Kat's 9 Lives

Before I left for SF, I met up with TP for lunch in Irvine Spectrum. TP is in the center picture right in front of the door. I have never eaten at PF Chang's because it's food that I can easily make at home. The prices here are much higher than what you'd see at normal Chinese restaurants. I refuse to pay more for a lower quality meal. If it wasn't for TP, I wouldn't have ever stepped into a PF Changs. It's your typical Americanized mediocre Chinese food chain. To me, it's almost on the same level as Panda Express. I think I'd rather have Panda Express because it's cheaper and tastes about the same.
The place was packed that afternoon. We decided to order their Traditional Lunch Bowls that was actually on a plate and not in a bowl. They come with either Hot & Sour or Egg Drop Soup. The flavor was decent and not too heavy. TP decided to order the Almond & Cashew Chicken. It was decent, but nothing special. The only thing I really liked about this dish was that they used chicken breast versus dark meat. Even though I love white meat more, dark meat does make certain dishes better since it's a fattier meat and retains moisture. I think this dish goes better with brown rice than white rice.
I decided to get the Crispy Honey Chicken and the Citrus Soy Salmon. White rice goes better with the honey chicken and compliments the flavor, whereas the salmon went better with the brown rice. I liked the crispy honey chicken because it was fried and sweet. It's nothing special but you can never go wrong with yummy fried food glazed with honey. The salmon was horrible! It was way overcooked so it was extremely dry and tough! I can NOT believe they served me such a poorly prepared salmon. The sauce that it came with was extremely salty and disgusting. I really should have sent the dish back and talked to the manager, but instead I chalked it up to I will never be back.
All in all the food was nothing special and the salmon was just horrendous. The service was friendly, although they did take some time to get us our soup and then the food came out immediately. I am a big stickler about servers that don't time it better. Even though I wouldn't be caught dead in this place, I know a lot of people enjoy PF Chang's and all I have to say to you is... You need to branch out and go to REAL Chinese restaurants where the chef's are ACTUALLY Asian. If you want to know where there's good Chinese food just search through my website. ^_~