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This is for the Pau Hana special that takes place from 3-6pm on the weekdays. You can find it on their website.
Hubby was working late so we ordered the salt & pepper shrimp, the sam see mein (3 types of meat/veggies on it), and the oyster chicken. All take-out for $23 total including tax. We knew we would not be able to arrive to pick up the food by 6pm and asked if we could pick up at 6:30pm instead. The restaurant staff were very nice and accommodating. We got there, waited for a few minutes while they packaged it up. The staff thanked us as we were leaving.
We couldn't resist trying a shrimp or two while driving home. They were delicious. Big shrimps too. Crispy, salty, garlicky goodness. The oyster chicken was also good. Half a crispy chicken smothered in oyster sauce. Very moist and not dry at all. The sam see mein was a bit on the bland side. It had strips of char sui pork, duck, shiitake mushrooms, and lots of bean sprouts on fried egg noodles.
We'd probably do this again on days when we're too busy to cook dinner.
This review is only for the pau hana entree specials they have. I've had their dim sum and it's mostly - meh. However, it is the cleanest Chinese restaurant in downtown and one of the few places in downtown to have a business lunch (as opposed to picking up a lunch plate).
After being grossed out by a review of Good Luck restaurant in the Chinese Cultural Center, cleanliness has become a premium for me, even at the cost of the onolicious grindz from a hole in the wall. There are many other Chinese places that seem to gross me out. There is one called Pho and Grill on Liliha (across from the library) which would seem to be a Vietnamese place, but mostly is Chinese food. But the cook comes out with your order with a just monstrously bloody apron that he seems to not have cleaned since the last Chinese zodiac year. Mind you, the food is pretty delicious. It's just the presentation.
OK, so yesterday, it was about 4pm and my wife and I didn't know what to make for dinner. I was thinking about Mandalay because it is the cleanest Chinese place I know and I had heard about their pau hana entree specials. Ding ding ding.
It was the perfect idea, under the circumstances. Pau hana goes from 3 to 6pm M-F. The menu they have consists of about 25 entrees from fish to noodles to seafood, where you order 3 of the entrees and it costs $23 (tax included!). It's a little humbug that you have to buy individual rice at $1.50 per order, but hey, you can make planny rice at home. Here is the pau hana menu:
http://www.themandalay...
The great thing is that my wife and I both work in downtown and we head up Alakea as we go home. There is a convenient loading zone to park at, quickly pick up your food, throw down the $23 (must be Jordan or LOST fans), get back onto Alakea to go home. Quick, simple and mostly, clean.
The entrees were great. We chose the steamed white fish fillets with the ginger scallion sauce, stir-friend string beans with minced pork and orange chicken for the kids. My kids are very particular about the orange chicken. They don't like the Costco kine but like the Panda Express and Chun Wah Kam kine. They loved this kind. It was lightly breaded and not too thick on the sauce. The green beans were scrumptious and the fish seemed fresh and firmly textured. The scallion sauce (ginger, oil, shoyu sauce) was a perfect sauce for the otherwise bland fish and it all tasted great mixed in with some steamed rice.
This is likely going to be a weekly or bi-weekly enterprise for us. Good, clean, food; on the way home; no cooking and kids eat right away; and $23 is a pretty good deal.
Inside, The Mandalay is one of the nicest and ritziest Chinese restaurants in Hawaii. With their giant shark fin in a case to the white walls and the glowing golden surround lighting, it is very nice inside. There is even an upper level and a bar. We have gone to dim sum and a had a full blown dinner party there.
The dim sum is not bad. There are no carts and grumpy ladies pushing them around though. You just order from the menu and they bring them out to you. It's actually nice because there isn't usually too many people for dim sum. I think that's more about location than anything.
We had a party there and the service was great. They pretty much let us set up all our stuff and were very accommodating. The regular Chinese fare was not bad as well. If you are downtown, it's a good place to go for Chinese food.
Parking? You probably have to park in one of the garages close by. The closest one is right past the restaurant on Alakea St. on your right. I forget if they validate or not. You may be able to find a space right in front if you are lucky enough.
