Mandarin brings ‘banquet’ cuisine to Novato
Leslie Harlib
I love surprises. Particularly when they happen in restaurants that seem least likely to knock my socks off.
The Mandarin is one of these. This Chinese restaurant opened just two weeks ago on the site of the former Garden Court at the northern edge of Novato. It’s in the Days Inn, and if you miss the San Marin exit on 101, next stop is pretty much Petaluma. So non-Novato residents would have to make a pilgrimage here. It’s worth it.
Sure, you can find all the Chinese stir-fries that have become a type of American comfort food: Mongolian beef, lemon chicken, sweet and sour shrimp, General Tso’s chicken, mu shu, chow mein.
But what makes this restaurant so distinctive are its specials. Owner Benson Hong worked for years at Cecilia Chiang’s celebrated Mandarin restaurant in Ghirardelli Square. He runs his own Mandarin with wife Lily helping in the kitchen and son Raymond serving in the dining room. He has also brought in a chef with a high-end Shanghai restaurant background who was also at the Fountain Court in San Francisco, known for its dim sum.
Mandarin may be the only Chinese restaurant in northern Marin to serve dim sum. (Hong told me this is just the beginning; he plans to up the ante on variety in the near future.)
There are 11 varieties on the menu as of this writing, including some special types that the kitchen may trot out if you ask. All are plump, some even oversized. Of course there are pot stickers ($5.95), but here you won’t find pork (for health reasons, says Hong). These pot stickers are packed with a loosely ground, fresh chicken breast stuffing enlivened with chives and ginger in a hand-made dough that is supple and coppery from the pan.
Vegetarian steamed dumplings ($5.95) break open to showcase finely chopped shiitake, carrot, onion, edamame and more. There was so much going on —in such tiny pieces— I couldn’t identify it all.
There were beef shumai in chiffon-thin noodle wrappers that tasted like airy meatballs. Har gow (shrimp dumplings) were larger than most, their shrimp filling juicy and plentiful.
Chive pockets ($5.95) were among the best dim sum I’ve had in Marin: thin rice noodle dough formed into turnovers around a thick conglomerate of steamed leeks, chives and shrimp, then quickly deep-fried to be greaseless and ultra-crispy. Eat them piping hot with a house-made sauce of sweet black vinegar and thinly sliced scallion. This same oniony filling can be had in steamed wrappers as well.
I loved the salmon-and-avocado spring rolls ($8.95 for two). Traditional crunchy spring roll wrappers cocooned shreds of salmon and fresh avocado; the combination was terrific.
One starter that particularly impressed me may not be to everyone’s taste but it is classic, textbook Chinese banquet food, the type of dish you’d be served at a wedding: a chef’s special Shanghai-style cold plate ($29.95 and enough for four people to share).
Garnished in amusingly high style, with fans of wafer-thin cucumber, lemons and maraschino cherries, this was like Chinese charcuterie. There were slices of thinnest purple-rose beef, with a smoky flavor reminiscent of Swiss bunderfleisch. Chunks of steamed chicken tasted boozy, thanks to the white wine they’d marinated in for days. Bars of fresh rock cod were mahogany in color and richly flavored from a marinade that smacked of five-spice powder and a hint of rock sugar. Tofu skins, rolled into tasty bundles, reminded me of an omelet, only with exotic spicing. And finally, noodles of marinated jellyfish, crunchy and briny, had the taste and feel of Japanese seaweed salad.
I was also excited to find Peking Duck ($29.95, with 24 hours’ notice) on the menu. This is the real deal, slow-cooked to become fat-free. Served in high style with crepe-like pancakes, the duck was shaved into wafers, its skin — reduced to a thin crackle of honeyed glaze — on the side. Hong ceremoniously painted pancakes with hoisin sauce, layered on duck meat, scallions and skin, and served. What luxurious mouthfuls.
Duck is also available in the classic smoked tea preparation, served with four buns, for $13.95 a half.
Other chef’s specials include beef or lamb rack in season, chicken or vegetable lettuce wrap, West Lake beef soup, sesame beef with Mandarin sauce, whole rock cod available in a variety of preparations (24 hours’ notice), Dungeness crab in a variety of styles (also 24 hours’ notice) and steamed fish filet with tofu and egg white, to name a few.
I was even impressed with desserts, not something I think to order in Chinese restaurants. Mandarin features two puddings I’ve never seen before and had to try. One was a mixture of steamed, lightly sweetened taro that had the texture and flavor of chestnuts, served with pitted Chinese dates and ground peanut flour. Esoteric? You bet. Tasty? Yes, but then I love chestnuts.
Eight Treasure Rice was as pretty as it was different: a steamed hot pudding based on sticky rice studded with a jewel-like assortment of fruits and a sweet red bean paste center. Both puddings are $4.50 — a bargain considering they are labor intensive and beautifully presented.
Mandarin is so new, Hong is still working toward his beer and wine license. He’s done a good job of refreshing the décor left behind when Garden Court closed a year and a half ago. Freshly painted, it feels squeaky clean. Formerly bare tables are now dressed with cinnabar-red linens and cloth napkins. There are flowers, including orchids, on most tables. Outdoor tables and chairs on the Days Inn tree-ringed patio will be a lovely place to sit for lunch, once the shade umbrellas on order have arrived.
Now that I know how good the dim sum is here, and that I can come for banquet-like cuisine, including exotic desserts, I will definitely target it for a feast.
I love the family feel as well. But my fear is that American diners will come here and stick to those Chinese comfort basics, so Hong will have to take all the true Chinese specialties off the menu. Prove me wrong. Go soon and have an adventure, because Mandarin now offers taste experiences unlike any other Chinese food in Marin.
The Mandarin restaurant is at 8141 Redwood Blvd., Novato, 897-1555, mandarinrestaurantonline.com. Lunch Monday to Friday 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., dinner nightly 5-9 p.m. Free parking on site.
Contact Leslie Harlib at
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