Whenever you order a shrimp or steak entree at Panda Express, there’s an upcharge for the premium proteins. At locations near me it’s $1.75, but the standard around the country appears to be $1.50. Now the chain has a new premium-premium protein — the Cantonese BBQ Brisket — with an upcharge of $2.20 in my area and $1.95 elsewhere.

According to the Panda Express website, the dish is “tender beef brisket flame-seared in our signature Cantonese Char Siu style BBQ sauce.”

I liked it the first time. I liked it the second time. But I don’t plan on a third.

Yes, I ordered it twice. Not because I’m addicted to it like YouTube channels that summarize entire TV show seasons in 15 minutes, but because I was so underwhelmed with how my first order looked. Those pieces looked smaller than the promotional photos and were so dark at some places that I thought they were overcooked. Despite how they looked, though, the tenderness was excellent and it was tasty enough that I didn’t completely mind having to purchase the premium entree again.

My second order, from a different location, was much more appealing. The pieces looked more like the size of what’s in the promotional photos and less charred. The meat was slightly tougher to pull apart, but just as tasty overall.

The BBQ sauce was savory, sweet, and quite good, which isn’t surprising for Panda Express, which reliably nails that combination. The sauce also had a warmth that stopped just short of being actually spicy. It tasted different from the char siu I’m used to, probably because this is my first time having the dish with beef. I’ve only had pork versions, which have been much sweeter than this.

While the brisket appeared coated with sauce on every millimeter of meat, there were a few bites where the sauce wasn’t present. With my first order, those bites tasted like beef jerky. Nothing against beef jerky, but that’s not what I’m paying a premium for. The second order didn’t have that problem, but it reinforced that this brisket really needs its sauce to shine.

Panda Express’ Cantonese BBQ Brisket is tasty enough to try once. It’s a nice change of pace from the usual limited-time chicken dishes in sweet and savory sauces. But at a price that could get me another serving of Orange Chicken or Eggplant Tofu, I’ll pass on getting it again.

If this premium-premium protein becomes a crowd-pleaser, I wonder if there’s a premium-premium-premium protein in Panda Express’ future. Perhaps wagyu beef or fried fugu?

Purchased Price: $12.50 (includes $2.20 upcharge)
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (5.61 oz) 410 calories, 5 grams of saturated fat, 14 grams of carbohydrates, and 44 grams of protein.

*Because I live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

When I pulled up to the Panda Express drive-thru window, the woman manning it didn’t say “hello.” Instead, she said something even better: “This is the best chicken dish ever.”

The dish she was referring to — and promptly handed to me — was the chain’s new Buldak Dynamite Sweet & Sour Chicken. I wanted to reply, “Um, have you heard about your Orange Chicken?” But I was too chicken to say it, and besides, she might have had a point. I hadn’t tried it yet. This new entrée could be Panda Express’ best chicken dish. So is it?

Not quite. But it’s up there.

Buldak, a popular Korean hot sauce brand, has recently been ramming its way onto store shelves like a bull through a red cape. You’ve probably seen the potato chips, frozen food, and — of course — the ramen noodles. I’d never tried it with anything before. But I do know that when Panda Express creates something sweet and savory, there’s a very good chance it’ll be worth eating.

Buldak Dynamite Sweet & Sour Chicken continues Panda Express’ trend — established with its Firecracker Chicken and Firecracker Shrimp — of pairing bell peppers and onions with dishes named after things that explode. The crispy chicken breast chunks are tossed in a Buldak hot sauce blend, and I was also handed a Buldak Original Hot Sauce packet on the side, for, I dunno, masochistic purposes.

So, how was my first experience with anything Buldak? It was Buldaaaang — delicious, but holy hell it’s spicy.

