The Mandarin, Menlo Park

The Mandarin, a new twolevel Chinese restaurant in Menlo Park at 1029 El Camino Real, is serving ambitious, laborintensive dishes: An eight treasure duck takes 48 hours to make, while a whole fish gets deboned, turned inside out, carved into an artful shape and doused in a firehose red sweet and sour sauce.

It’s owner Nee Lau’s first project, though his family has long run restaurants. The native of Guangdong, China, said he wants the Mandarin to be a place where Chinese cuisines that are lesser known in the United States can coexist with kung pao and orange chicken. The Mandarin’s chef, Rui Young, previously cooked at San Francisco Sichuan favorite Z&Y Restaurant.

“My goal is to build this restaurant to let people explore the different Chinese cuisine, to open their eyes to Chinese food they’ve never had before,” Lau said.

As such, the Mandarin’s menu is wideranging. There’s teasmoked duck, Cantonese saltbaked chicken (wrapped in tofu skin and cooked slow and low in salt with ginger and onion) and Sichuan whole fish in a spicy black bean sauce. The showstopping eight treasure duck is stuffed with sticky rice, peanuts, black mushroom, dried shrimp, scallops and salted egg yolk. Soon, the restaurant will have a live fish tank and expand its seafood dishes. The name of the restaurant pays homage to pioneering Chinese chef Cecilia Chiang and her San Francisco restaurant the Mandarin. Chiang popularized many dishes on his menu, like teasmoked duck and twicecooked pork. When the original Mandarin closed, Lau purchased much of the decor and the host stand at an auction — though the items remain at his house, and not at the restaurant.

Indoor dining, takeout and delivery. Sunday, TuesdayThursday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Closed Monday. 1029 El Camino Real, Menlo Park. 6503919811.

Nee Lau Teasmoked duck at the Mandarin.