Pi’s Asian Express

While searching Unilocal for places to try in a new area we found this place. The menu allows for many different choice; from Thai, Korean and Chinese to name a few. The food is good while the spice/​heat is missing from the designated dishes that should be hot. The dining area was clean and from what areas I saw of the kitchen it was also very clean. Out of 3 meals, 2 apps and 2 soups we only had an issue with one entrees. When we advised our server there was a hair in the meal she quickly removed the dish and went straight back to the kitchen. She returned very quickly to apologize and had removed our dish from the bill without any prompting or having to press the issue as in most places you must push to have something removed. We will be back to give this place a second chance because there were more positive things than negative.

A bit disappointed. Haven’t been here in a year or more, but remember it as quaint, with good food. I ordered Thai pad noodles with shrimp.
Dining room floor was disgustingly dirty. Server was friendly and polite but please don’t stand behind the cash register eating your dinner while I am sitting there waiting for mine.
Thai dish, although marked as «spicy» selection on the menu was bland. I mean really bland. It was a plate full of noodles, about a dozen small shrimp (the kind you get bagged in the frozen section at the supermarket), with a few peanuts (4, maybe) and some over-​cooked scrambled eggs (at least my best description of that last ingredient). If this is representative of Thai cuisine then i have no interest in further tasting.
Although my preconception of Pi’s was as a step above your typical Chinese take-​out, I would say that is the best comparison I can make.
Still can’t get the floor off my mind. 5-​second rule would not apply here.

Our favorite place to eat in all of the tricities! The atmosphere is not fancy at all but is super clean, excellent service, and great prices! They are always busy so be prepared to wait a few, but they turn tables over quickly! We love the shrimp fried rice and yum yum sauce! Also love the lettuce wraps! Hot and sour soup is soooo good!!!

What this place has in visual aesthetics it lacks heavily in authenticity. The restaurant itself is clean and the food is presented very well. In general, the food tastes about average — nothing really amazing. As the description suggest, it aims to quench the craving for East Asian cuisine; however, that’s all it will really do.
The phở was very bland and does not look/​taste like phở found at any given vietnamese restaurant (not a good thing). The hibachi grilled items were okay, but the point of hibachi/​teppanyaki is to get a show out of it as they cook in front of you. The chicken skewers were alright, but the siu mai was nothing like what I’ve had in my life (in a bad way). Additionally, they have the siu mai/​shu mai listed as a japanese appetizer, which is fairly insulting. Siu mai is a Cantonese Chinese dish that is meant to be part of a Dim Sum meal, in which case it is more than just an appetizer. It’s embarrassing to see blatant misinformation being spread right on their menu.
All in all, the food isn’t bad, but at the same time it isn’t great. There are better, more authentic options now within a 20 minute drive (Mount Pleasant). I would only suggest to people that are desperate for East Asian food. I’m honestly quite annoyed with the siu mai. If you’re going to serve foreign foods and want to explain their origins in the menu, at least do your research. If you’re picky like me and care for authenticity in culinary culture and tastes, take a pass on this restaurant and look for better options. I can only appreciate the fact that they tried.

*First of all this review is not about the food, the food is generally excellent, but about an experience I had recently.
I went to Pi’s Asian Express and the lady there was on the phone at the desk taking an order, she looked like she might be the owner. I went to the counter right in front of her and waited for her to finish. After I came in and was waiting to speak to her, another gentleman came in, a Caucasian man, and stood to the side of the counter. In my head I thought, «I bet she will talk to him first when she gets off the phone». Sure enough, she turned to him and asked him how she could help him and to his credit he immediately told her that I was there first. She then turned to me and I politely or not so politely reminded her that yes, I was there first.
If I had been the one off to the side I would have given her the benefit of the doubt, but come on, how do you have someone standing directly in front of you, looking you in the eye and make that mistake? I will generally brush things off and give people the benefit of the doubt but when something is as obvious as this I feel I have no choice but to call the person out. To her credit she was very nice and pleasant after she realized what she had done and it was probably her subconscious acting out, but it should never happen. The point of this review is to make sure nothing like this ever happens again to anyone, it is insulting.

