Panda Garden

Panda garden is awesome! The chicken balls w/​red sauce are absolutely on point. They have decent sushi too. The wonton soup is good, as are the green beans. SO SO Many options here it was overwhelming! I stuffed myself silly at the panda garden with my boo this weekend haha.

I’ve tried this place on 3 separate occasions over the last few years, it’s garbage! the third time we even waited 15 minutes for «fresh food» to be brought out for the lunch buffet, everything taste the same, bland flavors, and almost everything with meat had grizzle pieces and chewy’s. I find it shocking some people say they love it, they obviously have not had good quality food or Chinese food for that matter; to think this is «delicious». I will NEVER go back again, sure its cheaper than most places, but you get what you pay for! Spend the extra $ 7 – 10.00 at another Chinese buffet and eat somewhere good!

I am visiting the Ottawa area so not familiar with most of the eating establishments. Spent the evening at the new Tanger outlet mall then wanted to get something to eat outside of the foodcourt. Drove around and realized it was getting late and saw Panda Garden. The place is the typical low budget asian buffet. You walk into the place and receive the typical greeting from the few asian female servers. They give you this look like a wet mop and hustle you to your table. They first put me into this table squeezed right in the middle of a busy area but the place is huge and I see a lot of open booths along the window line and ask if I can sit there. The server reluctantly says ok then rattles a statement in mandarin to the other server. Felt like I was in that moment of Seinfeld when the folks were talking behind Elaine’s back about her.
They have a little bit of everything and the quality is as good as can be expected. Most of the items appeared to be dried from sitting the the warming pans too long. Service is the typical chinese servers running around and talking to each other in mandarin. Carpets in the dining area is really dirty and the area around the buffet was oily, slippery and as people spill the food, the staff does not bother to clean and mop the area down. Just a slip hazard waiting to find the right victims.
The price of an adult buffet with a soft drink was about $ 21 CAD. This passes if you just want something fast and inexpensive.

Pretty decent Chinese buffet. Most Chinese buffets in Ottawa are horrible. This one is at least decent. Smallish selection of foods (I am used to bigger ones in Toronto), but what is there is decent.
Last weekend I went with the wife and kids. The kids ate their fill of sushi, sashimi, french fries, onion rings, and chicken skewers. I ate mostly meat dishes, and the wife had lots of seafood.
The biggest draw back was the desserts, the mille feuille was dried up garbage, one of the other similar cream squares was also dried up flavourless garbage. The custard tart looked restaurant baked and was good (for a custard tart). Most of the other desserts were not that great either. Lot’s of ice cream selections though.
Overall decent buffet, need to work on their desserts, especially if they are going to charge 18.99 for adults.

I went here for the lunch buffet with my parents on a Wednesday ($ 11.99 for weekday lunch). The place was not overly crowded but there were many more people than I would expect there for lunch on a Wednesday in Kanata! The food was pretty good and so was the service.
This is a serve yourself buffet, not one of those places were it’s all you can eat, but you have to order from a menu. The buffet is fairly large and there’s a good selection of food. They have Dim Sum, and their Shrimp Har Gow and Shrimp and Pork Siu Mai were excellent! Full of shrimp with minimal filler. I loved the Thai Mango Chicken. The batter was crispy and the mango sauce was sweet and sticky! Their Stir-​fried Shrimp was also great — lots of shrimp (and nice tasting shrimp, not the weird smelly shrimp you get at some restaurants — like the now defunct Golden Century Buffet!). The chicken skewers looked dry, but they tasted delicious, so don’t be afraid to try them. I don’t know what they put in the marinade, but it was awesome. It’s mostly North American-​style Chinese food here, but they do have some sushi (I didn’t have any so can’t comment on it) and they have some North American food like french fries and onion rings. Main courses, dim sum and soups were very good. Desserts were a bit of a disappointment though. The eclairs were dry and the filling tasted like it was mostly artificial oil product, same goes for the Mille Feuille and the Napoleon Cake. Traditional cakes (chocolate cake, strawberry cake, etc.) were moist, but nothing special. Ice creams were ok, but some were really hard and others half melted. Next time I will eat more dim sum and main course items and skip dessert altogether.
Service is good. Staff clear your dirty plates quickly and they refill your water unprompted. When they saw that we were done dessert, they brought us our bill without us having to ask for it.
This buffet is about a dollar cheaper than all other Chinese Buffets I know of in Ottawa, and the taste is about the same or better (of the ones I’ve been to, of course). It’s in a strip mall in Kanata (the same strip mall as the Shopper’s Drug Mart). There’s lots of free parking.

Food is what you would expect at a Chinese buffet, but they do have a large selection of items. The cuts of meat are so so, but that is what you get at most buffets. They have a grill at the back where they have fresh grilled chicken and beef skewers. Sometimes they have sushi pieces as well (mainly vegetarian or California rolls).

absolutely wonderful great food lots to choose from well priced buffet and a beer $ 23. will be returning

By far the best Chinese buffet I have had in Ottawa. Selection is not massive but that allows them to really do it well. They have a grill as well and a small sushi station. The only complaint I have is they skimp on napkins for some reason. You practically have to beg to get extras.

