Giant Panda Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Fargo

To put this is the very nicest terms, this restaurant was underwhelming to say the least. Typically I like to read reviews, but tend to give them the benefit of the doubt still. My husband and I were disappointed though to have spent money here though for a couple of reasons: Cons- If you're going to a buffet which offers chinese food as a family there are usually reasons why. In our case, our children are picky eaters. We like Chinese food as the adults, but our children tend to like more american foods. They are kids though, so this is normal. This buffet offered ONLY chicken nuggets. In honesty though, they looked gross, so we opted to not even give them to our son. Other than that, if you want "american" food, your choices are salad or fruit. That's it. Nothing was "spectacular" in any sense. Their pan fried pork wantons and cream cheese wantons were good, but that was pretty much it. Wanton soup-- okay. Lo mein was made with spaghetti noodles..... I could do that at home. Fried rice-- I have a better recipie that I can whip up in my kitchen and takes mere minutes to make. General's chicken-- super sweet. I get that it didn't say general tso's chicken, but yeah... ugh. Deserts are lacking immensely as well. Pizza ranch has a better selection, and that's not saying much.

Pro: Huge restaurant and you didn't feel like you were intruding upon anyone while there.

I don't know what else to say. If you eat here, don't expect to be wow'd .... unless of course you are into subpar food. We ate there at 6:30 pm on a friday. There was no "hot" food. It was luke warm... and at that time on that night, in a town as big as Fargo, you would expect that there would be more freshness than there was.

It was our first time there, and also our last. Eat with caution if you decide to give it...

I'm not impressed at all with this place. There are a lot of options to choose from but only a few of those options are edible. The green beans were cold, honey chicken was dry and breading was mushy. The Mongolian pork was oddly sweet, every piece of fruit tasted off.

The good foods were the seafood delight and a few of the sushi options. I'd steer clear of the raw fish options and the tamago sushi. Raw fish is a given in a place like this and I'll later explain the hygiene, but the egg was waaaay too sweet. The egg is supposed to have a hint of sweetness mixed with a bit of soy sauce, not taste like I'm eating a candied egg.

I also should have gotten a hint that this place was going to be bad based on the greeting we got from the server. She didn't look happy that there were people coming in and during our meal we had to wonder if she was ever going to come to fill up our drinks. Do we get a limit on how many refills we can have? We were thirsty and yet could not get her attention for a refill. And she only came by once. Never bothered to come by again to take plates out of the way. Did I mention we didn't have a lot to drink? I wanted to go behind the counter to grab it because we had made two trips up there and yet there was no refills.

To top it off the cleanliness of the place really puts a damper on it. There was a piece of chicken that was lying on the side of the buffet for twenty minutes at least. There were also dirty plates and cups sitting on the edge of the wait station. Not in a bin like they're supposed to be. Just sitting on an edge.

I would not recommend for anyone to go here. If you do just eat the sushi and dessert. Bring...

I should have taken a picture of the buffet prices to better substantiate the reasons for this review. I've been here 3-4 times with my grandkids as sometimes we take them out shopping or pick them up from activities and then ask them where they want to eat. I usually let them pick just as part of a fun activity, knowing that it could get expensive depending upon where they choose. That being said, I would like the Giant Panda to explain to all of its customers why they are charging $4.00 more on the weekends for the same buffet that we get there during the week. There is nothing special about this lukewarm food that is very mediocre at best. I've been there during the week and this was my first time on a weekend. There is nothing added to the buffet and there are no other value-added services or items that would justify raising prices on a Saturday lunch as compared to a Tuesday lunch. Other than bringing the grandkids here if they choose, I'd not consider this place. For $17.99 I can go other places and get a decent meal where the food is prepared fresh and hasn't been sitting in a warmer for several minutes.

The place was nearly empty today at noon. I'd suggest if you want to get more customers on a weekend, just charge the same price you charge during the week. No guarantees of course, but you may get more customers.

Just my opinion and experience. I know others have thought the food was fresh and of great quality. This hasn't been...