So maybe I exaggerate the size of my glass of Hunan Frost Haterade, but let?s be realistic here. The food at PF Chang?s is clearly intended for the Paul Flemings of the world rather than the Changs. It is food that is made ?Chinese? with sodium-saturated, sugar-laden food drowning in clear, gelatinous, cornstarch-thickened sauces that would have Dr. Atkins turning over in his grave. There?s nothing wrong with that generic brand of ?Chinese? food, as Panda Express serves the same thing, and it would not be totally out of character for me to pick up a small takeout box of their stirfried vegetable oil with eggplant from their kiosk when I?m at Pavilions, but that?s Panda Express. It?s supposed to be scary. PF Chang?s food is the same scary thing, but it costs a lot more because they serve it on china and you have to leave a tip. PF Chang?s is Panda Express in an H&M wrapdress, Michael Kors knock-offs, and a drugstore version of the Juicy Tube. A little more dressed up, but still a cheap whore.
The food is not miserable, for it most certainly is edible ? that is, edible if you haven?t consumed anything but tap water in the last eleven days and you don?t mind the after-effects of sodium overdose that are inevitable even after eating something as innocuous as pert little three-pointed vegetable dumplings that almost look as authentic as Westside dimsum in a stainless steel steamer, except that they were garnished with Christmas ornaments.
Every fluid-producing gland in your body will be sucked so dry that your contact lenses will permanently adhere to the insides of your eyelids as if you slept in the them for three night in a row. You want to think that the broth of a very bland wonton soup is hydrating, but it will only cause your face to balloon to volumes that will make Giada look *whoa* proportionate (?!). Your lower GI tract will re-absorb every last molecule of aych-two-oh distending your gut to a third world belly. That silky soft tofu in what appears to be mapo tofu but is actually some strange concoction of the mad scientist back in the ?kitchen? will constipate you harder than sandpaper-wrapped bricks through a drinking straw, and yet, alternating with fire-rrhea from prescription dosages of hot sauce you were forced to use to numb the pain of blandness. Fluid retention in your muscles and joints will transform your once slender, lithe blogging fingers into tiny tugid balloons that are so stiff that you can?t type anything but asdf all at once until four days later.
Why? Why must you hide your Panda Express behind a very heavy veil of NaCl?? Why, PF, why?!?!
If you think the sodium bloat is bad, let?s not even talk about the accompanying cheap hangover from choking down every bite of with two gulps of some appropriately Asian themed mango-rin lychee martini.
Really, though, I have to hand it to PF for accomplishing what I have to assume was the goal ? making Chinese food accessible to tourists who visit ?big cities? like LA, spend the day at 3rd Street Promenade shopping at Gap and Banana Republic, and then eschew Houston?s for a more ?ethnic LA? experince?at PF Chang?s.
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