One if my favorite places — I have been going here for years! Princess chicken is my favorite dish here. I have tried many things and am never disappointed! I have had okay service in the past, but I will always go back for he great food. Dining in is fine usually too. Not a big restaurant, usually gets pretty busy for lunch. Highly recommend this place!

Good food. Sushi is expensive. Other options are good and more reasonably priced. Chinese and Japanese options are the best. Crab Rangoon is amazing.

This is possibly the weirdest Asian restaurant I’ve ever been to. As an Asian person coming from a metropolitan area with a large Asian population (SF), I don’t have any illusions about the quality of ethnic cuisine in the Midland area. This place is unique in its food selection. The menu basically covers the greatest hits of numerous southeast/​south Asian countries instead of focusing on one region. We got pad thai and bugolgi during our first visit. The quality of food is nothing to write home about but the flavor is within the range of expectations. It’s a bit pricey, but probably a decent place to go if you have specific cravings.

Great place for a good, quick Asian meal. What I like best is the variety: Korean, Thai, Chinese. The food is flavorful and a authentic. A little pricy. $ 10 for a large bowel of Thai noodle soup. My experience is that the quality can vary from day to day. The service is friendly and efficient. Décor is comfortable. Lots of nice large windows to let the sun in.

Okay food, poor service.
I ordered the Laap (Thai Chicken Lettuce Wrap), which is a fairly simple dish to prepare, and waited until the rest of my table was nearly finished eating before I finally got served. The excuse I got from the manager was that «the grill was crowded», which was odd since the restaurant wasn’t even full. After I said I wouldn’t be back, we never saw our waitress or the manager again.
Pi’s owns three restaurants in Midland, and this is now the second I’ve said I’ll never go back to because of poor service (Genji is the other).

This place could’ve been really good, except that it wasn’t. Let’s start with the service. It was really good. I didn’t have to constantly ask for a refill on my drink, she saw it was almost empty and she’d bring me a fresh one. Kudos for attentiveness. She was pleasant all around.
Now for the food. The crab cheese was a bit small, but tasty. The vegetable dumplings were good, not great, but good. My wife’s hibachi steak was while and that’s about it. The yum yum sauce was, interesting. I ordered the princess chicken. It was absolute garbage. First, if didn’t come out hot. It was luke warm. Strike one. It was very low on flavor and most definitely not spicy as advertised. Strike two. The fried rice was also garbage. It was old! I took a bite expecting soft rice and was unpleasantly surprised by crunchy, dried out rice that had obviously been sitting for a while. You want to eat that crap at home? Fine, more power to you. But there’s no way I’m paying for it.
The hot sour soup? Yeah, it was a bowl of vinegar with tofu and egg. Garbage.
The only, and I mean only redeeming quality I experience was the service. Like I said, she was attentive, and concerned that my food was not of a higher quality. That people flock to this restaurant and speak highly of it baffles me. I can say I will never figure out why they do because there’s no chance I will pay to eat there again.

Should be rated higher on here than it is. This place always has a really long wait for a table because they’re popular and don’t have a lot of tables. From the outside it looks like it would be a fast food kind of place, but it isn’t. Service is almost always good and they have a wide variety of menu options from various Asian cuisines, but I really wish they had a Szechwan chicken dish! Prices are very fair, and the food tastes much fresher than the competing China Palace across town (it’s a lot cleaner here, too.)

For a town the size of Midland, there are a surprising number of Asian restaurants and though a lot of them are owned by the same people, I quickly figured out which restaurants to go to depending on what I was craving.
If you want Mongolian Beef, go to China Palace. BUT if you want Bibimbap or Bulgogi, you MUST go to Pi’s Asian express. Don’t get the Bibimbap to go… I don’t even know if you can. It’s this dish that comes with rice, beef, carrots, some other vegetables, and an egg on top. The fun of it is that it kind of cooks in front of you in a lava rock bowl (or at least that’s what I think that bowl is made of). You mix it all together and it’s kind of like fried rice… but more delicious.
The bulgogi is another beef dish… Korean I think… and just has a great flavor and a dish I preferred over many of the others that were offered.
There crab rangoons here are also quite delicious and was usually a must order if we were sitting in.
I lived in Midland for 3 years and consider myself a connoisseur of Asian-​American food so if I were you, I would take my word on this one.

