Lily Kai

Lunch Time review on a weekend.
Overall the Service was average and the food was good.
The place was empty, literally, we were the only lunch guest. We had to ask if they were open because it was dark and no one was there. So we were told to sit anywhere. During the next hour, 2 other couples came in for lunch also.
The location is really nice and if you sit near the window you can see the bay and downtown area.
I’ll try it again, but perhaps at dinner to better evaluate the total experience.

New ownership and an upgrade in the food. Great staff and located near Paradise circle in Tiburon one of the most beautiful views in the world

I asked the server for a fork, when she got it she just trow it right in front of me. (Very rude) maybe she’s pissed because there are a lot of us we are like 30 people and maybe she’s irritated.

We had a craving for some Chinese food. Ordered the vegetable pot stickers, spring rolls, hot and spicy broccoli, spicy prawns, Manchurian beef and the curry chicken. The pot stickers were very good, the egg rolls are frozen pre frying but are pretty good as well. The curry chicken was just OK. I don’t think I would order it again. It was just mediocre in spice and a tad runny. The beef as always was delicious (fried) but the prawns were not crispy and just OK as well. We like to try new dishes– so we weren’t too disappointed– our favorite and love the spicy basil chicken and the walnut chicken. The soups are also very tasty. The restaurant is very clean and it has a nice atmosphere with a nice view. The staff is very friendly and if you order for take out– they will have it ready in 15 – 20 minutes. If you call for delivery– they run about 1 to 1.5 hours. Parking is convenient and if you pick up you can park for free while you run in to get it. Nice having this establishment in the neighborhood.

We order take out from here all the time and are never disappointed by the quality of food or service. They give great portions and good quality meats and vegetables. Highly recommended!

Hungry Sunday. Woh wonton soup full of fresh asparagus and delicious bbq pork and white meat chicken. Homemade pork potstickers super yum. Shrimp har gow full of plump shrimp. $ 29 and we are both full. Friendly service was totally welcoming. Came recommend and we will be back.

Delicious food and timely delivery service!

Best Chinese restaurant in Marin county. Always fast and super friendly. My goto take out. Food is always consistent and delicious. The pork fried rice is actually fried and with authentic dragon breath and excellent tender long marinated pork which you can not only taste but see. The mu shu is also a favorite. Really can’t go wrong with anything on the menu.

I work nearby and enjoy grabbing their lunch special once or twice a week. I especially like the Singapore Noodles. Salt and pepper pork is another good one. Tasty and satisfying.

I ate in here alone and was treated well. I had a good table by the water and had several small plates. The small plates were very well prepared and flavorful. I would visit here again.

I rarely write reviews that condemn anything but I just cannot go another day without saying something. My son and I dined at Lily Kai for lunch. The lunch special is a bargain. I am not going to say it was the best Chinese food I have ever had. The egg rolls were frozen and had been were cooked in oil was that was obviously too hot. I can only hope that this must have been a very OFF day for the restaurant.
Our server was a man. Gruff does not even begin to describe his demeanor. It is clear to me that this man was pulled on the floor from some other job in the restaurant or a relative. He spoke three words to us: Water, Order and Steamed Rice whoops that’s four. The table next to us was two teenage girls. When their order arrived it was clear that something was wrong with one of the girls dishes. I won’t call it yelling but it was close. The waiter was so dismissive, accusatory and unaccommodating that I was just appalled that anyone in the service industry could possible react this way to a customer. He told her this is what she had ordered, she had a problem with the way it was prepared. He did not offer to get her something else in fact her only option was to love it or leave it. She pushed the plate aside. Then there was a loud commotion in Chinese in the back. A woman came out in an apron I can only assume she was some kind of owner. Again they explained she had ordered the wrong thing. It turns out this teenager was gluten intolerance. She had ordered the orange chicken which is dipped in batter and fried. Well clearly she had made a mistake, clearly due to an allergy she could not eat it. OK she was a teenager, but the way the restaurant and in particular this waiter handled the situation was just wrong and abusive. My family will never go back.

