Old Mandarin Restaurant

12/03/07

Great HotPot

by chenyu768

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.

11/14/06

Authentic Beijing Food

by cuisinenoi

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.

• Pros: authentic Beijing food
• Cons: parking, crowded, little pricey

08/21/06

One thing for sure, it's consistent!

by wch1972

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.

• Pros: Consistently great food. Not your average chinese place.
• Cons: Crowded at peak hours.