A Two-Strike Start, but Panda Inn’s a Hit

When I think about having Chinese food for brunch, I am pretty much programmed to think of dim sum. And when it comes to brunch in general, I will go to fairly extravagant lengths to avoid anything in the way of a buffet line. I just don’t like buffets.

So when an acquaintance strongly recommended brunch at Panda Inn in La Palma, I was more than skeptical. It isn’t dim sum, and it is a buffet. Two strikes, right?

Actually, there was even a third. Panda Inn is a chain--a phenomenally successful one, with six locations just in Southern California and dozens more across the country. It has a good reputation, as chains go, but chains are another of my prejudices. But I went and was pleasantly surprised by the Panda in La Palma (the only one in Orange County). It provided quite good value for the money, and the food is of consistently good quality.

One thing that makes Panda Inn a nice place for brunch is its airy, low-key atmosphere. The booths are spacious and comfortable, the noise level is low, and service is efficient and friendly. At $16.95 for the all-you-can-eat buffet, it isn’t the cheapest around, but it’s worth the money. Soup, along with champagne or your choice of nonalcoholic beverage, is included in the package.

The food selection is impressively varied. Even better, the staff frequently replenishes the steam tables, so the dishes are always reasonably fresh. Chinese food may be best served straight out of the wok, but this vigilance lets Panda Inn show off its wares to good effect.

Panda Inn’s style is that combination of dishes from many Chinese traditions we call Mandarin. In other words, if you’ve eaten much Chinese food, you’ll be in familiar territory. There’s bound to be something to please almost any palate.

Early in the buffet line comes a basic, but tasty, shrimp cocktail; the shrimp are large, plump and flavorful. Then you move on to some well-rendered basics, such as delightfully crunchy eggrolls and fried wontons, the latter with a succulent filling of spiced pork.

From there, the buffet continues on course. The tea-smoked duck, cooked over oolong leaves, is tender. Much of the fat has been rendered out of the skin, which has a pleasant, chewy texture. The meat has an appealing, earthy flavor and combines well with drizzled hoisin sauce and when wrapped in a rice pancake. Moo shu pork is served in the same fashion. It’s a fairly standard rendition, but it stands up to scrutiny.

The minced chicken, marinated in soy sauce and flecked with green onions and garlic, is wrapped in sheaths of iceberg lettuce. There are also some fine pot stickers, also endowed with an aromatic pork filling, that are steamed then lightly wok-seared.

Moving down the line, you find a number of highlights, including shrimp lightly glazed in honey and tossed with walnuts, simple but worthy salt-and-pepper pork chops and some gigantic jumbo scallops glazed in an orange sauce flecked with just enough red pepper to cut the sweetness. I also particularly like the drunken chicken, which shares space with fresh asparagus tips that give the chicken a pleasant, grassy flavor.

Panda Inn has recently launched a “seasonal menu,” which stands apart from its sprawling roster of Mandarin standards. Some are pretty good, but others work better in theory than in execution, and a few just fall short of the mark, as I discovered on a separate visit to the restaurant.

The chicken asparagus batonne appetizer, a savory chicken croquette wrapped around a crisp asparagus spear, gets the job done. But the other appetizer, shrimp wrapped in banana leaves, is unremarkable. The minced shrimp is spiked with cilantro, green onions and red peppers, but the mixture is too dense and not very flavorful.

The entrees on the seasonal menu have about the same batting average. I liked the orange roughy in ginger sauce. It’s garnished with wisps of pungent deep-fried ginger, and the delicate tempura batter gives it an enjoyably crisp texture.

But skip the tea-smoked tofu, braised in what’s billed as a traditional tea sauce. The tofu has nice flan-like texture, but the sauce tastes as if it were overdosed with liquid smoke. It’s a one-note dish, and the note is decidedly off-pitch, although the accompanying vegetables--long Chinese green beans and yellow squash--are excellent.

Crabmeat with Chinese okra is another selection that really doesn’t cut it. The chunks of crab have such a strange, slimy texture that if I hadn’t seen the menu, I don’t think I’d identify it as crab. Okra is always tricky to work with, and here its large slices somehow manage either to impart or absorb all of the worst flavors of the crab and enoki mushrooms.

The duck with plum sauce is considerably better. Like its tea-smoked counterpart, the duck is meaty and moist, and the plum sauce, though a bit heavy, allows its flavor to come through.

But the items I’ve ordered from the regular menu were all good and considerably outshone the menu’s newer gambits. Panda Inn is definitely best when it sticks to the basics.

Brunch is $16.95. At dinner, appetizers are $3.95 to $7.95, entrees $7.95 to $16.95.

* Panda Inn, 2 Centerpointe Drive, La Palma. (714) 522-3328. Lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m Monday through Friday; dinner 3 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 to 10:30 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. -10:30 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday; brunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.