| rev:text
| - I am a fan of the Chinese restaurant lunch special. However, good Chinese restaurants that serve lunch specials are not everywhere. That includes the Town Square Mall in Las Vegas. I'd settle for Panda Express.
This past Saturday I had lunch in the Town Panda Express. For the record it is one of the few fast food restaurants in Town Square. And for the record, regardless that it is close to five years old, it is one of the newer Las Vegas locations. Situated in the AMC Theater promenade in Town Square it is a relatively small location that provides one row of booths and tables. On a Saturday afternoon, the tables were nearly full to capacity. I can only imagine the seating capacity issue on a weekend movie night.
I started off this review by saying that I am a fan of the Chinese lunch special. I must emphasize that although I am a fan of the Chinese restaurant restaurant lunch special, I generally regard Panda Express favorably. In the following paragraph this review compares this Panda Express experience to the Chinese lunch special.
The first difference is the method of ordering. When I visit a Chinese restaurant, I generally order off a menu then wait for the cook to make my food. Walking into the Town Square Panda Express, the food was presented in tin trays (that's what I call them). The kitchen had made the food and now it was in a warm tray. The problem with this presentation is what I call the Panda syndrome. This is when an item is so low that the cooking oil dominates the tray. As I've mentioned in a couple of earlier Panda Express reviews, "it is unappealing." There have been a couple of times that I walked out of a Panda Express because of this. As a matter of fact I passed over the eggplant with tufu because of the Panda syndrome. The second difference between the two are pricing. In general, a lunch special comes out to between $9 and $10 after tip. At Panda the two item combo with a small refillable Pepsi drink came out to $10.65. The difference in price is nothing remarkable. However, the difference in dining experience is noticeable considering that one is fast food and the other is a full service restaurant. The third difference is the familiarity of the product. The majority of Chinese restaurants in Las Vegas excluding China A Go Go are independently owned establishments that serve their own style of food. The fried rice at XO Chinese Restaurant might taste better than at China Wok. The nice thing about Panda Express is that their food is identical at each location. That is a good thing. I appreciate their fried rice, chow mein noodles, fire cracker chicken, and other items. In my humble opinion their soft chow mein noodles is far better than many of the independent Chinese restaurants. I ordered the soft chow mein noodles as one of the entrees while making the fried rice a side dish. As the picture shows, half the plate is fried rice. The second entrée I ordered was the fire cracker chicken. Lastly, at Panda Express the packet sauces play a greater roll in my experience than the Chinese restaurants. I will always top off the fried rice with at least two packets of soy sauce and the fire cracker or orange chicken with two packets of their hot sauce.
At the conclusion of my dining experience, I walked back outside to the AMC theater prominade temporarily filled up and satisfied. Regardless that this is a dining experience that falls short of many of the Chinese restaurant lunch specials that I've enjoyed in this city, I rate it "3 Stars."
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)