Chef Lee's Mandarin House 2 — Restaurant in Salinas

I went there for the first time this weekend, and unfortunately it will be my last.

I have heard good things about this place and was expecting good service, good food, and great family time.

Now, let me put this out there that i have worked in food service before as a waiter and busser and fully empathize with waitresses and waiters when they get a big group of people.

That being said, their was no excuse to the kind of service my family got that day.

We had a big group and took up a section of the restaurant, so we decided to order as seperate mini groups with a few different waitresses to help.

My mini group and the ones next to me got to order first, since we arrived early. That was at about 7pm. We didnt get our food till about 850pm. In between that time our waitress was for the most part MIA, all the other mini groups got their food, ate and boxed it up to go. And, i saw at least 3 other tables get seated, ordered, eat, box to go, and leave.

We would catch glimpses of our waitress and we would try to get her attention but it seemed she was busy with whatever else was going on. I went to speak with a manager and he told me it was on the way. But it still took about another 20 minutes.

We got apologies from another waitress and she made light of the situation and even joked about it with us, the only saving grace of the night.

What made this experience really unfortunate and unforgivable was the simple fact that the management and our waitress never came to appologize. They got our orders wrong. And they still expected us to pay the full bill at the end of everything.

In the past, if i ever made a mistake or if i had someone make a mistake on my food like this i would apologize and either offer a discount or let them eat for free. Hospitality, you know?

That wasnt shown to us.

I am sure this place can be really good, but i dont reccomend it after...

After our last visit a year ago, I must say the food and service has definitely changed for unfortunately the worse. Chef Lee's when you first walk in is very nice and pleasant, a bit dark for my liking but overall okay, if you have difficulty seeing, reading glasses are a must to read the menu. Ordered the sweet-n-sour pork, mongolian beef, chicken chow mein, won-ton soup, white rice and fried prongs & egg rolls. Let's start with won-ton soup, it tasted a little weird and I got zero shrimp, not sure what meat is in the won ton soup but tasted spoiled, sweet-n-sour pork... it was like Chicharrón's, way over cooked and dry, after finding our waiter, I mentioned to him my issue and how dry it was and he said yeah its like that with pork, the white rice was dry like it had been sitting for awhile, can't understand that for the obvious reason, mongolian beef again was dry and over cooked, it did however have decent flavor, chicken chow mein was tasty but lacked anything else, little chicken and zero vegetables, Again I asked waiter who said they make it like that at times, the egg rolls and fried prawns were very good. Restroom had one stall out of order but clean, waiter was not attentive at all and restaurant was not busy for a Saturday night, waiters at front counter just talked and talked and could've filled water glasses, taken dirty dishes off tables etc.. kids. Overall I'm not overly excited about going back and spending $100.00 on 3 people for what I got. It should've been a clue when the restaurant was not busy on a Saturday night. I think the waiter should've made some of the dishes right or at least compensate. Over priced and greed is all I can think of. Dine at your own risk when Panda is right down the street, cheaper and far better than what I...

I grew up eating at this place. Loved it. Moved a couple hours north and missed it.

My dad died recently. I came back to town to clear his house out for a weekend. It was emotionally and physically awful. Tonight, Sunday, after all the work we did, I was STARVING. My husband and I decided to go to Chef Lee's. I was SO EXCITED.

I asked for a booth and they were really accommodating. But then we sat there for 15 minutes waiting for someone to take our order. We weren't on our cells or anything. Menus closed. Several staff walked by us. There weren't a lot of people in the restaurant... Nothing...

As we sat, I noticed the floor was absolutely filthy. It's gotta be an impressive amount of filth in carpet for me to notice when the lights are dim and a dark carpet.

So then we just walked out. I don't even think the lady at the front noticed us leaving.

We walked across the parking lot too at a restaurant. Got service reasonable amount of time were able to do something.

I'm never going to Chef Lee's again. It sucks to be overlooked when you're hungry and you're being reasonable about it. It's things even more crappy when you cleared out your dead Dad's house and you're treated with apathy. And that's how I'm going to remember this place...