Panda — Restaurant in Missouri

We've been going to Panda's for YEARS. Literally since they opened. When I needed to move away, it was the first place I'd get food every time I visited my parents in the area.

Recently, we ordered food for takeout when we had just got in town and experienced massive sticker shock when two General Tso specials, a large beef fried rice (they gave us chicken fried rice instead), and an order of crab rangoon was several cents shy of $50. We rationalized that EVERYONE has needed to increase prices, even though Panda's had always kept prices pretty low. We saw they had renovated (which was weird, it's literally always been a takeout spot, part of its charm was the absolute lack of caring about fanciness) and after checking reviews, saw that they had switched owners and prices had increased drastically after the switch.

I can't be unbiased about the food since I've eaten here so many times before and the quality of the food has sadly decreased. The crab rangoon was still pretty good, small changes, but I liked them a lot. The chicken fried rice was good texture and well cooked, but pretty flavorless. The General Tso chicken was.. I don't know what they did. They're supposed to be wok fried and crunchy, but the coating was really light, spongy, and not crispy at all. I liked the vinegar based sauce, but it was a little sharp. The white rice was good and properly cooked, but I'd hate to see any restaurant mess up plain white rice.

The way I described it to my husband is that it's 3.5 star food for 5 star prices. Panda's had sadly priced itself out because the food quality did not remain at a level that would justify the higher prices.

If you need me, I'll be over in a corner somewhere sad that one of my favorites is...

I’ll start by saying that I was craving some good Chinese food for lunch. This was my first visit so I rolled the dice on Panda.

My order: To Go. Mongolian Beef and 4 crab Rangoon. ** they don’t offer this dish on the lunch menu which is a little surprising.

The crab Rangoon: Larger than normal Sweet with the right amount of flakiness Not super greasy or over cooked Yes, I’ll order them again

** the only way to make them better would be to make them from scratch like Green China.

Mongolian Beef: Full of garlicky flavor and loaded with the right amount of steak and veg topped off with a well prepared sauce. The overall dish tasted fresh and had that homemade quality. This sauce was flavorful and not just full of salt or sugar. A great compliment to the whole dish.

The veg consisted of carrot, onion, green onion, and mushrooms.

The steak was ridiculous. The big chunks were cooked perfectly, had a great flavor, and incredibly tender....melt in your mouth tender, for real.

I will definitely be going back!!

I highly doubt that my first visit was a fluke but I’ll update my review if I don’t have a...

THIS IS NOT THE CHAIN THAT ALL THE BAD REVIEWS ARE FOR! This is a small mom & pop place down the street with the same name. They were here many, many years before the chain arrived! Best Chinese food I've ever had. They use all quality ingredients, you can tell. They give you an enormous amount of food & they wrap it well so it is still piping hot when you get home. I've had the shrimp/broccoli, hot braised chicken, egg foo yung, most of the beef dishes, a lot of their chicken dishes. The steak/beef is tender, the shrimp they use are huge! Everything is cooked perfectly every time. I've eaten here probably 50+ times over the years & cannot think of one single time they messed up an order. There is nothing worse than getting home to find your order wrong, hasn't happened once here. They are very thorough. They are always busy but still get your food done fast! When picking up, step over to the side & watch them cooking in the kitchen. You will realize the people here know what they are doing and...