When it comes to Chinese food in the Bay Area, the sheer number of options can often make it hard for a single restaurant to stand out. Lily Kai is able to do so for a few simple reasons:
1. Atmosphere: the restaurant itself is beautiful and clean. The large windows provide a well lit environment with beautiful views of The City and downtown Tiburon.
2. Service: the staff are attentive and lovely. You are greeted promptly with a smile and attentively served throughout the night.
3. (most importantly) The food is fresh tasting, delicious, and well-​portioned. There are so many delightful items on the menu; the chef’s take on traditional Chinese items is incredible. Some of my favorites are the Singapore Noodles, Chicken Broccoli, Dim Sum Platter, and the Hot and Sour Soup.
You will leave with a full, satisfied belly, but not with a greasy feeling. Parking is in a convenient, validated lot and just caps off the wonderful experience of eating at this gem of a restaurant. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that they have plenty of room with many tables, I would not want to attract more of a crowd here– but since they do, I urge you to give them a try.

As a vegan, I have not tried many things on their menu, but considering it’s slim pickins around here for vegans, this is a great place. They have several veg options, and I have a favorite, the Curry Tofu. It is fresh and tasty. The prices are good and they validate parking and the service is always friendly.
I would also like to say that this review is based on MULTIPLE trips to this restaurant, not just one.

I’m a big fan of their Petaluma restaurant; this one is just as good. Must order siu mai dumplings… The wor wanton soup is excellent. The combination chow mien (which I rarely order anywhere) was excellent.
Five stars for food, lost one for slow service and inattention.

Lunch special! Comes with soup, salad, brown/​white rice/​chow mein, and a huge variety of dishes! We ordered lemon chicken, honey walnut prawns, and Mongolian beef. Everything was good and definitely left us feeling full. You can really taste the lemon flavor in the lemon chicken and the honey walnut prawns were delicious. I also liked the tea they gave; some floral scented tea. The location is so adorable and you get an amazing view

I am in shock after reading these reviews after trying this place out. «best chinese food ever»? «Quality»? «Delicious»??? Have you not tried other americanized chinese food places? Look, I get it. There’s not much in Tiburon… but you’re so close to SF and SJ and they both have great choice for Chinese food. If you placed this place next to any chinese restaurant from any of the aforementioned, this place wouldn’t stand a chance.
I ordered the honey walnut prawns with eggrolls. The eggsrolls looked fine when they placed them on the plate, but turn them around and OH MY GOODNESS. There was a black opened wound and black bumps. This means that the oil was too hot and that the eggrolls were FROZEN.
The walnut prawns– the prawns were okay. The walnuts were undercooked.
The rice. Come on. Rice is pretty simple to make. Yet somehow theirs was underseasoned and grainy.

Spouse was craving soup to nurse a cold so we found our way here to Lily Kai. We ordered the seafood combo soup (small),
twice– cooked pork, dim sum basket, and brown rice (1 order).
I’m glad we heeded previous reviews and ordered small portions, because the portions were indeed very generous. The soup was fantastic: thick, plump shrimp, fish, and scallops. Frozen shrimp tend to taste doughy but these were sweet, as if fresh caught. The meat was toothy, the way they’re supposed to be. The broth had a fair amount of egg, but it was a satisfying dish. The twice-​cooked pork was overpowered by a brown, gingery sauce. However, the cabbage added a nice crunch to the meal. The pork, sans sauce, was thick and tender and savory. Really good the next day too. I liked how the brown rice was perfectly cooked– not rocks but not mush either. Dim sum basket stole the show: hot, steaming morsels of goodness. It included faves like har gow, pork buns (yum!), and sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf.
Congenial service, nice ambience, fantastic prices– a solid 4 stars. 5 stars would mean a more varied and authentic menu, such as: tai chin crab, claypot dishes, chinese greens (pea shoots, bok choy, ong choy, loofah). That would really make this place the go-​to spot for Chinese in Marin.

