In the post-pandemic world, Panda Chef still delivers an affordable family meal.
Restaurant food has become crazy expensive, and we’ve been eating out a lot, so I wanted someplace cheap to go for Mother’s Day. Well, not as much go – because Mother’s Day is too crazy a day to actually dine out – but get take out from. Enter Panda Express. They have a family meal that consists of 3 family size (26 oz) entrees and 2 family size sides for $35 (some entrees were an extra $5) And they had a $5 off coupon for mother’s day. And let me tell you, 78 oz of food is a lot of food, more than enough for four people. I don’t know that you can get a cheaper meal anywhere anymore.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, they also had a deal that gave you a free bowl of your choice ($9) if you bought $30 in gift cards. You can’t use more than one coupon at the time, so I had to order the bowl separately. That required a $10 minimum purchase, so I added a $2 egg roll. All in all, for under $40 tax included, we had a pretty good meal.
Now, Panda Express food is not extraordinary – but it’s consistent and fine. This is what we got:
Orange chicken has been one of Panda Express’ most popular dishes forever. It’s highly breaded, with a thick sticky sweet-spicy orange sauce, and it’s pretty tasty. Of course, you’re eating mostly breading.
Beijing beef is actually pretty similar to orange chicken, but has a slightly less orangey taste and the pieces are smaller. it also comes with slices of onion and red pepper. It consists of breaded beef in a tangy, sticky, sweet and spicy sauce. Also pretty good, though both of them were too much.
The Honey Walnut Shrimp is, once again, sickingly sweet, but Mike liked it. It’s an additional $5 if you order this.
As my first side I got the chow mein. It consists of very thin wheat noodles, with a nice chewiness, a lot of shredded cabbage and some onion slices. In all, the chow mein isn’t very flavorful and it’s in need of something else – soy sauce? They forgot to add some to my order, unfortunately. There is also way too much cabbage. It’s a cheap filler, I guess.
The second side was the “super greens“. On the website it looked like it would be steamed broccoli. Instead, it was a combo of cabbage leaves and broccoli, heavy on the former. Yes, I know, cabbage is cheap. But it’s definitely not a super green. The veggies are steamed and made up for the very sweet entrees.
I also ordered a chicken eggroll ($2) and it was pretty good. It’s rather large, so well priced, and while the flavor is mild, it’s pretty good for an egg roll.
Not long after this order, my daughter had a hankering for Panda Express again, and given how affordable this deal is (particularly if you first buy a gift card and get a free bowl out of it), I decided to go for it.
I got the Grilled Teriyaki Chicken, and I think this will probably be my to-go choice in the future, because it does seem to be the best value. Unlike the picture in the website, this consisted of grilled chicken thigh, coarsely cut into pieces and mixed with their mandarin teriyaki sauce. The chicken itself lacked seasoning and there wasn’t enough sauce, but that was simply remedied by adding salt and more teriyaki sauce. It was good. Not great, but good for the price.
I can’t say the same about the Broccoli Beef. The dish consisted mostly of large broccoli florets with very few thin slices of beef – I think there might have been a dozen and a half in this family portion. Most importantly, the sauce was very milk and lacked flavor. You get a much better beef with broccoli from your local Chinese joint.
Panda Express
1271 Marina Blvd
San Leandro, CA
(510) 667-9585
M-Su 9 AM - 10:30 PM
I ate at Panda today on Tatum and Shea and I had diarrhea for 3 hours after !! I don’t know what would of caused it but it was definitely from eating there. I had really bad stomach cramps and thought I was going to throw up.
Worker at Airport Blvd, Pensacola Fl. by the name Carin had an attitude, she was violent, cursed and used racial slurs towards me and my husband. All because I asked her to put the fresh chicken in my order since they had me wait 20 minutes for it to cook. She started to place the old chicken and I said nicely I don’t want the old put the fresh. I waited 20min for the fresh. She threw the food, told me to get an application and said this white bitch. I ain’t serving her! And continued to pop off at the mouth and than tried approaching me aggressively. (FYI I’m mixed) Very disrespectful and doesn’t need to be working in customer service! Please watch the camera’s! Manager named Jolly, and Worker named Helen was present along with 2 other male workers and another female worker.
The Panda Express in Bixby, Oklahoma is a joke! Every time I go, I sit in line for around 30 minutes waiting on someone to “get back to you in a sec”! Then the order is never correct. I had to wait (two different times) for more noodles to be cooked (at lunch on a Sunday), did not get some of what I ordered, and was told different times that I could not order just chow mein without the meat – but finally got the order and paid for it.