I was pleasantly surprised by this place. Its primarily take out although there are a few tables of you wanted to eat in. We ordered orange chicken, Mongolian beef, chicken fried rice, crab Rangoon and an egg roll. Everything was very good. This will be my go to Chinese food place for now. That being said we are only getting Chinese food maybe once a year. read more

We've been ordering food from Best Panda for years. It's tasty and there's a large variety to choose from. We usually order fried rice, beef and broccoli, sesame chicken, and egg rolls. My husband also likes the pot stickers and my son likes the crab ragoons. All in all, it's our go-to Chinese food restaurant. read more

I had 2 basketball games today. My mom says she is going to get Chinese during my games. We lose them both so I'm mad. I'm hungry too. I remember the orange chicken that would be waiting for me. I take a bite. It's mid. I'm so sad now. I try the fried rice and it's above mid. Anyways Cajun grill at gurnee mills is better. read more

Best Panda Chinese Restaurant - a boy holding a tray of food - Chinese Near Me - Gurnee, Illinois

Kung Pao chicken, average, lots of juice, not spicy at all, not a lot of chicken, more vegies than other restaurants I've ordered from. Egg rolls pricy & not worth it, bland w/cheap filling, Ragoons shaped in flower style and tasteless. Final straw was fortune cookies with guys in underwear on one side, fortune on the other. Really?? read more

Ordered takeout a couple of days ago. Ordered sweet and sour chicken, orange chicken, beef and broccoli and wonton soup. Chicken was so over cooked it was dry and tough to chew... this was in both dishes and literally every single piece of chicken... the rice was undercooked and hard... talk about unwanted roughage. The beef and broccoli was ok, and wonton soup left much to be desired. Likely low quality meat (spares) in filling. Not sure what I should have expected for $60 in this economy but if you can't serve edible food at these prices then raise the price! read more

The last time i was here was probably 10 years ago. I did not like their food back then so i was a little reluctant when my boyfriend wanted to go here. Take Out orders seems to be on the slow side. He was told the wait would be half and hour. Maybe because it's only the wife and husband working? So if you are really hungry, be prepared to wait. He ordered chicken fried rice, garlic chicken, and hot and sour soup for me. Obviously this place is faaaaaaaaar from being "authentic." It is very Americanized but can't blame them due to the location. The garlic chicken wasnt bad at all tbh. It just looked kinda scary lol. It was just very gooey with reddish sauce. The look isnt very appealing but it doesnt taste bad. If i had to go there again, i wouldnt mind ordering it again. The fried rice is "normal" as well. It's your very basic kind of fried rice. I actually did not really like my hot and sour soup. Edible. But wont order it again. There was only three ingredients in there. Eggs, bamboo shoots and a ton of mushrooms. Even the non authentic ones around the area has tofu, water crescents, black mushrooms, carrot slices, and pieces of meat. To me, this was the most skimpiest of the skimpiest hot and sour soup i've ever had. It's like someone picked out all the stuff they dont like and gave me the soup. bleeeeeh. The soup looks like egg drop soup from a distance because of the amount of eggs in the soup. So, if you feel like eating chinese food, Hunan Hibachi Buffet in Waukegan is a little better. A tad better... I would recommend going there for a slightly better quality chinese food. I just dont see myself ordering anything else from them. Especially if you can skimp out so much on the most basic soup. read more

Best Panda Chinese Restaurant - Hot and sour soup , garlic chicken and chicken fried rice - Chinese Near Me - Gurnee, Illinois

First time here in many years. We decided to try it for our annual Christmas carry out order. We get a wide variety of dishes and meats. Everything was well prepared and good quality. The food was ready for carry out when they said and also packaged well. It got home with no spills and messes. Anyone who has ordered Chinese food before knows this can be an issue. The crab Rangoon were very good. Our favorite dishes were the twice cooked pork and the hunan vegetables. We will order from here again. read more

This Chinese restaurant just changed owners after over 20 years of being run by Sue and her husband. The interior has been nicely freshened up, and the food is good. My major complaint is the lack of customer service and attention. I have been there about 4 times with the new owners and there is just a lack of enthusiasm. You are greeted, order taken, food brought out and then, they forget you're there. It's a small restaurant, so it's not because they are overwhelmed with business, they just seem apathetic. I will return occasionally, but would hope for a more attentive, outgoing attitude. read more

