Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant

Recommends

chenyu768

Joined 7 years ago

Great HotPot. Ok before, i would say this was the best hotpot place in the BAy Area, but with Little lamb opening up in San Mateo and Union City, i have to give the title to them. Old mandarin's food was good and sauce was great, but the selection was below par, and the also was the service, which was lacking of that of usual family operations. over all i still say if you live close by, its better than Coryia or HotPot City.

Recommends

cuisinenoi

Joined 8 years ago

Authentic Beijing Food. This place serves up authentic Beijing food. Their speciality is the lamb hot-pot or warm-pot. Hot-pot is like Japanese shabu-shabu style where you cook the meat and other food yourself in a big-pot of broth. Afterwards, you dip the food in the sesame paste sauce. If you prefer not to cook it yourself, you can order the lamb warm-pot which is a claypot of lamb, tofu, pickled vegetables in soup. Other recommended dishes include the Mandarin lamb which is slices of lamb stir-fried in cumin and the Peking-style pancake which is a flat pancake filled with a thin layer of beef. I also like their dessert which is the lightly fried rice cake with the outside is mochi-like and filled with red bean paste and pinenuts. The service is like your typical rush-rush service in Chinese restaurants. The wait is notoriously long during peak hours, especially since they dont have a wait-list so you have to stand there by the doorway. The restaurant is quite small and with all the hot pots cooking in the restaurant, it can get quite warm in there.

Recommends

wch1972

Joined 7 years ago

One thing for sure, it's consistent!. I'm one picky SOB when it comes to Chinese food. So it means a lot when I say the food is pretty fantastic. I recommend the beef pancake, any of the lamb dishes and the hot-p ot. It's pretty authentic so if you're from the mainland, you'll appreciate the cuisine. I've been coming to this place for a few years and the food is consistently good and the service is consistently bad. The place is always busy but that's an indicator of how good the food is. I'm not complaining about the service, I don't except good service at a cheap (price wise) chinese place.

Doesn't Recommend

gaucho90

Joined 7 years ago

OK Food but Bad Service.. This is a small place in the outer Sunset district. The Hot Pot menu is in English. They do not serve any pork, and instead push the lamb. The green onion pancake is good, but the rest of the food including the Hot Pot menu and dumplings are just average. Service is poor and discourteous - you have to ask for everything. We dine in San Francisco very often, and there are many better chinese restaurants.

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foodielover

Joined 9 years ago

Hot Pot on a cold evening. I can't say that this is the best hot pot I've ever had in SF, but it is a cozy hole in the wall neighborhood restaurant. The signage out had Islamic writing & there were a couple of Muslim families dining in this Chinese restaurant. For about $100 (with several sodas), we had 3 raw lamb & 1 beef dishes to throw into this lge hot pot with broth seasoned w/anise & dried anchovies. The meat was thinly sliced, but not large servings. You do get lge colanders of napa cabbage, a spinach-like vegt, sm plates of tofu, vermicelli to toss in as well. The meat pancake was far better than the green onion pancake which was doughy and thick. If you want white rice with it , you'd have to order it separately. They were busy that evening & we had to remind our waiter of our soda orders.

Recommends

Gina Goff

Joined 9 years ago

This Outer Sunset restaurant serving Beijing-style Islamic cuisine is an underground hit.. A friendly "salaam" and walls adorned with messages written in Arabic calligraphy welcome diners to this clean but no-frills family-run eatery. The menu--entirely void of pork products and alcohol--focuses on dishes made with halal products. Entrees like the popular Mongolian beef, spiced lamb dumplings and kung pao chicken satisfy Westerners, while Mandarin-speaking customers and in-the-know regulars can order the secret Boiling Pot (hot pot), in which diners cook their own meats, tofu and veggies. The restaurant's also well-known for serving some of the spiciest cuisine in town, so be warned.

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kg1

Joined 8 years ago

Real authentic food of northern China. The most authentic northern Chinese style food ever had so far in US. Great Service. Space is quite small but also part of the authenticity of restaurants in China. Also, owner tells many interesting stories about Chinese food and more.

Recommends

moliq

Joined 9 years ago

This place is awesome!!!. My friends and I love this homey place because the food is authentic and the people are nice. If you ever miss Beijing, especially miss Beijing's hot pot, spiced lamb, or meat pancake, try Old Mandarin.