Mandarin China Restaurant

Loved and truly miss this place. A full menu of traditional made-​to-​order dim sum served all day.

We had planned a birthday dinner at Mandarin China for March 10, 2012 and when we arrived it was closed and has stayed closed ever since.
It’s a shame because the choice for chinese restaurants in PL/​OB is getting pretty thin.

DIM SUM FOR DINNER? YOU BET!
This is great cuz I work till after seven. Dim sum, those tasty little plates of steamed or fried dumplings are usually only available for breakfast or lunch at most Chinese places.
My friends and I always go and have lots of fun sharing. Their egg rolls and shrimp toast are also yum!
Yes, this place looks like it’s glory days were in the eighties, and I’m sure it would be busier if it weren’t located in such a dark weird strip mall with it’s neon OPEN sign pointing toward the parking lot instead of the road… but this just adds to my feeling like this is my special secret Dim Sum joint!

3.25 stars… yes a quarter star…
Atmosphere — Quiet… like ghost town quiet. I have tried this place a few times… mostly cuz I can crawl here and my go to Chinese place is a 15 – 20 minute drive. They have a large are for private parties… but I have never seen anyone in there? and the dining room at most has had 3 parties sitting down… the parking lot is always empty… They must own the joint cuz I know they don’t have the business to make rent… unless they are selling…
Food — Food is good… not great but good. I wish they used white meat chicken without me having to ask and pay additional. Every dish I have had here had good taste to it though.
Cost — Fairly priced especially compared to nearby places. Expect about $ 10/​entrée.
Summary — Not too many choices for Chinese around PL/OB…this may be the tops? If you want to take someone out that you don’t ant to be seen with… this is the place to go!

Chinese dive restaurant! I like this place, it’s never very crowded and the service is quick.
My favorite is the won ton soup, pork won tons, bok choy and bbq pork slices, server with crunchy noodles.
The Lunch combos are pretty good and a decent price.

Love this place! wish it was closer to our house — it would be our staple Chinese food go-​to.
Won Ton soup is great, flavorful won tons, broth, veggies, and you even get some pork slices in the Won Ton soup.
You can also order BBQ pork slices on the side — sooo yummy with hot yellow mustard — pork slices are tender and tasty.
If you order combo plates, the amount of food you get is amazing for the price. Since it’s by my work I try to hit it up whenever I get the Chines food nom noms.

Cheap. Dim Sum menu. Lunch menu. All around DELICIOUS.
You walk in and you know that you are at an authentic chinese restaurant. I was craving some good, greasy fried rice in a chinese box and after scouring Unilocal (because san diego doesn’t have very many chinese options!!), this place was the winner and I am soooo glad that I grabbed some. The rice was awesome, I ate almost the entire box myself plus 2 veggie eggrolls. YUM.

I agree with Unilocaler Scott J. Mandarin China Restaurant is pretty good.
In fact, it just won favorite Chinese Restaurant category in a poll done in the Pennisula Beacon newspaper.
I ride by nearly every day and the place drives me crazy with the smell of garlic! It’s also true that generally, this restaurant looks pretty empty. I think they do the majority of their business with take-​out service.
The website says they have been serving San Diego for 30 years! It is a family-​owned and run restaurant that was one of the first to introduce Dim Sum to San Diego. The dining room seats over 100 people, and I believe that Mandarin China is a popular family place for all the condo owners who live behind it in Loma Riviera. They do catering, take out, and delivery in the Point Loma area, but only deliver after 5 PM.
Mandarin Chinese food is something I am quite familiar with as I was once a wok cooking demonstrator in San Francisco. I was trained at a gourmet Chinese restaurant with tips on how to successfully and deliciously prepare tasty Oriental food. It was important for me to be able to infuse my food samples with lots of flavor and pizazz to successfully entice customers to purchase woks. So I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about Mandarin dishes.
As such, I do not understand the hot-​and-​cold Unilocal here. It seems people either dig Mandarin China or dislike it terribly. The Dim Sum is good but I love the Hawaiian rice, which is fried rice with pineapple. The Sesame Chicken Salad with peanut sauce is so good and my son loves the Orange Chicken (minus the green onions.) I really enjoy the Cilantro Chicken which is chicken breasts with cilantro and white onions in a garlic sauce! Yummy! These are common Chinese food dishes and Mandarin does a great job with them.
While my delicate stomach cannot tolerate Indian or Thai cuisine, I am grateful it can handle Chinese. Give a try to Mandarin China and be glad that there are still family-​owned places like this around.

