This place was recommended by a neighbor. Sadly, our visit was a disaster. It was a few months ago, but still quite memorable.
The restaurant was busy with many, many takeout orders, I took this as a positive sign. The inside of the restaurant was not busy with only one other table occupied. As we were waiting to order, a robot carrying several plates of food passed our table and stopped at the other occupied table. The server followed the robot to transfer the plates of food to the table. I thought this was super cool.
Our server walks up, all of about 15 years old and likely the son or nephew of the owner. Very green and unfamiliar with the menu as well as the ingredients of the dishes. The menu does not list the ingredients of the dishes, forcing patrons to ask what's in certain dishes. As many folks do, I have preferences and what to avoid things like water chestnuts, mushrooms and baby corn. The server was a living question mark. So after a mild interrogation about the dishes we were interested in, we placed our order and crossed our fingers.
The food was taking a longer than expected time considering we were the only customers inside the restaurant waiting for food, I suspect the takeout side was busy and responsible for the delay. I was looking forward to that cool robot delivering our dishes.
Our table was located even with the doorway to the kitchen and we could see the idle robot just inside the doorway. Time passes and then we saw Mr. Question Mark emerging from the kitchen with our four plates of food. His elbow catches the door jam and all four plates crash to the floor. No using the robot was a technology failure. The actual fate of our dinner was a human fail. Mr. Question Mark was definitely on brand.
Now we have to wait for our meal - all of our meal - to be prepared again, so our order seemed to go back into the queue rather than front of the line as we waited an additional 30 minutes for our meal. We should have walked out before the meal - take 2 - arrived.
Food arrived safely despite no robot delivery. But the food I received was an abomination. Kung Pao Chicken isn't rocket science. Even Panda Express has an inferior, but workable version of it. What I received was a soupy mess of thin sauce with no familiar flavor of Kung Pao with 5 McNugget-sized pieces of chicken in a bed of peanuts and celery. A ridiculous amount of celery in huge pieces. It will be forever remembered as "Kung Pao Celery (or WTF Kung Pao). This place, sadly, could learn a few things from Panda Express. Start with less celery (in smaller chunks.
In the end, I regret not walking out with the original plate drop and heading next door for a couple of highly reliable Pub Subs. This place was a definite "one and done" for us. Of course, your mileage may vary (hopefully).
Now I am hungry for Panda's orange chicken. Too bad the Davenport Panda Express is a service sh!tshow, but that's another review. read more