Panda Express

Agree with other reviewers that when they are busy its usually fresh and hot and pretty good but there is a dark side… if you actually walk into the place to order your food they will leave you standing there waiting to order or waiting to complete your order because all their attention AND all the food goes out the drive thru! It is positively MADDENING! There can be a line of people in various stages of the process just standing there while car after car gets their orders. People have gotten so incredibly lazy that they have to order food for 20 people in the drive thru? Oh Come on! I’ve also noticed that the portion sizes have decreased. We used to get food here weekly. The Food was fresh and tasty but the quality has gone down hill and we’ve only been here about twice in 2 months. Tonight nothing was very good… Disappointing but may return at some point to try again.

Panda’s is tricky. It suffers the same plight that any buffet restaurant has to deal with. When the food first comes out, it’s really good. If it isn’t fried then it can stand a little while on the hot line before it looses it’s appeal, but if it’s fried and it’s more than 5 minutes «old», it’s appeal has weakened severely. A lot of the Panda’s food is fried — so it’s almost russian roulette to know if you’re going to get the good stuff or the old and soggy stuff.
I think they have gone out of their way to shrink the batch sizes of food when they’re not as busy and it’s easier to find food that has only recently been put out. They are good about giving you a sample if you ask for one so you can tell for yourself. It’s just a bummer if you have a yearning for that orange chicken and the free taste tells you that this isn’t your day.
I do like the times I get the freshest versions of their food. The orange chicken, the kung pao chicken (usually a good bet since it isn’t deep fried.) I like having the option of combining two choices between fried rice, noodles and veggies. Generally the food here isn’t the lowest calorie food you could find. The staff is on your side though and if you let them know you only want the freshest stuff, they’ll help you out. If they offer to bring you some fresh stuff in a couple of minutes, take them up on it. The wait is always worth it.
The portion sizes are pretty good for the prices and if you’re in a hurry, they are a pretty good choice. For what it’s worth, it’s one of the few, the proud, the incredible establishments that offer Pepsi products.

If you hit the place at peak times, the food is really good. If you come in a little later you can definitely tell that the food has been sitting around a while. Overall for Canby it’s pretty decent.