Aside from the menu, the café inculcates as much hotel into the place as it can. And though the qualities elegant and refined are not frequently ascribed to a restaurant found inside a shopping mall, this shopping mall café and deli has both.

Service is of good footing, as attendants will give you service with as much or as little fanfare as you like. The interiors of this 67-seat restaurant, characterized by patterned tiles, stained wood panels, and grass reed window shades, will undeniably attract diners. The café’s hunt for that classy Oriental village look is a bouquet of good colors, good lights, and good vibes.

After walking pass their perimeter of wooden fences and planters, a beaming waitress by the door will seat you promptly. The Mandarin Oriental Café and Deli’s menu ranges from a wide roster of salads to Asian rice and noodle dishes. They also serve a variety of healthy drinks and specialty coffees, though some of them do need more tweaking. Like their Four Seasons, which can be really strong and sweet on the tongue. As it is with the shaken ice coffee drink, Shakerato, whose espresso flavor seems drowned with too much ice.

One of the more interesting points on the menu lies with their homegrown merienda dishes. The Filipino dishes are given a Western touch, as they serve special homemade kesong puti on top of pastry instead of a pandesal, and a serving of bibingka is sided with smoked salmon.

But a meal in the café best starts off with a platter of Nicoise salad with Tuna, Quail Egg, Tomato, and Green Beans. The salad dish consists of large chunks grilled tuna, capers, olives, sliced tomatoes, green beans, and grated quail eggs, and doused with a vinaigrette dressing. The chilled salad comes highly recommend as the tuna by itself can please the palate.

There are others to choose from, fresh and pasta salads are plenteous on the menu. One is the Farfalle Pasta Salad with Baby Shrimps; but the butterfly pasta tossed in olive oil, minced basil and topped with shrimps, can be a problem as its flavors seem muted. Other interesting salads in their roster include the Mozarella & Cherry Tomato Salad with Pesto, Thai Beef Salad, and Caesar Salad with Roasted Cajun Chicken.

For sandwiches, they have Grilled Vegetables with Feta Cheese, Smoked Salmon and Crabmeat on Dill Scone, and the traditional Club Sandwich, among others. But their Tikka-Marinated Chicken comes off a bit one-sided, as the accompanying chutney in the sandwich overpowers whatever flavor there was from the chicken.

A platter of Char Kway Teow or Hainanese Chicken serves well as main courses. Even the fried Singapore Noodles, though heavy on the oil, can be a meal. Other dishes in their lineup include the Fried Bangus Belly with Garlic Rice, Seafood Minestrone, Nasi Goreng, and the Hokkien Mie.

For dessert, they have a parade of cakes and pastries at the counter. But you can pester your waitress for a list, she won’t mind. Prominent in the list would be the L’Hirondelle cake, but one or two pralines could be better. The café’s pralines have an uncanny fine gloss and a good snap when bitten into.

Mandarin Oriental will also operate the adjacent Oasis, Gateway Mall’s air-conditioned outdoor garden, where the restaurant’s menu will also be offered.