Panda Pavilion

We are longtime Greenwich residents and Panda Pavilion was a reliable family staple. We were disappointed a few years back when they lost the lease at their beautiful restaurant at the old Shop n Stop shopping center and re-​emerged in an old fast food building on the Post Road, but at least the take-​out food was still delicious. But a few months ago a new voice answered the phone for our take out order and we realized the restaurant had changed hands.
To put it mildly, the food is now tasteless, dry, and generally awful. It’s hard to mess up an old standby like sesame chicken but these new folks have managed it. I am not overly fussy about Chinese food, and I like what I am served in most restaurants, but this order was awful. Whether they are cutting corners due to lack of business or using microwaved frozen food, I have no idea. But I can tell you that I won’t be surprised when the «For Rent» sign shows up at this location. You simply cannot survive serving sub-​par food in Greenwich.
So sorry to see a good restaurant decline so badly.

They used to be great. They’re trying to be «different» by changing traditional dishes to be unique… and pretty terrible. For example, I ordered chicken with cashews. Normally this is made with stir fried chicken slices. They changed the recipe to deep fried small bits of chicken resulting in an extremely oily dish. The changes/​new unique attributes are NOT specified on the menu. All they had to do was simply do nothing to the recipes that have worked for nearly 30 years…

I hate to have to agree with the other Unilocalers, this restaurant is horrible now. My husband and I ordered take out on Saturday and I’m still sick from the food. We ordered shrimp pad Thai as soon as I opened the container it smelled horrible. I couldn’t eat it, it went straight to the Trash can! I have never seen bright pink pad Thai. We also ordered mooshu pork and again we didn’t eat it, looked like soup and the pork had a weird chewy texture to it. We paid 50 $ for a meal that went straight in the trash. The pork fried rice was decent and the dumplings were also good but everything else was disgusting. I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone.

The best in the area — food, ambiance, parking, prices, cleanliness and service. Chinese food lately in the area is usually 3^rd rate, but been here twice, both times left very satisfied. Really liked a duck dish, sorry, don’t recall the name.

Have to agree with the new reviews. We’ve been going to Panda for over 20 years and the new owners broke what didn’t need fixing. Still love the staff, who are definitely uncomfortable. I had to ask for a knife to cut up the huge broccoli. When I asked for the manager, a young woman came over. I asked her if she could easily eat it, she said yes. Hello??? What happened to customer service???
Still the best hot and sour soup, so we’ll get that to go, but we won’t be eating there any more.

USED TO BE BEST CHINESE IN TOWN. My family and I have decided to find a new place to go, after almost 25 yrs of dining at Panda. It is under new ownership and is nothing like it was! The oil they used for the dumplings and egg rolls tastes rancid (& we tried it on two occasions just to make sure!), the prices are higher, the recipes are changed (adding copious amounts of the cheapest of vegetables to our chicken dishes to fill in space), no more fortune cookies!!! I won’t waste our time or money again, & I was a weekly customer of this place!

Wow, What happened to this place? I had been coming here for at least 20 years. They had the best Sesame Chicken I have ever tasted. The Lo Mein and Wonton soup were also very good.
I went here a month ago and got the same order I usually get and it was AWFUL.
The sesame chicken was huge pieces of chicken, breaded with a little sauce on it and hardly any vegetables for over $ 15. The Wonton soup like another poster wrote has changed from the big wontons to tiny ones which broke all up in the soup by the time i brought it home.
I was extremely disappointed with this place and thought that maybe the head chef was sick but apparently from what i’m reading it is under new ownership. Do not go here if you want a decent meal. Unless something changes, this place is not worth it anymore.

Absolutely devastated. It’s the end of an era for western Greenwich. My beloved Panda is now under new ownership. The traditional Chinese comfort food flavor a are no where to be found. The recipes are totally different and not in a good way.
I hate to leave reviews like this but this is no where near the panda that I grew up with for the past 30 years.
Not only is the food different, but the delivery is painfully slow compared to the old days. Sadly, I have to find a new Chinese place to fulfill my once a week takeout craving.

