China King — Restaurant in O’Fallon

This was a most disappointing meal experience. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because the lady was very nice.

Ordering: To start, I ordered on line at 10.30am (website indicated they did not open until noon), with an order pick-up time request of 12.15pm. I received a notification at 10.45am that my order was ready! I called to see if this was correct - it was. I told them I'd requested a pick-up time after 12pm and would they please remake the order closer to that time. They agreed, but I have no way of knowing if they really did or if they just kept the food hot.

Order pick-up: I had requested 'no white rice' with the entree items, and extra crispy noodles with the hot 'n sour soup. I got one teeny bag of noodles and two containers of white rice. I asked for the extra noodles and was told it would be $1 per teeny weeny bag. Not even in pandemic times could it be justified to charge for the amount of noodles they were providing. I reminded that my order was to have no white rice and that it seemed an even swap for the noodles. She agreed and took the white rice back (that's when I realized there was white rice in my box of food). There were packets of soy sauce provided but no fortune cookies.

Now the food: I have never had hot 'n sour soup that was sweet before. I think they added sweet onion to the broth. It was weird and not very good. I expect hot 'n sour soup to be spicy and rich/earthy. Not sweet.

The beef with broccoli was okay. It was the thickest sauce I've ever had on this dish, but it was okay.

This is the first time I've ever seen Krab (yes, that's fake crab) in my shrimp with LOBSTER sauce from any Chinese restaurant. It added a very unpleasant flavor to the dish. It seems to be a Missouri thing to present this dish essentially as a soup - with like 5 shrimp to a pint of very thin sauce. One of the shrimp I ate had a very strange texture and I ended up spitting it out.

The pork fried rice - the rice was okay. The pork looked like it should've been BBQ pork, but it wasn't. It was the most bland (literally no flavor at all) meat I've ever eaten - while eating. And as soon as swallowed, however, there was a weird, unpleasant aftertaste.

While I did mostly finish what I had served myself, I will be tossing the left overs. It was not good. I will not be eating at this restaurant chain again and cannot recommend...

TLDR: Don’t come to this restaurant, but if you decide to come here anyway at least use cash, for your own peace of mind!!!

Besides not enjoying the food personally, my take out order being messed up, and the entire inside of the building being covered in a layer of visible grime, I had the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had! The lady was having technical difficulties with the credit card machine, and as someone who has worked plenty of retail jobs I know how frustrating it is when that happens. I waited patiently until she attempted to run my card for 4th time, at which point roughly 15 mins of me standing there and her on the phone with tech support had passed. I told her sorry but I needed to go because I was on my lunch break, and asked for my card back and SHE REFUSED to give me my debit card back! I asked 3 more times, while getting progressively more upset and less polite, and she did not give me my card back until it was successfully charged, which took another 3 attempts on her end. My food was still behind the counter so I couldn’t have taken it without paying, nor did I ask to do so! I was extremely upset and in tears by the time I was walking out with my food, and by then I no longer even wanted it! I have NEVER been in a customer service situation (on either side, cashier or customer) where someone’s debit card was kept from them and charged against their will after they stated they no longer wanted the product they were attempting to buy! I feel taken advantage of and if I could do more than leave a 1 star review, I would! DO NOT...

We decided to order even against the reviews and honestly I found the food to be very flavorful and well presented. Ordering online was very easy and the driver who brought our food was extremely polite. Our whole order arrived with no issues. We ordered Crab Rangoons, Teriyaki Chicken appetizer, spring roll, egg roll, Orange Chicken, and sweet n sour chicken. My son who is a picky eater enjoyed the Sweet N Sour Chicken. The Teriyaki Chicken appetizer was very good a little salty(soy sauce) but I like mine like that. The Orange Chicken was lightly crisp and sauce was flavorful. Crab Rangoons were good. The Spring roll was sweet and crunchy. Egg roll was good. Great experience. Thanks! We had a...