==Mandarin China Restaurant==
I drove by this place many many times and one day I decided to give this a try. It’s been awhile since I been here last with my ex but we sat down and ordered some food. Inside was kind of small but the service was pretty good, considering we were the only ones sitting down. haha. The food was so-​so but it’s better chinese food that I had for awhile within San Diego. The portions are reasonable and the food wasn’t too overly drenched in sauce like most chinese restaurants do. Don’t judge by Décor or how small a place is, it’s all about the quality of the food.
==The Food=
I also did a to-​go order later on and I tried their version of Pan Fried tomato beef chow mein. Keep this in mind, the only Chinese restaurant that can ever make this particular dish is in Daly City/​San Francisco. I kid you not. And if you never heard of this dish, you must search and TRY IT. Email me if you want to know which restaurants serve this awesome dish. But anyways, their version of it was pretty good actually. They didn’t have it on the menu but the chef made it for me and the portion was HUUGEEEE. It was delicious!
PROS:
1] Great service
2] Potions are large and the food is good quality
3] Parking is always available
4] There really isn’t any wait, pretty small
CONS:
1] None really

I just moved into the area, and was craving some Chinese food. Good thing this place is just down the street from my apartment! But when I called them for delivery, I found out they only deliver after 5… bummer. But it was okay, it only took a minute to get there in the car.
When I went into the restaurant to pick up my food, it was ready and waiting for me. The woman at the register was very cute and sweet, pleasant to talk too! The décor was ornate and asian influenced, like many small chinese restaurants you see. It was a bit dark, however. But seeing as I was just picking my food up, it didn’t matter much. There was only one couple there (a bit strange), so I’m not sure how busy they usually are. I’ll have to come back around dinner time to check it out.
The food was pretty tasty… definitely get the house Lo Mein and Sesame Chicken– SO GOOD!
It was a little pricier than most Chinese restaurants I’ve been too, but it wasn’t too steep. We will definitely be back!

Tons of options. Great takeout. Single Dinner Combos are enough for the heartiest of eaters. They actually do have vegetarian combo dinners in case you have the occasional vegetarian tagging along.
My go-​to dishes:
Egg Foo Young Beef or Tofu, they are definitely made fresh
Ma La 4 flavors, not the cheapest item but very very good
Moo Goo Gai Pan: Great for the lite/​non-​spicy eaters, still flavorful and fresh.
Beef Chow Mein: The others are good too
I cannot comment on wait service other than everyone has been friendly to me. The restaurant looks great, but I’m a regular at the adjacent Blockbuster so it is part of my routine to place an order, go swap out my movies, grab my dinner and roll home.
Any reviews on the Dim Sum? Really curious to read one.
Other factors: It’s family run, takes phone in/​delivery, everyone’s nice, lots of options for every type of eater.

I LOVE this place. We’ve lived in OB for 3 years and only eat Chinese from this place. We’ve eaten in the restaurant twice and we call in our order at least once a month to bring it home. I always get chicken Chow Mein and egg rolls, both of which are GOOOOOD! Eating in the restaurant is always a little strange… there aren’t very many people there at any given time but the food is good 9 times out of 10.
I recommend this place. I’m actually eating there tonight!

The food was really tasty but the service was a bit slow. The food was very good though so it made up for the time delay.
We got veggie fried rice with egg, wor wonton soup (without shrimp) and Kung pow chicken. All were great and I’ll definitely go back!

So I visited this place one time. I didn’t really care for the food or the service. The atmosphere was dark and dingy. We were the only ones in the place and we wanted to hurry and finish our food so we could leave. It was pretty bad. This was some time ago.
Today as I was coming home I saw a fire truck and an ambulance parked in front of the place and they were rolling someone out of the joint. I guess they didn’t care for the food either.
I have to try Meechai Thai which is just a few shops down. I hear this place is pretty good.

