Mandarin Flower Restaurant

-- By the way, as noted above, Mandarin Flower is now closed and a new restaurant opened in its place. They don't have the same owners or anything, completely different. --

This place could be a 1 or a 5 depending on what you order.

Certain things are consistently excellent -- their orange chicken and beef fried rice are among the best you'll find.

Other things are consistently awful -- dishes like the Mongolian beef and Kung Pao beef are bland, tough and overloaded with tasteless vegetables. The hot and sour soup is usually great, but the egg drop soup was so thin that it tastes like disgusting vegetable-water.

This place is literally right up the street from us, so we've been ordering from them for several years. I have to say it's one of the most hit-or-miss restaurants I've ever seen. Stick to the dishes you know are good, and you won't go wrong -- but if you experiment with new things, be prepared for a 50-50 chance of colossal disappointment.

I really hate leaving negative reviews because it can affect someones livelihood, but it just has to be done unfortunately.

My wife got the Mongolian beef and it was the worst she's ever had. Paper thin and mangled pieces with unsavory flavor to put it nicely.  I had the prawns with mushrooms and snow pees with a white wine sauce.  The prawns seemed overcooked and not fresh. The mushrooms were just plain white mushrooms that were completely raw.  The sauce was bland.

The food wasn't the worst part though.  The place was filthy. The light switches, pull cords, bathroom fixtures, and chairs just to name a few, all had a dark tacky grime on them. This place needs to be power washed.

OWNERS- Please clean up and ask your chef to put in some honest effort!

I really hope this place can turn things around and survive cause so many other businesses here in Moraga are gone.

Mandarin Flower Restaurant  
Bad Bad Bad Service.. How BAD of a service. We walked out of the restaurant and the Hostess probably cussed us in her native language.

BF and I were in the Moraga area, checking out open houses. We decided to come here because we past by this restaurant once before and we told ourselves next time were are in the area we will go to Mandarin Flower.

My BF always wants to check out the ambience of the restaurant before deciding to eat there specially if we are not familiar with the place. So he went in first and came out with a thumbs up.

Maybe the Hostess got offended that he checked out the place first. Maybe she thought that we think we are too good for the place. Once we were seated, it took 5 minutes before she gave us the tea. Not once asking us if we would some drinks.The whole time her back was on us, pretending to look at the calendar or something on the wall. At this point I was getting annoyed and for the first time I actually said " Would it be tacky to get up and walk away". This was at 3pm in the afternoon and we were the only customers there. After 15 minutes, we just decided to get up and walk. My BF thanked her sarcastically and in replied she said something in her native language