Mandarin House Restaurant

My wife and I went there today for their dim sum lunch. When we are arrived the place was packed but we were seated right away. As we were sitting down the first cart of food arrived, it sure smelled good, and as by the smell of it it, tasted very good too. The food was fantastic! The service prompt.

Godwin’s ROTD just prompted me to finish this overdue review for the magnificent Mandarin House aka Finest Authentic Chinese Restaurant in St. Louis.
So I had the pleasure of trying Mandarin House for the first time at a Dim Sum UYE. Luckily, I dined with awesome people who knew exactly what a Dim Sum is all about. Kid #2, Lizzy, served as my personal Dim Sum chaperone and gave me all the info I needed to enjoy the extraordinary food surrounding our table. She did an excellent job keeping me away from pork items and suggesting some really good dishes I was happy to experiment with. Thanks Lizzy!
Mandarin staff was very pleasant and kept food coming on a rolling basis. The space is large and even at 11:30am they handled the crowd well. The décor was beautifully Chinese themed; bringing out my inner feng shui. The food was delicious, especially the shrimp options. The hot tea was also superb. Dim Sum is truly an experience, thank you Ben & Charleen for orchestrating this amazing event.
~Christy

Last week, my wife and I attended the annual Unilocal Dim Sum event (kudos to Ben S for organizing). It was our first trip to Mandarin House. We had been interested in trying the dim sum here in St. Louis after eating so much amazing Dim Sum during our visit to China last year, but had not gotten around to it. On the down side, our standards were probably ridiculously high. But I’m happy to say that our experience at Mandarin met those expectations. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal!
The waiters/​waitresses bring around carts with all sorts of amazing looking food on it. We tried shrimp dumplings, pork dumplings, and pork buns. The broccoli rabe with brown sauce was excellent and nice to get a vegetable in. Scallion pancakes are a must. They also had the Shanghai dumplings filled with the soup broth– similar to what we’ve had in Chinatown in NYC, but slightly smaller. One of the other folks at our table (thanks Kevin/​Christine) ordered a Lotus Leaf, filled with rice, beef and a sauce. This was really good, and not something I would have ordered normally, but would recommend! For dessert, I recommend the sweet dumplings. These had pineapple custard inside. We had had similar dumplings that were pumpkin flavored in china that were absolutely incredible. The ones at Mandarin were decent– not soft all the way through like the ones we had in China, but still really good. And it was nostalgic to be able to try it.
We loved the ambience of Mandarin too! Feels like a true authentic experience. If you’re wanting American chinese food, Mandarin probably isn’t it. But we’re excited to have found this place.

I visited Mandarin House with a large group for a UYE– this was my first time taking part in dim sum, and I loved it! Another time I visited for dinner and we were able to order from a standard menu. The ladies pushing the carts around the restaurant were very friendly, not pushy at all. Our group was able to order 2 – 3 items from each cart as they came around. We were eating for close to 2 hours and never had a lull in new hot, fresh food.
Each time a new item was delivered to our table, the servers would mark on our bill the size of the item we were getting (small, medium, large, extra large). At the end of the service, our bill was tallied up by how many of each size we consumed. They were very accommodating in allowing us to divide our bill by the number of people so that we could all have separate checks.
My favorites include:
–Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) — be very gentle when picking up so that the soup doesn’t leak out before you get in your mouth.
–Cheng Fun (rice paper rolls with pork, BBQ pork, or shrimp) — make sure to try at least one of each filling. There were chewy, but not doughy or slimy.
–Ha Gao (shrimp dumpling) — quite a large bite, with plenty of shrimp
–BBQ pork buns– probably baseball sized light, airy dough balls filled with sweet and savory BBQ pork

I was very hesitant to come to Mandarin House for the Dim Sum. My last experience with Dim Sum was really not good. The food was too authentic. Sometimes that is a bad thing. I cannot believe how different the Dim Sum was as Mandarin House. If I knew the names of everything I ate I would be a super star. Alas I don’t. Here are some standouts, duck, noodles, a custard filled pastry, dumplings, shrimp in about everyway possible. Many vegetable dishes that will remain nameless as I did not know what I was eating but it was good. I want to thank Ben and Charleen and their wonderfull daughters who kept explaining everything to me the girls were so nice!

OMG — New Years Dim Sum with dad! Amazing as always. The servers don’t always speak much English, but they usually can explain enough about what’s on the food carts to get the point across. Most servers are super friendly — everyone wished us happy new year’s. This time, the receipt where they mark down your food was in English in addition to Chinese, so I was better able to keep track of our bill. I wish I knew the names of the dishes, everything was amazing. Duck, pork, clams, sauted seaweed, crispy, stewed, marinated, any type of thing you would want to try (including duck head!) is here, just point and eat. I also learned there’s a student discount, don’t forget to show your ID for 10% off!

