Panda Express

I don’t know why this place has really bad reviews? It’s on a school campus, of course there’s going to be a wait. I never had a bad experience here, the 5 Hispanic ladies that work there are super nice. I’m always left satisfied. If you don’t like this place, why keep going ?!?

I don’t know why this location barely has 2.5 stars. This is an on campus restaurant. Of course it’s busy they don’t have to time to fill up your bowl with some extra free food. They aren’t paid enough to care how cheap and hungry you are. These ladies make my experience here better than at stand alone pandas or mall food court pandas.

I love panda, this place is very disappointing, from the staff to the food, to the amount of food try offer in their trays. At normal Panda Express restaurants you get your starch with your food. They give a small amount of rice or chow mein and they may sure to only give you the exact amount in the scoop for your meats/​veggies. Any other panda would top it off and give a little extra. Not this place. And the people working here are like robots. You can ask them a question and it’s like they don’t even register what you said, or even that fact that you said it. Revamp this place please and make it like the other Panda Express locations.

All pandas for the most part are the same but if you come here at a slow part of the day the Orange chicken looks and tastes like it has sat out there for the past hour or two

On the CSULB campus…
this location is absolutely below par compared to its other Panda Express counterparts. You desperately need Panda? Go to the one in the Long Beach Towne Center!

Let me be clear– I f’ing LOVE Panda express. I could eat orange chicken for every meal and be perfectly content. So when I say I give this location 1 star it is not some sort of generic anti-​panda animosity. This specific location is just really bad.
1. The orange chicken is like 50 shades too dark– its not light brown its closer to black. Im not sure if this is them burning the sauce or what– but it also tastes really off. After eating it for lunch I felt sort of sick to my stomach for like 6 hours afterwards.
2. The food seemed to sit out for a long time, even popular items had sort of that gel skin on top of it– not appealing.

Yeah coming here for dinner around 6:30 PM was not a good idea. The lady serving was giving me a really bad attitude. Also they were just about out of almost everything and what was left wasn’t even that warm. I just got brown rice and the leftover orange chicken and it was okay. Additionally she barely gave me any chicken at all. She saw how I looked when I saw the tiny amount of chicken and she just gave me a mean ol glare.

You know the food is not going to be very good when you need to add chili sauce to fried rice because there is no flavor whatsoever! I had been craving Panda Express ever since I found somebody’s Panda receipt left on the table in the library. Since I didn’t have lunch, I decided I would spend $ 5.59 + tax which came out to be more than $ 6 on a bowl of fried rice and orange chicken. This was the worst Panda Express food I have ever eaten. The food looked tasty, but looks can be deceiving!
The main problem I had was that the fried rice had no taste. It was like I was eating white rice — but even white rice has taste! The peas and carrots, and the rice — nothing. There was no flavoring at all, forcing me to add chili sauce in order to get SOME flavor from the rice. That was disappointing. The orange chicken was okay. I would have liked to have more chicken packed onto my bowl, and more chicken meat itself (more globs of powder and whatnot to the batter than chicken) but thank goodness the chicken was decent.
This Panda Express is located in the Student Union dining center along with Starbucks and a few other restaurants. There was a constant flow of students coming towards Panda, too … so maybe everybody is just used to the overall badness that this Panda Express serves. I really wish I would have just gotten a tuna sub from Subway. Now I know to never come here again.

Well Panda Express here is not that bad but the only thing need to be said about this place is you guys are stingy. I mean a lot of items on the menu are not available most of the time and if you want something like broccoli beef at six oclock at night you have to wait for the cook to make a new batch which takes up to 15 minutes. Don’t be cheap put out fresh food and stop keeping that old orange chicken under the heat lamps all night, WE CAN TASTE HOW OLD IT IS! SERIOUSLY ! just make fresh food.

There is no other Chinese fast food that comes with that special brand of sad regret that is unique to panda express. It leaves you feeling full of food, but empty inside. Basically, this panda express is balls-​deep inside Cal State Long Beach so they can get away with serving food even worse than the usual crap at a regular panda express.
The chow mein is somehow greasy and dry at the same time. The orange chicken is always overcooked and they charge you extra for a new steak and veggies dish which tastes like it was served from a burning tire.
I have eaten here put of desperation 3 times throughout the years, and I always regret it. I used to think that eating here was better than starving but I was gravely mistaken.

Super short line, warm delicious food, clean place, and kind Hispanic ladies working :) not sure why there are so many bad reviews for this place. My food was delicious and for $ 7, I can’t complain :)

2.5 stars:
Located deep inside the student union, next to Beach walk restaurant and a mexican grill. The wait wasn’t that long considering it was during lunch time.
The rice and chow mein were really dry. Seriously, how do they mess up cooking the rice?
Compared to other locations, this place is below panda-​average. The main entrees quality was pretty below average as well. The quantity of meat was also lacking.