We went back for a X-Mas dinner... everything still tasted good to me.
I've been here many times now and have always enjoyed the food. Usually it's been a big group of… Read more »
Definitely must-orders are the salt & pepper crab. It's literally finger licken good.
Dim sum is pretty good. Some of the items, were just too greasy for my preference. Also, no Xiao Lung Bao here.
Cleanest chinese restaurant ever.
I went to The Mandalay for lunch and was impressed with the dim sum. I'm not a huge fan of chinese, but every dish that came out was tasty. We had ordered a set meal instead of ordering the dim sum ala carte. It was $25, which was reasonable for the amount of food we got. I can imagine the meal being pricey if you were to order dim sum ala carte.
The service was what to be expected at your normal Chinese restaurant. The wait staff might have been a little more friendly and attentive, but it's a Chinese restaurant. I wasn't expecting the service to be awesome.
Once again. Cleanest chinese restaurant ever. That isn't saying much, but the tables, chairs, utensils, and setting were nice. It was also quiet. Not your ordinary neighborhood chinese place
The Mandalay got mixed reviews. I think if you want to splurge a bit on some dim sum then I think the Mandalay is a fine option. Expect a pay a bit more, but it's not so bad once you start eating.
This was my first time here and I was wondering if you could wear t-shirts to a "fine dining" restaurant for lunch. I ended up wearing a t-shirt and jeans and it was fine. I probably would dress up a bit more for dinner.
I'm coming back!
My favs are the spinach dumplingsy things and shrimp&caramelized walnut dish. Service could seriously be better. Seriously.
I like Chinese food but this place wasn't good.
I went here to celebrate Chinese New Year with my family and didn't enjoy the meal at all.
We ordered the 9-course meal.
Our first course was a fruit salad with shrimp and mayonnaise litterally POURED over it. Mayonnaise on fruit? It was gross.
We then had come sort of clam soup, deep fried oyster roll, a few chicken dishes, some that I've forgotten and ended with a mango pudding.
Some of the puddings were surrounded by a clear liquid which made them look completely unappetizing.
The best part of the meal was the fish, which was cooked to perfection and was quickly eaten to the bone by all those at the table.
The entire meal felt white-washed and wasn't memorable nor rave-worthy.
My husband and I have eaten lunch here twice in the last week because we have had business downtown. The place is absolutely clean. The service is impeccable. And the dim sum is wonderful. Like another reviewer, I compare this restaurant to San Francisco's upscale Yank Sing. We've had most of the dim sum offered on the SAT card. The fried taro is delicious as is the wrapped spinach item and the chicken feet and the shrimps wrapped in a wide noodle, etc. Everyone we've gone with has been so impressed that we are going back for their Christmas buffet!! Hope we're not disappointed.
This is one of the nicest Chinese restaurants in downtown!
I had lunch here with 5 of my co-workers and we ordered dim sum and noodles. The dim sum is not rolled around on carts like those other places. Instead they give you a menu to make your selections from and mark it down on a card. If it's your first time ordering dim sum from here you might want to ask the server how to correctly order the dim sum. It just has small, medium and large and the quality. Prices vary according to what you order. So don't think all the same size orders are the same price. The servers here would make excellent used car sales associates because they always try and up sell you to the large order. Even if you don't want something they try and mark it down for you saying "this one is good... get shrimp, pork..." So make sure you check that order card otherwise they'll bring things that you didn't order to the table.
We ordered the standard dim sum dishes; pork hash, shrimp puffs, taro cakes, taro basket with scallops, look fun with shrimp and a chive and crab dumpling. Everything was good but for the price you can get cheaper at other places. However I did like the fact that it arrives hot and fresh to your table and hasn't been riding around the carts and maybe poked at by other patrons. We also ordered the beef chow fun. Again, the server convinced us to go with 2 orders instead of 1 since there were 6 of us. We asked if we could have it on 2 separate dishes but the server said "no" just 1 plate. After it arrived we compared a single order of beef chow fun from another table to our "so called" 2 orders and it was only slightly bigger. No wonder they don't want to put it on separate dishes.
