Panda Express — Restaurant in Lakewood

On 05/19/21 at 4:11:36 (receipt time), my family & I went to the Lakewood, CA location (#3284). Not having been to a Panda Express for some time, I was surprised to find that the items behind the glass were not labeled with names big enough for identification by the customer, & I was also taken aback when I noticed that the serving containers were now so much smaller than when I last visited.

When it was my turn to order, I ordered a 2 entree meal. I requested that my appetizer be 1/2 chow mein & 1/2 fried rice & my receipt shows that the person who took my order, did it correctly. However, it wasn't until I got home that I noticed my order consisted only of chow mein & my entrees.

It is my belief that, because of all the various noises & the loud talking between all the cooks & front line workers, that my order was filled incorrectly. Not only do I believe this, but I also found the noises to be annoying & unwelcoming, if not unappetizing, while I was in the restaurant.

Finally, at home eating what I was given, I discovered that the Mushroom Chicken entree that was part of my order grossly lacked in actual chicken pieces & the pieces that were in it were tiny.

Although it has been some time since my last visit to Panda Express, until this visit I had always considered it a "regular" in my rotation of store front restaurants & had found the food to be consistently well made, with the right combination of ingredients & tasty. I used to think that the value/satisfaction ration ratio was positive. Now, I am inclined to lean in the opposite direction.

UPDATE:

Received a timely response to the email complaint I sent to Panda Express. Ended up happy because, by the wording of the response, I could tell they actually read my complaint & took it into consideration. I feel they heard me & are willing to correct the issues I raised & that is what I wanted.

Happily, Panda Express is back into my "regular" rotation of store front...

This particular Panda Express has just recently opened. I was really excited to finally have one in my neighborhood! But what a disappointment. As far as friendliness, they were very friendly and I was greeted with a smile. Now the food. It looked good, a little short on most things but they had probably just served a lunch crowd since this was about 1:30 pm. I Ordered two bowls and one three entree' plate. I was not paying too much attention as they were filling my order, I wish I would have. But I was busy taking in the new building and getting up in line to pay. When I got home, I opened up one of the bowls to give to my grandson, he had noodles and orange chicken. He had 4 Small pieces of orange chicken. He was very hungry so I gave it to him. I opened up my husband's 3 entree plate which was really 2 entrees with one on the side which was just fine. He had half and half on the noodles and rice which was an average amount. His orange chicken was 3 pieces, and the spicy shrimp 2 pieces. So I then i opened the small container that was his broccoli beef, 2 small pieces of beef.....the rest all broccoli. Big chunks of broccoli. My husband looked at it and was more than just a little disappointed. I heard about it all through our meal. My bowl which was to be noodles and Beijing Beef, had one piece of beef! The one piece was about the size of a 50 cent piece, so not real small but that was the ONLY piece of meat. I was so so disappointed! What a shame! Before this one opened up so close to my house, I was going to the one in Long Beach on Spring st. close to Millikan High School. Looks like I will be going there before I go back to this place again! It may be further to drive but I can always count on the food portions being of a good balance between veggie and protein ratio. I gave it 2 stars for the hospitality. If I were judging simply on food I would have given it 1 star because it really wasn't all that...

This is not one of my favorite Panda Express locations I go to a lot of the them around the area. I understand that panda is popular and it gets crowded around noon time but I always felt that the workers here have kind of an attitude. I generally don't get a friendly vibe that makes me want to come back I only go here because I shopped at the Walmart next door and it's lunch time and I'm hungry. My main complaint is this and it's happened at several pandas the customer ahead of me wanted chow mein but they were out so when they came time to take my order I chose rice and everything that I wanted was ready to go, but I had to sit there and wait for almost 10 minutes behind the customer ahead of me while he got his chow mein? And I asked the cashier is it pandas policy that if the customer ahead of me ordered something that was out that I have to wait until he gets his order filled? So I'm standing there for like almost 10 minutes waiting for this guy to get his chow mein and my food is just sitting there on the counter??? She said yes that's the way we do it here so that we can charge him at the time she didn't charge him until he had the chow mein fulfilled!!!!!! That's a bad policy in my opinion for panda to have. I mean if you eat there a lot say more than two times a week you start to notice that the food's salty and it's not really a very healthy choice it's just something quick and better than eating a...