Mandarin Restaurant located at 7660 Woodbine Avenue in Markham

March 11, 2018:  I know there are a lot of Mandarin buffet restaurants across the GTA but this was my first time dining in one in the longest of years!

I was so impressed by the interior design of the Markham location (located on Woodbine near 14th).  (I think I vaguely remember coming here when I was a child and it looked nothing like this fancy.)  It was like an outdoor Chinese pavilion with all the buffet hot trays in the centre of the pavilion.  Each station had clear sections labelled off with the name of the dish and also the calories of each food (I learned later that it’s under the law now for all franchise restaurants to display the calories of food on their menus).  I admired the fruit carvings and other creative decorative pieces that were in display. 😀  Unfortunately I took no pics of these.

Second helping of food

There was so much variety of food!  I hadn’t realized that Mandarin served such a wide range of really good food!  There was a salad bar, pizza, Asian roasted meats, soups (including seafood chowder), deviled eggs, skewers, sushi, roasted pineapple, vegetarian and vegan options, and more!

I liked the food as it was all very tasty and fresh.  They seem to specialize in chicken balls and I quite liked the plentiful chicken ball. 🙂  (Before you ate, the server gave each of us a hot napkin to clean our hands with.  We also got another hot napkin by the end of the meal too.)

Their dessert station was also generous and had so many cakes, pastries, ice cream.  They even had a cotton candy machine right on the site!!  That’s pretty cool. 🙂

Select desserts 🙂

When we left, I also noticed that their entrance area features a live koi pond.  How cool!  I haven’t seen live fish in a pond like this in a restaurant for a long time.

If it’s your birthday, you get a free meal at Mandarin buffet!