**** Panda Palace has Closed
Can you dig the generic Chinese Restaurant name? If it has Pearl, Royal, Golden, Garden, Phoenix, and Eastern or something similar(dragon, ruby, panda?) in the name, it's likely a circa '70's style Chinese Restaurant, something like "Eastern Pearl Royal Golden Phoenix Garden Restaurant", you'll automatically know it's a Chinese Restaurant. Much like Royal Mandarin across the street Panda Palace Restaurant serves a combination of ABCDE ("American Born Chinese Dining Establishment") and Chinoy Food. However, unlike Royal Mandarin, whose Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings are almost legendary in the Filipino Community, nary a word has been said about it. So the Missus and I decided to see why…..
The bright and generic interior screams last century Chinese.
The menu was filled with San Diego Chinoy favorites, and we proceeded to order a few.
Upside Down Pan Fried Noodles($6.75):
Noodles fried to a crisp, topped with shrimp, chicken, beef, and vegetables. First the good, the noodles were excellent, not over fried to a brittle consistency, the noodles got nicely chewy as the sauce soaked through them. The Beef and Shrimp were well cooked, soft, and moist. The bad? This dish had virtually no flavor, even the beef and chicken had no flavor. Combine these noodles and the cooking technique with the brown sauce from the Upside Down Pan Fried Noodles at Mandarin Canton and you'd have a pretty decent dish.
The Missus has a Shrimp with Lobster Sauce($8.25) fixation:
I have an aversion to gloppy, pale dishes studded with frozen peas and carrots. So I asked the Missus how this tasted. Her verdict? B-L-A-N-D. While waiting for our order we watched in amazement, as a Young Boy poured almost a half bottle of soy sauce on his fried rice. I now understood why. In fact, at this point we were pretty close to needing a refill of our soy sauce.
Finally, we had to try the Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings($6.75):
So how did these measure up to Royal Mandarin or Golden Chopstick? Not even close. First of all, not enough salt, pepper, or green onions and garlic topping. Secondly, not crispy enough. One interesting thing; I could distinctly taste a sweet component, either sugar or honey, that made these wings a bit different.
One thing I will say about Panda Palace, our Waitress was super efficient, there was absolutely no wasted motion, from taking our orders, to bringing take-out containers along with our check. As for the food? If we crave some ABCDE grub, I think we'll stick with one of the "Big Three".
Panda Palace Chinese Restaurant
1105 E Plaza Blvd Ste D
National City, CA 91950
One final item – one day soon I'd like to set-up a "taste-test", purely subjective of course, of several (4-5) versions of Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings. So Calvin, Howie, and Jack; you Guys game?