The best Chinese spots in NYC include dim sum destinations and speakeasy-style venues<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nThe sweet-yet-spicy dish (dubbed \u201cswicy\u201d for its fiery flavor upgrade) first caused a frenzy during its 2024 debut and is now back by popular demand. Think the OG Orange Chicken, but amped up with six times the crushed chilies and a bold kick courtesy of scorched dried peppers (the same ones from the chain’s Kung Pao Chicken). It\u2019s crunchy, sticky, slightly dangerous and completely addictive.<\/p>\n
At the NYC pop-up, Panda\u2019s is turning its Third Avenue outpost into a love letter to its signature dish. Visitors can time-travel through Orange Chicken\u2019s greatest hits via a limited-edition menu, featuring everything from bone-in orange chicken wings to a bacon-laced throwback from 2014. Naturally, the Hot Orange Chicken takes center stage, and the rest of the store will follow suit, drenched in orange hues, decked with oversized art installations and stocked with spicy giveaways like collectible pins and claw machine tokens.<\/p>\n
If you need more incentive than chili-glazed nostalgia, there\u2019s this: Anyone who orders a plate between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. during the pop-up gets a bonus small entr\u00e9e of either the OG or Hot Orange Chicken, just for showing up and ordering like a fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something magical about Orange Chicken\u2014it\u2019s the ultimate American Chinese comfort food,\u201d said Fabiola Del Rio, the vice-president of integrated marketing communications for Panda Express. \u201cThe \u2018Orange Chicken Kitchen\u2019 pop-up in NYC is our love letter to everyone who\u2019s obsessed with Orange Chicken, whether you\u2019re team OG or team spicy.\u201d<\/p>\n
First launched in 1987, the brand\u2019s most iconic dish still accounts for a third of all entr\u00e9es sold, with more than 137 million pounds served last year alone. But next week, it\u2019s getting the main character energy it deserves.<\/p>\n
Ready to pledge your allegiance to #TeamSwicy? This is the week to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panda Express is turning up the heat\u2014and the hype\u2014for National Orange Chicken Day with a spicy splash in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,10633,405,403,10634,5226,5225,5228,5227,988,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-54861","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-categories-restaurants","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news-eating","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-restaurants","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}