Besides a sit down restaurant this place also has a take-out counter up front. It's your basic setup of first choosing your starch then the number of entree choices you want. They also have a dim sum plate you can order from the take-out counter.
Overall, it is pricier then some of the other Chinese restaurants but it's nice and clean. The bill for the 6 of us was about $80 with tip. Kind of expensive for a dim sum lunch. Maybe not someplace we'll be going to often for lunch.
3 words to sum up this place:
Overpriced. Overrated. Overyelped.
Food is OK at its best. Everyone rants about how awesome the food is. I can tell you that the food is not the freshest. Last time, we ordered the Crispy Chicken (The chicken seems to be the one that they cook yesterday or even before) and it was not fresh and I am not a selective picky eater either. Their DIM SUM sucks big time. The pork hash does not taste right. If you want to taste the best pork hash, you got to go to Happy Garden.
However, my taste palette is enough to differentiate between sh*tty and sh*ttier.
I can be wrong too but it is my opinion of taste
I'm not the biggest chinese food fan but this was good and the wait staff was friendly. A few of the items I had were:
Winter melon soup - light and clean tasting
shimp/fish ball - thought it could of had more flavor
peking duck - your typical
garlic dry crab - meaty and not too salty
steamed fish chinese style - not over cooked at all
Read the earlier negatives reviews but wanted to try it for myself. Have to agree with Toshie L., n.p., diego m., dan y and many others. Mandalay shouldn't be on anyone's dining out list. The overpriced average food will leave you wondering, Why Did I Eat Here? Enough said!!!
I thought this place was alright, it's not the best in downtown but it's edible. My bf & I and my mom went here for the first time supposely everybody was raving about it saying its really a good place but I really that was okay but just to have us order and wait for our food for dim sum was pretty bad by waiting at least 20-25mins. long, I thought! Some of the food wasn't too hot it was pretty warm and not too fresh, which was disappointing:(
This is an excellent place for dim sum if the idea of poking and breaking a neck to see all the little bamboo baskets and what they have inside tires you. There is a picture menu in which you can see what they have as well as a description, which is useful for all those non-descriptive Chinese meats. You mark what you want on a SAT like card as noted by other reviewers below.
Tasty and cheap dim sum and VERY clean. Maybe only because it is new it's clean, but for downtown/chinatown it is very surprising. Parking was across the street and could be validated.
Came out to $50 for four people ordering at least a dozen dim sums and an entree
"Upscale" and "Chinese restaurant" don't often appear together, but with The Mandalay, it fits.
Located downtown on Alakea in the old Yong Sing location (everyone laments the loss of those trademark Chinese gates), The Mandalay is the creation of the culinary minds behind the old Eastern Garden. But they've taken their good food and served it up in an impressive wrapper. The striking, but not flashy, decor seems almost out of place, with the financial district just down the block and Chinatown a few bus stops away.
The draw is the dim sum, and the twist is this: rather than picking items from carts that rotate around the restaurant -- a system that sometimes leaves some diners stranded and some food items a little long in the tooth -- you mark your choices on a form that will give you SAT flashbacks. You're aided with a nice photo sheet with pictures of each dim sum, for those (like most people) who are used to choosing with their eyes rather than their limited Chinese vocabulary. Your choices are then prepared fresh in the kitchen and delivered to your table.
Frankly, dim sum is dim sum to me, but I'm told it's pretty good here. Since it's made to order, I can see why it might be.
We visited their opening week, and decided to order off the menu. Everything looked great, and what we had was delicious. Dried scallop fried rice with egg whites, clams with black bean sauce, and peppersalt shrimp. Those first two dishes made a particularly wonderful pair.
The Mandalay may also turn out to be a good spot for people watching. Well over a handful of Honolulu's movers and shakers were spotted at nearby tables when we were there.
Apart from "upscale" service speeds (i.e. a little long for a typical downtown lunch), the only other downside are the slightly high prices. You're paying for a great looking restaurant. But if you want Chinese food but without "traditional" level of service and decor you'd get at a hole in the wall a few blocks away, The Mandalay is a great addition to the downtown dining scene.
