Mustard Seed — Restaurant in Missoula

We love the Mustard Seed! It is another one of our favorites. Their happy hour menu has delicious options. Something for everyone. A great way to taste several options and relax. Their happy hours run 3-6 and 8-10 in the bar area only. Favorites on the happy hour menu are; cold Chinese Roast Pork, California rolls - and Asian Glazed Pork Ribs. Their green beans off the appetizer menu go well with the happy hour options. We’ve tried everything off their dessert menu and love them all, but consistently return to the huckleberry mousse pie. If you’re on vacation and want to try huckleberries- this is the perfect dessert - and worth the trip! It has an oreo crust, chocolate and huckleberry mousses, whipped cream on top, and both chocolate and huckleberry sauces to drizzle over the top. The huckleberry sauce has actual huckleberries in it!

Tonight we were there for my kiddos new favorite, the sweet and sour chicken. Their signature Osaka is my all time favorite - paired with ginger dressing on the salad.

Their chefs and kitchen staff are top notch. In decades of enjoying the Mustard Seed, I have not experienced a meal over or undercooked - and they crank out beautiful plates of food at a fast/steady clip depending on the hour and how busy they are. Your food should consistently arrive just about when you finish your appetizers/salad.

Their salads are sooo good. The veggies are consistently fresh and crisp - and they add bits of romaine lettuce to their greens, which add a fun extra texture.

The front of house staff and bartenders are quick and professional. They consistently get your waters to you right away, then drinks, appetizers, dinner, dessert in the correct order, and check back the right amount. They also pre-bus their tables as would be expected.

Details in their lighting add to the overall experience. There are features in their lighting that may be overlooked while enjoying your meal, but add to a calming and positive atmosphere. Such as one light in a large glass ball. Please see for yourself. While it’s impossible to capture the feel of a place in a picture, it is possible to see the beauty. Kudos to the lightning designer. Their manager helped take pictures.

There are two outdoor terraces. Great places to enjoy your meal in the summertime. Both are pictured. One is sidewalk level. The other...

I travel to China often for work, sometimes several times a month. I've not found better Chinese/Asian fusion cuisine in the US than the Mustard Seed. Take for instance, their Sweet and Sour dishes... most "American Chinese" sweet and sour dishes use a ubiquitous 'Red Sticky Sweet' sauce, so sweet it causes your pancreas to cry foul in three bites. Not so at Mustard Seed: their S&S sauce is not industrial red in color, it's a golden color, sweet but not overwhelmingly so. It's light enough to allow the flavor of the meat (shrimp, pork, chicken) to actually be a player in the recipe. And it's delicious.

The signature dishes (in my opinion) at Mustard Seed seem to be the Green Bean appetizer and the Osaka Chicken or Osaka Shrimp. The green beans are flash fried in peanut oil, best I can tell, and sauteed in a soy/ginger/chili glaze that is light and delicious. I would prefer a little spicier, and next time I'll ask if it can be done with a little more kick.

The Osaka dishes are your choice of basic protein, cooked and served with a tangy citrus/lemon honey sauce that is one of the best sauces I've had for chicken, in all honesty. Again, as with most all Mustard Seed dishes, the sauces are light, not heavy, and do not overwhelm... but are delicious.

In my travels, though Asia, I've had a lot of great Asian food, and Mustard Seed is as good as anything I've had in Beijing or in Shanghai, and light years ahead of anything I've had in the states. It's crazy to think the best asian cuisine I've had in the US is in Missoula, Montana!

I'm looking forward to trying more of the menu in the future. Well done, Mustard Seed,...

I made contact with the restaurant in several ways about one of our party members being immediately made sick by some seemingly undercooked, rubbery chicken. She ate her meal, we waited an impossibly long time for the check, and within possibly 45ish minutes afterwards she was sick in the Hobby Lobby next door.

I called them while getting in the car to leave. All they did was poorly apologize and “go check to make sure the food was the proper temperature.” So I also emailed. I got a email response explaining food poisoning “wasn’t possible” but they “made sure anyway.” They then offered a gift card. No thank you, we will not ever be returning.

It was $20 they could have taken off the bill or refunded us. It’s poor taste to offer money to return to a place that made someone sick. Why should we come back? I also didn’t appreciate the denial that it “simply wasn’t possible.”

The handling of the situation was fumbled. If you are willing to offer a gift card, why not just apologize and give back the about of money that made a customer sick?

We will not be returning. Service was also poor, and very inattentive, table was sticky, most food was cold or just unappealing to everyone, and even though the restaurant was 3/4 empty- we were made to wait far too long to be seated, ordered,...