When we first moved to Georgia, I remember my mom's hunt for a good chinese restaurant. Coming from the bay area where there is a prevalence of good asian food, I think she thought it might be difficult. However, just down the road, we found a place called Mandarin Garden. One of the things that made this our chinese restaurant of choice was the fact that their fried potstickers were made with a nice thin dough that didn't overwhelm the delicious pork stuffing. Many a Friday night we ordered General Tso's Chicken (which turns out isn't even chinese but was actually invented in San Francisco), pot stickers and Mu Shu Pork (or sometimes Sweet and Sour Pork... yum yum).
Sadly, Mandarin Garden eventually went out of business when the shopping center it was in was basically deserted by the anchor store (that was a grocery store) and slowly all the rest of the small businesses left. We never did find another chinese place that had potstickers as good as Mandarin Garden. So many of the new places had such thick dough on their potstickers (I keep mentioning these, but seriously, who likes doughy potstickers?) and just wasn't quite as good.
So the point of this story (and there is one, I promise) is that when I moved back out here to the west coast, chinese food was one of the things I was really looking forward to. Chinese, Sushi, and sourdough bread from San Francisco (I'm heading there next weekend and look for an entire post on the perfection that is a clam chowder sourdough bread bowl).
Sadly, there are 3 chinese restaurants I can think of off the top of my head. I've been to two of them and the third one has the kind of reputation that makes me want to have the paramedics on speed dial. The one in Atascadero is a chinese buffet. Aaron is pretty sure that when you call them for delivery they just take the food out of the buffet trays and bring you that. I have not had to break down to call for delivery from them so I don't actually know if that's true. What I can tell you is, once was enough.
When we really need chinese food in SLO, we head down to Mandarin Gourmet. It's no Mandarin Garden, but they have a lunch special that can't be beat. A cup of soup, cup of rice, an entree, a fried wonton, a spring roll and a slice of orange for color all for under ten dollars. The price varies by dish, but most all of them are under ten. Also when they bring you the fortune cookies, ask them for an almond cookie. They come with a slice of almond and some orange sugar on top. They are surprisingly addictive for a packaged cookie.
I've had the cashew chicken, the General Tso's chicken, beef and broccoli, sweet and sour pork (not one I'd highly recommend), and the vegetable chow mein. Ryan especially enjoys the hot and sour soup especially the tofu pieces. Surprisingly he really seems to enjoy tofu in general, but that's the subject of another post.
Overall, its not bad and gets high grades for value. If you're going to go, they really can't be beat for their lunch specials. They also give a lovely hot pot of tea as soon as you sit down and always include fortune cookies at the end. We even sometimes get a nice surprise dessert for being regulars.
Mandarin Gourmet
1316 Madonna Road
San Luis Obispo, CA
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