I just spent 27 dollars on disappointment. Unilocal… THIS WAS A TEST FOR YOU, and YOU FAILED.
I was curious to do some experimenting after reading the 5 star review asking what all the low reviews were about… I also then read the 7 filtered reviews.
I then told myself (I bet these guys pay Unilocal for their listing)
Well… to the phone I go… I order… they take my CC number OVER THE PHONE, FIRST– This is where is should have become suspicious. Who does that?
After the card has been charged (I figured they would bring an imprinting machine and not actually RUN the card then) they informed me it would be an HOUR before my food was delivered… REALLY?! On a TUESDAY NIGHT?! NO NO NO. I live literally 10 minutes away, the food does NOT TAKE ANYWHERE NEAR that long to make. It was the most insane, horrific, terrible, and regretful delivery experience I have ever encountered.
I am hereby bringing my review down to one star, after now seeing my review UNDER the review I read last night touting this business.
DO NOT GO HERE. DO NOT GET DELIVERY. BETTER ALTERNATIVES ELSEWHERE.
What did I get for that hard earned cash?
marginal sweet and sour chicken, tiny cream cheese filled wontons, 2 eggrolls, and hawaiian fried rice. delivered
I couldn’t believe it cost that much for one person to eat chinese food.
granted, I was being lazy… this kind of deal is not the best… there are much better choices out there.
ALSO: If you order delivery, even on a slow Tuesday night, be ready for over an hour wait for your food. Its definitely better to go elsewhere.
this place is TERRIBLE! DO NOT ORDER DELIVERY.
EDIT** AS of 11:18 AM on 8÷25÷2010 my review has been moved ABOVE the 5 star review mentioned in this post a few times. WEIRD Unilocal. WEIRD.
***EDIT*** AS OF 10:38 A.M. CST July 18, 2012 Mandarin China Restaurant says it is «CLOSED.» What a surprise.

This is one place that we will *not* be going back to!
My bf and I took his family out to dinner here and we definitely should have picked a different place!
The good stuff first
— Parking was easy.
— The flavor was good.
— The portions were respectable.
The bad:
— The service was awful. Truly terrible. We asked for our check once, then, 10 minutes later, went to the counter to ask for it — she said she would bring it over — 15 MORE minutes — ended up having to go BACK to the counter to get the check. Thats a 25 minute wait to get the check! The waitress was rude when we were ordering, she was remarkably impatient and before you even finished saying your order, she cut you off and said «Next person!»… UGH!
— It was really hot inside, no AC, no open windows. It was rough. The table next to ours had some kids and the one little kid kept saying «I’m SWEATING!» … Me too, little buddy…
— The place is old and in poor repair.
— It took ffoorreevveerr for our meals to come out. (40 minutes) and when they did finally come out — it was easy to see which entrée was finished first — it was already cold. We were afraid to ask for it to be reheated because that could have been another 40 minutes!
Just not worth it, at all.

I was craving some noodles after a nice sunny day at the beach and somehow ended up here. Its not too bad. But it isn’t outstanding either. I was helpped out my a nice young man. I got some mixed Chow Mein to go. It was still nice and hot by the time I drove home. Nothing outstanding about it but the beef in the chow mein was good.

nothing I had impressed me. I’m no connesuir of chinese food, but I like what I like. We always order General Tso’s (or Cho’s as some places call it), chicken lo mein, crab rangoons, and maybe a few other things.
Thier General Tso’s, not impressive, not tasty, not spicy,
Thier crab rangoon was made with chedder cheese, not cream cheese WTF? Chicken Lo mein was alright.
There has to be a place with good chinese food somewhere in SD…

This restaurant has definitely seen better days. It looks like it was a popular family place at one time, probably about 15 – 20 years ago. Today however it has become pretty run down and was smattered with a few older white faces (yes please read into that, there were no asian people eating here). The interior is pretty bad but the food is even worse. This is the kind of Chinese place that tries to replace fresh ingredients with more corn starch and MSG. It is not a great move. I only ate here once and that was enough. We ordered several items off the menu that are Cantonese staples (this place did appear to be Cantonese style but it was so white washed it’s hard to tell).
The Good: Our waitress was a sweet lady. I felt bad for her having to serve such low quality fare. The wonton soup was decent.
The Bad: Nothing was fresh. The Peking duck didn’t hold a candle to the same dish at Golden City.
The Ugly: Did I mention the interior? Wobbly tables (we tried 3), stained everything (think floor, walls, tablecloth etc…). Also they used regular old tortillas as a side with the duck. Who does that? Seriously, WHAT KIND OF CHINESE RESTAURANT HAS THE AUDACITY TO SERVER MEXICAN TORTILLAS WITH PEKING DUCK???
Ok, I’m done. And I’m done with Mandarin China. Sorry nice Chinese waitress lady…

This place is really not bad. The décor is kind of stereotypical and outdated, in that they still have those Zodiac placemats that I thought only Chinese joints in Virginia have. The service is good, and the food is ok, especially if you are craving some standard Chinese food.
The cashew shrimp was decent. The texture of the shrimp was good, because it was soft and fresh, with a bit of initial crispiness. The hot and sour soup is kind of an Americanized version, and doesn’t have anything in it but a few specks of mushrooms and some tofu. I enjoyed the mabo tofu.