Red 8 — Restaurant in Everett

It was busy going in, I suggest a reservation in advance just to be safe. We had a busser and a waiter taking care of us. The busser did most of the work. Getting our drinks, refilling them, cleaning off our table, bringing us sauces and some of our dishes. We saw the busser more than our waiter and he did most of the work. We only saw our waiter at our drink order, food order and bill.

If you are a seasoned Asian foodie or know what authentic Asian food should taste like, you will not like this place. Whatever you do, do not order the pho. You will be sadly disappointed. The broth was so bad, it tasted like someone had used frost bitten frozen noodles and defrosted it water, use that same water for the broth that was bland and had nothing savory whatsoever about it. The meatballs tasted like they were frozen out of the package, the tendons were super hard, not a pleasant soft chew. No hoisin, sriracha or fish sauce will save this dish. It definitely had a nasty frozen noodles broth taste to it. I noticed a lot of people ordering a large noodle soup dish and I can’t help but think they don’t know any better or ignorance of a good noodle dish. The Asian food was obviously catered to an American diet.

The other group in our party had the lemon chicken. That is your safest bet if you don’t know what to order on the menu. They said it was good. Although ignorance is bliss. Not very seasoned Asian goodies there.

Another ordered the chicken curry. It had a delicious creamy coconut curry base to it. However, the chicken, talk about mystery meat. It was too soft to be chicken. It was as if they shaved the chicken very thinly, coated it in a flour, deep fried it, threw it in the curry and now you have soggy chicken mystery meat. I tasted no chicken in that.

One thing they did do right, the hot and sour soup. A very good bite to it and thickness to the broth....

Sunday afternoon (1/17/2021) Barbara and I tried the Red 8 Restaurant at the Encore Boston Harbor Casino. We were pleasantly surprised, from the warm welcome by the receptionist to our attentive wait staff who were outstanding. This restaurant was immaculate. Unfortunately, Barbara’s dish was presented at least four minutes or more before my dish, which is a no-no. You are in an upscale Chinese Restaurant something like that should not happen. Be forewarned, If you want chicken wings and boneless spareribs this restaurant is not for you. The Red 8 offers a diverse selection of authentic Chinese dishes that have a Western influence and many traditional Cantonese classics to choose from. Barbara ordered the Wok-fried Noodles Chow-Mein with Chicken, this was a substantial dish. The price I believe was $22. The flavors were awesome. I tried the Hong Kong Seafood Crispy Noodles with Scallops, Shrimp, Squid, Pea Pods, Carrots and Straw Mushrooms ( around $38). Both dishes were excellent. The décor of the Red 8 is just awesome with splashes of red everywhere. The seven huge black and white vases flanked by two massive gold plated lamps created an interesting space. The chairs are black and white extremely comfortable with ample spacing between tables. The huge couch was in Red, two people could sit on the couch and two people on chairs. Whoever designed this room did an outstanding job and put a great deal of thought into it. I saw them thoroughly disinfecting tables as soon as people would leave, they were also quick to clean dirty-empty plates. This was a positive dining experience and I look forward to returning. PS. On our next visit, dinner is going to be the National Symbol of China a Chinese delicacy since the 5th century, Peking Duck with Mandarin Crepes, served with cucumbers, scallions and Hoisin Sauce. OMG. Happy...

I am very surprised to see such great reviews of this restaurant. My sister and I dined here last night (Friday night) and the food did not meet our expectations at all. I ordered the chicken fried rice and my sister had the stir fried sweet chili shrimp. Both dishes lacked flavor. My chicken was disgusting! It was tiny flaked pieces of chicken that did not seem like real chicken- think what you would get at a hole in the wall chinese restaurant. I expected much higher quality for the $30 price tag. The rice also was not fried... it was just white rice with stuff in it. (I thought this was because I ordered it gluten free but when I passed by another table I saw the same rice- so unclear if that's the norm) The server also brought me gluten free soy sauce and said "they will use it in the rice but here is just some extra" again making me think the rice should have come out fried. The shrimp was $40 and did not come with rice... rice was $5 extra. It also lacked flavor and was supposed to be stir fried but was clearly steamed.

For those wondering- they were accommodating to gluten free as they had gluten free tamari sauce that they provided me upon asking and the waiter said many things on the menu could be made gluten free.

Our waiter was very lovely, but it was very hard to understand him as he spoke very softly. At the end of the meal we also had an issue with the bill, and our server went off shift so another server attempted to explain the issue to us but his answer did not make sense and he did not make an effort to find the correct answer. Therefore I did not feel the service met our expectations either.

I would avoid...