China Star — Restaurant in Columbia

Absolutely Horrible. I have ordered from this place for years. It is my daughters favorite place in town. I will NEVER eat here again. We normally do delivery but due to the 95 minute wait time we did carry out. I should have known by looking at how dirty and unsanitary the restaurant was to cancel the order, my mistake. On Saturday 12/11/2021 I ordered $69 worth of non-edible food. My ordered included 3 black pepper chicken with fried rice, beef and broccoli with lo mien, sweet and sour chicken with fried rice and a Triple Delight. Three black pepper chicken was not made correctly( had onion and green pepper), dry with no sauce. The lo mien noodles in my beef and broccoli were over cooked and the sweet and sour chicken was cold. All the food looked as if was returned by previous customers and re-served. No one in my party of 9 was able to eat this DISGUISTING FOOD! We called several times(Call log to prove it) and was placed on hold and hung up on several times as the owner refused to speak to us. On Sunday 12/12/2021 we called again and was told to dig all the food out of the trash and bring it to them????? They wouldn't let us bring it up Saturday when it happened as they didn't want to deal with it. I told them they are more than willing to come dig through my trash and I have a receipt for the gross "food" they served, but they didn't want to do it. Owner will not refund my money, owner won't even speak to anyone on phone. Health department and the better business bureau will be...

TLDR: china star use to be good, but now its not worth it anymore due to the lower quality of the food more than anything else.

my partner and i both got fried rice dishes, and both tasted basically flavorless besides the taste of vegetable oil, we also got different sizes but ended up with the same serving size? despite him ordering a large and i a small.

restaurant is more focused on takeout/delivery orders than dine in, if your wanting something other than a mom and pop-esque restaurant experience perhaps seek another.

restaurant probably needs a deep clean based on the gunk build up on the floor near the tables base, but eating areas, walking paths etc, seemed adequately cleaned enough and the food itself despite the flavorlessness and disappointment, was cooked thoroughly i dont think ill get sick but i wouldnt risk it again at this place.

for the germaphobes out there, they do have disinfectant hand wipes at each table so that was neat.

i hope they can recover and improve cause i enjoyed their food in the past, it use to be flavorful and...

For the most part, I have liked this place and have been ordering from there for a couple years. Favorites are 'Chicken with Black Pepper' and 'Curry Chicken with Onion.'

However, I had a recent annoying experience whereby they had a coupon for a free 2-litter on their website that didn't specify any restrictions. I called to make sure I had attached it correctly to my order and they refused to honor the coupon because it was "only for in store." As the web order had already been charged and I couldn't cancel it, I decided to drive there to get my free soda (along with my order), they only refunded me $3.00 (from the $3.50 delivery fee that had been tacked on), and they passively aggressively circled the restriction on the menu they attached to my paper bag with the food. Given I'm sure they recognize my number as a somewhat regular customer, you'd think they'd just honor it and update the online coupon.

Hopefully this was a one-off. But just be aware that the online versions of their coupons on their own website may...