Mandarin — Restaurant in Brooklyn Park

!!BEWARE!! Do NOT eat at this location.

My coworker and I decided to try a new restaurant in the Brooklyn Park area. After a quick search, we came across this establishment. After reading (mostly) positive reviews, we decided to give it a shot.

We should’ve known it was going to be some B.S when we entered and there were only two customers. This was at lunch time.

When we got seated, we immediately noticed the lack of hygiene and sanitation throughout the establishment. The silverware holders, cups, and sauces were all open and glued with food and sticky unknown substances. It was truly disgusting. We refused to use the cups and ordered a canned drink instead.

At one point, our server brought out a bucket of dishes from the back of the restaurant to the front of the restaurant and started cleaning the dishes in front of the customers.

I ordered the sesame chicken lunch special and an order of oyster wings. My coworker ordered the Pho #3 with brisket. The server brought the food out in less than 5 minutes. The oyster wings had a pungent, rotten smell. I did not eat the chicken wings. My coworker took a single bite of their pho and spat it out. The pho was inedible because the meat was rotten. When they brought the pho out, the broth was a dark brown color compared to the typically clear broth you see at other establishments. At this point, we were extremely frustrated and disappointed. We asked the server if they could remove the pho from our bill (the least they could do for serving inedible food) and they refused. His excuse was “well you already ordered it so there is nothing we can do about it.” The food was the opposite of fresh and tasty.

See the attached pictures I took from this establishment. The pictures show the lack of sanitation and the disgusting conditions of this establishment. the pictures also show the before and after pictures from the moment we received our food to the...

My first time experience was good yesterday.

Our family order included regular fried wings, cheese wontons, large pho, yow chow fried rice and two dinner combos, along with a grab-n-go steamed rice roll package.

Chicken and wontons came out hot - so good.

Pho is all about the broth, and they definitely nailed it - real clean and clear broth, flavorful, and steaming hot.

My dinner combo with beef and broccoli was good, except the fried rice. I had a good number of old crunchy pieces and it was almost stale in a way, so I'm sure they have a rice cooker with prepared fried rice for their combos. Sure, it saves time, but you can also tell it's not made to order.

My favorite was my sister's yow chow fried rice. Freshly made with chinese sausage. It was so good - highly recommend it.

They have this little stand of grab-n-go food/snacks and I grabbed their steamed rice roll package for my boyfriend. It was nicely packaged with sauce and meatball slices. Boyfriend wasn't too big of a fan of it, and I'm assuming it's the overpowering taste of fish sauce in the filling, plus fish sauce in the dipping sauce. It's personal preference of course, but my boyfriend and I can do without it in their filling.

Large portion sizes and affordable prices can draw people in, which is great. We had a large box filled with left overs and we dropped it off for my dad's break time near the area.

Service was fast and friendly. Just make sure you put your empty drinks at the end of the table so servers can see/refill.

I don't live in the area, so I won't be visiting the restaurant...

This has been so far one of the best places for pho I've been to, on my quest to find good pho! This place is also my go to for pho.

The guy server, I'll have to ask for his name next time, is always alert. I'm happy every time he is our server when dining here. He refills your water and asks how things are going all the time. Great experience with the guy server.

When we do get a different server,customer service kinda goes south like our last visit there. Our server was a young girl that mostly played on her phone and didnt even check on our table for water. I had to ask the guy server for water which he told the girl to refill our water. I'll be requesting the guy server everytime we go there from now on.

The pho is always the best here. I dont need to add much of other sauces in to meet the quality of taste my tongue desires. The side dishes such as bean sprouts ate always fresh! The broth is good!

All in all, hope you get the good server. He's always there. The short guy with spikey hair. He's the best server.

I won't count the other servers score in this review, so I'm still rating Mandirin a 5 out of 5. They have great pho, and my wife loves their other dishes. Happy wife, happy life!...