Panda Express — Restaurant in San Diego

Panda is one of the few fast food Chinese restaurants remaining in my neighborhood. I only go there when I don’t have time to make the trek to the Convoy Asian Cultural District and I’ve just “gotta have” my wanting and Chinese food fix. In the future, maybe I should just order it intravenously, because the flavors and freshness were definitely NOT there this May Day (1st of May).

I ordered an “easy” to please two-entree plate with orange chicken, broccoli beef, and noodles. Basic fare, right? One would expect these entrees to be spot on, since they are the Panda’s flagship dishes. Wow, was I disappointed.

Yes, they were takeout and it took me 10 minutes or so to get home with my meal, but the coating on the chicken was gummy and lacked the intense flavors of the sweet orange battling the vinegary tang that makes this dish so very good… sometimes. The broccoli beef was similarly lackluster with overcooked broccoli, not enough onion, and grissly, tough beef. I hoped that the lo mein noodles might save the day, but the batch mine was drawn from had spent too long sentenced to steam table prison. Gummy noodles are the bane of bad lo mein. (Sorry, didn’t mean to rhyme.)

On the bright side, the wait staff was very crisp and on the ball. They handled the light crowd masterfully and had me in and out and on my way in under 10 minutes. Very good presence and focus, as well as good customer service. Nice!

The store was very clean and presentable as well. Fix the food, and I’ll be...

Stay away from this place..They close at 10 pm. I went at 9:00pm on a Thursday night. No black pepper chicken and they won’t cook it. No teriyaki chicken and they won’t cook it. Usually, other location I visited asked if I can wait for 8 mins and cook the food fresh. These guys won’t and they signal each other to say not committing to cook. Reason was they were going to close soon.. but there was still 60 mins left. If that was not enough, person at the counter was trying very hard to distribute one serving of pepper chicken left into 3 servings. I ordered 2 regular entree plate but received very very small portion , which was like kids meal. Entrees we’re almost few spoons. Very bad management..if you want your money worth of portions and expect good service.. stay away from...

I should have read the reviews before continuing to order from here. I’ve never been to the location physically but I’ve ordered several times through Uber Eats. Last time, I ordered pretty late and my plate was kinda small but I assumed that was my fault because of how close to closing I ordered.

Today, I decided to try it again, it’s the middle of the day so they should definitely have enough food. My Uber Eats driver was great and was kind enough to let me know that this location didn’t end up giving him the drink I ordered. Checked my plate and I got a good amount of mushroom chicken but the beef and broccoli was kind of lacking.

The redeeming quality is that the food is always tasty and fresh. I’ve never had an issue with how the food has tasted, it’s...