Most of the heat comes from the sauce the chicken is tossed in. From what I’ve read, this is supposed to be Panda’s spiciest dish ever, and I think that claim might be correct. There’s a strong sweetness and a bit of tanginess, too, but neither does much to temper the heat. Fluids were coming out of places where fluids usually come out when I eat really spicy food, and halfway through, the back of my mouth went slightly numb. I’m fairly certain my digestive system will complain in a few hours. This is definitely a dish that demands something cold and refreshing nearby. Yet despite all the burning, its flavor still made me want to eat more.

I thought twice about adding the extra Buldak sauce packet, not wanting to start hallucinating from the heat. But I’m glad I did because it added a savory, umami-rich chicken flavor — the kind you get from a chicken bouillon cube or chicken-flavored ramen packet — that elevated the dish to a level that made it even harder to stop eating despite the punishment. Interestingly, the extra sauce didn’t noticeably increase the heat, just the flavor.

As expected, the wok-tossed vegetables still had some snap, adding a fresh element that offered brief relief from the spice. The chicken’s coating loses most of its crispiness with all that sauce, but honestly, the heat will make you forget about that pretty quickly.

Panda Express’ Buldak Dynamite Sweet & Sour Chicken is a memorable dish — both for its unique, delicious flavor and for the very real physical consequences that follow. It hurts so good that I want to hurt again.

Purchased Price: $10.30
Size: Bowl
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (5.7 ounces) 400 calories, 3 grams of saturated fat, 44 grams of carbohydrates, and 17 grams of protein. Other nutrition numbers were not available on the Panda Express website.

Panda Express calls its new Hot Ones Blazing Bourbon Chicken the spiciest dish the chain has ever offered, thanks to its sauce being made with the Hot Ones’ infamous Last Dap Apollo Hot Sauce.

While it does have a good tongue-poking amount of heat, I can’t say I’m 100 percent sure it’s the spiciest ever because there might’ve been a Panda Express entree that was so devastatingly hot that my mind and mouth wiped any memory about it. While I’m not sure it burns the most, it does make up for the mild Hot Orange Chicken from a few months ago.

The limited time entree features crispy boneless chicken bites, onions, bell peppers, and chili peppers in an extra spicy and sweet bourbon sauce that’s sprinkled with sesame seeds. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Panda Express knows how to make a great sweet and savory sauce, and that’s the case with Blazing Bourbon Chicken.

But let’s start with the heat. If you’re expecting a reaction that’s similar to the ones on the Hot Ones talk show, where celebrities have their sweat, tear, or salivary glands, or any combination of the three get forced into bodily fluid production overdrive, your glands need not worry, if you likey the spicy. After finishing off a small a la carte container of the chicken, the top of my head and the back of my neck were sweating a bit. But it’s not as blazing as I expected it to be with a sauce made from the Apollo Hot Sauce, and, despite the sweating, I didn’t feel compelled to extinguish the burn in my mouth. But that’s not a bad thing because the heat doesn’t overwhelm the great tasting bourbon-flavored coating.

As for that wonderful sauce, I get a hint of bourbon flavor, but for the most part, I notice a level of umami that reminds me of soy sauce and a sweetness that could be from honey or brown sugar. I’ve never had the Last Dab before, so I can’t say if I taste it here, but my brave taste buds don’t notice anything that could be considered the flavor of a hot pepper, just the spiciness from one. Speaking of peppers, the vegetables in the entree bring a different crisp texture than the chicken’s coating, and they help temper the sauce’s heat. The chili peppers, surprisingly, didn’t seem to elevate the dish’s burn.

Panda Express’ Hot Ones Blazing Bourbon Chicken has the right amounts of savoriness, sweetness, and spiciness. It’s so good that I could see myself swapping it with my beloved Orange Chicken a few times while it’s on the menu.

Purchased Price: $5.40
Size: Small container
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (5.5 oz serving) 400 calories, 5 grams of saturated fat, 40 grams of carbohydrates, and 14 grams of protein.

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Did you know Panda Express’ Orange Chicken is spicy?