I had a lot of hesitation with coming here, especially with the name Mandarin House. Dim Sum is Cantonese/​Hong Kong style and not Mandarin. Clearly, I’m a little bias since the Cantonese-​American in me doesn’t understand Dim Sum at a Mandarin establishment. However, I am on my search for the best Dim Sum in STL — and damn it this is pretty close.
1) Owner/​staff speaks mostly Mandarin, but some of the staff speaks Cantonese
2) Lots of Asians everywhere and this is a large place. You can roll deep with like 15+ of our friends at a table.
3) They open late for dim sum at 11am (usually I can get my fix at 8am). But I guess I kind of like that b/​c it creates a rush of the hustle/​bust for dim sum like I was back on the East/​West coasts where Dim Sum is really popular.
4) Food leans toward Mandarin flavors –especially the stuff they have in the middle –à la carte for you to pick up on our own vs. the pushy carts. But get the homemade scallions pancakes!
5) Cantonese Dim Sum is ok and standard, honestly not the best– but really it isn’t bad. You come here for the variety of everything.
6) Tofu pudding is in the Rice Porridge cart (which is super weird to me) but I found it god damn it!
7) Love that they have help yourself to go containers in the front.
8)Pricer than the other places but at least there are prices (not in Chinese) on the stamp card
So even though it’s a little off the beaten path of the Olive area, this is a busy place on the weekends. Come at prime time around noon. It’s good to go in groups. One more thing, I said this place has a lot of Asians. But tell me why they hired the only non-​Asian for the front of the house with his English accent to great people? I guess this is to make the non-​Asians feel comfortable per my conversations with the staff. Urghhhh…

Horrible service here. If you want to be seated and then ignored for 20 minutes or more, then this is your place. We were seated and then left alone for about 10 minutes before someone even came by with menus. Then they asked if only 1 menu was okay for our party of 5. We asked for 2 menus and then waited another 20 minutes. No one came by with water or even give us a plate and utensils. Most of the other people dining here got up and went to the service tables for their own missing items or things they needed like spoons, napkins, etc. To make matters worst, people that came in after us and seated right next to us were all given menus and then immediately got glasses of water.

Ate lunch here on a random Tuesday. I ended up reading the lunch menu but ordering the buffet because it comes with soup and soup is what I wanted anyway. It’s $ 9.95 for the buffet. I ordered a hot tea and they did not charge me for it. I’m not a buffet person. I like to order food that is prepared especially for me and hasn’t been sitting out. This was a decent buffet though. They selection was small and the restaurant seemed to have an issue keeping the buffet stocked but that did allow me to sample some very fresh food when a new dish did eventually come out of the kitchen. I would go back but probably skip the buffet next time.

It’s often difficult to find good dim sum in the Midwest (outside of Chicago), but I think this place does a really good job! Definitely a great addition to the St. Louis Asian cuisine choices. I came here for their dim sum, and had a fantastic meal. They are good about coming around with their carts of food, and they also have a table set up in the middle that you can walk up to and order there. I thought they had a good variety of classic dim sum dishes, plus some other less-​common dishes. Overall, everything was really good, especially their luo bo gao and pork buns :)

Let me start by saying this has typically been my favorite old school white linen cloth Chinese restaurant. My last 2 visits have been horrible. I went simple for take out and ordered beef fried rice which was very greasy, the rice seemed under cooked, and the beef was fatty and very grisly. I was so disappointed. Say it ain’t so… et tu brute?!
On a more positive note my favorite things on the menu are the Mandarin Beef, the beef egg rolls (which are huge and maybe the best in StL), as well as hot braised chicken.

Delicious Cantonese Brunch

We were here two weeks ago for dim sum and were very impressed. We thought we’d try them for dinner. When we were in China a few years ago the food was delicious and feel that our pallet has expanded. Tonight we ttwo of the chef’s new dishes, one fish and one beef as well as the Cantonese crab soup and Shang Lo Bou.

