King of King in Oakland?

[Melanie Wong]

Wondering if anyone has been to King of King for dinner lately who can give us an update?

http://www.222.to/kingofking/banquet....

[mmerino]

I think its closed/changed names/ownership. They sell bbq ducks and pork and such that's tasty. Its definitely not the same King of King dim sum it used to be. The menu looked interesting. Haven't sat down & eaten but there were people in there week-night about a month ago.

[Melanie Wong]

Thanks m, that's interesting. Let us know when you have a chance to try it.

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King of King Restaurant
1139 E 12th St, Oakland, CA 94606

[Ruth Lafler]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say it's changed. They've had BBQ pig, ducks, etc. since at least this report three years ago ( http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/4139... ), and they certainly had them the last time I had dim sum there a year ago, so the BBQ and the dim sum are not exclusive of each other.

[Chandavkl]

It's still King of King. Had the fish with vegetables yesterday--it was quite good. Does anybody know how long this is been an Asian neighborhood? I was surprised at the number of Chinese and Vietnamese busineses in the area.

[ML8000]

Asian businesses first moved into that area in the mid-80s or even earlier but only a few and westward towards the lake. The area got moving in the early '90s however. I believe King of Kings has been in that location since the mid or late '90s. I had dinner there in 1998.

[Ruth Lafler]

Yeah, when boom in immigrants from Asia started in the '80s, Oakland Chinatown started spilling over into this area, moving eastward around the lake and along International and E12th, taking over what had been an old Hispanic neighborhood (note that the marquee on the old movie theater across from the little park on E.12th says "Teatro"). It's was first known as "New Chinatown" but now is known as "New Saigon." It's one of the reasons E 14th was rechristened International (besides the fact that E 14th was in desperate need of a new image!).

[nicedragonboy]

The most recent dinner there was for a party of 20 back in March. They do pretty standard food, nothing special IMO but executed okay. I must admit that I haven't had a chance to get adventurous with the menu since I'm usually there with a lot of people and we usually have to order to accomodate rather than experiment. I've had salt/pepper prawns, chinese broccoli sauteed w/ garlic, honeywalnut prawns, deep fried whole chicken, beef and snap peas, etc.