Pei Wei

About a year ago a new kind of “Asian” restaurant appeared in Orlando. It’s name is Pei Wei and is owned by PF Chang’s. The restaurant offers similar food to its upscale big brother but in a cafeteria style atmosphere. It is located on Colonial Drive near the Orlando Executive Airport.

Pei Wei has two entrances, one for Take Out and one for Eat In. When you enter through the Eat In door, you are automatically in line for ordering. Their menu is varied and interesting and is constantly updated. Their beverage selection includes bottled beer (in the traditional tub of ice) and bottomless fountain beverages (woo-hoo!).

When you order and pay, you are given a red, palm-sized plastic disk with your order number engraved into it. You find a place to sit (difficult at lunch time), inside or in covered area outside, and fasten the be-numbered disk into the awaiting jaws of an alligator clip which is perched at the top of a cup containing paper-wrapped Pei Wei chopsticks. For those that are silverware-capable (the PC version of chopstick-capped), there is silverware, (also condiments: spicy mustard, chili garlic sauce, soy sauce, and lemon wedges) available at the beverage station.

While you wait for the food to be prepared and brought to you table, you can admire the efficient kitchen and food dispatch system. When you place your order, a “work order” gets printed in the open kitchen area and at the dispatch station. The next available cook takes your work order and prepares the dish. More than one cook may be involved in the preparation of your food as the cooks appear to be in “zones” depending on which cooking implement they man. The “dispatcher” also maintains a queue of work orders and measures the length of time it takes an order to make it through the queue. When an order leaves the kitchen, the dispatcher finishes it (for example, tops is with peanuts and a lime wedge if it is Pah Thai) and delivers the food to the appropriate table. When all the items have been delivered, the dispatcher takes the disk of number and leaves you to your meal.

Occasionally a member of the waitstaff will ask you if you would like a refill of you beverage, but the staff usually leaves you alone. Be careful, however, if you are dining alone and go to the restroom or go up for a refill (please don’t confuse the two), your food may be missing when you return as the sometimes over efficient waitstaff cleans your table in preparation for the next customer. The name of the game is getting the customer in, feeding them, and getting them out fast, Fast, FAST!

The food is excellent and I would easily consider this (along with Chang’s) the best Asian food in Orlando, but it is not really authentic Asian food, it is an idealized American version of Asian food.  As such, it uses fresh, high quality ingredients and lighter sauces to make for seemingly healthier dishes…no Chinese lead-gut after eating here.  Even the tofu is quite tasty and is of much higher quality than the flavorless white cubes found at other restaurants.  My favorite dish is the chicken Pad Thai.  Large chunks of chicken breast, slices of tofu, bean sprouts, scallion, egg, peanuts over rice noodles are accented with a wedge of lime and sprigs of cilantro.  Mmmmm-Mmm!  After you are finished, just walk away.  You can put a stop to all this.  While I can’t promise that Lord Humongous will clean off your table, it will likely be cleaned by the aforementioned waitstaff.

A typical meal with fountain drink costs about $9, but it is well worth it.  I have not found a dish yet that I have not liked and usually hit the place about once a week.

Panda Express

Yes,yes, I know. It’s “Mall Chinese”. Well, yes and no. Panda Express has started building stand alone establishments that some may even call restaurants. Now I am a long time Panda Express aficionado and have cherished the ability to walk into almost any mall in the country and be guaranteed a least an acceptable meal if I am hungry. Ever since the demise of the “Cajun Grills” of the food court, Panda has had my back and my wallet.

As alluded to previously, this is a stand alone Panda Express located near the Mall at Millennia in Orlando. I had never been to the new Panda Expresses before and was curious how it stacked up to my previous experiences in mall culinary cuisine. From the outside, it looks like a standard fast food place…similar, in fact, to the Krispy Kreme located next door.

If you had any worries that the interior would make you loose touch with your comfortable concepts of what Panda Express should be, FEAR NOT! It is as if you walked straight from the parking lot…and into the food court at the mall (sans the non-Cajun, Cajun restaurant and the Queen of the food court, Flamers). The familiar, glass encased, multi-colored progression is there: fried rice, lo mien, orange chicken, beef w/ broccoli, and even the tub of ice cubes with various bottles of Arizona Iced Tea and water stuffed into it. In fact, the only two differences I noticed between the communal mall Panda and the rugged individual Panda are the catering menu and the fountain drinks with FREE REFILLS.

I got the standard 2 entrees w/ fried rice and an eggroll, but with the bottomless fountain drink (I am sooooo daring, I know…not that going to Panda Express for lunch makes me exactly a Hemmingway or anything). The entrees were Kung Pow Beef and Orange Chicken, both listed on the window sticker as “spicy” (see my review of Wonderful Chinese Express for my previous adventure in spicy [or not] Chinese food). I do have to admin, the Kung Pow was actually spicy. Those little dried red peppers were evident in the food and really gave the food some kick. If you are accustomed to ordering spicy food in a Chinese restaurant and getting something a little below the bell pepper region of the Scoville Chart, you have been warned.

The food was about a half step above the normal “Mall Chinese” level and the free refills of beverage was appreciated. The beverage of choice was sweet tea today (after all, I am in the South) and in my opinion it was a little too sweet. It was not as refreshing as it should have been and you couldn’t drink very much of it. The eggroll was the standard “been sittin’ under a heat lamp” mall quality eggroll and definitely did NOT have that “fresh out of the grease” taste.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I would definitely go back there if I am in a hurry and need quick eats. The sad thing is, this place is actually well above average for Orlando Area Chinese food that I have found so far. The quest continues.

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The cost of the meal was ~$8.50.