Mai Lee — Restaurant in Brentwood

🍜🌟 Mai Lee: A Flavorful Journey to East-Asian Cuisine 🍱🥢

Rating: 4/5 stars, "Good" - A Vietnamese and Chinese culinary haven tucked away at 8396 MUSICK MEMORIAL DRIVE.

🏮 Decor: Understated Simplicity 🍚🥡

Walking into Mai Lee, you might feel like someone decided to furnish the restaurant with the most standard of tables, wallpaper, and flooring. It's an unpretentious, no-frills setting where the focus is undoubtedly on the food.

💁‍♂️ Service: Unassuming Efficiency 📝🥂

Service here is straightforward - you're greeted, your orders are taken, and beyond that, it's a bit of a solo journey. While it's not the pinnacle of personalized service, it efficiently ensures you're here for one thing: the food.

🍜 Food: A Flavorful Delight 🌶️🍲

Mai Lee came highly recommended, especially for their pho and Vietnamese cuisine. And I concur. In a city where genuinely flavorful East-Asian dishes can be a rarity, Mai Lee delivers.

For my culinary vetting, I opted for the Pad Thai. Typically my go-to for assessing an eatery, it exceeded expectations. The Thai-style rice noodles, stir-fried with a medley of beef, chicken, shrimp, and assorted vegetables, topped with peanuts and served with fish sauce, were a symphony of flavors. 🍤🍜

My girlfriend ventured for #60: Bun Xao Rau Cai - vermicelli noodles crowned with a stir-fried mix of vegetables and crushed peanuts bathed in a sate sauce. Both dishes held their own in the realm of taste and authenticity.

🌟 Night's Highlight: Meeting a Saint Louis Legend 🎤🤩

As if the scrumptious food wasn't enough, our evening was elevated by the presence of the fantastic Nikki Glaser, a true Saint Louis treasure. We couldn't resist playfully "Lady and the Tramp"-ing our way through our meal while in the presence of comedy royalty. 🍝🌟

Mai Lee may not bedazzle you with fancy decor or lavish service, but it's a place where flavor reigns supreme. For those seeking a genuine East-Asian culinary journey in STL, this unassuming gem is worth a visit. With delightful dishes that hit all the right notes, it's an experience that'll leave your taste buds singing. 🥢🍲

If you have more reviews or questions, feel free...

My mother and I visited Mai Lee today for lunch and left extremely disappointed and hurt by how we were treated.

From the moment we sat down, the service was slow and inattentive. We had to signal for someone to take our order after being seated for a while. The potstickers were thick, underwhelming, and poorly made. The chicken wings were dry and overcooked. The pork egg foo young was extremely delayed—after waiting more than 30 minutes, it arrived fried so hard that there was barely any meat or egg left, just crunch.

When I calmly let our server know the food was just “okay,” she challenged my response and took the food back. A manager came and offered to remake the egg foo young and remove the potstickers from our bill. We appreciated that, but when the second round came, it arrived without the rice I had paid extra for. When I asked about it, yet another man-the owner came over, and instead of resolving the issue respectfully, he became hostile.

Shockingly, he raised his voice at my mother and told us not to come back. My mother and I were disrespected and publicly embarrassed—for calmly voicing our concerns. As two Black women, we couldn’t help but notice that other customers received better treatment and faster service.

This experience was humiliating and completely unacceptable. No one deserves to be treated the way we were. We will never return, and we hope management reflects on how they interact with customers who are simply expecting decent food and...

I had a terrible experience at Mai Lee. I am Vietnamese and have been to several restaurants and had pho in Vietnam too.

I ordered the classic pho (#9 on their menu, which is around $14). The pho came out with literally just 4 small pieces of meat, a bunch of rice noodles, and mostly just BROTH. There was no substance to the meal. I asked the waiter if I could get more meat and he came back with 2 more small pieces of meat. The meat is very small and thin. I complained to the manager and told him that the bowl barely had any meat. He then explained to me that the original bowl I got with 4 pieces of meat was the serving they have per bowl. I barley touched my soup and told him I didn't want it anymore and to take it off my bill. He got upset and told me he can't take it off my bill. He said he could only give me a discount for the bowl or make me a new bowl.

A DISCOUNT ON A BOWL OF $14 BROTH?! That was a ridiculous offer. I told him I was fine with his second offer, which I am pretty sure they re-used my old bowl and added more meat and noodles.

Management could of simply accepted the customer request to take $14 off my bill and save the serving of pho for the next customer, instead of making your customer unhappy. It probably only cost them less $1 to make a bowl of pho.

I have never had a good experience at Mai Lee and have told all my friends not to come here because it is definitely overpriced and...