The freshness of the ingredients and the quality of service really makes Lily Kai stand out from other American Chinese restaurants. They were incredibly accommodating when my gf and I rolled in (literally) one night on our bikes asking if we could be seated outside since we did not want to leave our bikes unattended.
We ordered the hot and sour soup, spicy basil chicken, and chicken egg foo young. First things first: the portions are HUGE. We were skeptical when our waiter said that a small would be enough for the both of us, but we understood why when he brought over our big bowl of soup. The small size could have easily been enough for 3 – 4 people. It was very flavorful and hit the spot on that chilly night.
The egg foo young portion was equally as generous. The vegetables used were very fresh and although the dish was very saucy the way it’s supposed to be, it was not greasy at all. The basil chicken could have had more basil, but was still pretty good.
As I said earlier, we received very good service despite being seated outside away from the other patrons. Our server checked on how we were doing multiple times to make sure we had everything we needed. Would totally come back next time we’re in TIburon.

Yes they indeed have delicious Chinese food! There were 4 of us and we were all stuffed from an appetizer, 2 entrees, fried rice and a soup.
To start we got the pork fried dumplings. Those were delicious. Just right amount of dough and filling. For the entrees we ordered the prawns with vegetables. No, you do not have to de-​shell them. They were delicious large lumps of shrimp with your typical broccoli, water chestnut, peapod vegetables. We also got the garlic chicken which was good. For the rice (since it didn’t come with the dishes) we got fried rice, which was your normal fried rice. I can’t remember what soup we got, but it was good as well, and the large was definitely large enough for the 4 of us to have at least 2 bowls… possibly more. The bill came out to I think a little over $ 10 per person!
The only bad part was the fortune cookies were a little stale. But that should not deter you from coming! When we were leaving they had brought out a dessert with a candle for a little boy’s birthday and started singing and they got everyone in the restaurant to sing as well. Super cute!

I don’t think of Tiburon as a foodie’s paradise. There’s Sam’s Anchor Café. There’s Guaymas. And then there’s the sound of crickets. Lily Kai doesn’t really change the equation too significantly, but at least you can get a pretty decent Chinese meal once you step off the ferry. It’s just across the way on the edge of the lagoon in that straight-from-the-1970’s complex with the fountain (photo:
). The restaurant is related to a popular eatery with the same name in Petaluma, and this one looks pretty new (photo:
). Jamie W. and I stumbled upon it after a drive up to Sebastopol as we were walking around Tiburon to avoid the inevitable weekend traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge.
It wasn’t even 5PM yet, so the cavernous place was nearly empty. But to their credit, that didn’t stop us from getting friendly service from the veteran waitress. They have a huge menu, at least six pages worth of edibles, so winnowing it down to a reasonable dinner took some time for us. We started with the $ 6.35 basket of Siu Mai, a half-​dozen steamed pork and shrimp dumplings (photo:
). Good but I bun my tun since they were scorchingly hot. Jamie decided on the $ 9.85 Fried Sesame Seed Chicken with Broccoli, which was standard issue Cantonese fare with a too-​sweet honey sesame sauce lacquering the batter-​fried tenders (photo:
).
Pretty good but nothing remarkable. The $ 8.25 Tan Tan Noodles were take-​out good if a bit heavy on the soy sauce for my taste. They were stir-​fried in that mysterious brown sauce found in most Chinese restaurants along with shards of chicken breast, zucchini, bean sprouts, and scallions (photo:
). All in all, it was a meal that we could have probably had a suburban mall, not at the food court in overheated warmers but at a standalone restaurant. However, the setting is quite pleasing if you can snag a table with the view of the waterfront. Lily Kai doesn’t amp up the dining scene in Tiburon, but at least it gives you an option when the dock at Sam’s is all full up.
FOOD — 3 stars… pretty standard issue Chinese fare in a pleasing setting
AMBIANCE — 4 stars… a new spot in a very 70’s-looking complex
SERVICE — 3.5 stars… nice if a tad forgetful
TOTAL — 3 stars… Tiburon’s reigning Chinese restaurant… I’m guessing