Yang Kee

You know, Davis used to be a town where you couldn’t get very good Asian food, but slowly and surely over the years, more and more restaurants have come to town and changed the landscape of the food scene. Yang Kee is another big step up for the college town as this restaurant brings some legitimate Asian food that people will go out of their way for.

The food in question are soup dumplings. Soup dumplings are these little pockets of meat and scalding hot soup. Each dumpling is hand wrapped in a thin wrapping and steamed. They come to you in a bamboo steamer piping hot. You are to pop the entire thing in your mouth (well, that’s how I do it, at least) and enjoy the hot soup, meat, and wrapping all at once.

The best soup dumplings have a thin wrapping that doesn’t get in the way of the enjoyment of the soup or meat packed inside. Thick wrapping is a sign that the product is not of a high quality. I am happy to say that the wrap here is quite good - maybe not the absolute best - but still great. The soup inside was very hot and the meat was tasty.

As with other soup dumpling places, you can actually see the chefs prepare the dumplings as they are making them behind a glass partition. I guess it’s a sign of how good the chefs are that you can see their preparation methods.

Also on the menu are various noodle dishes like chow fun (dry or wet), fried rice, and some select dim sum items.

On my visit I ordered a bevy of items and all of them had a clean and well-prepared taste. You can tell that care went into making the dishes and these were not slopped together. I was impressed.

In terms of the restaurant and service, both were excellent. The restaurant space is medium, but with plenty of tables to sit at. The restaurant had a good number of people dining in, but tables were able to open up quickly for new guests to be seated.

I also found the wait staff to be very friendly and accommodating - something that doesn’t always happen at these types of restaurants.

Yang Kee is an awesome addition to the Asian food scene in Davis. In fact, this is one of the restaurants that has upped the bar.

Website: yangkeedumpling.com

Address: 2151 Cowell Blvd C, Davis, Ca 95618

Rating: A

Great reviews and a packed house mean that this restaurant is the real thing. Now you don’t have to travel to Sacramento or beyond to get your soup dumpling fix!