Panda Garden Chinese

User Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

This restaurant has a lot of glowing 5-star reviews here from obviously unseasoned diners, but I think readers deserve a more accurate critique.
Panda Garden is only passable as a Chinese restaurant. The food is ok, nothing more. My bill for $25.38 for two entrees and a bowl of soup was unreasonable considering it's just average quality.
From the bad quality of most of the restaurants I've been to so far in this area, I think SW Houston Chinese restaurateurs must think the local residents are stupid or ignorant when it comes to judging Chinese food quality. I'm from New York originally so I know what fine quality Chinese food is, and this isn't it.
The Pand Garden wonton soup was pretty bad. The wontons were poor quality, didn't taste right at all, and there were sweet onions in the soup that just tasted wrong and didn't work. Also, they didn't serve any crispy chow mein noodles to go with the soup, which always bothers me. The restaurant thinks they're being upscale by not needing the noodles, yet they serve a bad quality soup, so they need the noodles even more.
My Kung Pao chicken was also bad, very bad. The chicken was poor, the Kung Pao sauce was awful and the wrong taste, and I had to mostly force myself to eat any of it.
The beef with broccoli was better, it was edible and tasted ok, but it was just ok. There was no shiny glaze on the beef, it was matte and dull, and the beef quality was just average.
One thing I found very irritating was that I ordered a Coke and they obviously had not kept their sodas chilled. When it arrived there was only a little ice in the top of the glass, and the soda tasted lukewarm. I had to ask for more ice, but my soda never got cold enough in time through the whole meal for me to enjoy it.
Even the cheapest restaurants can figure out how to serve an ice-cold soda, but a restaurant that claims it's gourmet and they can't even chill their drinks? Pathetic.
Also, the first waitress I got had an attitude problem, she acted as though I was some Eastern Barbarian visiting a 5-star restaurant in Hong Kong or Shanghai. I quickly put her in her place by showing her I was an experienced diner and not tolerating any of her shenanigans. She first tried to rush me to order. No sooner had I sat down in my seat than she immediately asked what I wanted to drink. She was much too rushed and slunked away resentfully muttering that I needed more time when I informed her I wasn't ready to order. She came back several times pushing me to order quickly. Some "gourmet" restaurant! After I taught her some New York-style comebacks and she realized her act wasn't working, she sent another waitress to serve me for the rest of my meal.
I was outraged at the end with the check for $25.38. I was even more irritated when they asked me suggestively if I wanted to take the leftovers home. Ladies, if your food was any good, and I wanted to finish it later, I would ask you to wrap it for me. I'm not asking you because the food is average to bad.
I left a 15% tip out of the decency of my heart and left. I wouldn't recommend Panda Garden to anyone unless you want to be charged gourmet prices for TV-dinner quality.
So far the only decent Chinese restaurant I've found in the Houston area which has a chance to be considered in the "gourmet" category is Lam's in the downtown area, and even that was not stellar, but at least they had somewhat refined service and staff.

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User Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The best special won ton soup ever! lots of vegetables, they even made it without shrimp because I'm allergic to shrimp, and it was fresh! I order at least once a week now! The special wonton is a meal by itself and crispy vegetables, good for me.

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User Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I have been going to Panda Garden ever since it opend, and I have got to say that the food is very good, but very Americanized (which I don't thing is a bad thing; its just suiting the tase of Americans)

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