China Star — Restaurant in Crestview

So I was on a Chinese kick today and had both Jin Jin and China Star in the same day. In my Jin Jin review I gave them 3 stars... Well China Star, you get two. To be fair to both though, their food is about what one could expect from Chinese food in this area. They cater to the fact that most people don't know what decent (I won't say real) Chinese food is and I think that if the food was more authentic people would complain about spice or it looking weird or some things being unidentifiable. I will say that MAYBE the woman that took my order was friendlier than the rigid woman at Jin Jin, but I couldn't care less about that. If I want atmosphere or hospitality I will find a Pei Wei or P.F. Chang (both are amazing). Okay I do have one totally objective issue with China Star: when I walked in, there were no other customers so to be expected, the employees were in the back making dumplings. How do I know they were making dumplings? Well, the woman that took my order had a raw one in her hand and she placed it on the counter next to the register while the took my order. Regardless if it was for herself or not, inappropriate. I ordered kam pao chicken, which I assume is supposed to be kung pao, and an order of chicken lo mien. The only resemblance to whatever-pao was that it had some peanuts in it. Not spicy at all. Basically the standard array of diced vegetables that is the same in almost all the dishes at places like this with a few unimpressive pieces of meat. The lo mien has me confused; it's orange. No flavor and more or less a mass of noodles packed into a box. Jin Jin certainly beats them there, but even the best speller in a math contest still isn't doing something right.

I might go back. I will probably try something different and there is possibility I will be impressed, but for now my 2 star...

First of all, shame on Google for forcing reviewers to assign a star. This place deserved a negative star rating.

My wife and I were tired after a long day at work. We just wanted to go some place and dine in with a fast meal. We saw on Google this place closed at 10pm so we went there. This was our second attempt to eat there, we went the previous evening arriving a 9:40pm to be told they were closed, even though their open sign was on and the door was unlocked. We accepted we were "Sort of" late getting there and left. On this visit we arrived at 9:05pm and were greeted by a guy standing behind plexiglass. I get it with Covid and all.

He asked what we wanted and we ordered and had a seat. About 10-minutes later he said from behind the plexiglass our order was ready, in a paper bag!!!! (We stupidly thought he would bring our food to us). My wife asked for forks, chopsticks and plates and was told they were closing and we would have to leave! At 9:15pm. 9:15pm when everything said 10pm close.

So we took our paper bag and went home. My wife and I ordered two completely different dishes with her ordering shrimp and rice and me ordering pork lo mien. Both meals tasted alike, I mean no difference in taste at all. On top of that, both meals were a dark orange color, the rice and the noodles. It took us less than 10-minutes to get home so both meals should have been hot. NOPE! Both meals were lukewarm and the wonton soup was room temperature at best.

This has to be the absolute worst place to eat in Crestview, hands down. Please do the good folks of Crestview a favor and...

We ordered takeout, pork fried rice, chicken and broccoli and wonton soup. The wonton soup was so yellow it was almost orange In color, so much food coloring and there were 8 very tiny wontons on n a quart container, no flavor and the fried noodles to go in the soup barely had but 6-7 of the smallest pieces(not enough for a bowl of soup). I didn’t use mine as the package had sticky stuff all over it-yuck! The fried rice was awful- no flavor, dry, hard and crunchy, no egg, barely any vegetables(oh I did find one pea) and the tiniest bit of dried out pork and again tons of dark yellow food coloring in the rice. The chicken and broccoli was just as bad, chicken was tough and dark orange from the food coloring. It had no flavor. I was embarrassed to serve such food to my daughter and grand daughter. We will “NEVER” go back there. Worst food we have ever had and more expensive than Jin Jin’s. Don’t waste your money here! I would not even rate this...