Pei Wei Asian Kitchen — Restaurant in Winter Garden

Since this restaurant opened close to our house we were super happy because we really liked their food. Specially on Sundays is almost impossible to reach them by phone. For the first time instead of ordering we went to the restaurant to order for To Go. We were greet in the same loving manner as always. We stand to wait to be called by name. Around us there were 5 people waiting for the To Go as well and two more arrived in the course of time plus the orders coming by telephone, and people who wants a table. The place was really busy. We were told the waiting time was 25 minutes. We wait almost for 40 minutes. Waiting to be called there was no way to not notice the progress of the staff. The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that only one employee (there were 5) in the kitchen (which is open for everyone to see the preparation of the dishes) was wearing a protective cap over the hair. The other four people in the kitchen staff were not! The rest of 3 employees were in the cashier, attendance and preparation to deliver the To Go not being sufficient by the demand of people who were arriving to be attended. Two of them were young adults who talked and laughed all the time, did not wear gloves to handle the plates that were being closed and prepared for the To Go. The laughter and camaraderie are great for the work (and I aplaud them) environment but the production and delivery needs to be improved. The To Go food were being wait to be put inside bags. The plates to be delivered to the tables were waiting for somebody delivers them. One of the kitchen staff had to call one of To Go people to take the food plates to the tables because they were not paying attention. The To Go employee could no longer handle her job because she was after boxes of napkins and lids. She also asked for a portion of white rice to the guy that was delivering food plates to the tables. And with a lack of hygiene he just took a big scoop with white rice with his other gloveless hand under, run and give to her! Around the two rices cookers were dirty scoops, spoons and crumbs all over. And finally giving a general look at the decoration I began to notice cobwebs above the cashier attendant. It is clear the lack of supervision of the staff by a manager in order to provide quality care but mainly hygiene in this place. Employees without protective cap over the hair and gloves handling the food besides made the experience one of the worst. We will not be ordering food over the phone, online or eating in this food chain at Winter Garden...

I’m not the type that leaves reviews. This one was needed. After ordering our meals at the front & getting our drink cups we made our way over to the drink machine & we immediately noticed nothing was stocked & it was messy, no big deal... Upon finding a table we noticed that there was none clean that weren’t occupied so I got a few paper towels and wiped one down, no problem… I ordered 2 wontons (we were dinning in btw. The manager brings them to our table in a togo box & 2 packets of sauce, no big deal except they were swimming in grease & were definitely not blotted off as you typically would when something is fried & I do remember they would come out on a plate and a side of sauce. Not an issue… Now this is we’re I was like “ok wth”. The hostess FINALLY decides she’s going to clean a few tables out of the 15 that were filthy. She literally spray the table with the tiniest squirt of cleaner and wiped ONLY the spot of cleaner off. Picture that lol! Didn’t swipe across the entire table like a hostess/server normally does, legit just wiped off what she squirted. She did 4 of the tables, every single one had rice &/or sauce left & didn’t bother to push in a single chair while she was at it. Now our food comes out. I got the Mongolian Steak- rice was hot & meat was cold. Like cold cold. I guess I assumed they made the meat in house but I’m pretty sure it couldn’t have been that cold without it being like premade and warmed. My husband got the shrimp lo mein. The shrimp were little mushy balls of slim. He couldn’t eat it & I just covered my meat with the rice to heat it up. We don’t send food back. The fortune cookies were stale & also were uneditable. Hopefully the owner reads this and hires some new employees because I have no doubt they will not be open much longer. This was between 6:3-7:30 on a Saturday evening and there were 3 other couples besides us. The new Fresh Kitchen next door was packed. We should have ate there instead. We will never return to...

I will begin by stating we tried some new stuff today...plus revisited a couple of standbys. The location was super busy, but as with many other places, they are saving money by not having as many staff on hand. This means two people to run food, clean, stock, get together the to-go orders, etc. Unfortunately it was too busy for two people. Several dirty tables lingered around the dinning room through most of our meal. Ice was difficult to come by, no plates were stocked, no straws, only a few lids for drinks, a couple of chopsticks were hanging around as well. So when food was delivered we had to ask for plates. The rest of food arrived and we again asked for plates. The first person was busy with a Door Dash order now. So the second finally brought us plates. The two returning favorites were pork fried roll and the lettuce cups. These tasted as the usually do, great flavor, good texture, and plenty of it. The first 'New' dish was Mongolian Chicken. It did have SOME of my favorite thing on the menu - Mongolian Beef. The chicken was pan seared seemingly with no seasoning and tossed in the Mongolian sauce, and it just can not live up to that comparison. The other New item was the Chicken Fried Cauliflower Rice. It had a mix of veggies with the cauliflower rice, large slices and chunks of chicken with a sauce. I would order it again, but it Must be paired with other light sauced items or similar flavors. It worked well with the lettuce cups and pork fried rolls. It tasted too bland against the Mongolian Chicken. So for the overall food it was okay to good, one new thing to give another chance, and one that we'll return to classic Mongolian Steak. Service was barely okay, but had to ask for everything, it was not a flawless visit - but few ever are. We will go again, just be more choosy on the adventure...