A note on the words: chow mein is a Chinese dish of fried noodles, and yakisoba is its Japanese cousin, sold from stalls at festivals. Subuta is sweet-and-sour pork, and karaage is Japanese fried chicken. Prices are in US dollars and are as they stood at the time of the visit.
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Panda Express at Showcase Mall on Tabelog (in Japanese) — Tabelog has no English pages for restaurants outside Japan, so this listing is in Japanese. Opening hours and payment details are kept up to date there, not here.
Hello, this is Hangover Meshi. Right — there was one more thing I wanted to try now that I was in the States. Chinese food in a paper carton lol I wanted to eat that, but I had no real idea where to find it, so for now I went into a mysterious food court facing the main drag to look for something of the sort. And there was a Chinese place called Panda Express! I thought the name rang a bell, and looking it up, apparently they are in Japan too — in Shibuya, no less lol
Well, whether the taste is the same as the home country is another matter!
Panda Express is inside this food court ^^
BOWL $10.5
PLATE $12.0
BIGGER PLATE $13.5
The price seems to change with the size of the container lol
The ordering method is nicely rough and ready — or rather, this way is easier to follow. A BOWL is one side and one main, a PLATE is two sides and one main, and a BIGGER PLATE is three sides and one main. A BOWL will do, surely, I thought, and went for the BOWL.
For the contents I went with The Original Orange Chicken and the thing called Chow Mein.
Right, ordering somehow managed lol
I had arrived at what was less lunchtime than morning-ish, so there were hardly any customers and I could take my time, which was good.
What the young woman behind the counter pulled out was plate-shaped, so I thought, hm? — but perhaps in the end the stance is that as long as it is one side and one main, any container will do. I had wanted the paper carton, mind you. And I cannot exactly come out with a request for that in English on the spot lol And being told no and getting into it would be awkward. So I gave up. This might be an unexpectedly large amount lol
I also ordered a medium-size drink (zero-sugar cola) and it is huge lol
I am sure it must be free refills, but I do not need them lol They also gave me a little sweet.
Right, let us open it up! Open lol
Rather nice lol The atmosphere is there.
Glossy Original Orange Chicken and chow mein — fried noodles, that is.
One mouthful of the chow mein and…
Sweeeet lol
It is not bad at all, mind. It is delicious. How to put it — like a soy-sauce yakisoba made sweet? lol
The flavor is extremely strong. As for the noodles, hmm — a bit like the slightly rubbery ones you often get at yakisoba stalls in Japan? lol
But the flavor is properly there, so it is good in its own right. Well now, so this is what it tastes like. Is this Chinese? lol
The orange chicken has a strong sweet-and-savory sauce. Extremely strong. There is a touch of orange, or rather acidity, to it — something like the very strong sauce of subuta, sweet-and-sour pork, reduced down further and poured over karaage? lol It looks as though it would go very well with rice, but with chow mein it is strong on strong, so it might get to be a bit much! The soda saves you though!
Yes, if you take this as its own kind of flavor, the seasoning feels like the sort you could get hooked on!
So: I tried Panda Express at a food court I wandered into in America. The seasoning is sweet across the board lol And above all, the quantity is absurd. You could not finish this even as lunch lol The amount is quite something, and this is the smallest size. America indeed, one might say. In Japan I would want it a little smaller. Having eaten the home-country version, perhaps I shall look in on the Shibuya branch next time and check the difference.
Panda Express Showcase Mall (Chinese / Las Vegas Strip)
Tabelog lunch rating ★★★☆☆ 3.0
I ate here and paid for it myself. Nothing on this site is a comped meal.
One more for the road?
