888 Bistro — Restaurant in Pearland

After ordering takeout and delivery from this 888 Bistro for over 2.5 years and always being thoroughly satisfied my family and I decided On Saturday February 15, 2025 to dine in. I wish we never decided to do that. After we ordered our drinks and entrees, we were chatting and a few minutes later we delighted to see our two orders of cream cheese rangoons arrive to our table. I distributed plates, spooned sweet and sour over the fried pieces and we began to eat. The mood quickly went south when I looked at my husband’s plate and saw a medium sized German cockroach crawling all over my husband appetizer plate. Absolutely disgusting. My husband immediately grabbed the plate, I yelped, scooted out my chair and my husband set the plate down with the crawling roach. The waiter, nervously approached our table, through a big smile kept repeating “I’m sorry” over and over again. My appetite fled as that plate was carried back to the kitchen. I will never ever eat at this restaurant again. I can’t believe the lack of concern and empathy. Dang, I would have appreciated even a fake concern. Maybe it’s normal or not a big deal for critters to be roaming around in some cultures but personally I was appalled. Roaches carry disease and are filthy. So appalling on every level but what gets me as the employees were not surprised at all! Looked like just another day...

I ordered $60 worth of food to-go from this place. When I opened up my bag to look through, to my surprise, there was no steamed rice to go with my 3 entrees. Thinking that they may have accidentally forgot to put in my bag I went back in to ask them if steamed rice was supposed to come with my entrees and the staff looked up my order and said “no, it’s extra”. Extra?! Of all the Chinese restaurants that I have eaten at and ordered to-go food from, rice usually comes with an entree dish. I never had to pay extra for rice that should come with an entree before. I found it odd and distasteful that this restaurant would charge customers $1 extra for something that should come with an entree dish. Are they going to charge us extra if we asked for chopsticks next? If you plan to go eat at this place, be aware that they may charge you extra for what most of us would considered standards with eating at a Chinese restaurant or to-go orders. I don’t particularly like places where they “nickel and dime” you for every little thing. Food is subpar at best anyway. There are so many Asian restaurants in the area so I will go there from now on. Disappointed...

We had a number of items from the menu. As an appetizer we had the spare ribs. For dinner we had the Kung Pao chicken and the General Tso chicken.

Let’s start with the Kung Pao. Absolutely not enough flavor or spice. My wife ordered this one but I took a bite to see what I thought of it. On a scale of 1-10 (with 1 being the least), the spice level was a minus 19. Ha! There was no heat at all. The vegetables were fresh and the chicken was tender, though. But those attributes could not overcome the lack of taste.

The General Tso was much better. It had good taste — even if there was a bit too much breading. The vegetables were fresh.

The spare ribs were a mixed bag. Two of the ribs had very little meat on them. Three of the ribs had ample meat on them. The sauce was tasty. The ribs were not undercooked.

Service was excellent, even if our waiter didn’t talk much. He was always right on top of things. We never had to flag him down to refill a drink. He was worth a 20% tip. Well done.

Finally, the restaurant had a B rating posted on the wall.

Verdict: we’d come back here in a pinch but we will continue to look for another Chinese restaurant as...