Panda Buffet — Restaurant in Cloquet

This place has decent food, but is for sure over priced for the quality and definitely super confusing. Also, make sure you count your change if paying in cash, because they will short change you! We wanted to do take out, but the number listed online doesn't work. Instead we decided to dine in. The price listed in the photos posted online state about $11/per person, but we were charged $13. We have 3 children, 2 of which are under the age of 10, but they only counted one of them as a "child". Whatever, maybe our daughter looks older to them, they didnt ask, and i wasnt aware i should announce her age when entering the place. When the bill came, it was originally $64, then she came back and said she forgot to add the drinks, simple mistake, no big deal, so she took it back and fixed it. I paid with a $100 bill. She brought the change back, handed it to my husband and he immediately gave her the $10 bill and the coins from the change as a tip, he then handed me the other cash and we left. I asked what the total was after we got into the car and drove away and he said $71,... but I only had $8 from the other change that she had given us. Well, I realized she had shorted us $10. This doesn't break the bank for us, but it does piss me off. If she does this to just a few people a day, and they don't realize it, imagine how much money she is pocketing a week. This upsets me because I definitely prefer this place over Hong Kong, but not after...

Do not eat here. Stay away at all costs. ordered a couple of simple items, sweet and sour chicken and shrimp foo young. Also a couple of egg rolls and and cream cheese wontons. Food was ready on time and warm. That’s about the only good.

Shrimp Foo Young - only tasted like grease. No flavor or seasoning. The person who ordered it got sick twice in the night. Gravy that it came with was super salty but flat flavor wise.

Sweet and sour chicken - Chicken was moit’s, but flavorless. No seasoning on the batter or on the chicken. Sweet and sour sauce was flat.

roasted pork egg rolls - dry and flavorless.

cream cheese wontons - dry and flavorless.

I tried to call the restaurant 3 times after I had picked up the order. No answer and no voicemail system to leave a message. Threw away the food, because the smell of it was making us nauseous!

Called the next day to speak to the manager, and he was dismissive. Other customers didn’t complain, so it wasn’t the food. Didn’t even ask for money back, and manager offered to refund 1/2, then got combative when trying to lookup the receipt. Very aggressive manager. Will handle the refund through the bank.

Was this Covid? No. We ordered pizza and everything tasted as delicious as we expected.

Long story short: avoid this restaurant at all costs. Use other local options or even frozen Chinese food from the store. Will never patronize this...

We dined here about once a month for years. My wife and the waitress exchanged friendly greetings like friends.

We loved their food.

But in the last year or two the food has gone downhill.

We stopped going for pre-dinner, and started going for early lunch, sometimes the first of the day, so it was fresh.

The food is just not the caliber it was. Everything. We are sorry to post this, but it has really degenerated. Even if it's warm, there is little taste.

We miss the old tastes.

EDIT We had to try again, a couple months ago. Food was actually fairly good. But we went again this week and it was atrocious. None of the food was even halfway warm, except the egg drop soup. I left food on my plate, I could not finish it, it was so bad. Both of us got the runs from it.

I feel bad because the folks there are nice, but there's no way we...