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| - I ate here this weekend, while on a trip to AZ. It helps to be open-minded about food on a weekend away, especially in a whitebread area like Scottsdale. Even with the lowered expectations, however, the food here was a poor excuse for chinese food.
My friends and I ordered the following: Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Peking Dumplings, Vegetable Dumplings, Mongolian Beef, Chang's Lemon Scallops, Buddha's Feast, and Vegetable Chow Fun.
While most of this was edible, none of it was really particularly tasty or memorable. The Mongolian Beef was overpoweringly salty, the Lemon Scallops were okay for the first ten minutes and quickly got tiring (the fry batter was much too much and the sauce too sweet and gloopy). The Chicken Lettuce Wraps were far and away the best out of the bunch, but even as Lettuce Wraps go, they were only so-so. The dumplings were good, but it's pretty difficult to mess up dumplings.
The really appalling thing, and what merits the 1-star rating, is the atrocious selection available for vegetarians and vegans. My brother is a vegan, and he ordered the Buddha's Feast. It was described as "Veggies with five-spice tofu, steamed or stir-fried," which sounds like a normal Chinese dish. Veggies, tofu, sauce, etc.
What came out was almost insulting. It was a bowl of vegetables, steamed. No sauce, no spice, nothing. We had to ask the waitress where the tofu was. When she pointed out some mushroom-looking things (only two or three pieces in the whole dish), we couldn't help but laugh incredulously. I can't believe they actually offer this dish with a straight face and call it anything other than a side of steamed veggies. Is it so demanding in this day and age to expect SOMETHING edible and delicious on the menu for vegetarians and vegans?
My poor brother then ordered the Vegetable Chow Fun (which resembled Chow Fun not-at-all) and barely touched his food. Have these people ever had chinese food? I suggest that the menu/recipe design team of PF Chang's take an educational trip to any Chinatown and receive some schooling.
Oh well. Even if they DID have something satisfying for the non-meat-eaters, the place wouldn't have gotten more than 2.5 stars from me anyway.
boohiss
P.S. "I'm a chain restaurant! Please don't hurt me!" is no excuse for sub-par food, sorry folks.
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