VERO BEACH — It has been more than a year and a half since we reviewed The Mandarin, the Asian restaurant on Miracle Mile in the space long occupied by Carmel’s. At the time, though we tried not to show it, we left disappointed.
Not that the food wasn’t OK. It was.
But OK was not what we had anticipated.
Part of the letdown may have been a result of the venue. The old Carmel’s had been an elegant, excellent restaurant – one of our favorites – and a very nice remodeling of the space had given rise to optimism that the Mandarin surely would be a high-end Chinese restaurant as well.
Maybe it would be a restaurant serving the kind of innovative cuisine from Sichuan or Hunan found in New York, Washington and San Francisco, or even a really good rendition of Cantonese fare like you can find in Boston or Los Angeles.
But it soon became apparent that this was not the place Vero had been hoping for. Indeed, it wasn’t much of an improvement on Chinese restaurants Vero already had.
Adding to the disappointment was our hope that The Mandarin, with a Chinese-born chef, would at least focus on Chinese dishes, since Vero has no shortage of restaurants serving Thai food and Japanese sushi.
Instead, sushi seems to be the source of greatest pride to The Mandarin (and we hear nothing but positive things about it).
But for lovers of Chinese cuisine, hope springs eternal, and we decided to simply wait a while before going back and seeing how things developed.
Now, almost two years after The Mandarin opened, we are forced to the realization that our original expectations were probably unrealistic.
While Vero Beach is a community with a disproportionate number of cosmopolitan diners, it at the same time is a relatively small community – a city perhaps not large enough to support a restaurant dedicated to the best of China.
We paid two additional visits to the Mandarin over the course of a month. While the restaurant is attractive, the menu offers few interesting dishes – and it’s never a good sign in a Chinese restaurant when you have to ask for chopsticks.
On the first visit, we tried one of “Chef Tom’s Specialties,” the seafood with pan fried noodles ($19.95), and the Mongolian beef ($11.75). On our second visit, our party of three ordered the kung po chicken ($10.95), the moo shu pork ($12.50) and the pepper steak ($11.50).
All entrée dishes include a choice of wonton, egg drop, hot and sour or miso soups.
In the course of the two visits, we sampled the wonton, egg drop and hot and sour soups. All were about what you’d expect of an average Chinese restaurant.
The most successful of the dishes we sampled was the seafood with pan fried noodles – chunks of Florida lobster, scallops and shrimp served with stir fried vegetables atop a bed of crispy fried noodles.
This dish was a nice mix of textures and quite tasty.
The Mongolian beef, sliced beef prepared with scallions, bamboo shoots, and red peppers stir fried in a brown sauce, was unremarkable.
The next visit saw us try three dishes typical of what one would expect to find in most any Chinese restaurant. The pepper steak was the better of the three, but none measured up to what you would find in even a P.F. Chang’s.
Dinner for two with a glass of beer or wine (beer, wine and drink prices seem quite reasonable) would likely run $40 to $50 before tax and tip.
The bottom line is there is nothing exciting here.
If you are craving Thai or sushi, the Mandarin may be one to add to your list. But for Chinese, the kindest thing to be said about the Mandarin is the restaurant is a pleasant place to dine and the food is OK.
I welcome your comments, and encourage you to send feedback to me at tina@verobeach32963.com.
The reviewer dines anonymously at restaurants at the expense of Vero Beach 32963.