Well I tried this place out of hunger for chinese food and I just don't think I'll be going back.. My order came to 20.35 all together which isn't to bad but its just not the same as normal chinese food.. I ordered Orange chicken and instead of getting deep fried large chicken chunks with orange sauce like a normal place will give you I got small chunked chicken in a spicy orange sauce that I'm not very fond of I'm 7mos pregnant and don't really like spicy stuff.. The crab rangoon was a little off as well amd came with no sweet and sour sauce which is also pretty unusual.. The egg drop soup most is usually yellow broth due to egg yolk but this ones white I'm just so confused I don't quite understand what kind of Chinese food this is but its definitely not normal lol.. Not to my liking... read more

Best Panda Chinese Restaurant - Pretty odd for "orange chicken" wouldn't you say? - Chinese Near Me - Gurnee, Illinois

I think the foods good. I like the potstickers. It's nearby and convenient to order from. The food is always prepared and ready when I get there with little wait. read more

Well, for years and years Best Panda was my go-to Chinese joint. New management in 2018 has come in, and the food I have ordered has been horrendous. Lo Mein was awful. Beef and pork fried rice was awful. Here's hoping they get their act together soon because I would like to see them succeed. read more

Best Panda Chinese Restaurant - Hostess taking order. "Phone number please?" - Chinese Near Me - Gurnee, Illinois

I'm not normally one to do this but I am speechless. They have changed ownership and since then, the quality of their food has gone to shit. They really tried to serve this "chicken fried rice" to me. The chicken didn't look cooked all the way and I was definitely not going to test to see if it was. I brought it back and the lady said that it was cooked. I asked her if she would eat it and she couldn't answer me. She just said "it's cooked". I got a refund. My family has been going there for at least 15 years. We won't be returning. read more

Best Panda Chinese Restaurant - a box of rice - Chinese Near Me - Gurnee, Illinois

See all

The service here is not very good. The waitress was on her phone and just hanging out when we needed her. The food is okay. Not loving the fried rice. I so wanted this place to be great. I have only been here for lunch and have not ordered take out. I have been here twice. Both times, the same. read more

I have been going to Best Panda for ten years now. Conveniently located 1/2 a block from where I live, it's the closest Chinese restaurant to me. The food is consistently tasty. Favorites on the menu are moo shu vegetables and pork, Kung Pao chicken, Mongolian beef and garlic scallops. The prices have risen a bit over the years, but the quality is there. I always order the hot and sour soup, which is nicely hot and sour. Ask for fried wonton strips to add some crunch to the thick broth. Food usually takes 20-25 minutes to prepare. The same family has been working there for years and its taken the hostess a while to warm up, but and sometimes she even smiles at me. The interior of the the restaurant is absolutely no frills, but they have good value lunch specials with soup, fire rice and an entree. I recommend this for take out. read more

Best Panda? No - WORST PANDA. I don't know if the other 4-5 star reviewers ever ate food before; let alone Chinese food. I would eat Panda Express (with 2 guns to my head) before I would eat this food. I will ignore the rude hostess and speak to what is really important. I am rating this based on fast food Chinese take out. This food is disgusting. I got carry out 3 times. 1) Lo Mein. Can't screw up Lo Mein, right? Dry, salty and vegetables cooked to death. 2) Pot Stickers and Egg Rolls. Again, nothing tricky here. Wrong. Gummy, all dough and the egg roll contents - just mushy and nasty. 3) Spicy Shrimp. What was I thinking after #1 and #2? Shrimp were small, very few, super tough, sauce was grainy, thick, over powering and just nasty. This is my harshest review of all. Just nasty. Worst of any restaurant in Lake County. Worst Chinese I have ever had. read more

I've been ordering from this place my entire life. It has had its ups and downs but with this new management the food is amazing and the presentation is great. Best Chinese place in Gurnee hands down read more

Great little restaurant hidden away in a strip mall. Fresh and hot food with all the favorites. Smaller dining area and very clean. Give it a try. read more

Best Panda Chinese Restaurant - the front of the restaurant - Chinese Near Me - Gurnee, Illinois

