Restaurant Review - Mimi Gardens, Windsor ON.

Now that we are cooking more at home, it is quite rare that we go out for dinner. Last night though, after seeing "Little Miss Sunshine" (I highly recommend it), we decided to treat ourselves. We went to Mimi Gardens on Tecumseh Road - across from Catholic Central High School. It has been quite reliable in quality and taste over the years but our food last night was very disappointing.

The menu there is quite large and there are a few things that we almost always get: spring rolls, hot & sour soup, bbq chicken noodle salad, and black bean chicken or beef. Last summer I noticed that their hot& sour soup had changed. It was neither sour, nor hot and it had no cabbage or tofu and lots of uncooked white onion. Needless to say I did not finish that course and last night my husband realised that, once again, my opinions should be trusted when it comes to food.

For our first course last night, the spring rolls were light but tasty. The outside was crisp and the sauce was just sour enough to counteract with the filling in the roll. The other dishes we ordered included black bean chicken on noodles and bbq squid with fried rice. The bbq squid was nice. It was a bit chewy but not overdone . The rice was soft and had a subtle flavour and was not dried out and burned as I find many restaurants will do. The black bean chicken was another story. It had little flavour and the noodles added nothing to it. They were starchy and underdone.

The service at Mimi Gardens was fine. It was pretty empty for a Saturday night but the servers were as attentive as they needed to be.

I think next time we will stick with Thai Pan. Boy do I miss Red Chillie in Burlington - mmmm, dumplings!