Mississauga Restaurant Gem: Mango Rain

First Impression:    
Mango Rain is an easily missed spot on the south side of Lakeshore Road West in Clarkson, but it’s worth searching out.  It’s a pretty restaurant with white tablecloths and a cozy atmosphere – perfect for a quick dinner or a romantic evening out.  A mix of Thai and Indian choices on the menu – yes, an unusual combination – and there’s something for every taste, whether you decide to base your meal on one cuisine or mix the two together.  This time we decided to focus on Thai and I’m glad we did!

The Good:     

The Tom Yum soup with chicken.  If you just want a quick bowl of soup for dinner, this is GREAT.  A tangy, tasty broth with huge chunks of chicken, it was very fresh with lots of basil, tomato, mushrooms and a hint of lemony goodness from lemongrass.  Very satisfying!

The Unique:

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I think the combination of Thai and Indian in a kitchen is quite unique.  Every dish that I tried seemed to have an interesting little twist.  And it’s nice to be able to have the combo meal – a little of this and a little of that — to come up with your own special blend of a great dinner!   Instead of bread on the table for starters, our server brought a basket of papadums — crispy and crunchy without the greasiness that a lot have.  Wonderful!

What they can improve on:    

Honestly, just a little sprucing up.  The restaurant is a tiny bit “tired” and could use a fresh coat of paint and maybe new carpeting to lighten it up a bit.  I love the fact that they have white table linens and that it’s got a great vibe, but a just a little TLC could improve it dramatically.

What else we tried:

For appetizers, we had the Tom Yum soup ($5.95) and shrimp satays ($10.95). 

The satays consisted of six nicely grilled shrimp and a delicious peanut sauce. A great start!  We ordered the rest of our meal family style:  basil lamb ($13.95), cashew chicken ($13.95) and shrimp basil fried rice ($15.95). 

The tender pieces of lamb in a brown sauce were good.  The fried rice seemed to be a little lacking in punch. Now, having said that, we did order everything at a “2” heat level when you can go from 1 through 5 (I’m a wimp!), but I thought that it could have been a bit more flavourful.  The cashew chicken was my favourite – tender chicken, crisp cashews and a delicious sauce; that could have been my whole meal.  We did cross over to Indian a bit by adding some garlic naan ($3.45) and I say that everyone should have just one piece because, yup, it’s that garlicky!  To go along with it, Thai beer of course – Tiger and Singha ($7.25 each) and it was a nice accompaniment to the meal. 

Final Thoughts:

All in all, I think Mango Rain is a great place to go, not matter what the occasion.  Give it a try when you’re looking for something a little different!   

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