When my wife and I first moved to St. Louis about nine months ago we had no idea there was a significant Chinese population in the city. We’re still not exactly sure WHY there are relatively so many Chinese around here — maybe Chicago is too expensive so they moved south, maybe all the foreign exchange students going to Wash U decided to stick around, perhaps the families that first moved here to start restaurants after getting kicked out of California were massive or they had a lot of friends — but whatever the case, we were pleasantly surprised to see AT LEAST FOUR dim sum restaurants in the city in addition to multiple grocery stores and other authentic Chinese restaurants. Coming from New Orleans, where the food is great but the Chinese selection is meh at its finest, we were pretty ecstatic. We tried Mandarin House for the first time with a group of Unilocalers back in January and we haven’t stopped coming. In our opinion it is the most well-​rounded of the dim sum places.
THE GOOD
Large Selection: The best thing about Mandarin House is that it offers up several delicious items that aren’t served at the other places in St. Louis consistently, or even at all. A lot of these options are a result of them having a chef’s station (I don’t know what else to call it) right in the middle of the dining room that serve bowls of pretty yummy, but relatively uncommon, items. Our favorite «rarities» include:
**Xiaolongbao — Also known as Shanghai Soup Dumplings. The soup broth is INSIDE the dumpling along with the meat. These are not easy to make compared to most other dim sum items. I love seeing it on the carts and will order them every time.
**Pig’s Blood — Congealed with a sort-​of jello texture. It’s real good here because they successfully sift out all the particulate to give it a smooth consistency.
**Beef Tripe «Soup» — All the dim sum places have the blanched white tripe that’s served by cart, but only Mandarin House has the large pieces in the brown broth-​y sauce. Rich and full of flavor.
**Scallion Pancakes — I admit they aren’t made in the best way — they never flatten them out enough so it’s almost a little too doughy — but at least they make them fresh!
Higher Highs: I think overall, Wonton King is probably more consistent in their quality than Mandarin House, but when Mandarin House gets it going, it’s actually really good. They do a fantastic job with some of the dim sum staples, including:
**Cheng Fun — rice paper rolls with meat inside. The rolls need to be the right balance between slick and tight. Too slick and the roll falls apart. Too tight and the roll becomes doughy. Mandarin House has the right balance.
**Lo Bak Go — also called Turnip Cakes even though they don’t actually have any turnip in them. Mandarin House has the push-​cart flat-​top that they use to finish off this dish before giving it to you so it doesn’t dry out.
**Ha Gao — the ubiquitous shrimp dumpling. The shell is thin enough to the point of almost being translucent, with a pleasingly smooth, non-​sticky texture. The shrimp inside is chopped but not completely pulverized.
**Fung Zao — CHICKEN FEET! if you don’t deep fry them enough, you can’t chew any of it. If it’s deep-​fried too long, then it’s a soggy mess. More often than not, Mandarin House seems to get the texture just right for us.
No Waiting: A massive dining area means never having to wait for a table even in the middle of the rush unless you are with a big party, in which case WHY DIDN’T YOU MAKE A RESERVATION you silly goose.
THE BAD
Non-​Existent Pricing Guide: Dim sum is priced by placing dishes into size categories and putting tick marks in each size column based on what you order. It’s a pretty simple system. My issue is that they do not have the PRICES for how much each size costs. By now I have the size prices memorized, but that doesn’t help a first-​timer who may be extremely put-​off by having no idea how much money they are spending until they go to pay the bill. This is unfortunately starting to be pretty common among a lot of dim sum places in the US (including the others in St. Louis), but that doesn’t mean it’s OK for Mandarin House to do it too.
PURGATORY
Consistency: Don’t go late (after 1:30pm). Dim sum by nature requires that many items be prepped in advance. There is no way they are making all those Ha Gao during the rush. They make them all early that morning (my guess is they start at 5am) then steam them in batches during service. The downside is that as business slows down, the batches sit in the carts for longer, losing heat and losing form. This becomes a problem for Mandarin House as it gets closer to the end of dim sum time. Wonton King does a better job of planning out its batches based on customer volume to avoid this issue. Fortunately, during the middle of the rush the food is consistently solid.
OVERALL
Solid selection, solid execution. It’s really simple when you think about it. Good job Mandarin House! We will be back next week.

My husband and I are originally from California and after being stationed at fort Riley, Kansas for 2 years with no dim sum, we were on our way to Germany and stayed in saint Louis. This place was very delicious with lots to chose from and it reminded us of home. Definitely worth the $ 50 we spent between the two of us! We went on a Saturday and they were really busy, food was fresh and was greeted by the ladies with the carts as soon as we sat down. Must try!

Best dim sum, friendly crew. we r addicted. we go just about every weekend. for Authentic Chinese food… this is the place.
Our favorite is the sticky rice, Siomai, steam brocollli with oyster sauce, shrimp dumplings, tofu rolls with stuffed meat and brown sauce… Everything is scrumptious. Duck… taro with meat inside… Yum
This place is always crowded. Best to go early. 11 am.

