Rate-A-Restaurant, #152 in a series
(Flickr photo by Freakpower.)
Restaurant: Mao's Kitchen
Location: 7313 Melrose (Melrose/La Brea)
Type of restaurant: Chinese
We stipulated: Taking a break from all the strike news, looking for something on the way back to the office -- and have been meaning to try Mao's Kitchen for a while.
They stipulated: Parking -- a rarity on Melrose -- is available, particularly at lunch; Mao's is also, handily, open until midnight. Strangely, entrees with tofu cost more than chicken or beef. Less strangely, entrees with shrimp or fish also cost more.
(Flickr pic by Cabayarea.)
What I ordered: Lunch $7.50 special: Sichuan eggplant (above, sweet & spicy wok-sauteed young eggplant, with choice of protein -- in this case, chicken); also comes with sweet and sour soup (tofu, tomato, wod-ear mushrooms and delicate egg in spicy vegan broth) and Beijing spring roll (fried vegetarian roll filled with seasoned cabbage, celery and carrot)
High point: That lunch special is amazing. I had enough of the eggplant dish to eat as a second lunch the next day! The food was pretty good, particularly the eggplant (although it was a little too saucy). Decor was a cool, red-tinged minimalist take on post-revolution China.
Low point: Service was terribly slow, which was particularly frustrating because the restaurant was mostly empty. Also, the brown rice was crunchy, forcing us to switch to the white.
Overall impression: Glad we tried it; glad the Venice Beach restaurant has finally made it a bit east, so that we could finally try it ourselves.
Chance we will go back: Absolutely, it's a new "where to go when we don't know where to go" spot.
posted by Mike @ 12:52 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Sounds like they recreated the Venice experience. My wife and I used to joke how painfully slow the service is at Mao's. It has gotten better, and on occasion we even get good service. We have decided that you don't go to Mao's for the service, you go for the food!
The eggplant with chicken is one of my favorites. My wife likes the wonton soup. We both like the tangerine chicken, sesame yam beef and the chow fun noodles.
I haven't actually ever been for lunch, so haven't tried the lunch special. That does sound like a great deal.
Is the new Mao's BYOB? That's a plus too. It's a treat to drink wine out of tea cups with no corkage fee. Once we sat next to a group of Russians who were working on a bottle of vodka.
I agree on the service....it was a comedy of errors on President's Day for us. In short- 3 entrees left the kitchen- 2 made it to the table. One made it on the floor. The rice we requested never came out of the kitchen until we reminded our waiter. Appetizer and soup came out afterwards. The potstickers were cold. We sent that back for a new batch. When we asked why the appetizer and soup came out last (what they call "new starts") the server replied it comes out to the table whenever its ready. The soup came with no serving ladle...and horror of horrors- he made us drink the soup with western table tablespoons from the small soup bowls. (The table next to us had proper soup tongs)Ridiculous. Eventually, the third entree made it out. One member of my party dryly asked the waiter if he was having a bad day.
Rant on service issues aside, the food is good and priced ok. It was not terribly crowded or busy..so not sure what the issue is.
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