Panda Cuisine

If you want something authentic and spicy you need to try place. I won’t eat Chinese food anywhere else after eating here. I recommend the Schuian wonton soup, juicy buns (dumplings), lamb and greens, and spicy chicken with noodles. The hot pots are great if you have a group of adventurous eaters. Meals are served family style and portions are generous.

Authentic Chinese food! The best in Lexington. If you are into Asian food, this is the place to be. Great ambience, quantities are huge and the staff is quite nice too. We got the garlic beans, Panda fish delight and the a chicken dish! Everything was lip smacking tasty! Highly recommend this place to all food lovers…

Really native and traditional Chinese food they have! I like it very much!

The food is very good thats why i have kept coming back serveral times. During my serveral times visit i have always experience bad services. I kept coming my back because it hard to find authentic food in lexington. I’m Cambodian, i love asian food and i value authenticity. But the service is so bad that me and my friend vow to never come back after several visit. U might not have had the same experience because you are caucasian american. As a young asian, they automatically not give us the same experience because i assume they dont not value our visit as much. The lady owner treat us so bad. She was our waiter for us, and she also has a mean tone, she always rush us to order, she would also throw silver ware on our table, not to mention she get mad when u ask for stuff. And when we finish she bring our check and wrote down 15% value of the total for us to tip. We dont mind that because we work at a nail salon, we understand tipping because thats a way we make our living too. But she keep screaming at us and keep constanly point at what she wrote down. We have trouble understand her so we keep asking what is the problem, till we figure out that she want to make sure we tip at least 15%. Though we want to give ZERO tip for her horrible service. But we cant so we tip the minimum 15%, which for us is not much. I look around to see if other people receive the same bad treatment, but they dont. I definitely will not return because i dont want to be treated like im going there to beg for food. Word cant not describe the true horrible service that i have encounter. There are more to this.

Great food! Drove past it and decided to give it a shot. Considering the size of Lexington, this place is definitely pretty decent. HOWEVER, if you do the buffet, please leave at least 10% tip. Even if you are just a few cents less than the 10%, this young lady would come up to you passive aggressively accusing you of not having common sense.

My wife, son, and I were in the Lexington Kentucky area for a soccer tournament this past weekend. We used Unilocal!to find a highly recommended Chinese restaurant. The Panda Cuisine was fabulous — excellent food and excellent service. The best egg rolls I have ever had. Our next visit to Lexington will include lunch or dinner at Panda Cuisine

Great authentic Szechuan cuisine! Came here for dinner for my uncle’s big XX birthday. The spicy dishes definitely have a kick to them. Got a sweet-​sour tofu, pineapple duck, Kung pao chicken, diced green beans, mustard greens, bok choy and mushrooms, pig ears, and noodles — just to name a few of the dishes. I think a lot of these dishes are off-​menu, but this is the place to go for authentic Chinese food in Lexington!

I was strongly encouraged to visit Panda by some Chinese friends I have, we eventually went together and it was a experience unlike anything I had ever had before. The menus we were given were in Chinese, by request. I chose absolutely nothing, deferring all decision making power to my mandarin speaking friends. I can’t list a fraction of what we got, but the ones I made a point to remember were panda beef and schezuan (sp?)chicken. Neither tasted remotely like any Chinese I had ever had before, but were delicious. We had some green beans (I hate green beans and think they aren’t fit for human consumption) in a garlic sauce that I really enjoyed. As a desert we had sesame balls. I’m told they were fried red beans, but I’ve never had beens that sweet before. It was quite the treat.
As I understand, this is authentic Chinese. Orange chicken, sweet and sour pork and other staples of Chinese cuisine I usually order are, as it was explained to me, an American creation.
The staff were incredibly friendly, go in with an open mind and ask them to fill your table with whatever they like. I bet they would oblige, and you’ll taste things you’ve likely never experienced before.

