Red Bowl Asian Bistro — Restaurant in Burlington

I ordered take out from Red Bowl Asian Bistro, Burlington, NC. We had a simple meal but with complicated consequences ending with a horrific case of Salmonella poisoning . We ordered, Hot and Sour soup, it was absolutely inedible due to over spicing. I took two bites and ended up with a blister on my lip from the excessive spices. We ordered Chicken Fried Rice and it was not cooked, unfortunately, we didn’t discover that until a few bites in, when my, 70 year old Sister, bit into a completely raw piece of chicken. We examined the chicken and realized we had been eating raw and under cooked chicken. We also ordered Tofu Pad Thai, again completely inedible as they had made it impossibly spicy when we had asked for everything mild. At this point, about 15 -20 minutes after receiving our to go order, I called and asked to speak to the manager. Nikki answered the phone and was aggressive straight away. I told her the issues, asked for a refund and offered to bring it back . She said that they were closing. She explained to me that they always cooked the chicken and only made the food mild. She didn’t apologize or acknowledge that there could have been a problem with the food . Instead, she argued and raised her voice, quickly losing her temper all the while saying we were in the wrong, that they did things “right”. She told me that Sue, her manager would call me the next day. Within three hours both my Sister and I were sick from food poisoning. Today is Sunday. I just left Red Bow Asian Bistro as we never received any phone call from Sue or any other manager. I went in and asked to speak to the manager. Nikki came out. Nikki who told me on Thursday that she wasn’t the manager. She told me she didn’t have the authorization to take care of our issues. I told her that we had been in Burlington since Thursday due to the undercooked chicken we were served. She immediately became volatile and rude. Again, she tried to tell you us we needed to speak to the manager. When I began telling people who were entering the restaurant about our ordeal she did refund our money (28.18). She also followed me out to our car demanding the food back and our medical records. I do have a video of that interaction. I can understand a restaurant making a mistake as we are all human but the unprofessional manner in which our issues were handled has no excuse. I can definitely say that I’ve never had a restaurant employee follow me my car to demand my medical records. I am supposed to be receiving a call from Sue, tomorrow regarding the drama that has occurred. I hope that she is better trained than her...

Absolutely awful experience. I came in with my best friend and her family, it was our first time. We had a party of 7. We came in on a Monday at noon. The place was empty besides one or two tables. It took them over 10 minutes to even greet us. When we were finally greeted the server said “do you know everything that you want”. We ordered the Crab Rangoon and the bang bang shrimp as an appetizer. Both were good. We also ordered martinis which were good as well. My problem doesn’t lie with the food. My problem was the manager NIKI. We ordered the noodles for one of her kids off the kids menu and they were AWFUL. They tasted dry, old, I even described them as “dusty”. They tasted like they were cooked 2-3 days ago and left in the pot. Her daughter ate one bite and didn’t like them. I too took a bite to make sure it wasn’t just her. It wasn’t. TWO BITES WERE MISSING FROM THE NOODLES. It took the server at least 10 minutes to come back so her daughter ate the fries because she was hungry. When he finally came back we told him the noodles were awful and dry. We asked if we could exchange them for the chicken nuggets and even said we didn’t need more fries as she did eat the fries on the original plate. He said “let me ask my manager”. He came back quickly and said “my manager said you have to eat it because you already started, so there’s nothing we can do”…. IM SORRY WHAT?? I’ve been a server for over 10 years and every single time one of my guest doesn’t like something, we immediately take it away and get them what they want. Not to mention he took it from our table, walked around the restaurant with the plate, went back into the kitchen with the plate, then returned the same plate back to our table. Pretty sure that’s against health code. We were still polite to the server as it wasn’t his fault, and I just shared my meal with her daughter. What bothered us the most was the fact that the manager NIKI stood at the host stand and STARED US DOWN THE ENTIRE TIME. It made us feel very uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, we didn’t order a second round of drinks like we planned. So uncomfortable, my nephew wanted another California roll, and we didn’t order that either. So uncomfortable that we were going to order dessert, and didn’t. Our 150+$ bill could have gone well over 200$.

Not to mention we paid 150$+ for subpar food, subpar service, and an AWFUL EXPERIENCE THANKS TO THE...

After being on the road for almost 5 hours, we decided to google a place to eat and chose Red Bowl to dine in. I called to make a reservation, and the staff member told me they weren't busy at the moment and that a reservation was not needed. We arrived, and my initial question was, why aren't there many people eating here this time of day? We were seated immediately. I must admit that our server was pleasant, though he couldn't really understand things we were either asking or providing certain explanations concerning menu items, etc. It's not the type of hibachi restaurant where they cook the food in front of you, so if you are looking for that experience, Red Bowl isn't the place for you. We placed our orders, and they brought out our appetizers and entrees at the same time. That meant if we ate the appetizers, our entrees would sit there and get cold. So, I decided to taste both before the entree got cold, and to my surprise, both weren't good. None of my party liked their food. When the server noticed that we hadn't eaten, he asked if the food was good, and we all told him no!!! The look on his face reflected him not being surprised. We all ordered different things, and none of us ate what we ordered. We did not get a visit from the manager after telling the server that we did not like the food. We left there and wound up grabbing something from Chipotle. I do not recommend Red Bowl at all if you are hungry. If you don't care about taste and quality, give it your best shot, but...