I tried this place on my never ending search for the perfect General Tso's chicken (the best so far is Hunan Palace in Libertyville). I ordered that and the cream cheese wontons. The General Tso's was good (they give you about 5 big hunks of chicken and a ton of sauce) and piping hot, but I was disappointed by the wontons. The service was not good. There were two tables of diners and I came in and placed the order for take out. She said 30min. 30min? really? I've been to almost every other chinese place in the area and never been told to wait that long no matter how busy they were. So I went to the walgreens, came back 30 min later. I was told 5-10 more min. At about 40 min my order was ready. Way too long to wait, in my opinion. read more

Worst Chinese ever! Everything taste like they put a whole bottle of soy sauce. I had a bunch of people over and no one liked it. If you want traditional Chinese food don't order from here. The beef chopped suey was tasteless and the general tso was so hard you couldn't. Chew it. One of my friends eats everything and he even said that it was tough to swallow. The host said that they don't make bad food well I think she needs to try eating at other places because that was really bad food. If you want fresh and healthy this is not the place. When you walk into the place you get hit by a smell of musty moldy almost like the place flooded and they just left the carpet down. If the smell is that bad in the dinning area I would hate to see what the kitchen looks like. read more

They recently reopened under new management. Very friendly and attentive service. And we received our delicious food within 10 minutes of ordering. Very pleased! And a great value too. read more

I have been frustrated with the lack of good Chinese restaurants in the Gurnee, Zion area. Well, I'm still frustrated! I ordered the sesame chicken. I'm really not certain if it was in fact chicken. It was basically chunks of something that was stuck together. You needed a steak knife to separate this. It was in a brown sauce, but not much. There was literally one piece of broccoli in the order, and that piece was soggy. This dish had no taste, the crab raggoon I ordered was dry, really nothing on the inside. The inside of this place is rather messy. They need to invest in a vacuum machine and use it! Overall, skip it, save your hard earned money and go to the Mexican restaurant next door read more

Ehh... not the worst. But no where near the best! I don't feel the prices are worth the quality of the food. Service was given by their children who were doing homework, so I felt bad asking for service... and my refill of my lemon brisk iced tea... which was not free btw.. idk not the best Chinese I've had but whatev. lol read more

This is the first 1 star reviews but the food here tasted like was cooked 2 weeks ago. Egg rolls were over cooked- I hope the owner takes this and turns this place around. This place makes local businesses look bad. ( food from carry out order on 4/15/18) please note I ate here 10 years and food was much better but now it taste disgusting. read more

Have been eating here for over 15 yrs. LOVE it! Have introduced many and they all love it as well & return. Every time I eat Chinese elsewhere I compare it to BP & still the BEST. read more

The egg foo yung was awful. I think it was made in advance then refried . The party was flat and by the time I removed the refried edges I barely had anything to eat. Extremely disappointed and upset especially since I had to order a full order. This order was in my opinion far to expensive to not enjoy. read more

The Kung pow chicken wasn't even cooked other than the chicken. The gravy was disgusting, the eggroll had a nasty aftertaste. The only thing that was good was the fortune cookie and potstickers. I would never order from this place again I'm so disappointed. read more

I'm not sure if it's the same from the last time I went there, because if new management but this is one of the best Chinese food places in the area. I love their lo mein and beef and broccoli, the last owners were very sweet, but I'm not sure about the new ones. I would recommend take out, but the inside is clean read more

I am so sad to write this! After 20 years of loving and heartily recommending Best Panda we ordered our usuals tonight and found it was under new management! We thought we would give it a try but we were so so so disappointed. The food was bland and tasteless and just not very good. After 20 great years it's time for us to move on! read more