I usually do not like Chinese food, but this was an exception. It was delicious. The service was quick and the portions were large. I had the biggest egg roll for an appetizer and my boyfriend love his appetizer of dumplings. Our entrée came out quickly next and the sweet and sour chicken and general tso was perfect. The General tso was a little too spicy for me but I do not like any kind of spicy food. We both needed to go boxes before we left which the waiter wrapped up nicely for us. It made a great lunch for the next day.

This is my go to Chinese in Lexington. Generous portions and really good! Service is great. The Shrimp and Lobster Sauce is fabulous!!!

I normally avoid Chinese buffets due to the sanitation-​conscious voice of a fellow Unilocaler ringing in my head. But a friend who spent extensive time in China was headed there, so I thought it must be okay. Turns out, it was better than okay! I’m always impressed when there are foods I’ve never heard of at a Chinese restaurant, and the buffet was a perfect way to try new things «risk-​free»! (Especially risk-​free because the buffet appeared to take sanitary precautions…) I enjoyed the hot and sour soup, fried rice noodles and lo mein, but the true standouts were the ginger green beans and garlic cucumbers! Wow!
I’ve heard dinner is even better than the lunch, so I’ll be heading back soon to try that out!

Authentic Chinese restaurants, especially those that serve homestyle dishes, are almost impossible to find in Lexington, so I am grateful for Panda Cuisine. It certainly helps that they also serve seafood in a state where seafood is extremely hard to come by. Panda Cuisine may be just average for the genre on the East or West Coasts, but in Kentucky it is a gem. The service may come off as rude and inattentive to many Americans, but that’s how service tends to be at many Chinese restaurants that cater to Chinese. Flag somebody down if need be. When I’m here I order Chinese dishes I’m not going to get anywhere else in KY: steamed whole flounder with soy sauce, green onions and ginger; homestyle Hakka pork belly with preserved vegetables; Sichuan hot pot so spicy you can see the layer of fiery red oil floating on top; Mandarin style seafood hot pot loaded with fish, shrimp and scallops. When I have the buffet, I find the vegetable dishes far superior to the meat dishes.

Food is fine. But I stood at the hostess stand for over 10 minutes and no one acknowledged me. It wasn’t until a couple came in behind me and they ask them if they wanted to be seated. Maybe I was invisible that day, but if not awful service.

Food was decent. Nothing to write home about for sure. But the service on the other hand, horrible. Won’t be back simply because of the bad service.

Left after the appetizers because all waiters decided to gather together and have dinner right in front of our table where we were left alone without service. Appetizers arrived missing an item and we thought it was going to bother them — interrupt their dinner — if we were to ask for them again. Restaurant closes at 10PM and I arrived 8:50 and left around 9:15PM. Finished our Chinese dinner at PF Chang’s. Will never be back despite friends recommendations saying it’s the best Chinese in town. Service needs to be at least acceptable as well.

I’d been looking forward to trying Panda Cuisine’s buffet for months, but it turns out they usually only offer a lunch buffet and, unfortunately, that ends at 3 p.m.
The menu is huge and includes many wonderful things you won’t find at most Chinese restaurants, but since this was my first visit I decided to keep it simple and just order the combination fried rice (one of my favorite «go-​to» dishes for evaluating any new Chinese restaurant) and a sweet tea.
The fried rice itself was above average, but not exceptional. Combination (or «house special,» in common Chinese take-​out parlance) fried rice typically includes all house-​standard meats, but if there was pork in there it was visually indistinguishable from the tasty beef and chicken strips. Small shrimp (peeled and tailless) rounded out the proteins, along with egg (which is a key ingredient of traditional fried rice, but one that many lower-​quality Chinese restaurants omit as a cost-​saving measure).
I ordered my fried rice without onions, so the vegetables consisted of just a few peas and carrots (no bean sprouts, sadly). The proteins were far more abundant than the veggies. I give Panda Cuisine kudos for serving rice in its natural color (not stained yellow by turmeric or food coloring), but I was shocked by the barely perceptible wok hei (which leads me to believe either the wok wasn’t seasoned well or the cook wasn’t very experienced).
My $ 1.95 sweet iced tea was good, but also not remarkable. The highball glass in which it was served was a bit small, but always refilled promptly.
I was delighted by the service, which was prompt and extremely efficient. Both women who attended me were polite and courteous, but reserved and not very outgoing. Some patrons might construe such behavior as «not being very friendly,» but they were neither standoffish nor curt and snippy like some servers I’ve encountered in other Chinese restaurants.
Panda Cuisine also gets bonus points for serving large, high-​quality fortune cookies not containing hydrogenated oils, a touch which stands in sharp contrast to most other Lexington Chinese restaurants I’ve visited.
All things considered, it was a pleasant experience. But it definitely wasn’t an experience worth $ 13.67 before gratuity. I’ll be back to try the buffet or perhaps sample a more complex dish from the menu (lots of exotic, yummy-​looking things crisscrossed the dining room while I was there), but Panda Cuisine’s underwhelming and overpriced fried rice left me wishing I’d opted for standard takeout fare instead.

