Panda Mongolian BBQ — Restaurant in Orange

Excited to see a Mongolian BBQ with pocket bread on this side of town. Entered and was told to pick a table and they would bring us a menu. Brought two paper menus, two pens, and a laminated menu. He explained that you can build your own by marking ingredients and they make it for you, including your sauce mixture. Once we chose what we wanted, we had to take everything back to him at the cashier station. Odd, but ok. Went there and there was a line of people waiting to order take out. So I'm seated in the restaurant and now I have to wait in line again, after waiting to be seated. Give them our order. Wait at the table for about 10 minutes and no drinks or utensils. Then hubby wants to move to a booth, now that they are empty, as we didn't like sitting right next to the restroom area. I go up and ask if we can move, cashier says yes, but we need to have someone clean it first. Ok. We wait next to the booth and the cashier finishes with stuff he's doing, looks at us, and continues working. After waiting another 10 minutes or so, hubby gets impatient and goes and asks the lady who is building dishes and taking them to cook and then to customers to have someone clean the table. She says yes. She then tells the cashier we are waiting to have the table cleaned and to go clean it. He continues doing other stuff, then finishes and walks to the back area. We are like ok, he's going to get stuff to bus and clean the table. Nope, he just stays back there. We are now mad as we have been there almost 20-25 minutes, not sitting, no drinks, etc, so we end up leaving. People next to us, party of 3 also got up and left as nobody came to take their order or acknowledged them. I know times are tough, but they need more staff here and need to go back to the serve yourself method and stop price gouging for every little thing. We left there and drove to Ghanghis Khan on Trask and Garden Grove Blvd. and we had a full meal, made our own bowls too and they also only had 3 people working.

Would give zero stars, but that's...

You can always tell a good Mongolian BBQ (and Teppanyaki Grill) by how many White People are there. This place had tons. So that was a good indicator that it was good. Lots of dudes in Dockers shorts, polo shirts, goatees, girls with tats and lots of Micheal Kors purses. Kids who are allowed to scream and disturb others or run around, and get thanked when their white parents correct them when they finally comply for things they should be doing anyway. "Johnny, don't punch your sister in the face". "Thank you". You get the picture.

It was good. No lamb or pocket bread. But it's clean and efficient. They have serve yourself egg rolls and crab rangoons, egg drop soup, and sour soup. Very Oriental! They have cheesecake , jello, and salad? Probably so the clientele don't get freaked out and think they left Orange County and are in Asia. Most Mongolian BBQ's don't have these kinds of things.

It's all pretty tasty, but it's not like there is a lot to Mongolian BBQ. Kind of hard to mess up. And if you jack up your meal, isn't it your fault as you picked everything out?

Staff is really friendly....

A great local Mongolian bbq, Panda is located in East Orange. The menu offers both all you can eat an one bowl meals. For a couple dollars more, I always go with the AYCE meal.

Once seated, you can order you drinks and then go grab a bowl, walk along the counter, and begin to fill it to your liking. You start with you choice of noodles. There are both glass and lo mein available. Move a few steps to the right and you find plenty of meats; e.g. beef, lamb, pork and chicken. Finally, stack on lots of vegetables; celery, carrots, broccoli, onions, mushrooms, water chestnuts...the list goes on and on. All of the choices looked very fresh and appetizing. At the end of the food items, are a trays of many sauces. You can pick a basic sauce like hoison or teriyaki and then top it with an extra sauce such as garlic or green onion.

My favorite part, is watching the chefs, stir up you custom concoction over the large bbq top. Being freshly prepared, the taste is fantastic and the best part, is after your done eating, you can get up and do it...