88 China — Restaurant in O’Fallon

The fam all still recovering from recent bouts of the flu, we decided to take the easy route and order in some comfort food this evening. Oh what a mistake. Let me preface by saying that 88 china has generally good food, though the service can be spotty. We placed an order at 6:35 PM through the web, and shortly after received a call from the restaurant to confirm the address. That confirmation call seemed like a nice touch, I suppose, despite having a written copy of all the information necessary.

At 7:40PM I called back to inquire on the status of our order, which had obviously not arrived yet. The girl informed me that she couldn't give me an accurate ETA, but it should be delivered any minute. When I asked if there was any specific reason for the delay I was told that they had "like a lot of deliveries" in the last hour. Great. Thanks.

8:00PM rolls around. Still no food. I call back. Same girl. Explain that we spoke 20 minutes ago about a delivery. She snidely fires back that deliveries can take up to 50 minutes SIR. I clarify the original order time and am promptly put on hold. She's called the driver who claims our order was delivered, and says "Was it the movie theatre?" It was not. It was to our home address, which is not close enough to the local theater address for plausible confusion. I restate that no food has been delivered. She insists that someone was waiting outside the movie theater and claimed our delivery.

After several hysterical attempts to clarify that they brought our food to the wrong address, she agrees to refund my money. So, after letting 88 China hold $47 for an hour and a half, and not receiving food, I'd have to recommend dining in. Or, you know, maybe a different flash fried chinese...

First of all, I am reviewing it from an ethnic Chinese point of view. If you are local Americans, I suggest you move on. My father in law lives in the neighborhood and said it is his favorite Chinese takeout place, so I decided to order a few dishes for us to try. There are good and bad dishes in my opinions. Dishes we ordered are Crab Rangoon, Wanton Soup, Teriyaki Chicken skewers, egg rolls, sweet and sour pork, general chicken, sha cha beef. I will rate each of these. Crab Rangoon: 5. Moving from west coast (Seattle, LA, OC) where literally no acceptable Crab Rangoon, it is great. Crispy skin and generous filling. Great and perfect. Wanton Soup: 4. Wanton itself is excellent. Big fill tasty fillings. Soup however didn’t impress me and I feel it was instant flavored. Chicken Skewer: 5 one of my favorites from this order. Again, generous portion and it does taste authentic. Egg rolls: 5. Everyone has their favorite egg roll. I am not going to say too much here. For me, it is another well done dish. Sweet & Sour Pork: 2. It is not right. But again, their clienteles are local Americans. Sha Cha beef: 4. It taste average. The only reason I gave it a 4 is that you don’t see this dish barely anywhere. General Chicken: 3. Another popular American Chinese food dish, so not gonna say much. In my opinion it is a 3. Fried rice: 2. Fried rice is a dish you can never duplicate even if you try to cook it again. I hope this is because the cook just had a bad day, but that fried rice I had……. Overall for me, from not expecting too much, I give it a solid 4 as there are some good foods. They do need to QC some of the popular...

First off, an apology to the owners of this awesome restaurant. I've ordered from here for YEARS and am just now getting around to a review. Customer service: Top notch. Seriously. The delivery drivers are awesome. The food is piping hot when it gets to us and there is rarely a wait. I think my order has been delivered wrong maybe two or three times out of the multitude of times that we've ordered from them and these folks ALWAYS make it right. Food: It's good. It's really good. I've been an army brat and am also a veteran myself so I've moved around the country and been to a plethora of different restaurants and so I've always judged restaurants on how they make certain things: A deli that makes a bad Reuben is a deli I don't want to go to. An italian place whose marinara sauce tastes like it comes out of a jar (looking at you Pasta house)... yeah I'll pass. Chinese food? You gotta make those egg rolls right! 88 China nails it. Srping rolls? As my wife puts it, "The bomb." The soups? Tasty and filling. Look, bottom line, this place is run by good people who work hard and take obvious pride in their work. Thanks for the years of excellent service and I look forward...