Naga Mandarin - Restaurant in Shillong - East Khasi Hills, India

Mini Meal with Today's Specials (Chicken in Dried Yam Leaves) - Rs.350/- Naga Mandarin, Laitumkhrah, Shillong 22.11.23 Naga Mandarin must be the most recognised & popular & even perhaps one of the first if not the first restaurant serving Naga food in Shillong. They started with a small shop in Firebrigade before moving to their current location. And for the life of me I can't think why I've never eaten here before. Today I was going to set things right. I entered this rather big but empty restaurant for lunch. And it was peak lunch hour. I liked how the place looked. It had some traditional touches from Nagaland. I went through their very concise menu & then saw the specials on the wall. I opted for the specials as I thought this visit deserved it. I opted for the Mini Naga meal with today's specials being the Chicken in Dried Yam Leaves. As I waited for the food to arrive, I went to wash my hands & passed by their kitchen. It was well arranged & pretty clean. My food came. It had a medium portion of hilly red rice, a bowl of soup, 2 pieces of chicken, boiled cabbage & mashed potato chutney. Now I'm a wimp when it comes to chillies but I wanted to act brave. The soup was nice. It was light & thin & cooked with dried fish, potato & bamboo shoot. Very nice. The chicken in the dried yam leaves (not to be mistaken with anishi) was also very tasty. I've never had a Naga dish cooked this way. There was so much flavor in the dish. The meat was cooked well. The boiled cabbage helped balance out the flavors. The mashed potato chutney was tasty but was so hot. King Chillies or Raja Mircha was added in it. I had a couple of tries & gave up. Surprisingly, aside from the chutney, the other dishes were not spicy at all. The food was very good, but the portions were indeed Mini. I'm trying to loose weight so this works out in my favor. But then prices were not cheap either. Overall a much awaited & very pleasant visit to a place which is now an institution in itself. Insta ID - kari.on.eate

Everything is good. Service is a bit slow and too casual. Food quantity is a bit less compared to the price they charged, also not enough for man. Food Manu was a little tricky.

If you are craving for naga thali, this is the right place. The food was absolutely heavenly and reasonable pricing. The service is also good. Highly recommend!

Overpriced and the taste of the pork is just like a normal household pork curry. Nothing special. The thali includes rice which can be finished easily by a newborn and they charge extra 40 Rupees for another small serving of extra rice. Very disappointed. Although the mixed innards were good. And service was okay. You can try Naga Hotel near NEIGRIHMS for a much better money and taste.

One of the best pork with bamboo shoots curry I have had. The pork thali consisted of a bowl of rice,boil veggies, tomato chutney , soup and pork with bamboo shoots coating 230 and the smoked fish thali consisted of bowl of rice, brinjal and karela fry,soup , boil veggies and the fish curry costing 270. The quantity of rice is less so if you're a heavy rice eater you'll need to re order and it cost 40 ra per small bowl and even extra chutney costed 40 rs. Food was great and ambience is totally breath taking. So traditional yet modern. It feels like you're in Nagaland. The staffs were friendly too. Overall we had a hearty meal

It was ok type. But i am not going back more thr. Thr r aother Naga resturent near by which serve much better food then this. Prices are abit high too.

Had mini bags thali with chicken cooked in bamboo shoots and smoked fish. Loved the taste and hits all the right palette

Good food.... For trying the Naga cuisines (hot n spicy and tasty)