Current Events > Unpopular Opinion: Panda Express is better Chinese food than most Chinese places

(+) Yeah! (+)

uberl33tpro posted...

The best Chinese I ever ate was Hunan. It was a sit down restaurant, and it was high quality food. When I look for a place that has good Chinese food, I look for a name that has Hunan in it and I've never been disappointed.

Szechuan is kingpin for me. Real chili oil, not the basic ass stuff they hand out in every Chinese place, is god tier delicious. You can literally put that on everything and it tastes amazing. I make it homemade and even put it on tuna

Mapo Tofu is the best Szechuan dish I've ever eaten.

I've never been to a bad Chinese spot here and I've eaten at quite a few. Panda is dog shit compared to all of them.

I live near a Panda Express and two hole-in-the-wall Chinese places (Both owned by the same people weirdly enough)... And while I enjoy Panda quite a bit, the food at the other two is better... The portions are bigger too... It's only a little bit more expensive than Panda (although the lunch specials are cheaper) but I usually go to Panda because of how much quicker it is...

I don't like tofu, it has a really pungent aroma that I find disgusting. I'm not too picky and I'm open to trying almost anything, but pungent smelling food is where I draw the line.

ellis123 posted...

A better life hack is pointing out that a chicken breast has 31g of protein for 165 calories, so you can just skip on the Teriyaki sauce for a healthier one and be much better off.

But at Panda Express you don't have to cook it and with teriyaki sauce it tastes better lol

Most of the Chinese places near me, and all of them are bad except for one, but the one good one is really expensive. It's like $17 for a lunch buffet. They do good business, but I can't justify $17 for lunch. I can get a bigger plate (3 proteins) at Panda Express for $10, and that's about all I'd eat at a buffet anyway. The cheaper buffets that are closer to the $10 price point are all worse than Panda Express.

uberl33tpro posted...

I don't like tofu, it has a really pungent aroma that I find disgusting. I'm not too picky and I'm open to trying almost anything, but pungent smelling food is where I draw the line.

Pungent? Either you got some weird kind of tofu or it had gone bad. Standard, fresh tofu has almost no odor at all. Or taste, for that matter. Kind of the whole point is to mix it with other stuff.

Amakusa posted...

Any "halfway decent Chinese joint"'s fried rice is made from the previous day's rice. Panda Express's fried rice is freshly cooked rice.

That's how you are supposed to make fried rice. If you think Panda Express fried rice is good you inhabit an alternate taste dimension.

Guide posted...

Pungent? Either you got some weird kind of tofu or it had gone bad. Standard, fresh tofu has almost no odor at all. Or taste, for that matter. Kind of the whole point is to mix it with other stuff.

Every Chinese place I've been in that's served tofu, it has a pungent aroma. I asked a waitress what that really bizarre smell was, and she said it was tofu. So I've associated that specific pungent odor with tofu ever since. It smelled like it was fermented, it didn't smell good.

Guide posted...

Pungent? Either you got some weird kind of tofu or it had gone bad. Standard, fresh tofu has almost no odor at all. Or taste, for that matter. Kind of the whole point is to mix it with other stuff.

Stinky tofu in Hunan is top tier. But yeah this topic is really exposing the American "palette".

If my nose doesn't like it, I'm definitely not putting it in my mouth, I don't care what it is. Stinky Tofu is about as pleasant as some of the nastiest smelling farts I've vented between my ass cheeks, would stinky tufu enjoyers like me to bottle up my farts so they can whiff them out of jars to fancy their strange palettes?

panda is delicious but the chinese food at any decent mall is blowing panda to smithereens

uberl33tpro posted...

If my nose doesn't like it, I'm definitely not putting it in my mouth, I don't care what it is. Stinky Tofu is about as pleasant as some of the nastiest smelling farts I've vented between my ass cheeks, would stinky tufu enjoyers like me to bottle up my farts so they can whiff them out of jars to fancy their strange palettes?

But now you're some how equating all tofu to stinky tofu. There are so many variations on how to prepare tofu, and you seem to be equating them all.

I would sya that bad stinky tofu is really bad. Essentially it should smell bad when being cooked, but the actual tofu's smell and taste should not have the same odor. Good stinky tofu is actually really good.

uberl33tpro posted...

Every Chinese place I've been in that's served tofu, it has a pungent aroma. I asked a waitress what that really bizarre smell was, and she said it was tofu. So I've associated that specific pungent odor with tofu ever since. It smelled like it was fermented, it didn't smell good.

Huh. Were they all in the same region? There could be some history there. Maybe some region of China had bulk migration to your region, and another, with plain tofu, did the same for mine.

But what about PF Chang's?

Reheat Panda Palace food just once and the magic is completely gone forever. I can't eat the stuff anymore.

CoyoteTheGreat posted...

Reheat Panda Palace food just once and the magic is completely gone forever. I can't eat the stuff anymore.

most food that costs ten bucks doesnt reheat well.

You're right in consistency, but I have some Chinese fast food joints near me house that taste way better than Panda Express. Chow Mein and Fried Rice are garbage, but their Orange Chicken is top tier.

Cruciferous is warned