In all honesty, these kind of reviews are my least favorite to write:
It’s yet another story of a once great restaurant that was a community landmark, sold to new owners and instantaneously turned to pot.
Panda had been owned by the same family for nearly three decades in Greenwich. We knew they had sold, and a few weeks ago, the new take-​out menu arrived in the mail. Right away, we knew that this wasn’t going to turn out well.
The menu had been changed drastically – significantly scaled back, and with all of the lamb dishes removed. They have tried to put the «Sushi and Pan Asian» spin on Panda, and it has failed.
The prices on the take-​out menu are much higher than the old menu.
We decided, nonetheless, that we had to give it a try to see for ourselves what the new owners had done. Tonight we went in with open minds and hoping for the best.
We got the worst:
The place has been completely redecorated. It doesn’t look nearly as nice as it did before. The furniture is less comfortable and the feel is not nearly as welcoming. The inside is dark and drab.
Instead of the bountiful basket of crispy noodles arriving to the table with plum sauce and hot mustard, a tiny little plate with about a dozen noodles on it and a tablespoon of duck sauce came out, along with a few pickled white beans. Not off to a good start!
Next, we ordered our Mai Tais. They came in smaller glasses and had a very different color to them. One sip, and we all said the same thing, «disgusting!» They left a terrible aftertaste. There was hardly any alcohol in them. I then watched the girl make one, and discovered she was using red grapefruit juice to color them. That accounts for the bad taste, at least in part. Another HUGE disappointment.
On to the soup: I ordered wonton. It actually had Campbell’s fried onions in it! I was horrified. Worse yet, instead of the giant wonton dumplings that used to require a traditional Chinese soup spoon to eat, they have been changed to miniature, broken up wonton pieces. They destroyed the wonton soup!
Next came out the scallion pancakes. They looked different, too. And, they were. They just had no flavor whatsoever. Worse yet, the famous special sauce they used to come with has also been changed. Whatever sauce they served was just plain tasteless.
We ordered three different entrees: two beef and one shrimp. They got one of them completely wrong.
The portions have been cut in half, and the prices have gone through the roof. To boot, the prices on the menus in the restaurant are all $ 1 higher than what is stated on the menus that came in the mail.
My entrée, beef with garlic sauce, has been completed changed. It has all different vegetables now. I truly believe that the beef was mixed with a frozen vegetable stir-​fry mix, and that’s why they were all different vegetables.
No tea or water was served. Finally, we asked for it. Instead of bringing a pot of tea like was always the case, we were each brought a single cup of tea. Instead of Chinese tea, we were served green tea. Another unwelcome change…
By this time we had all said this would be our last visit to Panda, much to our dismay.
We noticed that there were only a handful of workers in the restaurant, all overseen by the new owner, who stands and stares at everyone in the place uncomfortably the entire time. The waitresses were noticeably ill-​at-​ease. He even made us uncomfortable eating, because he was staring at us the whole while.
Typically, on a Saturday night, this place would be packed, the phone ringing off the hook with take-​out and delivery orders. No longer the case! There were only three tables occupied (including ours), and the phone only rang twice the entire time we ate dinner.
Just when we thought we were through with the worst of it, there was more to add insult to injury: when the bill came, it came sans fortune cookies. Instead, it came with one wrapped «hospitality mint» per person. They have taken away the bowl of luxury dinner mints that always resided on the bar, and were the last stop on the way out the door after dinner.
It’s pretty clear that yet another restaurant legacy has come to the end of its era.
Anybody who has been a long-​time fan of Panda over the years will concur that the new owner has made the same fatal mistake that so many new owners make: coming in and insisting on changing a recipe that works. As I say so often when I write this genre of review: «Attention new owners! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!»
My guess is that they will not survive the winter…

