Before I get into the bulk of the review (a lengthy one) it’s important to say the quality and value of Panda cannot be over-emphasised. I’ll get a few dinners and some snacks and fridge-nibbles out of a €23.50 spend. And I’ll be back as often as I can manage if their virtually perfect standards are maintained. I had a beef and black bean sauce, and a spice box for my Mam even though she said she’d only have a chip or two and, ‘wasn’t hungry.’ Mam’s gonna Mam...
My meal was lovely. The black bean sauce was rich and not at all runny. The beef good quality and not fatty or gristly. The mushrooms actually tasted like mushrooms, were chunky and had a decent bite, something you sometimes don’t get in other places where they’re awfully watery and slimey. While the peppers and chilli peppers were only unreal. Some of the nicest I’ve had. I’d eat a bucket of them in the sauce with just mushrooms and rice on any given day.
I thought the spice box was a little salty for me, although it’s possibly just not my thing because my Mam, the woman who said she’d only have a chip or two, hoovered up an absolute load of it. One of those situations where she starts out picking and keeps coming back for more and more, eventually digging in with knife and fork. Like I said, Mam’s gonna Mam! At least I made sure to get her her own to pick at instead of her taking from my beef! And she did eat, which is exactly what I wanted. She’s rushed off her feet, especially with looking after a grandchild, my sister and her husband this week. And, to be fair, I’m laying into the leftovers of the spice box today — the day after — and I’m stuffed. There’ll even be more for tomorrow.
So I’ll be picking away at the spice box, myself, over the next few days. And the salt level did come down a little as you got into it, so maybe they just need to shake things up a bit more so there isn’t extra salt and pepper at the top. Or you just have to let it sit for day in the fridge as an amazing leftovers treat you bought for yourself the night before (definitely do this if you're having a night on the beers, lol.) I might even try the veggie/vegan spice box too, with the tofu. I’d say it’s delicious if you’re not a meat eater. I also want to try the Salt Chilli Hashbrown, which sounds phenomenal. I love hashbrowns and I’d say these would knock McDonald’s ones all over the place.
My Mother said the chips in the spice box were good. She destroyed the onions and peppers in it, and I had a few, as well. I even liked the onions, and this is after the lovely woman on the phone said it was no problem to get ‘no onion’ with my beef and black bean sauce. It’s when they’re big and crunchy they’re not for me. Texture and all that. But the ones in the spice box were lightly fried — not oily — and softened, spiced and mixed in with the, again, amazing peppers.
The beef will do me for dinner, today. There’s two day’s eating in it and I’ll have to microwave an instant rice there was so much of it there. A...