Mandarin Restaurant Cuisineart — Restaurant in Albert-Eden

It's not the great restaurant I went to before. The table layout changed a lot, which made several large tables and just two confined four seats tables. The waitress first 'greeting' was "Are you in a tour group?" Once she found we were not, she let us, five people, sit in the four sets table, cheek by jowl with other two gentlemen, with all other tables unoccupied and no reserved sign. The restaurant's name and menu were changed too. We ordered a course that there was no spicy sign on the menu , also no reminder from the waitress, which we usually have both in the restaurant when we have kids with us. It turned out that the course was super spicy, the most spicy taste I had ever tried in Auckland when I specifically asked for the hottest one. When I asked the waitress about it, she said "Why do you notice it now?" All in all, the waitress was very rude, the service was terrible, and I won't go to that restaurant again until it changes the owner again.

Since the owner replied, I want to add two things. First, I didn't mind the waitress asking me whether we were in a tour group. It was impolite that she didn't even say hello. Second, I just wanted an explanation and didn't mention anything like a refund or exchange. However, the very first sentence that the waitress said was "Why do you notice it now?" In addition, there was no sincere apology at all. She emphasized that that course had to be spicy and that was very common in her hometown, as if she just served in her hometown and that was...

Lovely clean restaurant and welcoming staff. Would have got 5 stars if all the food came out at the same time and if the staff offered a choice of the type of tea we'd like. I can understand why the food came when it did as there were a lot of people already in the restaurant. Definitely worth the wait as the food was hot and delicious and definitely worth the drive from the cbd. We had the green onion pancake, spicy pork dumplings, combination fried rice, black tea and spicy pork stir fry. The chopped up chilli and sauce in the dumplings and the spicy pork stir fry was delicious! Fried rice was too oily for our liking. This was a nice find especially as it wasn't our first choice (Maya BBQ next door was fully booked). The ambience was nice with lots of nice seating and tables. Lots of tv screens to watch and they were playing China The Voice. Next time I go I'd like to try the mango drink. Thanks...

Dine in on Saturday night. Never failed to impress on colder nights! Reasonably good seafood hotpot at $198. You’d get a vast variety of fresh seafood including oysters with glass noodles, mussels, crabs, squids, deep fried fish, abalones, clams, a few tiny Chinese crayfish (useless anyway) with potatoes bed. Different spice level to choose from (‘mild’ gives a bit of heat which is more tolerable especially with Kiwi kids, ‘original’ does taste more spicy with heat, never tried the other super spicy version). Good portion for a group of 4.

Another dish to commend - potatoes, egg plants and capsicum stir fry. Such a refreshing dish!

In terms of environment, rather noisy at the front end (unsure why people shouted/raised their voice when they talked among themselves 🤣), tables were very closed to each other. They do have VIP rooms towards the back though.

Note that staffs are polite,...