horrible meal at P.F. Chang's

We decided to finally try the PF Chang's in Freehold, NJ....our mistake!!!
       I don't get why some have raved about this place to me. We sampled four meals...all were deemed bland and flavorless.
      My prawns in garlic noodles had no garlic..the noodles tasted as if taken out of a steamer, prawns, overcooked and dry.....blah!
      My wife's lamb dish was equally flavorless...my son returned two steaks as tough and fatty...and it was medium rare! Ny daughter had the best of the worst with a mildly flavored salmon dish.
     The lettuce wrap starter(a favorite here) was the best thing all night ,,,and it was average.
      Price for four with no alcohol was around $100....way overpriced for what we got......Eaters beware.....
      Was this an unusual experience or par for the course for this "bistro"?????

I've eaten at P.F. Chang's a couple times over the years and actually liked the food, but the atmosphere was SO corporate and the lines SO long that I wouldn't go back unless I'm with someone else who is really dying to go there.

PFC fell off my radar years ago.

When the flavor vanished, the EXTREME high fat content sent me away for good.

I've had a few good meals at PF Changs, but overall not terribly impressed.  Definately over rated, and the lines just don't match the food.

Besides this post being in the wrong forum, PFC is high in fat and salt.

had a take out dish one time and it was so salty i could not eat it!! seriously!!!

Fast Food Franchises & Non-Roadfood Chains

MilwFoodlovers


Besides this post being in the wrong forum, PFC is high in fat and salt.

Why is it in the wrong forum? P.F. Chang's is a non-roadfood chain and this is the Fast Food Franchises & Non-Roadfood Chains section.

It was orginally posted under International foods; hard to believe!

MilwFoodlovers


Besides this post being in the wrong forum, PFC is high in fat and salt.

Our diminished lunchbunch group had a similar experience yesterday at King Wok in the Clifton area of Cincinnati - what was once one of favorite Chinese restaurants had so much salt in their food (and their fortune cookies were extremely stale) it was plain awful.

Salt is cheating. It's a cheap way to enhance flavor but many people have to limit their intake so places that use it will find that their return patron counts are lower and lower.

This King Wok had been on the top 10 list of favorite restaurants in SW Ohio and Environs for two members of our lunch group.

It will be stricken from that list and has been written off.

I had read some bad reviews about their food of late due to a change in their  chef but I wanted to see for myself since we had had so many good meals there over the years.

Your experience mirrors our disappointing P Chang's experience.

Even going in with low expectations, they managed to disappoint. It's way overpriced, mediocre food, but the worst of it was you felt like you were being hustled or pressured by the waiter to add things to your order that you didn't want. Very agressive, obnoxious practice. 

Never again.

P.F. Chang's is overpriced hype.  Keep the fancy restaurant and give me better Chinese food.  I get better food from local take-outs than going to a sit-down at that place.

Just came here to say the same... my experience at the P F Chang's in St. Louis was that is was very loud, very crowded (tables pushed together so closely that your elbows touched your neighbor at the table next to you), and incredibly salty.  We were very underwhelmed.  My dinner group usually stays with local places but we have ventured to chains a time or two... and this time was definitely a mistake.

collinf


P.F. Chang's is overpriced hype.  Keep the fancy restaurant and give me better Chinese food.  I get better food from local take-outs than going to a sit-down at that place.

Indubitably!

When they first opened they were darn good I thought, have gone to the dogs since!

Wish I had talked to all you roadfooders before we made the big mistake!

Yeah...who would have thought you would have come to this forum and been advised to eat somewhere OTHER than a national chain?

chewingthefat


When they first opened they were darn good I thought, have gone to the dogs since!

That is a most familiar refrain.

A good rule of thumb is to remember that none of these big corporate box  chains serve anything authentic!   Thye are all overpriced for what you get and are there for the people that feel most comfortable with crowds of people  waiting for a table.  This helps them feel like they know the "right" and the "in" places to dine!

Dont have one near here.

I love the Chengdu Spiced Lamb at PF Changs. The garlic noodles make a nice appetizer also.

The lamb dish is what my wife had..and it had NO real flavor...my garlic noodles also were devoid of any flavor.

The garlic noodles do have a mild garlic flavor... but I add chile oil to mine to kick them up a couple notches. The Chengdo Spiced Lamb is flavored with cumino and mint. If you don't like that combination with lamb well... you just don't... but I always get a generous portion of lamb that is very succulent and tender. Heck I can't even buy the lamb for that price. Maybe a good Jersey Dog would hit the spot.

I went once, before I discovered that it was a corporate national chain.

Bad service, mostly bad food, too noisy.  It's been a few years, but I still remember the burnt flavor of the hot and sour soup.  There are too many independent east-asian-fusion places around here for me to bother with P.F. Chang's again.

Thanks for the warning --- we were considering going but the mention of the too much salt and lack of flavor and the prices put me off immediately. 

Most of the Chinese retaurants around here are either a salt fest or a sugar fest.

I ate there once with my sister and her friend David, at the one in the Alamo Quarry Marketplace in San Antonio.It wasn't bad, but they do get long lines, and I kind of prefer going to the local chinese places around here, like Shanghi and Dragon Lake in Universal City or Kowloon's and Aw Dang's in Schertz.
Haven't tried the newly remodeled China Moon in Universal City yet.

Most of these places have decent lunch prices, and I haven't noticed the food being too salty lately.

I haven't been to PF Changs in about 4 years, but thought it was pretty good back then.  Has it gone downhill?

It's been a few years, but I've eaten at P.F. Chang's restaurants in Denver and Knoxville, on both occasions when I was traveling. 
 
In Denver, we were tired, it was walking distance from our hotel, and we could get take-out. 
 
In Knoxville, I was going to a group dinner.  The location wasn't my choice.
 
I found the place crowded and loud.
 
I found the food to be edible, but it was also formulaic. 
 
The steamed rice was good.  
 
That said, I'd never go there if there was a locally-owned Chinese alternative (NOT a buffet).