Our recent take out order from Best Panda will be our last. Forget the fact our order was 30 minutes behind our designated pick up time. Forget the fact that while waiting, we noticed the restaurant looked a bit, um, untidy. Instead. let's focus on the food. Orange chicken: I was hoping for tender pieces of semi-crunchy chicken mixed sparingly with a spicy-sweet sauce. I also expected the chicken to taste like chicken, and for the chicken to resemble, well, chicken. Instead, I received something that could have been chicken, drowning in a gelatinous, hyper-pigmented sauce consisting mostly of red dye #40. Included in the soppy mess, were a handful of beige vegetables. Try as I might, I am hard-pressed to come up with a list of tasty beige vegetables. Turnips maybe? Perhaps Best Panda purposely imported an exotic Chinese vegetable to Gurnee, IL, solely to compliment the extreme red hue of its orange chicken sauce? Anyhoo, a spoonful of this stuff revealed it tasted just as unappetizing as it looked. Even the dog refused to eat it, and he eats just about everything, including the occasional deer turd. Rating: -1 Up next, fried rice. I love fried rice. Usually, fried rice is an awesome way to deck out boring white rice. Just not this time. This pork fried rice was basically white rice saturated in gallons of soy sauce. I'm pretty sure this fried rice gave itself hypertension, because there weren't any carrots, onions, or eggs to counteract the soy sauce's sodium. Fortunately, this fried rice had a smattering of pork and a few peas. Unfortunately, the peas had been frozen since 2007. I came to this conclusion because the peas were not bright and green and bursting with flavor. Instead, they were sad, wrinkly peas, moss-like in color, tasting of freezer burn and lacking any original chlorophyll. Rating: 1 Egg rolls. Surprise! The egg rolls actually tasted like egg rolls, except they were a little on the burnt side. This dish was by far my favorite. Too bad I only ordered enough to eat one. Rating: 3 Surely the chicken chop suey will be great, right? How can a Chinese restaurant mess up this staple? Let me tell you how: onions. So many onions that I, someone who simultaneously appreciates onions for their taste as well as their ability to fight off free radicals, was overwhelmed. And even though they made a valiant effort, the 6 pea pods included in the dish (3 for me, 3 for the hub) could not overcome the potent onion-y power. Rating: 1 read more

Best Panda was the place to go. 2 senior woman ran it foid was great. It seems to have lost the little restaurant feel it had. The brown sauce isn't great, but editable. No tea at table, they give you a mug. The new people need to get in touch with other owners and have a talk. I would not recommend this restaurant and that's too bad I use to recommend Best Panda all the time. read more

I'm not sure why you often go towards loving what you grow up with, but Best Panda is my favorite Chinese joint. While the service can seem a bit rude, since it's primarily a take-out place. The workers (mainly run by a female cashier) will warm up to you, especially if you have a familiar face. The food is the tastiest! I love their sweet and sour chicken (even though it's boring but has a pineapple-cherry flavor to it), chicken fried rice, fried wontons, and lo mein. Some of the best and the red S&S sauce shows it!! read more

It Use To Be One Of The Best Chinese Food ... I Guess They Changed The Chef ... I Will Never Eat Hear Again After I Saw The Cashier Chopping Broccoli IN The Dining Room. .. wt the hell u guys don't use the kitchen anymore. .. read more

Great place for food, come here often. Very friendly staff, great lunch specials and great wonton soup!

Have been going for years. Order the same all the time. Order hunan chicken, empress chicken, chicken fried rice and lo Mein chicken. Food was horrible! Chicken tasted like it was boiled, the sauce was not spicy, the noodles were over cooked and the empress chicken was disgusting. Found out the restaurant is under new management. We will NOT be going back! read more

Decent, but not great, Chinese food. I originally came here for the Sesame Chix in the original review, but that is mediocre. They do have decent Govenor's, Lemon Chicken, Hunan Beef that we have tried to date. read more

My husband and I went into the restaurant prior to 3 pm which is the cut off for lunch. We were given a menu that included the lunch menu. We ordered and our food was brought out, no egg roll, no soup, no fried rice and no pot of tea. Restaurant appears to be under new management from the last time we had lunch. They served us from the dinner menu. When I mentioned that we thought we ordered from the lunch menu, we were told that because we didn't specify "lunch" we were served from the dinner menu. $28 plus tip was not what we had planned on spending for lunch. Told my husband we could have gone to Kenosha had and a steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse for what we paid for the meat & vegetables at Best Panda. It definitely is not "best" any longer! Won't be back to eat there again :( read more

Oh my god. This place has some of the BEST sesame chicken I've ever had in my life. The meat consists of huge chunks of white meat, and the sauce it's in is incredible. They've nailed it. Admittedly, the fried rice here is so-so, but the crab rangoons did hit the spot...and the sesame chicken, alone, is more than enough of a reason for me to want to order from here again! read more

if you go at dinner time 5-7...food is fresh...after 7 it starts to get cold and you may have to wait for a fresh pan...but overall the staff is friendly and fast. This is a very good Panda Express read more

Great rice, they have this rice that has everything in it, Beef, pork, shrimp, chicken, pretty good

I bought dinner from here and it was much better than the previous owner. I ordered the Special Fried Rice, Special Lo Mein, Orange Chicken, and Potstickers. Although the food taste a little different, I like this version better. Definitely recommend! read more