Tasted like the same Panda that I get everywhere else. The place was clean and the service was prompt and friendly.

Im pretty sure that I can cook asian food this well. Its never bad… its just never good.
For the food to even be halh-​way decent, its all about timing. Hoping that while youre in line, someone will bring out a fresh batch of whatever.
Its crazy how they will actually leave something there under the heat lamp until its beyond eadible or appetizing.
Only eat this if you have 15 min between classes and you are a) starving or b) craving asian food.
It will however leave you wanting better asian food!

First thought: Fast food from a certain brand tastes the same in all restaurants regardless of their locations.
WRONG. I won’t lie, there are TONS of other good places to eat on campus, but not so much this one. :(So strange because Panda Express is usually so popular, and (yes, I admit) quite delicious and addicting. The first time I went here, the lady behind the counter gave me a very small portion of beef broccoli and the cashier thought it was MY fault for taking two fortune cookies («only 1 per person»), while she gave them to me herself. Very rude. BAD IMPRESSION ALREADY. When I started eating the food, it was a lowest quality of any other Panda Express places I’ve been to. The orange chicken was too crunchy and rubbery that it hurt my teeth; the fried was also way too bland… even plain white rice has more taste D: The beef broccoli was just OK, however. But it tastes and cooked much better at other Panda locations in my opinion. Ahhh, there goes my $ 7 bucks :/​Overall, I believe this place should improve. Both on food quality and customer service.

I’m not going to lie… I hate this bland places but the one reason why my classmate and I come here is for the Honey Walnut Shrimp.
Broken rice is hard to eat and chow mein is starring to taste like spaghetti.
With any shrimp entrée Panda charges 1 dollar to your bill. So I’ll only come here sometime because this place gets a little pricy for the food you don’t get. Hmm… Next time I’ll just starv…

When I give this 5 stars, I am giving it 5 stars relative to all Panda Expresseesss that I have ever tried – not because this is my fave. chinese/​asian food (that’s important!) Lol.
Honestly, the food quality here is really good and the ladies are as nice as can be. Nothing is made half-​assed, or just feels rewarmed.
This is like the best Panda Express that you will eat, and I have tried many in my youth.

Panda Express is an okay place. Reasonably priced food that tastes decent. I find most of their entrees to be pretty good (Beef & Broccoli, Orange Chicken, Mushroom Chicken, Sweet Fire Chicken, Eggplant and Tofu, Firecracker Chicken, etc.). What really bugs me is their chow mein — it tastes like dry cardboard! I would give most Panda Expresses a 3.
However, this Panda Express is slightly crappier than others. Here’s why:
1) Located inside a building with no air conditioning
2) Meat seems more rubbery/​weird tasting than other locations
3) Some of the people who work here are rude
4) They are not as generous with food as other locations

I never understand the harsh criticisms for campus fast food. I assume students take their academic stresses out on the food.
I’ve been going to CSULB since Fall 2009(two semesters), and I probably eat Panda Express at least two or three times every week. I would say about 80% of my experiences there are good. If you don’t know what to order, you probably won’t like Panda Express in the first place, because they only have 3 or 4 good entrée items– the rest are bland and greasy.
The entrees that I cycle through (broccoli beef, orange chicken, kung pao chicken, firecracker chicken) has consistently satisfied me. Although I can note that about 20% of my experiences include the food being too greasy, or the mandarin chicken inedible– the large majority of my visits are pleasurable.
When you’re on campus, there isn’t a heck of a lot of choices. Although high in fat, sodium, and sugar, Panda is definitely something to look forward to when you are starving and want to get your mind off your schoolwork!

This is the Panda Express located inside CSULB. I have a Thursday night class and need to eat dinner so I’ve made a goal of trying every food service on campus at least once. Two weeks ago, Panda Express was the meal of choice. I got my usual, chicken with mushrooms, extra vegetables, and 2 veggie spring rolls. The food was terrible. Now, this IS Panda Express so I don’t expect a true culinary experience, but this was just sick. The vegetables were so overcooked, they were mushy. The mushroom chicken was rubbery. The only good part of the meal were the spring rolls, but those are hard to mess up because they’re frozen and reheated. They need to work on their cooking methods because the food just sucked. The customer service was friendly, as it is all over campus. But ewww. I won’t be eating here again for a LONG LONG time.
UPDATE: I decided to give it another try last night and it was still terrible. It also made my stomach feel funky :(The only good part was the chow mein, but let’s face it, there’s not a lot you can do to mess up plain noodles. Oh yeah, and the eggrolls left a lingering taste in my mouth for HOURS and that’s not a good thing.