No 2 Panda Garden

This place use to be good before it was taken over by new management. The food now is just ok. I have to find a new place as I use to order from here often since it was up the block from my place.

Decent food, nothing jumped out at me. I had a hot and sour soup which was good, but the pad thai was below average and pretty flavorless compared to fabulous pad thai that I have had in New York City. Not a horrible experience. quick delivery… but just average food.

After a while, Chinese food is Chinese food. I think we decided upon N° 2 Panda Garden because the one around the corner from my apartment really sucks and this one is a few blocks away, but better. In the old days, this establishment was called «Food Town,» but I guess they changed their name although something about the old name was better. Now it’s across from the cleverly named «Men At Wok» (which I have yet to try, but which is also not in Unilocal yet), so maybe they should have kept the old name or perhaps they were trying to convince us that their food is so good that it would conjure images of a second charming Chinese countryside scene. It did not.
Their menu is quite extensive and extremely typical for Chinese restaurants in New York City. We ordered too much for two people, but that’s how it usually goes when it comes to take-​out anyway. I had the General Tso’s Chicken, which in my opinion is the standard by which all Chinese take-​out establishments should be evaluated… You see the three stars up there. The General Tso’s Chicken was good, but tasted really fried (like the noodles with the duck sauce do), and there was a lot of it to go around. It came with brown rice that seriously smelled like root beer — Kind of weird, but I got used to it. My sister ordered Chicken Pan Fried Noodles which ended up being this kind of Chicken w/​Broccoli-​esque affair piled atop some pan fried mei fun. In my experience, a good Chinese restaurant will deliver those to you separately so the noodles don’t become soggy in transit, but N° 2 Panda just put it all in one container so my sister was a bit dismayed at the soggy noodles upon arrival. We also ordered fried meat dumplings (very average), and were generously given a free quart of Wonton Soup because our order was over $ 20.00. The Wonton Soup was actually the best part of the whole meal, so I might order just that in the future. The order came with excessive packets of all the sauces, so I guess that’s OK, but where were the God damn fortune cookies?! Again, no fortune cookies. What does it take to get a fortune cookie in this God-​forsaken neighborhood…
They have a few other interesting items on the menu and their prices are very good. Delivery did take 50 minutes despite the fact that I live less than ½ mile from this place, so that’s kind of a negative — OK, it was New Year’s Eve, so we’ll let that one slide since I think a lot of people eat Chinese food on New Year’s. The delivery man was surly and apparently had poor vision because he couldn’t tell how much money I was handing him and just assumed it was enough (possibly a benefit in the future).
Overall, OK.

I was hanging out with my friends and we were craving for some Chinese food. I ordered General Tso’s Chicken, which is supposedly one of there most famous dishes. My friends ordered some Curry Chicken w/​Brown Rice. When the delivery guy came, he was rude when I handed him $ 10 and demanded fare instead of a politeful ask. The General Tso Chicken was way undercooked and made me nauseous. My friend’s brown rice tasted weird. The only good/​bad thing was that it was fast. They could’ve spend more time inspecting their own dishes. It pissed me off that my friend had to spend $ 10 for some crap. «Free» delivery though.