Their service, for one, sucks. I could speak mandrin and that didn't even help for the lady that waited our table just was in such a hurry to leave our table and not listen to our orders.
The buck doesn't end there, the so called "House Special Noodles" was very very very salty. The dimsum did not come in succession. it came two at a time, and our group just finished everything in a matter of minutes. After another 20 minutes, the next two came and that went... you get the point.
To those who don't know what real dim sum is and is giving this place good ratings, please direct your attention to Chinatown. Probably going to be your next best bet next to Hong Kong cuisine. This place, crap. Unless you want to pay their rent?
There's good and bad here,,,,
first the bad, I don't like Larry, the owner,,, he's the same guy that owns larrys auto air in kaimuki, any time you take your car in it's $800 bucks to fix your air, get it fixed 2 months later another #800 to fix it again cause something else went wrong.
2 the shark fins they proudly show in the showcase in the main room, not to get into the whole animal cruelty issue but come on don't display it like it's a trophy
Now the good,
just about everything on the menu and the service was dang good for a chinese place, someone or other keep the tea and water full and food came out with lightning speed and was delishious to boot,,,, we just ate dim sum for lunch and couldn't decide since everything looked so good so we just ordered the whole front side of the menu (1 each of course)
I hate to minus a star because the owner is an punk but if i didn't know he owned the place i'd have given it a 5 star'r
Parkings a bitch in town, they validate across the street for dinner and take out is available too
We arrived early this morning to have dim sum. As soon as we entered it just felt so nice to be in an upscale type of place instead of a grungy old Chinatown establishment where we usually go to.
The dim sum menu was quite limited, but we picked a handful of items from it as well as the regular menu. The food arrived piping hot and was tasty indeed. The service was also good. My little one totally enjoyed himself (he's quite a snob when it comes to restaurants) by sampling almost everything and declaring it quite delicious.
I had expected it to be more expensive than it was because of the setting, but it wasn't any more than an upper average Chinese restaurant in the Bay Area.
They do not validate parking and let me just say, parking sucks! We ended up going into the parking structure of the building, and on weekends, the maximum is $3 so it wasn't so bad.
I thought I had already written a review of The Mandalay, but perhaps it was only in my dreams. I know I really ate here, however, because I have a picture of my daughter eating a char siu bau (pork bun) inside the restaurant. Unfortunately, the photo was blurry, so it had to be destroyed (the photo, not the restaurant).
We had dim sum here a couple months ago, and the atmosphere was nice and upscale, and the service was attentive. Some of the dim sum items seemed unique to this restaurant and were very flavorful. There was a dumpling with spinach that I particularly liked, but I don't remember the name of it. Parking is available in another building across Alakea Street on the weekends, but call the restaurant for details, because I had already parked in the Alii Place building next door, not realizing they validated for the parking garage across the street.
This was more upscale and expensive than the restaurants in Chinatown, but there was a group of people next to us wearing shorts, sweaty t-shirts, and hiking boots, so I guess anything goes. Oh, I think they were wearing DESIGNER shorts, t-shirts, and hiking boots. Do you suppose that makes any difference? My wife contends that most restaurant owners don't care what you wear, as long as you spend a lot of money.
One of the better dim sum that I've had. The dim sum aren't strolled around in a cart until requested, rather it's made to order and quite delicious! For the price, it very reasonable considering you get freshly made dim sum. The portions are quite generous and the chinese chicken salad is very good. The price for the salad is a little steep considering you can order it to go at their walk-up area for half the price.
Othewise, this place is a must try for those who love dim sum!!!
My husband has been wanting to go here ever since he read it in some article. We finally got a chance to go since we had business in the Downtown business district.
We went for lunch and ordered Dim Sum. Like Ryan O. says in his review, you will be given what looks like a SAT answer sheet and you mark what you want to order. Very simple.
The Dim Sum price is slightly higher than the Chinatown restaurants (starts at $2.25 a plate,) but I wasn't surprised since the atmosphere is kind more upscale. Aside from the Dim Sum, we ordered the House noodles with Seafood and they were awesome!
