So in a way it’s not by design—at least not by human design and is there any other kind?—that we ended up at Mandarin Kitchen, also in Bloomington, in a small strip mall a mile or so south of I-494 on Lyndale Avenue. I’d been there twice before, first for dim sum which my wife and I immediately decided was the best to be had locally, and subsequently for dinner, when we walked out after being seated and served tea and then ignored for about 15 minutes when other diners who appeared to be acquaintances of the waitstaff were having their every whim catered to. But I tend to be forgiving, often to a fault and sometimes to noone’s interest, so there we were. Service was no better this time either. We might have preempted it by helping ourselves to the buffet immediately, but I was expecting someone to come by at some point and ask us if we wanted anything to drink at least, beyond the complimentary hot tea.

Once you look at the buffet, and if it’s your first visit here, you know you have to try it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the biggest in town. I counted about 30 total offerings; three self-serve stations lined up end-to-end. There weren’t any signs on the dishes informing the diner what she might be contemplating consuming, so precise descriptions of what we ate aren’t going to be forthcoming this week.

There was a lot of the usual stuff, such as egg rolls, cream cheese wontons, a lo mein, kung pao chicken, but there was also exotica for a buffet: mussels in a black bean and ginger sauce, squid with pea pods, crayfish, and duck. I sampled all of the latter and only the lo mein, and that only as an afterthought, of the conventional offerings. Tasting notes: the mussels were slightly overdone but the sauce was flavorful; the squid was somewhat uneven in doneness with some pieces just right, others overdone too—quite likely the consequence of extended residence time on the steam table; the crayfish were garlicky and good but lukewarm; the duck was nicely crisped and probably what I liked best although it was lukewarm too. Other things I tried included a "chicken fingers" appetizer, strips of breast meat deep fried in a light crusty batter that needed more flavor to overcome the bland taste of the enveloped chicken, and some variant of General Tso’s chicken that also featured a tasty sauce but the deep fried chicken was drier than it should have been (in my humble opinion). A pleasant surprise overall was the quality of the vegetables in the dishes I had; the broccoli, broccolini (I think), pea pods, and carrots all had crunch left in them.

The dessert section included almond cookies, a creamy mango souffle-like concoction with pieces of cake in it (tasted better than it sounds), and fruit selections.

The restaurant décor is about as nondescript as you can get; this isn’t the place for that elegant meal with an important client. On the other hand, if you’re in one of those states where all you can eat is way more than the typical restaurant portion size, you can still manage to leave Mandarin stuffed.

The Mandarin Kitchen has no pretence to ambiance, nor would you expect any if you saw the unprepossessing little strip mall in which the restaurant is housed. The floor space looks like it could have housed cubicles just that morning. There is a table setup for the lunchtime buffet. To walk around the buffet one has to walk between the buffet table and a wall to which are attached tanks that hold living crabs and other creatures, no doubt being readied for the Dim Sum diners. There is an odor about the place that you might expect in an open-air fish market, well perhaps not quite that strong.

Like most Chinese restaurants in the Cities this one offers an all you can eat lunch buffet. The similarities with other Chinese restaurants, though, end there. The contents of the buffet are very unique—verging on the exotic—and you’d be hard pressed to find them on another buffet anywhere in town. Items like Squid, large mussels and duck. Of course all the regular items—that Minnesotans have grown to love—are there as well: fried rice; King Pao chicken; spicy pork; beef with vegetable; egg rolls; and much more. I noticed a very substantial menu that is an alternative to buffet dining. Mussels do not respond well to being cooked in the morning and then being kept warm in a buffet tray; in consequence they were a bit leathery. The duck was a hit or miss item; I tried two pieces one was very flavorful with a good texture whereas the second piece was almost burnt and very chewy. The egg rolls—being egg rolls—were tasteful with a (not overly) crisp exterior and a spicy moist interior. I finished my meal with a dessert that was a combination soft layered cake with a baked mango sauce topping, didn’t appear to be Chinese but was very good nevertheless. The buffet includes fresh pineapple and other citrus fruits. All this may be washed down with complementary hot tea, or beer if you prefer. Our bill came to about $13.00.

This restaurant, it would appear, is very popular with the ethnic crowd; indeed it’s very difficult to eat here on a weekend since no reservations are taken. The waiters tend to lead non-Chinese diners to tables that have forks on them; if you want a set of chopsticks grab them from another table (presumably one set aside for Chinese patrons). An amusing side note: we were seated next to another table with two men on it. I tried to have a conversation with A about the regular, reproduction of hierarchical circles of power in colonial societies. This conversation was overridden by one of the two men seated next to us telling his friend (loudly) about the seventieth birthday bash for Harvey McKay to which he had been invited. We learnt every detail from the time the man arrived in California to his return. Amusing stuff if you’re thinking about swimming with sharks, otherwise deadly dull.