Mandarin Chinese Restaurant

Truly excellent food — wonderful flavors, fresh and easily the best Chinese in the Oberlin area. The egg drop soup is silky and outstanding. The server serves the entire restaurant (about 15 tables) with speed and grace — she deserves 20+%.

Google Pad Thai. It says it is a peanut based dish. This place says they serve Chinese pad thai. It is noodles, chicken and sweet and sour sauce. I called the owner over to the table and they said that is how they serve it. She did not offer to change it or explain why they serve it like that. Second time that we have had food that is so not what we have had at other Chinese restaurants. Don’t go here, drive 5 miles and go to the other restaurants in the area!

Quiet ambiance. Quite small, a little crowded. I like a little privacy when I’m enjoying my food. The food was good. No complaints. Service was good. The whole experience was nothing to rave about, but satisfactory. #satisfiedcustomer

Listen, there’s a difference between more «authentic» Chinese food and more «pop culture-​cheap» Chinese food; but when it comes to the latter, the Mandarin is the best hands down I have EVER had. Sure, it’s not authentic but it’s not supposed to be. I LOVE MANDARIN!

This is just your average local Chinese food joint. Nothing special about it but the food is good and they have one person working the front of the house and boy was she on top of everything from the service to busing the tables. I can’t say that I will be back but i did enjoy my experience here.

Worth the trip to Oberlin. Our family loves this place. My favorites are the lemon chicken and the sushi. Very fresh. I like to eat in but it is good for take out too. Mandarin has a personable staff that cares and the menu prices are reasonable.

Good, decent take out. It’s actually much better than you might think based on the looks of this place, which is its major drawback. It’s a terrible location and they’ve done nothing to enhance the interior either. Dingy and very ugly space. That’s why I emphasized «take out» even though you can dine in. Everything tastes pretty fresh though there is a certain sameness to everything.

The food is really good– only place I enjoy the eggplant dish! The Szechuan chicken has a lot of veggies, I’d prefer without the chicken, crab Rangoon is fresh as good as expected. There’s lots of poor reviews on here– I think It depends in the dish. I come here once in awhile and haven’t been disappointed yet. My table mate disagrees on the chicken comment however. We had a lovely meal and like the paintings on the walls

Food is pretty terrible and greasy, but if you’re expecting it to actually be quality you need to reevaluate. I love garbage Chinese food in all shapes and forms, so I come here often. The waitress who works there every time I go in there is always rude and consistently tries to memorize my order and inevitably messes it up because she didn’t write it down. Even when she does write it down you probably will need to remind her to bring you something you asked for. Come for the greasy egg rolls and duck sauce that tastes like strawberry jam, stay because it takes the waitress half an hour to bring your check after you’re done eating. Don’t order the Pad Thai.

Now that I have graduated I can finally post this… I highly dislike the Mandarin. It is NOT good chinese food, and it’s not even good fake chinese food. Not good at all…
The meat tastes sketchy, like it was rendedered off of the chicken (or cow, or goodness knows what) after all of the good bits had already been taken by other restaurants.
I wanted to like it, I really did! But 4 years later, I like it even less than the first time I ate there. On the plus side, it is still an okay place to go with a group as long as you aren’t planning on consuming much.

usually good but this time I found a maggot in the rice. I can stomach a lot of things but not this. Unfortunately, I won’t be back. –5 stars. So, unless you like obscure insect larva in your meal, I would pass in Mandarin Chinese in Oberlin Ohio.

Gah! Gross. Also, I’ve gotten dishes that weren’t as described, for instance, chow mein with no noodles. And who in the world would dream of ordering sushi here?!

Good cheap American Chinese food. As per Oberlin’s standards there are plenty of vegetarian and vegan options. I highly recommend Taste of Nirvana! I don’t know exactly what’s in it but it’s vegan, fried, and delicious. The lunch portions are still quite big and they’re only about $ 5 so it’s a much better deal than dinner.

Service was ok… I ordered the crispy shrimp which actually should have been called the sweet and sour shrimp. Wasn’t happy at all.

This is not good Chinese food folks. In fact, this restaurant is quite mediocre. Even walking in, you get a sketchy feeling. You are forced to walk through a creepy, smelly hallway that is reminiscent of a death chamber. Fortunately, you do not quite meet death as you walk in. The atmosphere inside is actually quaint and cozy. The experience becomes hopeful when you are served soothing tea in decorative pots. However, the service is something to be desired. During one visit, I went with a party of 7 and the waitress was bringing out one entrée every ten minutes.
The food is not very good. The chicken is rubbery and barely edible. At least the egg rolls and soup are generally good. Prices are cheap (so at least you are not getting ripped off.
I will say, that you should be on the lookout from a food safety standpoint because one of my friends found a rusty staple in her food. I hope this is not the case but it seems possible nevertheless.

I feel that the most effective way to introduce my two experiences at Mandarin is to describe how I felt afterward; namely, very sick to my stomach. I have sampled several items on the menu, including the vegetable fried rice, the tofu Nirvana dish, the Szechuan green beans, the General Tso’s chicken, etc. etc., and the common denominator that I found in all of these dishes is GREASE. Everything felt like it was coated in a layer of grease and then covered with sauce, so that while the food tasted fairly good going down it did not take long for me to regret my decision to eat it. Add to this the waitress kindly informing my table that our miso soup would be brought to the table «as soon as she took it out of the microwave» and you begin to understand why I was not the slightest bit impressed by this restaurant. The waitress completely forgot to bring out my friend’s dish, and by the time she did it was cold. I really did not find anything redeeming about Mandarin– bad service, greasy (and admittedly microwaved) food, knowledge of a horrible stomach ache soon to come, and on top of all of this the meals are by no means cheap.
In short, Mandarin serves greasy, sub-​par Chinese food at prices similar to the more-​upscale Tooo Chinoise. I have eaten there twice and both times I felt both sick and rather ripped off afterwards; needless to say, I don’t ask for a take home box.
Mandarin Chinese Restaurant: «Did the waitress really just tell us that she was microwaving our soup?»

Decent Chinese food in Oberlin. The vegetarian options tasted delicious when I tried it but the meat options could’ve been better (about the same as Too Chinoise). Sushi is decent but can’t complain because there are limited sushi offering in the town of Oberlin. Portions were huge and prices were low. I would definitely eat here again with friends, but it is nothing special.

This place underwent a rather drastic change when it changed management. Both before and after it has been a decent, non-​generic Chinese restaurant with food that is fairly Americanized but a lot better and more original than the standard fast-​food take-​out places.
In my opinion, the quality of the Chinese food has gone downhill with the change in management, although only slightly. The new restaurant adds some Japanese stuff to the menu: sushi, and miso soup. The sushi is decent.
The atmosphere in here is very pleasant… artful, lots of Chinese characters on the walls. There’s a pleasant side-​room that is usually used for large groups, and there are a variety of different sorts of seating areas. I still can’t get over the grimy hallway leading up to the restaurant, and the grimy bathroom off this hallway… but I guess that’s just the way it is.
This place is original… and good. In a town where there aren’t that many dining options, this is a good choice and I am thankful that it is there, and I am sure the many other inhabitants of Oberlin feel the same way.