Passing through town, this place was pretty good. I had the steamed shrimp dumplings & the Phở soup (menu calls it Thai noodle soup). They were both flavorful & tastey. Though I did not try any of the more traditional Chinese food, if I find myself in Midland again I would eat here again. Service was ok. Although the title says express, I was happy to find out it was not a buffet but just a shorter menu that made it express.

This is our Asian restaurant of choice when we visit Midland… we just like Pi’s Express better than the larger Pi’s Restaurant. (Pi’s Express, as might be expected from its name, has a shorter menu, and no buffet.) We’ve tried items from all the Asian cuisines represented here; our favorite things are the fresh rolls, the dumplings, the phở (I think it’s called «Thai noodle soup» on the menu) — my favorite cold-​weather menu item — and the bulgogi. I’m also a fan of the panang curry. The lettuce wraps are also very good most of the time, but occasionally the chicken is a bit on the dry side. (I like the Thai wraps; partner like’s the Pi’s wraps.) We are less impressed with the Japanese food; the sushi is indistinguishable from that at Meijer’s down the street, and the tempura is «meh» — heavy on the hard root vegetables, in our experience, and not enjoyable eating other than the shrimp. The Chinese dishes are pretty good.
While this is, I think, intended to be a business-​lunchtime/​carryout move-​em-​in, move-​em-​out alternative to the larger Pi’s, the atmoshere is actually quite nice inside, and if you don’t mind the busy-​ness around you, you can spend some quality time with family or friends here.(Warning: It does get very crowded at times.)
Our experience of the service here is that it’s either very good or very bad… on our last visit our waitperson was very attentive and professional, but there have been times when we’ve been waited on by pretty unskilled/​sullen teenagers who weren’t interested in customer service, or waitstaff I can only describe as hillbillies — not the kind of waitpeople you’d expect here, even if it is an «express» restaurant.
We give Pi’s Express a qualified two thumbs up. We think it’s the best Asian alternative in town.

I was surprised to find an Asian Fusion restaurant in Midland. Not that there’s anything wrong with Midland, but most smaller towns just stick to the basics.
My sister and I were on our way back to Ann Arbor when we were hungry and decided to make a pit stop.
Pi’s is located very close off the highway so it’s a nice alternative from fast food. They have Chinese, Japanese, Thai and Korean choices on their menu.
We started with the Chicken Satay and Crab Rangoon. The crab was really good but the satay wasn’t. The chicken was overdone and the sauce wasn’t knock my socks off good.
I ordered shrimp pad thai and I’ll admit, that was really good. Sometimes I get pad thai that doesn’t have enough sauce, or the noodles are over done and mushy.
All in all, it was ok. Definitely better then drive thru, but not the best I’ve ever had.

When I lived in Michigan, I really appreciated that Pi’s offered vegetarian options. However, the wait time is ridiculously long, even for takeout. Prices are decent/​reasonable for the service and orders are usually accurate (but not always). Worth trying, but don’t have high expectations.

I LOVE Asian Express! I miss the good asian food of Midland more than anything and everytime I’m back I stop in here! For those who are all in the mood for something different, Asian Express is the perfect stop for take out or dining in. I always order Hibachi Steak and Chicken with Spring Rolls or Crabmeat and Cheese for an appetizer. SO GOOD! It’s a cheap alternative to Genji’s for the japanese food, and for chinese it’s about the same as Pi’s (without the buffet.) I can’t recall a time I’ve really had terrible service. I’ve always had pretty average service. Nothing memorable, but then again if that was a concerning factor I would just order out!

Stopped in for a quick meal before going to a meeting. The service was quick and the food I thought was a fair value. I have been a fan of the full Pi’s menu and the Sesame Chicken, Hot Sour soup, and crab meat/​cheese was great. The wait staff seemed a little chatty with between themselves, but it didn’t seem to hinder the service. I was in and out within ½ hour. Great place to go when you want a good meal and have limited time.

Went back for dinner and was not impressed. I ordered the hibachi chicken and shrimp combo — my chicken resembled and tasted like the tongue of an old Army boot, and I am still afraid that the shrimp is going to give me iodine poisoning… the rice was clumpy in a bad way and I could not deal with the teenage waitress ‘tude, UGH.
Just skip the Express and head over to the Chinese restaurant or the hibachi at Genji.