+ panda express grilled asian chicken

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Review: Panda Express - Grilled Teriyaki Chicken | Brand Eating | panda express grilled asian chicken

panda express grilled asian chicken

Cream Cheese Rangoon with candied and acerb booze on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

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Review: Panda Express - Grilled Teriyaki Chicken | Brand Eating | panda express grilled asian chicken

Cream Cheese Rangoon with candied and acerb booze on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Bigger Bowl adjustment with broiled Teriyaki chicken, broccoli beef, chow mien and absurd rice on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

String Bean Craven served as a distinct account on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Mixed Veggies served as a distinct account on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Honey Walnut Shrimp served as a distinct account on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

Chinese Fortune Cookies on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, at the Panda Express in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

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Restaurant review: Panda Express - Times Union | panda express grilled asian chicken

The Panda Express on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, in Latham, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

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Restaurant review: Panda Express

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Welcome, athirst masses, to abundance cardinal 2421, Latham home of Panda Express. If that doesn't complete balmy and fuzzy, the peeking panda faces and colossal bamboo shoots alfresco accommodate a array of cuteness to a architecture that's contrarily as white and boxlike as any Chinese takeout container. But this is Troy-Schenectady Road, breastwork of fast aliment and bargain eats. You can zip through the drive-through, eat in or banquet on the patio to the adapted sounds of traffic. Now, that's aliment your way.

First, let's acclimatize expectations for our region's aboriginal Panda Express. If you eat Chinese at a capital aliment cloister — the ones area they about ache you with samples on cocktail sticks — you don't apprehend authentic, bounded fare. Don't apprehend it actuality either. Panda Express, in all its all-around incarnations from California to Guam and Dubai, has branded its aliment "American Chinese," which it is, and "gourmet," which it absolutely is not. They are so pumped up over the aboriginal orange chicken, a basic back 1987, that it has its own website: orangechickenlove.com. If accessorizing your computer, adaptable buzz or anatomy with orange craven swag sounds appealing, again this site's for you.

Panda Express goes with a McDonald's approach: Line cooks back-bite and broil pans in the accessible bartering kitchen. Bored servers appear alarmingly abutting to rolling their eyes at the amateurishness of those on the added ancillary of the counter. Step advanced and they instantly ask, "Can I advice you?" while you rapidly browse the combos and blot the cutting calorie advice overhead.

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Panda Express - 20 Photos | panda express grilled asian chicken

A basin – one entrée, one ancillary (starts at $5.80) – ranges rather broadly from 190 to 990 calories. Add addition entrée (starting at $6.80) and that bowl gets afterpiece to 1,500. At about 2,000 calories, the agreeably alleged "bigger plate" with three entrees and a ancillary (starting at $8.30) dispenses with the charge for any added commons that day. Proposed for 4 to 5 people, the 1,280-to-7,000-calorie, "family feast" (starting at $30) is conceivably diet aliment or anatomy architect fuel.

You'd best access alive your adjustment like a accelerated mantra or be able to action a server. Ours did not like my efforts to adapt our orders one being at a time. She was ready, pre-portioned plates in hand, and insisted on slopping the abandon on aboriginal and about allotment entrées the added anyone dared breathe a name. Back I alleged time out to booty banal of our selections, I anticipation she ability jump the counter, so we abrupt along. The almsman of the chow mein ancillary was saddled with shrimp; the being absent shrimp had acting aegis of the pot stickers.

Cashing out is a bold of "Name That Food." I was afflicted back the accountant took a ache at deciphering the adhesive combos, absolution any attack on my allotment to catalog the anesthetized chastening on anniversary plate. The cancellation tells a altered story. We were overcharged for an added entrée, and that acclaimed orange craven appeared three times back we alone ordered it once. The committed orangechickenlove.com website letters 50 percent of Panda Express guests adjustment it. I do achievement they are not application admission sales to abutment their data.

Glistening fast aliment is attestation to animal alertness to eat alike back character is not absolutely clear. Jamie Oliver's chicken-nugget agreement with schoolchildren accepted that point. Panda Express' tailless honey walnut shrimp bore a arresting affinity to plump, anemic larvae that angled and access back crushed. Thin slivers of beef were abnormally bendable and afar beneath burden from the tongue, admitting the broccoli added a accurately allegory crunch. The Hunan-inspired orange craven pieces — candied with a light, ambrosial bang — were bunched-up chewy little nubs with concoction duplicate from the craven within.

Tangy Kung Pao craven had some arch heat, acknowledgment to a affable admixture of broiled red chiles. Shanghai Angus steak, with its $1.25 surcharge, bounced with close button mushrooms in a ambrosial amber sauce. The Angus is decidedly advantageous at alone 220 calories, clashing the Beijing beef belief in at a whopping 690. (See what happens back they arm you with facts?) After such an acute action of identification, the rice and chow mein anesthetized after incident. Crispy chrism cheese rangoons were admired for their little floral shapes. And our broiled craven teriyaki accepted absolutely calorie-free — abundantly because it couldn't be begin on any plate.

It's a drive through. It's fast food. It's not healthy. Well, unless you adjustment above veg and white rice, but who's activity to do that? I can't accord it any campanology endorsement added than to say it's assuredly here. And I've had far worse. Panda Express expands the bounded options for analytic your lunchtime blues. And with a alms program, Panda Cares, benefiting the Children's Miracle Network, this fast aliment ability alike accomplish you feel good.

Dinner for four — including two "bigger plates" (three entrées, one ancillary each) with two bendable drinks and two children's commons (one entrée, one side, one drink) — came to an alike $36 with tax and a 58-cent Panda Cares donation rounding up the bill to the abutting dollar.

Follow Susie Davidson Powell on Twitter, @SusieDP. To animadversion on this review, appointment the Table Hopping blog, blog.timesunion.com/tablehopping.

Panda Express

545 Troy-Schenectady Road

Latham

["1195.04"]