This is some authentic Chinese food here. I made it in for one of their special dinner buffets. I’m not sure how often they have the buffet, maybe once or twice a month for dinner, and I read somewhere that they have a buffet on the weekend. This is not your typical Chinese buffet. I had always thought this place was a little carry-​out style Chinese restaurant near Trader Joes, boy was I wrong. It’s actually really big and nice inside. The outside looks are deceiving.
My boyfriend and I were a few of the only non-​Asian background folks dining there. Which makes me think this is real authentic food. It was tasty and different. You have to be an adventurous eater to try everything on the buffet. They did have a few ordinary things like fried chicken chunks with the red dipping sauce, egg rolls, hot and sour soup, pot stickers, etc. But the majority of the buffet was interesting things I’ve never eaten before. Tongue, beef intestine, gizzards, pork ears, pork feet, chicken feet (ewwww!), you name it. I tried almost everything so it was quite interesting for me because I love trying different foods.
The staff was also very friendly. They came over often to fill up our water and were very polite.
I definitely recommend the buffet if this is your first time trying this restaurant. More options to choose what you like.

This review is for the carry out service and food only. My husband ordered me Chinese food since I was sick at home which I thought was really thoughtful. He told me about the four star ratings on Unilocal and figured it would be better than our experience at Pete’s wok.
He ordered at 11:24 am and the food came at 12:58 pm. It was supposed to take 45 minutes and it took 1.5 hours despite me calling twice to see where on earth the driver was– lost? I live less than a mile away! By the time the driver came with the food I was grouchy, starving and the annoyed. The food was cold and needed to be reheated. I called and gave them an opportunity to make up my poor first experience here and they delivered two appetizers to my door free of charge– egg roll and cream cheese wontons. I was much happier.
In terms of food ordered, we had the wonton soup, hot and sour soup, yellow chicken curry and spicy frog leg dish. The food was flavorful, fresh, and just plain good Chinese food, especially for being in Kentucky. I’ll definitely come here again despite the ridiculous wait. I’m hoping that was just a one off.

The food is very good. It is the only Sichuan style Chinese restaurant in town. The Jade beef hot pot amazing. The beef is like butter!
The only problem I have is the servers are hit and miss. I don’t know what it is about the older Chinese ladies that serve us. They are so slow and hateful. So hope for the younger servers.

This is by far, one of my favorite restaurant in lexington. The «red hot» wanton soup is very spicy and so tasty. The garlic green beans are another favorite as is the chengdu chicken. The chengdu chicken is a cold plate of sliced chicken in a red chili oil sauce topped with garlic. I will order that and a side of rice and be plenty full. But don’t stop there. There are so many amazing items on the menu to choose from. The weekends (and some holidays) will have a buffet and have so many different choices, many things not seen on a standard Chinese style buffet. It is totally worth it if you are an adventurous eater.