Dumpling Panda - Fort Lauderdale — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

If you're looking for a dumpling place, this is not it. We ordered the chicken soup dumplings, because it's gotta be good, right? I mean, it's in the name of your restaurant, your supposed claim to fame. How is it that these were the driest "soup" dumplings I've ever had in my life? The Sahara desert had more moisture than these things. The braised pork rice was OK. Not the best I've had, but it did the job since I was starving. Now comes the chicken lo mein...should be good right? There's no way it could be bad right? I mean, it's such a simple staple dish. Tell me why I couldn't tell what flavor I was supposed to be tasting. Bland doesn't even begin to describe it, in fact, I'm insulting the word bland by even using it as a description. Apologies to you, bland.

On the plus side, our server was very pleasant and discounted our meal and was apologetic for our experience and asked us to come back and try something else. With all due respect, if your establishment can't even get dumplings right, WHICH IS IN THE NAME OF YOUR RESTAURANT, I have to be demented to come back. I'm sorry ma'am, but there's no way I'm coming back.

You've been cautioned. If you still decide to give this place a try, ask...

Cute, but a bit over the top with the panda and steam basket decor. We ordered the pork soup dumplings, pan fried dumplings and fried pork noodles. Soup dumplings were a bit small in size but flavorful. A little too well done as 2 broke, spilling the soup. A few missteps though, they have rice vinegar on the tables, and didn’t provide fresh julienne ginger. They only gave us the proper black vinegar but oddly pickled sushi ginger when asked. The dumplings were pan fried but wet from too much water added when frying, kinda gross! Flavorful with a thin skin and a good portion of meat filling. Zha Jiang Mian was overly salty and noodles were overcooked and stuck together. The pork belly was old and dried out. As a franchise it is not authentic and nothing is prepared fresh on premises. Everything tastes frozen and simply heated. Loaded w lots of MSG, my mouth was so dry and I had a headache soon after. I could go to the Asian market n make this at home, served properly. It’s a fail imo but to those who don’t know...

Figured I would try it as it is new. Ordered beef and broccoli, spicy or sichuan style, spring rolls, and classic pork dumplings. They ignored my request for spicy...which isn't a big deal as I know some places don't deviant from the menu but if they had simply told me they werent going to prepare it as I requested, they might have told me and I would have ordered some separate sichuan sauce as they do sell it. So at the least, they missed an addon sale and at worst they simply ignored how I wanted it made. The beef was good quality and there was a lot of it, the ratio to broccoli honestly was high. Overall it was pretty bland tho. Spring rolls were ok, a little mushy, even though I ate them soon as I picked up the food. The dumplings were missing any dipping sauce, not sure if they don't come with any or they simply forgot...but that was also a disappointment. However the dumplings were quite good as they were. Overall the food was pretty good, nothing great. If I try it again, it will probably be for the...