P.F. Chang's China Bistro

I know it's not cool to say such things about a chain restaurant, but P.F. Chang's used to be my favorite place for Chinese food. But over the years either my palate has gotten more sophisticated (doubtful) or their food has gotten worse (more likely), which in combination with ridiculously long waits and particularly poor service caused me to lower Chang's in my estimation. And the last time I went there, it was just a terrible experience.

My favorite dish in all of Chinese cuisine is Peking Duck, which is incredibly hard to find and when you do it's incredibly expensive. But all across the country, the Cantonese Duck at P.F. Chang's is a very good approximation. It's nowhere near as succulent or delicious as you'd find in an authentic Chinese restaurant, but it's good enough, with the same doughy pancakes, scallions, chopped cucumbers, and tangy hoisin sauce, and only 12 bucks. But on my last visit, the duck was gone -- completely stricken from the menu both in Edina and everywhere else. This was a few months ago and their online menu now has something called V.I.P, Duck, which very well may be the same thing, but the only description provided is, "Splurge a little... this dish will make you feel like royalty." And it's 20 bucks. No thanks.

Not being able to get the duck had been the second upset of the night, after the buzzer they gave us was broken. After waiting close to an hour for a table, we noticed people who had come after us being buzzed for a table. I finally went up to check on where we were, and they said they had buzzed us a while ago. I assured them we han't been, and when they took the buzzer back, they noticed it wasn't working. They didn't apologize, just gave us another one and said we were moved to the top of the list. Having to wait a while longer for a table just to learn we couldn't get the duck was a shame, but not the end of the world since the rest of their food is quite good, if a bit overpriced all things considered. The duck was one of the few dishes that you couldn't find at any other Chinese restaurant, so it made it worth the trip and worth the money. Having to wait an hour for a table just so you can pay $12 for an order of beef with broccoli doesn't really make sense. But my girlfriend and I had already say down so we went ahead and ordered two different entrees with white rice.

It also wasn't the end of the world when the server brought our meals with brown rice instead of white rice, but the fact that she dropped it all off so quickly and then turned and walked away with asking if we needed anything else didn't help much. We tried to flag her down, but she never came over. Finally, after maybe ten minutes, a man walking around in a suit saw me trying to flag down a server -- any server at that point. We told him we had ordered white rice and not brown, and he apologized and said he would be right back. After a few more minutes, our waitress finally came back to check in, and we told her about the rice mix up, but that we had told some guy about it and that he would come back.

"You told one of those guys?" she asked, gesturing toward an hispanic busboy clearing the next table. "I don't think they speak English. Don't ask them for anything."

I tried my best to ignore the somewhat racist implications in her statement and lether know that we had asked an older gentleman in a suit. She seemed upset by this because he was clearly one of the restaurant's managers. She told us that he probably wouldn't be able to get more white rice because it was still cooking and would be awhile. Then she just walked away. The manager came back while later and said that the white rice was indeed cooking and that it would be a few more minutes, and then offered to take our food away and bring it back when the rice was done. By that point we had been in the restaurant over and hour and just wanted to eat our food, so we said it was fine.

The white rice finally came as we were finishing up the last few bits of our food, and the manager gaves us something like %15 off of our appetizer. How nice. Oh, and while all of this was happening, we watched another table attempting to flag down a server to bring their check for about a half an hour. So at least it wasn't just our bad luck. It got spread around a little that night.

So we haven't been back, nor do we intend to anytime soon. The service that night had been exceptionally poor, but even at their best it's never been very good. It's just an overcrowded, overpriced, overhyped chain Chinese restaurant that used to have one dish I liked but now they don't. But check it out if you're into that sort of thing.

2 out of 5