I would have given this place a 3 star rating, if the food wasn’t so darn good! The food gets an extra star because it is fresh, full of flavour, and there are great options. Definately one of the best Chinese buffets in Ottawa!
The only giant pet peeve that turns me off from some Chinese buffets/​restaurants such as this one, is when the server brings your bill out and places it on your table when you haven’t even finished, nor asked for it. It is a very rude gesture which translates into a subtle «leave please». The waiters have done this a couple of times, but not every time I have been there.
Another pet peeve is when the water is not filled, or takes a while to bring my water. The salt overload on the food makes one very thirsty at a buffet! Hehe.
Overall, a great buffet for a nice lunch price of around $ 11.99, and an average evening price of $ 16.99

After trying a few Chinese restaurants in our neighborhood and being thoroughly disappointed, we decided we would give the Panda Garden a try. My experience in the past with Chinese buffets has been pretty much «meh».
I was pleasantly surprised with this restaurant. Good selection and quality items considering it is a buffet. They also serve sushi and dim sum. The only ho-​hum food are the desserts which are your basic buffet fare, but they do have hot doughnut holes (a.k.a. generic timbits) that I like.
Lots of shrimp and a few other types of seafood.
We’ve been for lunch several times and have never been disappointed. We haven’t tried supper yet, which is supposed to have a few higher end food items with a subsequent increase in cost.
Definitely recommended.

Our kitchen is under construction, so, we decided to try the Panda Garden. In a word, DON’T.
One good aspect, you will be unlikely to encounter anything undercooked.
Everything tastes of the same stale oil. Not recommended. Not by a long shot. Save some money, go to MacDonald’s. You will enjoy it more.

Yum yum, chinese buffet! Delicious food, very well prepared, huge selection. Not just chinese food, all sorts! serve your self, set price (boyfriend paid, cant remember the actual price, maybe 21 $) Dessert was great!
Service was pretty quick, we were there at a busy time. Everyone started leaving as we were eating, but quite a fair few people remained…
The only thing that really got me was the cleanliness… tables had been mostly cleared off, but there was quite the mess on the floor around a few tables…

Great value for money. We go here regularly, particularly for extended family and large group outings, and it’s always busy between 5 – 6 but clears quite quickly. Wide variety of asian dishes so able to please a range of palates. Like most buffets not gourmet quality but made up for by the variety, how quickly the dishes are replenished, and how fresh and hot the food is.

Panda Garden does serve some quality Chinese buffet, but I don’t think they’re anything special.
We went on a Friday night, where plates are $ 18 a person for the premium foods you don’t get during lunch buffets on weekdays. They did have some fresh crab legs out (with no shell crackers…) and the variety of items was good (honey chicken, bourbon chicken, teriyaki beef, a few different kinds of pork, etc). But that’s exactly what I expect when I’m paying extra for a Friday night dinner buffet.
The pop glasses are tiny, and although they’re only $ 1.75 with free refills, it must have been annoying for the server to come refill our glasses every 5 minutes.
The décor is nice, as you can see from photos posted by others. It’s bright green, and the tables/​benches are comfortable.
In all, this was a satisfactory experience considering the price and long drive out to Kanata.

I am so surprised about the bad reviews because my family and I had a wonderful experience at the Panda Garden. We were blown away by the great and friendly service and HUGE SELECTION of delicious buffet items! They had everything from grilled cheese to oysters! There were so many different kinds of cuisine to choose from. It was really busy when we were there so I’m sure outside of Unilocal this place has a great reputation. I wish we had places like this in BC! I recommend this place to anyone visiting the Ottawa area, it’s a bit of a drive being in Kanata but it is well worth it. My dad and I both said this buffet alone was worth the trip to Ottawa.

I’m not sure why Panda Garden gets such bad reviews, because honestly it’s definitely one of the better Chinese buffet restaurants in the city! The spring rolls in particular taste crunchy and fresh and the rest of the food is great as well. The environment is clean and comfortable and pretty nice.
It gets really busy at noon, so you may want to come a bit early.

The food was terrible! I got takeout from here on July 14^th, and it was disgusting… but cheap.
I ordered the Orange Beef, 6 egg rolls, chicken skewers and steamed rice. The beef had no flavor to it, and a little spice. The meat was very chewy. The chicken skewers weren’t fully cooked, so those got tossed out. The first bite, no flavor and pink. And the egg rolls were the worst thing, yes worse than the uncooked chicken. They were half filled, an the first bite all you can taste was the flavor of tea (times 100)! The most bizarre tasting egg rolls I’ve ever had. Threw those away too. And this is the first Chinese restaurant to give me ketchup with my meal.
The best part was the fortune cookies, and even then, I’ve had better.
I will say, the food is cheap though, my meal cost $ 21. Then again, I threw away most of it.

Pretty average buffet food… cheaper than other Chinese restaurants in the area, but you might have to lower your expectations a bit. Quite a large selection of buffet items and some I think are really good, like the General Tso, Shanghai noodles, honey chicken, etc. There are also others that are kind of bland or yuk. There is a selection of fruit and salad items, in addition to the desert items. They have some sushi, but never tried it… as I am not a big fan. The kids like the ice cream option and my son likes the free drink refills. Whether or not the food is fresh is really hit or miss… I tend to jump on items they bring out one by one, so that it is nice and fresh… but it doesn’t always work out. The staff is friendly enough, but not very engaging or attentive. It takes some prompting to get a refill most times. English is definitely their second language.