Mandarin Garden Restaurant — Restaurant in Northfield

Great appetizers & fried rice, prices on both are worth every penny. The problem comes when you order an entree, so very overpriced! We got the Sesame Chicken which came on a raised small platter & was only about a 1/3 the amount of food you get anywhere else & it was about 5 bucks more. Also it looked and tasted like they just added red wine to their sweet & sour sauce. 😝 Yucky sweet! And it came with about 1/2 the normal serving of white rice. boo! The service was weak. What appeared to be a college kid who maybe have worked there very long. The people who came in at least 5 minutes after is got their food about 10 minutes before us because we had an appetizer and he waited till it looked like we had stopped eating the appetizers to get our food made. Just like at the end of our meal where he waited till it looked like we were "slowing down" (his words) to see if we would like our food boxed. That was more than 15 minutes after I had set down my silverware & pushed my plate away. My son kept poking at the food until he was overstuffed and uncomfortable because we waited so long for the waiter to come back. He was only waiting three tables, and we were the first ones to get there. He had two pickup orders while we ate. We got there at 5:21, our appetizers came at 5:35, our fried rice came at 5:49, our Sesame chicken came out at 6:07 and we weren't able to leave until 6:37, even though we finished eating at 6:25. He never checked back to see if our meal was ok or we needed anything else. We were both very disappointed in the cost and the service. Now we know that is not the place to go for any entrees, and I'll prolly order appetizers & fried rice to go if there's a next time. I know my fortune told me "Impossible standards just make life difficult", but I went into it without expectations & was still mostly...

I quite honestly don't know where to begin when describing the Mandarin Garden. Do I start with the friendly atmosphere with the pretty red and gold walls greeting you as you walk up the stairs to the restaurant? Or do I begin with the happy and knowledgable staff that display the epitome of Minnesota-nice? Or maybe I should start with the fresh and largely portioned dishes for a ridiculously good price. I can't remember the last time when I went to nice restaurant and spent about $13 (with a 20% tip) and still had enough leftovers for 2-3 more meals. That's about $4/meal!! Maybe that's how it has been there for over 30 years....

Every visit, I have to have my regular: Sesame Chicken - breaded, fried chicken marinated in a sweet yet savory sauce (sometimes I eat the sauce alone because it tastes that good); or Tofu Family Style - fresh veggies and fried tofu with this spicy szechuan kick. If you plan to bring a group of people, add in the Mandarin noodles and pork fried rice or pork with snow peapods. BE CAUTIOUS of the chow mein! The chow mein is NOT lo mein which is also not served on the menu. But the closest to lo mein would be their Mandarin noodles. I have tried nearly all the dishes on the menu but those listed above are my favorites.

SECRET: If you can read Chinese, there's a secret menu written all in Chinese. It includes dishes that you'd only find in Taiwan and are like home country-cooking. That being said, there sometimes are dishes that you may find on "Bizarre Foods." But to the natives, these dishes have a special place in...

In late April we ordered some food from Mandarin Garden. Sadly, one of my friends found a piece of metal from a scrubbing brush in our order of vegetable fried rice. While I'm glad that it was discovered before it was consumed, and while I understand that mistakes happen, it was the response from the staff that was most concerning. They indicated that these things happen when their scrubbing brushes get old, and that there's not really a good way to tell when it will happen. Perhaps that's true, but I have to wonder if they've thought of switching brands of brushes, or switching to new brushes on a more frequent schedule, etc.? Overall, their response seemed to indicate more of a passive acceptance of the problem versus a stronger resolve for greater food safety. So while the food at Mandarin Garden usually tastes good, I was reminded that that's only part of the...