Just ate lunch at Mandarin for the first time and really enjoyed it.
I don't know why people hate on Mandarin....I mean, you get what you pay for. It's unlimited reasonable quality food, for a reasonable price. A lot of people in Canada seem so price sensitive...like anything over $20pp is too expensive if you aren't 'fine dining'. In Sydney, Australia (where I'm from) you couldn't get all you can eat ANYTHING for under $45pp.
Anyway...The food here is pretty good as far as Canadian Chinese food goes...it was all very fresh and tasty. I wouldn't say it was authentic Chinese food by any stretch of the imagination....it's most definitely westernised food....but that doesn't mean it's still not good tasting food. There were fresh shrimp & mussels, standard Chinese food, sushi, and non asian options such as pizza and flank steak, mash & veggies.
My only complaint would be that some of the dishes that have a sweet element to them go too hard on the sweet (honey garlic chicken wings kind of tasted like they could have passed as candy).
Service was very friendly, welcoming and attentive. Sure, some may see it as forced....but I'd rather that then the lacklustre apathetic service I receive at a lot of Toronto restaurants.
The decor and general ambience....it reminds me of every authentic Chinese restaurant I've ever been to. Which is to say - they look like they haven't been updated since the 80's or 90's when they were first built. I like that...true to their roots. Have you ever eaten in China? Because majority of the places kind of look like that.
Overall...it's an all you can eat family style restaurant....for only $25pp you can't go wrong.