Panda Express

Critic's Review

I'd never been to a Panda Express before. I always viewed it as standalone mall food; that bad Chinese steam table at the Mall food court where you can get cheap places of food resembling Chinese food.

When I lived in Florida, PF Changs opened a bunch of "Asian Diners" named Pei Wei; and those were always viewed to be a step above Panda Express.

The first thing to note is that this is a sketchy location; there's a bus stop right in front of the place and there's a volume of riff-raff wandering around the parking lot. When I hoped my car door is smelled like a skink has emitted his stink; the smell of pot was sickening.

A rastafarian solicited me as I walked towards the restaurant. Probably too stoned to be dangerous.

Inside the place is pure fast food. No soft edges here. They call it fast casual but it's not. It's fast food.

The food is in big pots in a steam table; a bit fancier than the mall, and the food looks fresh.

Note they don't have black pepper chicken at this location; I opted for a "Plate", 2 entrees and a side; I got the black pepper Steak, Kung Pao chicken and fried rice. I also added on an egg roll because egg rolls can be good snack foods if they're really good.

The dining area isn't too appealing here;

I opted for take out; the food would still be hot when I got home.

When.I opened the bad there was nothing unexpected. After all, I'd watched them put the stuff into the styrfoam.

Those nice Chinese food boxes you see people on TV eating out of are a thing of the past. Good Chinese food is a thing of the past.

Tjhe fried rice was completely tasteless; imagine you take fried rice and just put some stuff n it to make it seem like it might e fried rice. That's this stuff. Probably not fried at all.

The black pepper steak was the best thing on the plate. Chinese meat is always mushy; they overmarinate cheap cuts. The Joke in NY was that if you could hear the Meowing in the back you knew it was fresh.

The "Kung Pao" chicken was a disappointing; they key is Szechuen pepper, which I doubt they used here. just a couple of peanuts.

The truck here is that they use a lot of fillers; unwanted zucchini, but mushroom chunks, so even wieht 2 entrees you're getting a small amount of meat and a lot of filler.

The eggroll wasn't good; good egg rolls don't need a bunch of mushy chicken; it didn't have that egg roll taste; savory, crunchy, oily. Not worth the calories.

I didn't eat the rice and only tasted the egg roll.

Not terrible but not worth $12 if you don't eat it.

Conclusion

Perhaps China Panda was a bit better than I expected, but the food is very bland and doesn;t remind me of good Chinese food. If you set a low bar, you can got a good value for your money. But this isn't the treat that really good Chinese food can be. Not even close.