Panda Inn, Horton Plaza

Last month was my mother in law's 75th birthday. Bert and his sibs invited a few of her close friends plus the extended family to lunch at Panda Inn located at the top of Horton Plaza.

The menu was handpicked by Bert and his bros/sis to appeal to the elderly Filipino crowd. You know, nothing too extreme because they're not known to be very adventurous eaters. Then again, this is Panda Inn where they serve Americanized Chinese food so it's not much of a stretch. It's not like they serve outrageously wierd stuff here. You can go to Convoy for that!

This was the Egg drop soup which kind of looked mucousy to me. I'm not much of an egg fan.

We also had Rangoons - I've never seen them in this shape before. They stuffed the fk out of these bad bitches with cream cheese. The downside - very little fake Krab flavor though.

Here is my lonely rangoon topped with sweet and sour sauce...

This Raspberry Lemonade was super sweet -  not in a good way. Also, I must apologize for my lack of knowledge in figuring out how to make my photos look good. It was dark in the restaurant. Plus, I was literally stuck in a dark corner corner of the room, which I didn't really like, but I had no choice. There were three tables of ten and that was the last seat left.

I belive this was the Orange Chicken...it actually had some vegetables in there (I spy baby corn):

This was supposed to be "brown" rice, but it looked like white rice with soy sauce cooked into it. There was also steamed rice but it wasn't worth it to take a photo of that. Ha ha. Oh yeah, we had fun twirling that lazy Susan.

It was a bit uncomfortable for me taking photos with a table full of relatives who didn't know about my obsessive predeliction for documenting my meals through my blog. I'm used to it but I hate feeling like I'm the "wierd" one. I dread explaining that I take pics for my food blog because then that leads to questions like, "So what is a food blog?", "What's the name of your blog?", "Do you get paid to do it?", etc. Aaargh. It's hard being amongst non-bloggers where I don't have to justify myself! Doesn't it bug any of you? I probably shouldn't give a shit but sometimes I feel self conscious. It's not like I have a major DSLR-type camera (obviously not) or set up a tripod or anything.

Okay, enough of my pity party! This was the Honey Walnut Shrimp. Lots of mayo in here. Mmmm, fatteningly good. Liked this. Especially those brain-like looking candied walnuts.

And that "safe" staple for older Filipinos, Broccoli Beef. 

There was also pan fried crispy noodles with chicken and vegetables. This was very unremarkable and unmemorable, other than my taking a photo of it for posterity. It was so mind numbingly bland that if this dish was a musician, I would call it "Kenny G".

This, on the other hand, was another win - the Garlic green beans. Something with flavor!

The dessert was foil wrapped fortune cookies...(foil colors were red, gold and purple)

...dipped in white chocolate...I think it would taste better COMPLETELY drenched in dark chocolate! Yeah baby yeah!

All in all, it was a nice affair. My mother in law enjoyed her birthday celebration. Man, I hope I live to be 75.  Some of the people who were invited also came to our wedding (nearly 15 years ago). It was nice seeing some of these folks again. My MIL's cake was made by a friend who used to work for Kona Kakes. It was topped with fresh roses and the cake was a buttery light yellow cake with strawberry banana filling!