I wonder if Chinese people are ashamed when they eat at Panda Express because it’s a bastardized version of real Chinese food. I know I would be if I ate at a Japanese fast food restaurant called Hello Kitty Fun Fun Chow Chow Time.
Whenever I walk into a Panda Express, I like to look at the faces of the Chinese people in the restaurant to see if they feel any shame. No, not the people working behind the counter and the gigantic woks because they shouldn’t feel shame since they have the power to mess with our food.
I look at the faces of the Chinese people who are ordering the Kung Pao Chicken, Beijing Beef and Orange Chicken to see if they grimace, close their eyes with disgust, or say under their breath “I’m sorry” to their dead ancestors who cooked real Chinese food. Unfortunately, I have yet to see shame from a Chinese person in a Panda Express. Perhaps they’re really good at hiding it when in public.
If you’re a Chinese person and enjoy Panda Express, but are ashamed when eating it, you can now have bastardized Chinese food that can be prepared in the comfort and privacy of your home with the Wanchai Ferry Sweet & Sour Chicken Frozen Meal. You’ll still feel shame, except you probably won’t have to hide it, unless you have an elderly Chinese person living in your household.
The bagged Wanchai Ferry meal is made up of battered white meat chicken, pineapples, sugar snap peas, red peppers and jasmine rice in a sweet and sour sauce. I was hoping it would be easy to make, but preparing it is just like recovery from alcohol and drug addiction because there are a lot of steps. I’d list everything I needed to do before I was able to eat it, but if I did you would be cursing me after because during that same amount of time you could’ve easily driven to a Panda Express, picked up food and driven back. All I’m going to say is that it involves a lot of skillet work, microwaving a bag of rice and the ability to read.
The Sweet & Sour Chicken tasted like something I would wait in line at Panda Express for. The sweet and sour sauce was tasty, although a bit too thick. The vegetables and pineapples were limp, but I expected that since they were frozen, and they did provide a bit more flavor, especially the pineapples. The jasmine rice was cooked perfectly. As for the chicken, I hoped there would’ve been more and despite being pan fried to be heated, their breaded coating didn’t become crispy.
The Wanchai Ferry Sweet & Sour Chicken Meal is meant for two, but I felt the serving sizes were a bit small. They were small enough that I feel ashamed of them.
(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 package prepared – 590 calories, 7 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 25 milligrams of cholesterol, 850 milligrams of sodium, 87 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 38 grams of sugar, 14 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 30% vitamin C, 8% calcium and 15% iron.)
Item: Wanchai Ferry Sweet & Sour Chicken Frozen Meal
Price: $6.99
Size: 24 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Sweet and sour sauce was tasty. No trans fats. Lots of vegetables and pineapples. Allows Chinese people, and everyone else, to prepare bastardized Chinese food in the privacy of their own home. Panda Express.
Cons: Chicken wasn’t crispy and there wasn’t a lot of it. Veggies and fruits were limp. Lots of step to prepare it. Took me longer than the 14 minutes the packaging said it would take me to prepare it. Contains no MSG, except that which naturally occurs in autolyzed yeast extract, which means it has MSG. The shame I would have from eating at Hello Kitty Fun Fun Chow Chow Time.