Naga Mandarin — Restaurant in Meghalaya

Mini Meal with Today's Specials (Chicken in Dried Yam Leaves) - Rs.350/-

Naga Mandarin, Laitumkhrah, Shillong

22.11.23

Naga Mandarin must be the most recognised & popular & even perhaps one of the first if not the first restaurant serving Naga food in Shillong. They started with a small shop in Firebrigade before moving to their current location. And for the life of me I can't think why I've never eaten here before. Today I was going to set things right. I entered this rather big but empty restaurant for lunch. And it was peak lunch hour. I liked how the place looked. It had some traditional touches from Nagaland. I went through their very concise menu & then saw the specials on the wall. I opted for the specials as I thought this visit deserved it. I opted for the Mini Naga meal with today's specials being the Chicken in Dried Yam Leaves. As I waited for the food to arrive, I went to wash my hands & passed by their kitchen. It was well arranged & pretty clean. My food came. It had a medium portion of hilly red rice, a bowl of soup, 2 pieces of chicken, boiled cabbage & mashed potato chutney. Now I'm a wimp when it comes to chillies but I wanted to act brave. The soup was nice. It was light & thin & cooked with dried fish, potato & bamboo shoot. Very nice. The chicken in the dried yam leaves (not to be mistaken with anishi) was also very tasty. I've never had a Naga dish cooked this way. There was so much flavor in the dish. The meat was cooked well. The boiled cabbage helped balance out the flavors. The mashed potato chutney was tasty but was so hot. King Chillies or Raja Mircha was added in it. I had a couple of tries & gave up. Surprisingly, aside from the chutney, the other dishes were not spicy at all. The food was very good, but the portions were indeed Mini. I'm trying to loose weight so this works out in my favor. But then prices were not cheap either. Overall a much awaited & very pleasant visit to a place which is now an institution in itself.

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One of the most disappointing meals I've had in town. I called at 5:20P.M. to check if they had everything on the menu, to which the manager answered, "Yes" and I informed him that we'd arrive around 8 P.M. We reached at 8:00 P.M. and while ordering we were told they had no fresh bamboo shoot nor axone which are core ingredients in the Naga cuisine. So we ordered 2 smoked pork in dried bamboo shoot and 2 fresh pork in dried bamboo shoot with our thalis. When our order arrived, we were served only fresh pork without a shred or the mildest smell of bamboo shoot . On requesting to order a separate portion of just bamboo shoot, we were told they had absolutely no bamboo shoot in the restaurant and they didn't even tell us that they would serve us only fresh pork. They even billed us an extra 90 rupees on something they didn't serve us- the smoked pork.

My out-of-town partner and I who both love Naga food chose this restaurant against the others in town with faith that a restaurant that's been around this long would hold true to their menu or at least inform us should they not have core ingredients which we particularly went for, especially since I called in advance. Naga Mandarin was an utter disappointment, we were let down and got absolutely no value for money. They had nothing else to drink besides water and instant coffee from a machine. But I'd give a strong point on superficiality, a full 5/5 on decor! Unfortunately for us, we didn't go there to eat decor or buy Naga artifacts. Rest assured I'd give Naga Mandarin 5 stars if it was an artifact store, but please up your food game or close the...

This restaurant is located right at the heart of Laitumkhrah, Shillong. Though it has no parking place of its own, cars can be parked at Laitumkhrah market parking lot which is located at a walkable distance from the restaurant. The restaurant has a quiet ambience. Service was prompt and the waiter courteous. It doesn't take long to decide on an item as the menu is accommodated in two pages. A mini meal consists of a bowl of soup, a bowl of red rice, fresh vegetables, the popular Naga chutney (axone) and non vegetarian item can be either smoked beef, pork or fish. Beef and pork items are very delicious, fish is ordinary. The food was hot, simple, very little spices and very tasty. Rice quantity in a mini meal item is quite less in case you go there for lunch and are very hungry. In case the food is too much for your stomach to handle, you can always ask the owner for a key to the bathroom which is located at the back of...