P.F. Chang's — Restaurant in West Homestead

For context, I eat a lot of Asian food and can appreciate a cheap American Chinese restaurant in a strip mall or be more than happy at high end sushi or Korean bbq restaurants.

The synopsis is this place is highly overrated, and I'd venture as far as to say it's just bad, even if I was paying strip mall prices, but they charge at medium high end family dining prices. We were honestly stunned and confused by just how bad it was.

We just stopped for drinks and appetizers, while the child in our group got a kids dinner to entertain ourselves between events at the water front.

The hand folded crab wontons sound like they were going to be similar to crab rangoons, but they are worse than any rangoons or wontons I've ever had. The wrapping material was very dry and flavorless and the inside tasted neither like crab or creamy. The sauce was spicy and okay, but it didn't really fit and was thinly poured. We sent them back and thankfully they were removed from the check, but they were the first thing I've had sent back in years and we eat out constantly.

The fried pork dumplings were okay. The texture on the outside was fine, the dipping sauce was fine, but the contents were lack luster. My girlfriend literally looked at me and said "where is the flavor"? This was the best dish we had.

The fried shrimp dumplings were worse than the pork dumplings. I'm not sure if they were meant to come with a dipping sauce and our waiter (the bad one, see below) messed it up or if it was intended, but they came with a sauce in a miniature gravy boat, which wasn't the case with the pork dumplings. The sauce here was extremely runny. Pouring the sauce on the shrimp dumplings just caused 90% of it to run off. The dumpling form factor was like raviolis and while the wrapping was ok, the shrimp filling tasted like shrimp... But nothing else. No Asian flavor, worse, no flavor at all.

The edamame was fine, but honestly I'm surprised they didn't find a way to mess that up.

The child in our group is a picky eater admittedly, but she got the chicken and broccoli. The broccoli was basically raw and she wouldn't eat it, but my girlfriend tried it and was literally laughing with it in her mouth saying, "Uncooked broccoli goes in salad". The chicken looked kind of like an unsauced general tsos. Again she is picky, but didn't really like it.

They managed not to mess up the child's vanilla ice cream.

The drinks were actually very good. I got some signature margarita that while wasn't extremely impressive was equivalent to what I'd compare to something like Red Lobster. My girlfriend got some kind of drink with rosemary and black salt and smoke. It looked impressive, the smoke smelled great, and she said it was good. Honestly, I think if the bartender had written the menu and cooked everything it would have been better, I don't even care if she's never seen a pan. It's like... So TGI Fridays has a couple Asian things that are obviously tuned to the average mashed potatoes and pizza eating American... And their Asian food tastes more authentic and more flavorful than this place. Honestly, we will never be eating here again.

The entrees sounded more like custom recipes than bad knock off strip mall American Chinese, but I am so glad we didn't try. They have a wagyu steak for as low as $40. I've never seen a wagyu steak that cheap and I can't imagine what quality it is at that price. Looking through the options doesn't inspire confidence. And what's up with these soups? Again strip mall Chinese soups, make a signature soup. As Uncle Roger might say, "Haiyaa" (extreme disappointment).

The service was mixed. We were sat immediately. Our primary waitress was very attentive, fast, and was really quite excellent. However, we had another waiter set down someone else's food in front of us. Like I was breathing on it close. We told him it was wrong and he just moved it to the table beside us. He did this twice.

The bill was still $100 with tip. Not on my life would I pay that for this...

One of worst bistros I’ve been anywhere in the world: MORE FLUFF THAN SUBSTANCE. It fails the very concept of a “bistro” as an eatery of uplifting flavors of simple and familiar foods.

Whereas the ambience 😎 is very good, the COOKING IS VERY VERY VERY POOR🤢🤢🤢.

Although the food was eatable, FLAVORS WERE NOT CHINESE NOR OF ANY AUTHENTIC ASIAN FLAVORS.

😡😡😡😡😡 This conclusion is a consensus amongst three colleague foodies and I who visited separately.

😎 As a bistro, the menu is short as expected. It seems however, the draw here is the open bar with reasonable prices for cocktails and beers.

😎 The peach-flavored oolong tea was the only one that is authentic Chinese. The oolong aroma is very real.

😑 The Northern-style Spare Ribs was good tasting BUT LACKS THE FLAVOR OR AROMA of the supposedly 5-spice dry rub. NO aroma of cinnamon nor anise. NO taste of ground peppercorns either.

😡😡😡 Dipping sauces/condiments requested were most certainly NOT Chinese NOR any from amongst the other great Asian cuisines

Their “Hot Chili Oil” was nothing more than tasteless oil, not a hint of chili. Their “Chili Paste” tasted like sweetish ketchup, the chili seeds were mere decorations.

😊 The Pork Egg Roll, a typical American chinese-style food, was flavorful.

BUT the dipping sauce was a sugary mustard-like fluid. … Requesting other sauces was just as disappointing, if not pitiful array of likely cheap factory-made fluids.

😑 The Kung Pao Chicken, while eatable, had NO SEMBLANCE TO ITS SICHUAN ORIGIN.

The sauce was nothing more than an unremarkable sweetish thick soy sauce base LACKING THE TASTE/HEAT OF SICHUAN PEPPERCORNS.

The dried pepper garnishes tasted stale and have no heat at all. Clearly, they were very very very old stock of chili peppers.

😡😡😡 The Buddha’s Delight, an otherwise creative American chinese-style dish, WENT BACK TO THE KITCHEN WITH THE DISCOVERY OF ROTTING PEA POD.

Service was good. The waiter was very amiable. He patiently acquiesced to requests of dipping sauces on offer. He was also kind enough to remove the Buddha’s Delight from the bill.

NOT RECOMMENDED.

• There are significantly better American chinese-style eateries and even better Authentic Chinese restaurants...

I'm going to make this short. Ordered a Pepsi, got it, it had a giant hair sticking out of it. 🤢 I thought, accidents happen and showed the waitress immediately ....... 🤢🤢 Been going to PF changs for over 15 years all over the US. I've been to the homestead location several times but not for years now. I went there today. I took one of my friend there to lunch. She has never been there I couldn't wait to get my lettuce wraps because that's the main thing that I always get for years and years and they came out and they look like tofu because they were gigantic pieces of Water chestnuts HUGE!! I thought they had given me a vegetarian version on accident. I asked the waitress about it and she said I think they changed some of the ratios? I said to no chicken and straight water chestnuts? It was nothing but water chestnuts and mushrooms and green onion. She said I can send it in the back and have them remake it I said that's fine. They brought out the same exact ones that I sent back because they were now darker in color they just Re-cooked the same exact ones that they gave me the first time . It was nothing but crunch crunch, crunch, crunch, water, chestnuts, which made myself and my friend feel very ill afterward..... both with stomach aches, and I only ate one lettuce wrap, but the entire thing was full of them. It would've been like if you went to the store and bought a giant can of big chunks of water, chestnuts and dumped them in your food! No chicken! No meat whatsoever. I was embarrassed, especially after bragging to my friend how good they were. I ordered the honey chicken,,. It was a bowl filled to the top with white rice and five little pieces of chicken and literally no sauce dry no sauce $12.50.... I wasn't gonna complain again after a hair and plate full of water chestnuts... I just figured I want this lunch date to be over with the humiliation. The waitress and manager did remove the lettuce wraps from the check. My friend said she liked her hot and spicy chicken and crab won tons.. but I will not be returning. How upsetting. The...