The Mandarin

We had an amazing experience at the Mandarin. We ordered a few of the daily specials, and the ingredients were incredibly fresh. The owner was very friendly and took the time to chat with us. We learned that they use 16 different types of soy sauce in their dishes, which adds a unique and delicious depth of flavor. Highly recommend!

We came here as a party of 7 on Valentine' Day at 6:30pm. The restaurant was packed, and there were only 2 or 3 servers, so unfortunately service was quite slow and inattentive. Despite the overwhelmed staff though, we really enjoyed the authentic Chinese food and the clean, sophisticated ambience.

We ordered the hot & sour soup, 8 entrees, and a desert, which was just about the right amount of food for a filling, celebratory meal for 7 with limited leftovers.

The best dishes were...
Mapo Tofu - delicious but SPICY. We love spicy food, and this dish was even a bit too much for us without lots and lots of rice
Sweet and Sour Mandarin Whole Fish - unique, regional fried fish in a sweet and sour fish. I have never seen this dish available in a restaurant in the US, and it was really well seasoned and cooked
Twice Cooked Pork - thinly sliced, juicy, crispy pieces of pork with leek that's just delicious

We also ordered the golden prawns, snow peas with chicken, dry braised green beans, and tea-smoked duck. Everything was authentic and delicious.

Overall, I would recommend this place for a celebratory Chinese dinner. Do expect slower service though.

One of the main reason why I like to come here , is because of the hospitality. The waitress Christina was very attentive and so kind. The food quality is top tier, and tastes even better. Never disappoints, the ambiance was delightful. I would definitely recommend this place to friends and families. 10/10 for the service from Christina and 10 for the food as well

The inside is fancier than expected, and we were asked if we had a reservation. We did not, but they were very nice and led us to a table. The servers came by multiple times to fill up our water, and they checked in as well. It did take quite a while between us asking for the bill and for them to get it to us, but perhaps that's because they had a big event on the second floor. General atmosphere gives the vibe that it's good for big groups.

Parking was a little sus - the lot is crowded for sure, but there's a lot across the street as well.

The food itself was alright. The twice cooked pork was the best thing, followed by the green beans. The pan seared noodles and braised beef noodles were on the saltier side (everything was a little on the salty side), but ok. The kimchi-like veggies on the beef noodles were the best part of that dish. The pan seared noodles had way too much sauce.

Yelp has this as $$ (meaning on the lower priced side). I guess I should have known that a restaurant in Menlo Park on El Camino Real would not be. Located in a relatively low traffic area for a Sunday evening, we were able to get reservations without using Open Table. That was charging a deposit to book so we called instead and were immediately given the ok, 5 minutes before arrival. The ambience is nice and it has plenty of seating (pondering why after the experience). There is a large area of seating downstairs and then has an upstairs level too that I assume could be overflow or private parties section. You walk in and you see waiters dressed in almost full tuxedos. You don't see this in $$ rated restaurants. Once you peruse the menu, you begin to wonder if the food is that good since the prices are so high. We went ahead and placed our order. The scallion pancakes were first to arrive. Two small pancakes cut into 4pcs each and served with.......(drum roll please.........), absolutely nothing! No soy sauce, no chili oil, no other dipping sauce. And we had to wait until the waiter came back to ask for chili sauce. The sauce we got was similar if not the new trendy Fly by Jing Sichuan sauce (which is a favorite of mine). We refilled this twice during our dinner. The next dish we had was the crispy spicy crinkle cut potatoes. Think of what is supposed to be deep friend fries served in chili oil, sesame seeds and lots of scallions. The potatoes were not friend enough, had no crisp and were slightly raw inside. The waiter almost refused to believe it when we told him but he did offer to tell the chef. The Mongolian chicken was good. The chicken pieces were thin squares/rectangles lightly friend and flavored with onions and green onions and peppers. This was the best dish of the night, but definitely not as spicy as I like. And once again, our go to Fly by Jing had to be added. The last dish was the veggie chow mein. Bland noodles and veggies served in a small portion with no taste without the added sauce. And for $20, I certainly think this was not a good deal.

So, honestly, I rate this a 3 because the ambience is nice, but this could be a 2 star rating. $71 including tax for chow mein, mongolian chicken, 2 small pancakes and spicy french fries. Here is the kicker. When you get the bill, the tip suggestion starts at 20%. And here is where I get picky. When you suggest at tip, you suggest it on the price of the meal. Not the meal + tax. For the average patron, they may not notice this, but this restaurant is taking advantage of their upscale ambiance and suggestion a 20% tip on the 9.88% sales tax! It's hard enough to make money in this economy for most, and I agree that perhaps food prices are higher for restaurants, but come on. This place seems to be overhyped with a 4 star rating.

My go to restaurant for a great night out. Beautiful setting inside. The service is always amazing. The portions are set to feed atleast three. The must tries is the pork mushu, the surf clams with noodles and smoked duck

Certainly pricey for Asian food, but believe it was worth the $ - service was VERY attentive + friendly (water filled all the time) and ambiance felt clean.

THE FOOD (most to least favorite)
- tea smoked duck $33; good, very meaty
- rice cakes with chicken $28: good, lots of wok flavor
- broccoli chicken $20: good standard fare
- braised beef soup $18: ok, not as flavorful as other broths
- mango sago $10: eh, have had better
- rice cake dessert $20: eh, too sweet but serves many

Overall great dinner, would come back and try the plethora of other specialty dishes they have here including fresh fish and lots of soup/stews

It was my first time here and I really enjoyed all of the dishes I ordered. We came on a weekday and we were seated immediately. The interior is spacious with high ceilings.

The half tea-smoked duck was delicious and savory. The beef noodle soup had tender meat and chewy noodles. The yelping Chongqing spicy chicken was beautifully presented and perfectly crispy. We ordered one of their specials which was great too.

Service was surprisingly slow since there weren't many customers at the time, but everyone was friendly. I will definitely be back!

we went on christmas night and the restaurant was quite frankly overwhelmed. we had a 545 pm reservation and the next available at the time of booking was past 8 pm, so you get an idea of how busy the 6-730 pm area was gonna be.

it did take an hour from being seated to get our first course, which was hot and sour soup. there was a long line of to-go orders via doordash/ubereats/grubhub and phone-in orders that was also complicating matters, but the staff should be credited with handling it with grace even though everything took much longer than what i imagine is usual. communication was pretty poor, to be fair, however, and that's the only reason i would ding them one star. they should have told us they were running behind and set expectations accordingly. they did not.

that said, the food was fantastic. we had the orange chicken, mapo topu, some kind of prawn dish (they have several), the dry braised string beans, hot and sour soup and a mixed fried rice. everything was amazing in taste and the portions were very generous. price wasn't the cheapest, but they also as expensive as, say, tai pan in palo alto. food, however, is very comparable.

i will be back and hopefully will get the amazing service i have read about in other reviews so i can revise the rating to what i expect to be five stars.

Have you ever read a Yelp review that conveys reasonable information but has so many exclamation marks or capital letters that it distracts away from the words? The content is ruined because it is drowned out by overusing something that should have been used sparingly.

That is the best analogy I have for this restaurant.

My wife and I showed up at 7:15pm on a Friday night after deciding against another restaurant due to the crowd of people waiting for a table. When we arrived at The Mandarin, this restaurant had no wait and no crowd. Now, I know why.

Eating the Ma Pao Tofu felt less like eating and more like stabbing myself in the gums with a steak knife.

Look, I understand a lot of Asian foods are spicy. That's fine. But this was barely food. It was just a large puddle of hot oil with some tofu in it.

If that sounds appetizing to you, then by all means give them a shot!