Panda House, January 19, 2015

I love Chinese food! My wife, not so much. Luckily, Pie and Bubbles love it, too, so when we do Sunday dinner out, we sometimes get to go out for Chinese! We'd not yet found a Chinese restaurant we loved since we moved to Michigan when we finally discovered Panda House in Lake Orion because the kids wanted Chinese food. We've been there several times now and have always had fresh-tasting, delicious food and really personable service. It's a tiny place and not terribly warm in winter, but the people who work there are completely delightful and work very hard to give diners a good experience. Their carry-out business is quite brisk.

This week, we moved Sunday dinner to Monday & met the kids there for dinner. Both their crab rangoons and pork dumplings are light, delicate, and delicious. We usually get them. The kids had egg drop and wonton soup, while I got my customary hot & sour, which is just spicy enough to be interesting, but not mouth-searingly so. Jeannene somehow doesn't like any Chinese soups, so she gave hers to Pie. I am really picky about egg and spring rolls---I really only like the Vietnamese-style fried spring rolls with pork and bean thread noodles in them, which are terribly hard to find---so the kids got our egg rolls, as well.

I was feeling noodly, so I had the pork ho fun. The noodles were perfectly cooked (they are often overcooked so they turn into one giant, gluey mass) and not over-sauced, but with enough to make it flavorful. The pork was good quality, too. I am happy to have plenty left over for lunch today! Jeannene always gets General Tso's chicken and their rendition is a good one. Again, the quality of the meat is good---you don't get gristly pieces at all. The kids both got sweet & sour, not a favorite of mine, pork for him and chicken for her. They reported that it was good. It's basically chicken nuggets with sweet sauce, so not something I am keen to  eat. Pie has loved it since he was a kid. Since the mamas were paying, he ordered a second entree, as well, a plate of curry chicken. I didn't try that one, but he seemed really to like it. Their fortune cookies, too, have a lot of flavor, something I seldom find. When the guy sitting at the table next to us complained because his cookie had no fortune in it (seriously, dude?), the waitress apologized profusely and brought extra cookies for the whole table. She brought us an extra cookie, too, in case one of ours didn't have a fortune. Me, I figure if your cookie doesn't have a fortune, that means you get to make up whatever fortune you want for yourself---not a bad deal!