Panda East — Restaurant in Amherst

Only a few minutes away from UMass campus, Panda East quickly became a popular location of my friends and co-workers to meet up for bite or drink (more for the drinks). Overall this place would be a 3 for food, and +0.5 for those scorpion bowls. I'll be nice and round up for the good memories.

Probably my most fond memory of the place actually would be my first Scorpion Bowl. The mystical concoction is surprisingly pretty strong (if you get a large you may want to share it with someone else) but definitely a must have at $11~$12. They also have other delicious variants like "Pineapple Dream".

As for the food, I've always enjoyed the dishes I've ordered. I haven't tried the sushi, but perhaps in the future. Usually if I don't want end up in a food coma, I find that the portions are enough for another small lunch. The food is cooked and brought out promptly.

Although depending on what time you go, you might find the staff completely overwhelmed with swarms of loud college students pre-gaming for the night! I had an off experience where I went to Panda's with a group of 6 friends. We were one of those annoying groups that wants to split the check. We ordered our entrees and split 4 scorpion bowls. One of my friends ordered a small for himself and he received a large. Okay more drinks, no big deal. It seemed like they were just handing them out like bread starters! At the end of the meal the waitress had us write our credit card #s along with the totals. Somehow the whole process took about 30 minutes of just trying to pay for our meal. We recalculated the total about 5 times. My friend's card was swiped for my meal total and vice versa. In the end they really just wanted us to leave and in her frustration, the waitress just ended up giving us $5 to settle the discrepancy. Meh, hopefully that was just a one time occurrence. True Rating = 3.5 but I...

I've been going to Panda East for years and always had great food, and great service. Tonight we ordered take out. Everything came perfect. My husband's General Tao's chicken dinner, and my meatless egg roll. The problem was I ordered vegetable lo mein and shrimp lo mein arrived.

I called to explain the mix up and a nice sounding woman answered the phone. Moments later, an aggressive and defensive sounding man picked up the call to stearnly tell me he was the one who took my order and declared I ordered shrimp lo mein, which I didn't because I dislike seafood. He disrespectfully asked, "You want a credit or you want me to deliver you vegetable lo mein? What you want me to do?" I answered, "I'd like to return the shrimp lo mein and have it replaced with vegetable lo mein, as I ordered it."

80 minutes later, the delivery man showed up with what I'm assuming is my vegetable lo mein. I handed him my shrimp lo mein and he put my delivery on the ground and started hurling insults at me. Of course the assumed corrected order has been put outside for wildlife to enjoy since I'm sketched out and assuming someone likely either spit on, or dropped my food on the floor.

I will never order from them again, although my meatless egg roll was delicious and my husband was beyond satisified with his General Tao's Dinner. Zhang's Kitchen will continue to have our business because their food is comparable, if not better, and they are courteous and accurate. Without attitude. Reason we didn't order from them tonight was because they're on vacation...

I just wanted to share the unpleasant service that I received at this place. The server didn't want to even identify Himself 🤦🏽‍♀️ I placed a $47 order by phone To be delivered 3 minutes By car (15 walking distance away from the restaurant.), he said that if I wanted to add anything for my driver I said yes $5dollars Then he said just so you know your order may be delayed because he's going to see how much you gave him for a tip, the policy Says that your order has to be more than $30 in order to be delivered I guess they like to scam people even started to argue with me if I didn't like it that I could order elsewhere. Extremely rude service Said that l didn't like what he said I can go and buy somewhere else Never had this type of experience in this place. §I have gone here for many many years I am an Amherst Resident and I am so sad to share this with everybody. They are trying to scam people never buying from these people again bad energy negativity, and that doesn't prosper. I just wanted to remind you that tips are not mandatory. So please train your servers correctly to be kind and cordial...