I hadn't been here in about five years and decided to give a try since reopening. The bottom line is that I've no idea what I was eating. Everything was extremely bland and a bit salty. Frankly I'm not sure what to even think. You only need to come here if you really want unappealing Chinese food past 9PM and they're open until 930PM. And just for comparison, I decided to try the same dish, two nights in a row. I ordered the dinner combo of Kung pao chicken at both this restaurant and Jade Cafe (less than 2mi straight down Eldridge road, has a drive thru, and closes at 9PM). So, here are my comparisons:
1. Ordered medium spicy at both places. Panda Garden has zero flavor. I forced myself to eat since lunch was about 7hrs earlier (and still couldn't bring myself to heartily eat). Jade Cafe has the right amount of spice.
2. It's cheaper to order from Jade Cafe. Panda Garden for their dinner combo is $11.50 but Jade Cafe is $9. Panda Garden includes a soup; I added a soup to Jade Cafe which brought two items to $12.75. However, when you do this at Jade Cafe, you get double the amount of soup and you get these crispy wide noodles when ordering the egg drop soup. Nothing accompanies the egg drop soup at Panda Garden. Furthermore, you can customize more at Jade Cafe; selecting your type of rice (fried, steamed, or brown) and crab puff/egg roll (pork available) doesn't upcharge the total. In contrast at Panda Garden, you can only choose a vegetable egg roll/cheese puff and anything other than steamed rice costs extra. Both entree containers are the same size.
3. Most importantly, visually Panda Garden is for non-Asians. The pieces of chicken are ENORMOUS, bigger than the spoons I have at home. In any Asian country when using chopsticks, this would be unacceptable. Jade Cafe has the right size for those using chopsticks.
4. Panda Garden allows you to pay online on the website, and it appears there's a $.99 charge additionally. Jade Cafe allows online ordering but you have to pay at the restaurant. Their website fee appears to be $.75.
5. Jade Cafe has a drive-thru, though you can walk in too. Panda Garden does not.
I also ordered the Szechuan Dumplings at Panda Garden, and that was a mistake. I have no idea what that was but it wasn't spicy at all. I guess I was expecting something more like the dumplings served at most Szechuan places (like Mian in Chinatown), where the dumplings are served a bit dry but has a flavorful chili oil poured over. Instead I received a MSG-filled soup of dumplings that were soaked and didn't taste like anything. There is so much liquid, my dumplings were a solid dark brown (like poop), and I've never seen anything like it (of course been to numerous Asian restaurants and been to almost 10 Asian countries). I would pass on this.
I get that this is Americanized Chinese food, but it's pretty bad. I've had better in rural parts of the country where there's hardly any Asians, and this surprises me given we're almost 40% Asian. I would give the leftovers to my parents, but I think they'd be mortified. $24 is going in the trash! read more