Saigon Panda — Restaurant in Sioux Falls Township

Ok folks, I love to eat out and try new restaurants and have worked as a server even so when I leave reviews even when there are negatives about the visit I try to tell about the positives too but I'm not sure I can do that this time unfortunately. I tried Saigon Panda tonight for the first time and it will be the last too I'm afraid. Of all the restaurants I've eaten in there have thankfully been very few that were just not good. There have been some mediocre ones but never a really bad one...until now. I'm only talking about the food in this case because I had it delivered but eating in the restaurant wouldn't help because bad is bad. I ordered from the Vietnamese menu and had the pork chop and shredded pork with rice and the House Wonton Soup. When I first brought it in it was smelling like Fritos and msg! Not bad but odd. The shredded pork was just straight yuck and I was in the Navy y'all and am a life-long Scouter and have eaten some seriously sketchy stuff in my time but this stuff was not even fit for dog food and they lick their own...anyway, the pork chop was this thing that looked like a baseball glove. No joke. The cook had cut slices into it I guess to cook it faster and it was cooked fine (A positive!) but whatever it was marinated in was worse than the grog during Shellback initiation (Google it) but I digress. The rice that came with was just plain ol' white rice too. It should have been Jasmine but it was dang near Minute Rice y'all. It was one of the worst things I ever tried to eat and that includes some of the worst things among MRE's. If you don't know about them, look it up on Youtube...lol! Now for the soup. The Grog...the Grog...sorry. Flashbacks again...lol! Dude! This stuff was like canned chicken broth with a bunch of broccoli for one. Y'all know what broc smells like cooking so imagine that as flavor too. There was a bit of really thin chicken breast that was alright. Then there was some thin char-sui pork that almost made me puke. Not kidding. It was so gross I had to spit it out and I've eaten stuff Boy Scouts have mixed up on purpose to try to make me ralph...lol! There were 2 small pieces of shrimp. Pieces of shrimp. Not whole shrimp like every other version of this soup I've ever had but pieces and of course having sat in canned chicken broth loaded with cruciferous veg (Google it) and puke-making pork, they were little pencil erasers. Mmm. There were other types of veg in it too but the thing that was really bothersome to me was that it was supposed to be wonton soup. Wontons are dumplings usually containing pork or chicken, maybe some shrimp but what this was was strips of wonton skins making it the worst noodle soup ever. So the moral of the story folks is...DON'T EAT AT SAIGON PANDA unless you hate yourself...

Definitely order from the Vietnamese menu, I didn't, but looked up what looked like the feature item, pho. Turns out it's one of the most amazingly good foods in the world and I didn't order it. When I go back I definitely will.

What I did order was General Chicken and Orange Chicken, an order I'm embarrassed of now, even if it was spectacular. The perfect amount of crispiness and tenderness, this was Chinese-American of the highest order.

The only Vietnamese item I got was the spring rolls, which were not what I expected to get, and very interesting. These aren't the chinese spring rolls you normally see, they're also known as a salad roll and for good reason, they're mostly vegetables with shrimp served room temp by design. They come with a dipping sauce and don't be shy with that, it's delicious.

Don't misunderstand me, the Chinese food at this place is EXCELLENT, I just want to encourage people to branch out and not miss the opportunity I did.

The decor is very simple, but is in no way bad. a few booths and tables with chairs in a small room, a large image of the great wall of china on one wall (uhhhh?). The focus is on the food here, and rightly so.

The food presentation is what I would call "homestyle" in that every diner is given a plate, and each item ordered is placed on a serving dish in the middle of the table. Put what you want on your plate. "Come and get it" basically. Not a problem in my book at all. Reminds me of mother.

Basically I look forward to going back and having a real...

For the first time ever I came to this place it's like a little strip and I ordered food to go and for one didn't get any silverware I work for costumer service and food restaurants and I am always aware of providing the best service to my costumers, and as I leave with my food hungry on my lunch break get to my work and start munching on some hot food and as I'm eating I pull a long hair from my mouth as I'm chewing and just nasty experience lost my appetite and shocked didn't know wat to do so I call them I look for the number online and call them they wanted to give me more food "? And I get their and they asking me questions as if I was a lie and didn't appreciate that sorry bad in all reasons sorry I love Chinese food I'm from California and here no Chinese...