Yan Peninsula

Came here early at 10:30am on a Wednesday and there was no wait! The menu was quite extensive with dishes I've never seen before, and we ordered via a paper and pen checklist.

It took a while for the food to come out, likely because it was relatively empty and everything was made-to-order. Unfortunately, the service wasn't the best, and we had to ask for water and sauces (soy sauce and hot sauce) ourselves and more than once.

The desserts came out first, then the steamed items, and finally the fried items. There were more than three types of custard buns, which all tasted very similar but had a different outer coating. My favorite was the Baked Salted Egg Yolk Lava Buns. Compared to Creamy Custard Buns (with the cartoon man stamped on top), it was much more tasteful and the outer crust provided a nice crunchy texture. If I were to come back, I would order only one of the custard buns.

We also ordered the dim sum staples like Siu Mai, Shrimp Dumplings, and Spareribs with Black Bean Sauce. All were delicious, especially the Spareribs which wasn't as oily/heavy as other dim sum restaurants I've been to.

We went ahead and tried the Corn Shrimp Dumplings in Goldfish Shape too (because we thought they were cute), but were disappointed when they didn't have much flavor nor taste much like corn. I likely wouldn't order this again.

For dessert, we went with the egg tarts which were by far my favorite thing we ordered. They were soft and creamy on the top and flaky on the bottom. I would recommend eating them as soon as they come out while they're hot!

The prices here were on the more expensive side as well. The dim sum was pretty good, but there are definitely better places in the Santa Clara area.

Tips:
- Desserts don't take long to prepare, so I would recommend ordering them at the end when you're ready to eat them immediately
- Sauces aren't provided at the table, you will need to ask for them

Food is cutesy with cartoon printed on buns and animal shaped buns, and unique, a little pricey for portions.

Ambiance has large projected KTV music video and very festive.

Service was timely, but we were the only ones there on an early morning so hard to tell for other times.

Father's day lunch with kids and wife.
Tasty!
Had a lobster yee mein at great price! Super delicious.
All dim sum was excellent.

Came here on Sunday at 10am, wow it got super packed by the time we left. My family flew in from East coast and are from Hong Kong originally. They really enjoyed everything. My kids loved the panda buns and I thought the quality of the shui mai was pretty good! I was sad I couldn't try the tripe but I'll be back.

Had a pretty meh experience here. Came on a weekend and was told the table would be 10-15 minutes, when the wait ended up being half an hour.

After placing our order, the steamed lotus wrapped sticky rice came and then it took 25 minutes for any other savory food items to come.

Overall the food had some hits and misses. The steamed black bean spare ribs were tender but could use more blackbean flavor. The salted egg yolk buns were solid. But the steamed beef balls and siu mai didn't have much bounce. The hot mustard was pretty watery.

Not sure if it was an off day because I had been in the past on a weekday maybe less than a year before this visit and had a really pleasant experience.

I'd recommend parking on the street, since the parking lot is pretty small. And never had any issues with street parking there.

Recently had a banquet for my mom's birthday. We ordered from the banquet menu and it had plenty of seafood options that were delicious. I have plenty of reviews of the food. I just wanted to update that Jack Li who is the manager was very helpful and made everything go smoothly. He helped us as I inquired and ordered and oversaw the team helping us. He was great! My mom was happy with her birthday- thanks to the staff! Food was delicious ( and I don't even normally like seafood- mom wanted it- but I liked what we had)! I also added Peking duck with buns and Hong Kong style crispy noodles on top of the birthday noodles on the birthday menu. Also no cake cutting charge and they provided extra plates for our huge cake. I was super happy with one of my favorite regular go to restaurants!

The Chrysanthemum tea starts things off nicely, and then it's a journey of really tasty flavors.

The Chicken Feet with Black Bean Sauce is a great way to begin, offering a mix of textures and yummy flavors. The Spear Ribs with Black Bean Sauce stand out with just the right amount of seasoning, not too salty.

The Shrimp Dumplings are a real treat. The wrapper is perfect--thin and loaded with tasty shrimp. The Siu Mai with Shrimp Roe, even though it looks a bit funny, is really flavorful and enjoyable.

The Baked BBQ Pork Buns steal the spotlight with their tasty seasoned pork inside a slightly sweet and crispy bun. Each bite is full of flavor and texture.

While the BBQ Rice Noodle Rolls are just okay, the overall experience at Yan Peninsula is outstanding.

Hands down the worst dining experience I've ever had.

As first time customers of Yan Peninsula, we came by on a busy Saturday evening at around 5:45 pm and was given an estimated wait time of 30 minutes. We got seated an hour later. Once we were seated, we ordered after flagging someone down and it took over 1 hour for all (three) of our dishes to hit the table. Almost every time we had to keep asking our waiter where our food was after we saw everyone else around us getting served.

Once our main dishes (chicken & corn soup, noodles, and sweet and sour pork) got to the table, we began waiting for our rice which ended up taking forever -- to the point where we just cancelled the 2 orders of rice.

Lastly, as a cherry on top, after we were told we wouldn't get charged for the rice, there it was on our bill.

They also charge a 18% service fee (there was only two of us).

We came at 5:45 pm and we didn't leave until 9 pm. Don't come here unless you want mediocre food and your time wasted.

Food still tastes good but the service was really off.
I came with my parents for lunch around noon.
My dad had a question before ordering about a dish if they could make it more dry but instead of answering a simple no, the waiter looked at my dad like he was unreasonable.
Then after a couple of dishes came we were finished eating but still missing 2 items.
I noticed that the other table who order after us received one of the items we ordered ahead of them.
We asked a staff member they replied it's steaming it will come out soon, or that they will check.
We told the waiter after waiting longer we wanted to cancel the two items didn't want to wait any longer.
My mom needed to use the restroom but left without using it because it was too dirty.

Needed some dim sum(get it) after that heart racing game yesterday.

Really small parking lot and mostly built for "compact cars". You'll find cars parked in a random spots everywhere which was annoying and hazardous. My dad had a hard time getting out thanks to some dude that didn't even give us room for the passenger side to get in(we had the last spot). Of course this was on a busy Sunday when all us Chinese love dim sum.

Nice big screen tv BUTTTTTTTT they were streaming the lions vs bucs game and it kept dying half the time LOL did they really not have the local channels??

Anyways, on to the food. Nothing out of the ordinary or special, just another dim sum spot. I did notice that the chicken feet was missing something, I usually demolish 3 but this time the flavoring wasn't there. Same with the spare rib. Shrimp and beef rice rolls were good, rice wrapping was just right and not thick. Cant go wrong with the ha gao siu mai basics too.

*The black salted egg yolk bao was however disappointing. Way too much bread(no flavor) and very little filling.