Terrible. Abysmal service, cold and tasteless food
My fiancé and I came in for their dim sum lunch on Memorial day. We saw our server a total of one time, and we had to stop her from walking away so we could continue a drink order. After that, she was nowhere to be found aside from walking out of the kitchen nibbling on a bowl of rice. We had to flag down another server (who seemed to be intentionally ignoring us) just to ask for a refill and order an item off the menu.
As for the dim sum, we paid $ 45 for cold, tasteless crap. Only the sticky rice was above room temperature.
Between the two of us, we have more than 25 years of professional food service experience (she as a chef, myself as a server and bartender) and this was the first time in memory that neither of us has left a tip.
We will not be coming back and will be actively advising friends to stay away.

Got here at 10:55 am, and it looked like the restaurant had already opened a little early. By 11:30, the place had started filling up quite a bit. Service was very friendly, and most of the people pushing the carts spoke enough English. There was one cart that had some of the best stuff (hargow/​xiajiao, siumai/​shaomai), and I ended up speaking Chinese (Mandarin, not Cantonese) with the lady, so I have no idea if she would have been able to help solely-​English-​speakers order beyond pointing and nodding yes/​no.
The food was mostly good – some of it I would say was a weak 3-​stars over on the East Coast, since I am from DC and had access to really good dimsum over there growing up. But for St. Louis, it was pretty decent, hence the 4-​star rating. I was happy with my trip here, and the total without tip was less than $ 50 for 4 people who all had hot tea.
I did tip more than 20% on top of that though because there was a grumpy, entitled lady in front of me at the cash register when we checked out who snarked at me, «Why would you EVER tip here?» when I asked the cashier if I should leave the tip on the table or up front. I didn’t want to make a scene in a public area, but seriously, who goes to a restaurant and doesn’t tip when you’re provided a service? Apparently that lady. I wanted to slap her. But that isn’t really relevant to my review, so I’ll shut up now.

A small wooden bridge spanning an ornamental fish pond and some warm wood paneling set this Chinese stalwart apart from others in the area. Yet in every other respect, it’s indistinguishable. Service is efficiently brusque to maximize customer turnover. We’ve often had to wait for a table on weekends, whether we had booked in advance or not.
Lunch buffet: They have this lunch buffet (power lunch) Monday to Friday, 11:00 — 2:30. Very limited selection of food, choices slightly vary every day but mostly American Chinese food. Walnut shrimp, orange chicken, cashew chicken, steamed fish flounder and onion beef. After 2:30 is staff lunch time, all the staff came out and you’ll see them minimizing the buffet leftover. You’ll hear them complaining about their food quality and whispering gossips or some atrocious customers they met yesterday.
Weekend brunch (dim sum): they actually offer dim sum everyday. Weekend brunch time is the «happy hours» when dim sum are of lower prices. There are ladies serving dim sum in carts.
People usually com in groups and get a pot of jasmine tea and enjoy the early afternoon. Dishes are delivered quickly, like about a dozen baskets arrived simultaneously. Food was of decent quality, but there were no standouts among the parade of dishes we tried either.
Regular food: mediocre. Limited selection of authentic Chinese food, authentic but not necessarily good. You have to know what to order, or ask them which items are authentic Chinese food they’ll give you recommendations.

I am not a huge fan of dim sum, but sometimes I do gravitate towards it and this place is my favorite in STL. They have more variety, and the woman at Lulu can be rude sometimes.
We have eaten here several times now, and the food has always been served fresh and hot. They even have a stand in the middle of the restaurant where they prepare some of the dishes to order. Communicating with the servers has not been a problem for us, but we have a Teen who speaks a little Mandarin and they find this endearing enough to pay a lot of attention to us usually.
I have a standard order for dim sum, which includes all three of the dim sum food groups — I like Shrimp Chow Fun (gelatinous), pickled cucumbers and/​or green peppers (veggie) and sesame taro balls for dessert (greasy and fried.) Not that this is all I eat, but these are my three favorites that I always try. This place combines the veggie and greasy and fried groups in an offering of deep fried pumpkin — you must try this! I didn’t even really like pumpkin but I basically claimed this for myself. Sweet and salty and deep fried — yum!
As far as atmosphere, what I look for in a dim sum restaurant is simple: lots of Asians. If I walk in with my family and we are the only table of non-​Asians in the place, I know it’s going to be good. Last time we were there, in a packed restaurant we were one of three non-​Asian tables there. Success!