Mango Restaurant — Restaurant in St. Louis

My wife and I ate at Mango last night. I went because of the yelp reviews. We did not know it was "Downtown Restaurant Week" unfortunately, which meant we paid a lot more for dinner than we wanted to, but that's a random chance sort of thing.

The ambiance is very downtown-ish, lofty ceilling, shiny bar, wood trims, clean. It's not too cramped, and the music is kept to a very enjoyable level. They could have done a tad more with the decor, as far as Peruvian art and so on, which seemed a bit more like an afterthought than a design.

Tables are a fair size (you can still converse with the person across from you) and little touches like a candle, table cloth and cloth napkins spruce up your experience.

The fried plantain chips they bring out mostly just taste like fried freeze dried banana, not much flavour at all. The courses are another matter entirely. If I could begin by saying anything, it's that Mango's food has a certain tendency to MORPH. These are not foods you just put you in your mouth chew and swallow; you have to let them linger to actually experience the flavours, because what they first appear when they hit your tongue is slightly bland, and slowly they change. I thought this was pretty fantastic - a great glass of sangria also interacted with the foods and made them morph even more into something completely different. I had strips of beef on tomatoes and red onions with a wonderful kind of au jus that I couldn't get enough of. Garlic infused rice was very pleasant alone or mixed with your plate.

Did you know bell peppers can be a dessert? I just learned this. My dessert was pretty different! It had plantains, ice cream and a sorbet on top that was partly composed of peppers - it's incredible, though the plantains could have been made mildly more interesting (and somehow easier to cut up for the eating). My wife had the sponge cake (use the raspberry sauce they put on your plate, it changes the dessert completely. I had wings for the appetizer and they had some common spice with a caribbean jerk, and some great citrus notes that once again had a morphing effect.

The service was top notch. You barely know they are there, but they always are a few seconds before you need them. I was somewhat annoyed that the gratuity for 2 people was placed on my ticket not of my volition (18%) BUT, in their defense, I would have tipped it anyhow because the service was great. Had it not been great, I'd be more frustrated, but I suspect they only hire great servers.

All I can say is that you should eat slowly, savour your bites, and definitely order sangria. Let the food and drink interact also, you will see what I mean about it changing constantly. Thank you to the Mango staff for a...

Simply put, perfect. We decided on this as a birthday celebration dinner - something different for us. We made reservations on open table even with it being a Monday night as I hoped they would make an effort in celebrating the birthday with us. We arrived to our table to find the specials menu with a personalized happy birthday message at the top. We started our meal with the anticuchos trio (skewers of meat from the small plate selection). This small plate was perfect. Each skewer more delectable than the one before. The meats were cooked to perfection - beef, chicken and beef heart. The sauces on the side, just great. Our server walked through the unfamiliar with us - not intimidating in the slightest. I ordered the pan seared salmon with aji Amarillo risotto and sundried tomato-aji panca sauce. Fish perfectly done, risotto creamy and flavorful. Michael ordered the grilled beef tenderloin with three grilled shrimp, sauteed green beans and a cremini mushroom brandy cream sauce. Where to start - wow. The beef, ordered medium rare - awesome, tender, melt in your mouth. The cream sauce was present but not over the top. The green beans were tooth crisp, just fantastic. The grilled shrimp just delicious. The beef came along with a swiss potato gratin. It could write its very own review. The most thinly sliced potato layers, shaved swiss, a Panko topping. We pulled this apart to examine it. The potato was tender and creamy but not overdone nor heavy. The server came out with dessert without our request with a candle atop - nice touch! He said it was his personal favorite - pionono. Sponge cake rolled with homemade caramel sauce dusted with powdered sugar and served with additional caramel sauce and raspberry coolie. Oh my. We would highly highly recommend this to anyone and fully intend to return on our next trip...

To celebrate a special occasion we decided to go to Mango on Saturday night. We always have great food and service. We especially like the ceviche and seafood there. The drinks are really good too. We usually like to sit at the bar when we go to eat, because we enjoy the extra service we usually get, as well as having the bartender suggest cocktails.

We initially ordered a bottle of wine and a few minutes later, when the wine came, we ordered our food. The bartender poured the first glass of wine for us.  After that, she never came back again. The food was served by other staff and no one checked on us.

I want to be clear that it wasn't that the bartender was busy making drinks or handling other customers, she was talking to (flirting with?) a co-worker. The ceviche and beef skewers we ordered were great. We just poured our wine which was no big deal, except that we wanted another bottle. When things got really frustrating was when the main course arrived and the fish was so tough and rubbery that we had a hard time even cutting through it. We didn't even try a bite it seemed so bad.

After a several minutes of looking directly at the bartender on the other side of the bar I failed to get her attention.  After a few more minutes we got the attention of someone else working behind the bar and asked for our check since we wanted to leave, frustrated at the lack of service -- something that we never had a problem with at Mango in the past. They informed us that they weren't going to charge for the fish we didn't eat.

As a rule I tip 20-25% since I have worked in restaurants in college and know how hard the work can be. I always leave a tip, except Saturday. It was the first time in over ten years. I can't even remember when I felt so unhappy with service that i didn't...