We were the first customers of the day and it was just the 4 of us in the entire HUGE, 2 storied restaurant until 12 Noon hit and all the business people had their office parties and such. Soon the restaurant was packed and loud with people having fun.
There is also Mandalay Express right next door if you want a take out plate lunch. I highly recommend it!
See my pics of the dim sum and noodles!
Unimpressed with food; friendly waitstaff; fairly clean facilities; free validated parking available in garage across the street (after 5pm).
Food ordered: hot & sour soup ($10.95); peking duck ($16); pork with eggplant ($I forget). (pictures uploaded)
Let me preface this review by first stating that I love peking duck. I went here for dinner on the recommendation of a friend who stated that this place had excellent duck. I will no longer be following the recommendations of said friend re: peking duck because he obviously has no clue what he is talking about.
My boyfriend and I were considering ordering a FULL peking duck ($30) just for the two of us -- that's how much we love duck. But we opted for the half duck ($16) so that we could sample another entree (I am so glad that we didn't waste our stomachs on a full duck). The duck arrived with six buttery white buns, green scallions, plum sauce, and six slices of duck meat; the waiter prepared the six little mcDuck sandwiches for us. I personally prefer pancake wrappers with my duck, but the buns were soft and buttery and quite tasty. However, the duck was lacking. The skin was soft and not crispy at all (probably because it was still attached to the meat) and the meat was very fatty. Typical chinese restaurants will skin the duck and remove the excess fat - this place did not. The meat itself tasted okay. The rest of the half-duck came out on plate, having been sauteed in some kind of salty soy sauce concoction -- this is NOT how peking duck is supposed to be served!! I was shocked. I did not order a sauteed roasted duck. If I wanted all the meat attached to the bones, I would have ordered the roast duck.
Having suffered the disappointment of the peking duck, I was hoping that the pork with eggplant would be redeeming. It wasn't. The dish was MEH. The eggplant could have been cooked a little longer. And they could have added more than 8 slivers of shredded pork (I kid you not!). Our soup had 3 times as much pork as our entree!! - that just doesn't seem right, does it?
And speaking of soup, that was probably the best part of the meal, albeit a little too sour with a little too much white pepper. It was served in large bowl and was freshly made to order.
Others have given this place high marks, but I doubt I'll give this place another chance - at least not for dinner. Plus, I was a little annoyed with the fruit fly that kept hovering around our table.
8/14/08: Great high end dim sum place comparable to Yank Sing in San Francisco. Office met here for lunch today, beyond the normal dim sum offering, we grab a ginger scallion dungeoness crab, seafood bird's nest, pepper and garlic beef and the requisite choi sum with oyser sauce. great atmosphere, clean, excellent service. Not a hole in the wall, think opposite and bring your wallet!
The dim sum here is really, really good. The wrappers are nice and chewy and the fillings are generous. I especially love the har gar because it is full of flavorful shrimp. I hit the take out window on my way back to work, and by the time I've gotten back to my office, all the dim sum is gone. Hey, that stuff needs to be eaten hot, anyway.
Went here for Chinese New Year's Dinner tonight. It's a newly renovated Chinese Restaurant in downtown Honolulu and I have to say that aesthetically, it's one of the nicest, cleanest, largest, Chinese restaurants I've been to (two stories of restaurant and the place was packed. Food was good too - the portions were huge, but I have to say that the prices are bit higher than what you normally expect for Chinese food. But it was worth it, service was good, food was good! We had the abalone soup - which was fantastic! A house noodle dish - crispy chewy noodles with lots of veggies, a sweet sour pork chop (GREAT!), and the staples - beef broccoli, egg fu young, a black bean fish.... it was all great!! But I hear they are really known for their dim sum - didn't try that tonight but will be returning to try that soon!
Honolulu, HI
Category: Dim Sum
Honolulu, HI
Category: Dim Sum
Honolulu, HI
Category: Dim Sum
Honolulu, HI
Category: Restaurants
Honolulu, HI
Category: Dim Sum
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