Take a look at the restaurant’s website; you’ll find a graphic with one pepper next to the Orange Chicken. I’ve always known the pepper image was there, but much like every slip of paper I’ve pulled out from a Panda Express fortune cookie, it’s meaningless. Besides the warmth of them being heated in a giant wok on a gas burner with a hypnotizing flame that calls out my name, I’ve never considered the popular entree as “spicy.” If you’re like me and roll your eyes about its “spiciness,” the fast food chain now offers Hot Orange Chicken and it has a graphic with TWO PEPPERS!!

Panda describes the spicy dish as “Crispy chicken bites wok-tossed in our signature orange sauce with more HEAT.” According to the chain, the original Orange Chicken recipe has one teaspoon of crushed chilies, but what brings the HEAT in this new dish is six scoops of those crushed chilies and a ladle full of dried chilies. Those dried ones are also in Panda’s Kung Pao Chicken, which also has a one-pepper graphic but is significantly spicier than regular Orange Chicken.

The small a la carte order I purchased had only two dried chili pepper pieces. I guess the luck of the ladle wasn’t with me. When I tried it without the dried peppers, it had a “spiciness” that was the same as the original Orange Chicken. So maybe mine was made with less than six teaspoons of crushed chilies? However, when I ate one of the dried chilies with the meat, the heat got kicked up a notch or two, so I guess the two pepper graphic accurately represented the dish’s spiciness. Also, the dried peppers changed the entree’s flavor a little, making it slightly less sweet than the original recipe.

Panda Express’ Hot Orange Chicken is not an improvement or as great as the original, and it’s not as hot as that alluring flame that heats the woks and calls for me to touch it. It can get spicy, but it depends on the luck of the ladle. If it pulls a lot of dried chilies, expect a burn with most bites. But if it ends up being like my order, expect some disappointment if you’re a heathead.

Purchased Price: $5.40
Size: Small container
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (6.92 oz) 590 calories, 7 grams of saturated fat, 53 grams of carbohydrates, and 26 grams of protein.

Panda Express’ fortune cookie is the fast food chain’s default dessert. It comes with every order, but it’s not the best way to end your meal, especially if you happen to get a stale one (which has happened to me on more than one occasion) or you get a fortune that reads, “Keep your expectations reasonable,” after expecting to get a crunchy fortune cookie.

If you’re a regular Panda Express eater, I imagine you’ve had dozens of these fortune cookies and, at some point, wished there was something better to consume post-meal. Well, my Orange Chicken or Eggplant Tofu-loving friend, there’s something much better now — Panda Express’ Apple Pie Rolls.

The dessert features apples and fall spices in a crispy rolled pastry that’s finished with cinnamon sugar. An order is just one roll for two dollars. The warm treat is about six inches long and three-fourths of an inch wide, and it looks like it rolled through the Sahara Desert if the Sahara Desert was cinnamon sugar instead of sand.

The fried exterior has a nice crispiness, but underneath that are unfried pastry layers that give some resistance when trying to bite through the roll. But once you get past that minor opposition, the combination of the cinnamon sugar, slightly snappy apple pieces, and gelatinous goo the fruit is floating in is a delightful treat. This is as great as McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie (which we still have on these rocks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean). It has all the flavors of an apple pie, but without the need of a fork to eat it.

I liked it so much that when one of the halves above rolled off my cutting board and onto the floor, I growled at my dog as she charged towards it to keep her from snatching it, picked up the piece, ignored the five-second rule, and ate it. Then, I had to clean up a mess of cinnamon sugar off the floor.

Its price is the only issue I have about it, and I feel this way because I have something to compare it with. McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie goes for $1.69, and although it lacks a cinnamon sugar coating, the McDonald’s one is about the same length and noticeably wider. It’s a minor issue, and you can get Apple Pie Rolls cheaper if you purchase a large order of six pieces for $11.40.

So if the Panda Express cashier attempts to upsell you an Apple Pie Roll, I’d suggest you plunk down the extra two dollars and get one.

Purchased Price: $2.00
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (1 roll) 150 calories, 3 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.