Pei Wei Asian Express — Restaurant in Charlotte

I usually enjoy food court food but wow this was unpalatable. I got shrimp and orange chicken with fried rice and everything tasted plastic. Literally.

The shrimp were fried in a super stiff batter which was the same consistency as plastic. Then they attempted to coat it with some mystery flavor. It was as though the shrimp was left overs that was being reused.

The orange chicken was identical. Stiff as heck like it was a batch of left over chicken from 3 nights before, that was re-coated and re-fried.

The "fried rice" looked like white rice which was doused with food coloring and sprinkled with mixed veggies. Every time I stuck the fork in white rice popped up.

I couldn't even force myself to eat more than 2 spoon fulls. I should have known something was amiss when their buffet was still full by...

Not as bad as many say on here - this place is definitely really inconsistent. But I'm just here to rate my own experience. Had Mongolian chicken, noodles, and chicken+broccoli. Mongolian chicken was very good. Good crunch and flavor. Noodles were very slightly overcooked/soggy but I was given a heaping portion. Broccoli was not too soft and still had crunch and good taste. The chicken that came with the broccoli was alright, nothing special. (Yes I ordered chicken twice because I realized that I forgot to decide what to get and panicked). Overall not bad. The location (southpark mall dining pavilion) is a slightly crowded but overall nice environment.

EDIT: some are dropping their reviews down because they got sick after. For me, it's been about 7 hours since I ate, but nothing...

If you have ever eaten in a Pei Wei stand alone restaurant (like in Texas), it shares the same branding but is much more like a mall Panda Express than any Pei Wei I have ever eaten at. Having said that, we shared a 3 entrée meal and it was more than enough food for 2 people with an average appetite. Firecracker Chicken tasted the best. The Bourbon Chicken had little to do with Chinese food but tasted ok. The Mongolian beef was savory and about as expected for mall Chinese. All of that was served with fried rice and it had all the expected elements. Once I saw what was under the glass, I got what I expected for a reasonable price -- at least in...