good. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but it was something that I kept coming back for more. If I would say something negative, it would have to be way too much sauce in the dish that the fish was sort of drowning already.
Two Kinds of Pastries. I didn't get the actual names of these pastries, but the one on the left was savory - which looked like an empanada, but it tasted a bit like croquettes - the dough was made with potatoes with minced sausages inside. The one on the right was the sweet one - which is sorta like a buchi, with fresh ripe mangoes and cream inside. Both was okay, but the sweet one I liked more.
Mixed Fruits Platter. What a grand presentation! Well, we all know how each of the fruits taste like, so no need to elaborate.
King Bee Chinese Food has a very extensive menu, but what I like about it was that they do have something for anyone - whether you're alone or with a companion, there's definitely something that would satisfy your Chinese food craving. It was also pleasing to know that King Bee Chinese Food have chefs from Hong Kong and China, to ensure food coming out of the kitchen are up to Chinese standards.
This branch in Commonwealth sure is big, but they always recommend for diners to phone in reservations, especially during weekends because as big and as spacious it is, this one gets full always. If you wish to know newest updates about the restaurant, please like their Facebook page -
http://www.facebook.com/pages/King-Bee-Chinese-Food/117869731582292?ref=ts.
Would I go back and dine there again? Definitely! Next time, I'd bring my family and maybe do a Dimsum battle with my mom - who is such a fan of it. :)
