P.F. Changs

There are a lot of things in this world that are popular and I just don't understand why.  Nascar, Dancing With the Stars, and Charlie Sheen (seriously everyone should be over this guy by now) just to name a few.  After my recent dining experience at P.F. Chang's I believe that restaurant deserves to be placed in the same category.

As we walked into the restaurant and sat down you're immediately welcomed in by the nice warm interior of the restaurant, the attentive servers and the inviting look of the semi-open kitchen.  It all seems that these elements are the signature part of P.F. Chang's bait-and-switch mentality.  The menu is quite large with a lot of the same or similar to what you mind find on a typical Chinese take-out menu.  The difference is of course the price.  I ordered the Moo Goo Gai Pan at a menu price of $13.50 which included a side of white rice.  The portion size was quite large, and I may have not even been too disappointed if my dish had even been the least bit palatable.

My dish was pretty standard for what Moo Goo Gai Pan is supposed to be.  Chicken, shrimp and veggies in white sauce.  It looked quite delicious as it was sat in front of me, but unfortunately once I tasted it I had my hopes dashed more than a Kansas fan during March Madness.  The shrimp were cooked nicely, but that is really the only thing I can say positively about it.  The entire dish lacked any kind of flavor what so ever.  The chicken and vegetables tasted like they had been boiled in completely unseasoned water and then thrown on my plate.  The sauce was so awful I almost fail to come up with words to describe it other than to say it was somewhat thicker than water, twice as flavorless and almost made me not want to eat the shrimp (one of my favorite foods) out of the dish.  I tried to liven up my meal some by adding one of P.F. Chang's table sauces, but there was no saving it.  This was the first time I ever remember getting Chinese food and not finishing my meal not due to bad flavors.  Now, I will say that I tried some of the dishes of my dining companions and they weren't all that bad.  But those dishes were of the fried and put in a sweet sauce variety and those are hard to screw up.  Some might say I just ordered the wrong dish, but if you're a big national chain charging a premium for otherwise cheap food then I expect every dish on the menu to be executed equally.  Then again what the hell do I know?  We were there on a weekday night and the place was packed.

Taste 1/10  Had the shrimp not been cooked just the way I like them I probably would have given a zero here.

Value 0/10  Yeah sorry.  I know they are going for the sit-down upscale casual vibe here, but even with the bells and whistles it's pretty damn hard to get me to accept paying double what I usually pay for Chinese and have what I ordered be practically inedible.