As a person of Chinese descent and a food critic, you'd think I'd have bad things to say about Panda Express. But to the contrary, I love their stuff, especially the sickly-sweet, addictive, but barely Chinese dish called Orange Chicken (Seriously, if you've not read Jennifer 8. Lee's Fortune Cookie Chronicles, you must!).
But as a person of Chinese descent, I had to laugh when people who aren't of Chinese descent took to Panda Express' Facebook page to express outrage about Panda Express' new Orange Chicken with Bacon–a recent introduction to their menu along with some sort of kale-based dish.
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One person said: “I mean I knew your food was kind of Americanized but this is just ridiculous.”
Another posted: “Wow…I really like orange chicken and I really like Bacon. But together that honestly sounds disgusting!”
But the best one of all was this comment: “No! Orange chicken should be orange chicken! No bacon!”
This apparently proves that we've finally found the bacon tipping point. A line has been crossed here. Bacon in a milkshake? Yum! But bacon in America's favorite fast-food faux-Chinese dish? Sacrilege!
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.