Shanghai Express

solid good food here, went thru drive thru and got our order quickly. PLace is run down as hell tho, but I have long since learned that doesnt affect food quality, ie. I have eaten in some real dives before… everything was good, fresh and hot. Will return

I want Thursday for Lunch, hadn’t been there in a few years, we decided to eat lunch inside the restaurant, ordered the food as soon as she handed us our cups we walked over to the soda fountain, the trashcan right by it smelled like something died in it, the restaurant was dark and dirty, one hour later we both got sick to our stomachs, I still don’t feel well and it’s been over 24 hrs. I will never eat there again. Stay away health department needs to go in there and shut it down.

The experience starts outside with a run down, unkept parking lot & surroundings. It’s as if they come to work every day with blinders on, they do not care to maintain the exterior. The door & handle to enter the building was one of the dirtiest I have ever seen! The grime was so thick & black & in a huge area. It had been there a long, long time. There was a lightbulb out in the 1^st entry area, dirty walls, & yet one more very dirty door & handle to touch, to enter the actual restaurant. Once inside, there is a 3 ring binder on the counter that had as much, if not more, grime on it as the two doors. It has plastic pages with pictures of food. At that point, we discussed whether to leave, or to order food.
My husband was looking straight into the cooking area & said that it appeared to be clean, so we ordered: Fried Dumplings, General Tso’s Chicken & Orange Chicken Deluxe Dinners, they come with Sweet & Sour Pork, Egg Roll, & Steamed Rice. We changed the Steamed Rice, to Fried Rice.
While sitting & waiting on our food, we began to notice how dirty the railing, walls, lighting, etc. were! If you want to get sick, just look at the drive up window (the actual window they use to pass food out to customers in the drive-​thru). It has more grime & filth than the doors we had to touch to enter.
The dumplings were fried nicely but did not have much taste. They came with a very oily mixture to dip them in to. The two chicken dishes were almost identical, except one had strips of orange peel in it. The fried rice was a joke as it was just yellow in color, but had nothing in it except for rice, meaning not even one pea or bits of onion.
We actually thought we might get sick from the food, only judging by the filth, but I am writing this review the following day & I am happy to say, we did not get sick, however, we will never go back. It takes nothing but a little time, effort, & a few products from a dollar store, to have a clean & welcoming restaurant. You cannot help but think that if they do not care about the appearance & cleanliness of the restaurant (the parts that the customer can see), what the heck is going on in the kitchen & freezer (the parts that we cannot see)!

Not the best place I’m the world but you get your money’s worth. Fried rice vigils be improved upon, a lot of places around here serve that weird greasy yellow rice that they call fried rice. I’m use to real fried rice, you know, white rice, soy sauce, and the works? Anyway, decent food, mostly flavorful, can be bland. If you want chinese, it’ll scratch the itch. Hot and sour soup is pretty good.

Is it strange that we call this place «Panda Back-​rub?»
Well, the reason for that is; we can never remember the name. Since the sign has a panda rubbing another panda’s back, we call the restaurant «Panda Back-​rub.»
It is your regular take-​out style Chinese-​American restaurant. However, with all take-​out places, that can be negotiable with the right amount of persuasion and kindness.
So far, I have only gotten to the point at Shanghai Express where I ask for the Sesame Chicken with with the sauce on the side. So, I can then take the food home and do one of two things with it:
1. Fry the sauce in a pan on high and add chopped garlic and hot peppers to it, then making it taste good and pour it over the existing fried chicken chunks.
2. Making a totally new sauce with chopped garlic, gochugaru, gochujang, wine, sesame oil, and corn syrup to make a Korean-​Chinese dish called Gamponggi.
Shanghai Express always has snow peas in stock and anything with sliced beef is decent. The beef is usually served with an oyster sauce base.
However, I would avoid anything here with pork, just sayin’. Won’t go into detail on that.