THE SZECHUAN PEPPERCORN IS A LIE. I was pleasantly surprised to see Szechuan peppercorns make an appearance on the menu here so I ordered the chicken with Szechuan peppercorn sauce for lunch. However is it is completely lacking in that telltale Szechuan peppercorn zing. By lacking, I mean there isn’t any at all. For folks who have never tried the peppercorns (which were in fact illegal to import until a few years ago) they have a very, very distinct feel and flavor. It’s does something to either your taste buds or your tongue nerves which creates a tingle, not unlike licking a 9V battery. Trust me, it’s more pleasant than it sounds. The problem is here, is that it’s called szechuan peppercorn sauce, and it doesn’t contain any. The service was decent. My dish was otherwise flavorful but overly oily. I don’t really recommend this place unless you really need some Chinese food or some sushi and you are in the neighborhood.

i ordered «Chicken Chow Mein» from them, when i got my order it was a chicken stir fry veggie with a side of rice. I called them up and told them they deliver the wrong order to me, instead of being honest and tell me they made a mistake on my order, the lady told me «Chow Mein» is not fry noodle, i’m chinese and Chow Mein translates to fry noodle, on their menu, it’s under «noodle». They’re just lied to my face, i would have been okay if they admit it was a mistake instead of lying.

First time here. The place is cute inside and the staff are very friendly. I ordered some miso soup which was easily the best I’ve had. I asked for green tea which was hot & wonderful and I was not charged for it which is nice.
I ordered a spicy yellowtail roll & a shrimp & avocado roll. This is where things went down hill. The fish was fresh enough but when a place can’t serve simple rolls properly, you probably don’t bother with more complex ones. Also bc the place seems much more Chinese food focussed, I opted not to get any sashimi. The spicy roll was chopped up yellowtail with a squirt of spicy sauce. No scallions, no tobiko, not even mixed up and six small pieces for $ 6.50. Worse for 7.95, I was served 6 pieces of shrimp avocado roll which could not have even contained one small shrimp & hardly any avocado? Worst of all. The rice! The rice was not properly seasoned, it was too cold & the rolls were falling apart. If I wanted grocery store sushi for ¼ the price, I would have gone to a grocery store.
I realize I was there at 3 when the staff eat but come on sushi man, you could not have been proud of that. I will try again for Chinese food & hopefully that will be better as I just moved nearby.

All of these reviews have to be fake! My fiancé and I decided to try it today, we both ordered the lunch special. I ordered the general tso’s chicken and she ordered the sesame chicken and they were both terrible! The sauces they used are discusting, the pork fried rice was old, you could tell be the pork was dry and breaking apart, and the egg was slimey. We left because it wasn’t even eatable. The wonton soup was ok but that’s pretty hard to mess up.

I used to order delivery from here all the time when I worked in Connecticut. The food is typically comes very quickly and is always hot and fresh. The food has really good flavor and is fairly priced. My favorites are the general tso’s chicken, chicken with broccoli in brown sauce, hot and sour soup, vegetable spring roll. All are very good.
It is pretty standard Chinese food, but the best quality and service I’ve found in the area

Great selection of high-​quality food with fast and friendly staff.

Agree with others — great standard Chinese comfort food! Great pork fried dumplings, pork fried rice, spring rolls and plum sauce, wonton soup, and hot and sour soup.

Great standard Chinese food. Very friendly staff and owner always make us and our little son feel welcome. Fast delivery and no attitude. They have an outdoor patio that welcomes our Pug with open arms for family outdoor dining. We go to many Chinese places in lower Fairfield County and this is one of our favorites.

Good food.

Don’t order the Kung pao chicken!
Large chunks of undercooked carrots and stale peanuts. Like another fish altogether.

I tried this place a few times. The food was lackluster. The last time I ordered their food for take-​out, I just barely finished my chicken with cashew nuts and I find a bug, a fly, in my food.
Never again.