Asian Bowl — Restaurant in Arlington

Looked for Chinese restaurant online for a place on our way home and saw a decent rating on Google and gave it a try.

Let talks food: we ordered Sesame chicken. Period. One meal, common dish. Shouldn’t be too risky. Immediately noticed before leaving that the meal was the color Red through the plastic lid (see picture). I was sure we had the wrong order; thinking it was perhaps sweet-and-sour chicken by mistake however, sesame seeds were sprinkled on top. We laughed and thought… Well that’s strange but what are you going to do. We’ve waited an hour in their parking lot. Hopefully, it’ll taste good. Our hopes were followed by major disappointment. After a couple of bites of over-fried, crunchy bites of dry and chewy chicken we stopped eating and threw it out. It had a strange flavor but the fried rice was edible.

We have a panda express less than a mile from us so after we got home and tried the meal from Asian bowl, we immediately got back out and went to panda express and found ourselves more than happy.

Atmosphere: The front of their shop looks filthy. The doors and windows are glass and they’re dirty and it looked gross inside of their restaurant, now turned into a shop for pickup orders. The business appears nothing as pictured online.

Now, what made the entire experience overall bad was the unusual business transaction. We placed the order online and it said that it would be ready in 25 minutes we were already in the parking lot and so we pulled up to the restaurant and noticed a row of people sitting in their car, seemingly waiting for their order and cars were coming and going consistently. This was a good sign, people aren’t waiting for bad food, right?!

Shortly after we arrived at the business front, you could tell their operations have been modified due to Covid. There were handwritten yellow signs all over the front of the store saying to call and we will bring out to you. however, the phone line is constantly busy so I don’t know how that works out. We quickly realized that we would just sit here and then they scuttle out and yell out to people in their cars, your phone number and or your name and/or the name of your food. It was such a chaotic process watching one person run back-and-forth from the inside of the shop. Each time unlocking and locking the door putting on mask and shoes and grabbing four or five bags at one time and running around yelling people‘s orders to the cars parked. So, with this process there was not much interaction of calling, or asking questions like why is the sesame chicken red. They handed your food and they scurried off. We place the order on Saturday at 6:35 and we received our order at 7:30 (1 hour). After an hour of watching people come and go, we yelled out to the woman running around and asked what the status was on our order. She asked what we ordered and then within 5 minutes or less she brought our order out to us with a free Eggroll. She was very nice but had we not asked… I wonder when we would have gotten our order. I’ve never seen anything so unusual before but they seem to be staying busy so things must be going well for them. This post is not intended to hurt their business but to hopefully prevent you from making the same...

FOOD HAS CHANGED. I haven't been here in a while and a craving hit. So hard to find good chineese these days so this place came back to mind. Somethings different and i now remember seeing a "now open" sign as I left with my food. I have a feeling something was wrong with the dumplings. Tasted kinda funny. My stomach hurt late that night. The lo mein didn't taste as good as I remembered. The scallion pancakes even taste different. The chicken and shrimp teriyaki I got was overcooked. Chicken dry and shrimp rubbery. Man what happened??? Maybe just an off night... or are they under new management??? This visit was a let down. Previous review: i Went back the very next day after the fried rice. I got their orange beef. Well I've found the 1st item i didn't really care for. Great flavor at first then you realize the beef they use is cheap and most of what youre eating is the thick batter the beef is fried in so not much meat at all. I quickly got tired of chewing that. Don't recommend. July 2022 back again and satisfied yet again. I showed up to pick up my food about 4 minutes before the promised time and it was ready. No wait. Shrimp fried rice yum. Crab Rangoon yum. Eggrolls yum. I tried their szcheuan dumplings in chili oil. Soooo good! Wasn't hot heat wise though. I expected to have to blow on them but they weren't hot in the slightest so that was odd. Maybe the oil is the dumplings are poured in is cold so that cools the dumpling down. I also got their scallion pancakes. They're good but man have tried trader joes version??? Omg yummmmm. So I tried the ones here thinking they'd be better but no. Still good just not as good. Previous review: June 2022 BETTER THAN EXPECTED Service quicker than expected Food tasted better than expected. I got my food much quicker than I thought based on other reviews. I ordered online pulled up about 8min past the quoted time and called them ...they came right out with my order. So hard finding decent Chinese food these days. So many Chinese places have cheapened their ingredients which results in lower quality taste overall. I was pleased with my visit here. I know everyone's taste buds are different but i definitely recommend and will return. Lo mein noodles are extra but they're delish. A+for their crab Rangoon and egg rolls A+ for Mongolian beef. Perfectly cooked and well seasoned. The sesame and orange chicken is another story. Flavor was great. Tasted good but they were overcooked. I ate it because of the taste but it seemed to be fried too long. It would bend the fork any time I tried to pick up a piece so i used a spoon and fingers. The sweet and sour chicken didn't seem fresh. Wasnt hot like my other items. Still tasted pretty good but I bet it's much better...

I came here yesterday pleased with the curry soup especially after having dental work done. Came back today for more. Young brown/black curly hair girl was nice yesterday and today up until I made complaint on the spicy soup she recommended. I came in to order curry again but went with her recommendation. This had NO flavor at all and I asked to exchange for curry soup. Manager tried to give me more broth with more spice to it but still NO flavor. I mentioned that it was disgusting and the young brown/black curly hair girl mocked me to another worker that came to eat. She literally shook her head at me then rolled her eyes. She didn't care that she was talking so loud that I could hear her. I'm guessing this is what happens when you complain. I asked if I could exchange it for curry. Manager said I shouldn't have ordered. Told her I only ordered because of THEIR recommendation. Poor customer service. But I will be complaining to the health department about the filth I observed while on my 2nd trip today. The bathroom was unsanitary. There is other food in fridge stored with soft drink they serve to customers. The water was light brown color. A lot of filth under the fridge. So much clutter of ingredients in dining area. Speaking of, those aren't real noodles you are paying for. Its noodles from the top ramen cup. I took my food home to eat then ended up throwing it away because I was disgusted with customer service (who knows what they did to my food after complaining) and also the filth. I must have been in too much pain from dental work yesterday to care about the dirty environment. Eat at...