Mandarin Bistro Newbury Park

We wanted to go again to MB on Memorial Day, but alas it was closed, so we went last night for dinner.

We arrived a few minutes before 6:00pm and had our choice of tables. We like the little off-side room which only had one table occupied so that was great. Last time we went it was Mother’s Day and we had to wait a while for a table and the main part of the place was crowded and noisy.

We ordered the Hot & Sour soup again and it was great as it was last time. We tried two new dishes: Lemon Chicken and Kung Pao Shrimp and had the same sautéed green beans as last time. The Lemon Chicken was good, but it didn’t have enough lemon flavor for us. The chicken was cooked perfectly and it had a nice sauce, but unfortunately the lemon flavor was missing, which if it did it would have been great. It’s funny as we don’t normally order this dish because it’s often overloaded with the lemony sauce and not cooked all the way through. This was a switch!!

Lately we’ve run into a rash of serving errors (on Memorial Day at PF Chang’s they gave our order to newly arrived diners after we had waited for a quite a while) and incorrect dishes. Last night was no exception. We ordered Kung Pao Shrimp (with no onions and add water chestnuts). What we received was 3 flavors Kung Pao. The waiter didn’t bring the dish to the table, so when he came by he noticed that it wasn’t right. He immediately offered to take it back and bring the correct dish, but since it had no onions and lots of water chestnuts we said this would be fine and kept it. It just didn’t have as much shrimp as I would have liked! However, the dish was delicious and we did enjoy it. It had a very nice flavor and, as I said, it had lots of water chestnuts, which we love. I really liked the dish and am anxious to try it with shrimp only. The sautéed green beans were also, as last time, very good.

Overall I still like this place and we will be going back to try other dishes. We do enjoy the fact that it isn’t as crowded as Sesame Inn and we enjoy the more open feel of the restaurant. The tables at Sesame Inn are quite close to each other due to the small size of the room. Also, I like the portion size better at Sesame Inn, so I think if we ever go really early we’ll go to Sesame Inn, but we don’t usually go much before 5:30-6:00pm, and by then it’s too crowded. It’s nice to have these two choices so close to each other.