China Bistro — Restaurant in Rockville

A bunch of customers with no idea what happened to their orders, a bunch of unmarked but ready orders behind the counter... and absolutely no effort made to put the two together. Getting the lady behind the bar to acknowledge or respond to customers was like pulling teeth. It took ten or fifteen minutes (during which she addressed one or two customers) for her to get my number and start looking up my order... in the middle of which she wandered away, then maybe ten minutes later, brought me a piece of paper asking me to write down my number so she could look up my order. Couldn't find my order. Would not answer when I asked if she could look it up by name, email, or order number, simply handed me a paper and repeatedly told me to write what I'd ordered so she could place my order now by now (1 1/2 hours after the order was placed, eith average wait time an hour). Also would not answer when other customers in similar predicaments asked whether the website we'd ordered through was down or failing to transmit orders, so they'd at least know whether their orders were in the queue or not.

Did I mention they don't enforce the Covid rules on indoor gatherings? People were pretty good about waiting in line outside and having only a few people inside when I arrived. By the time I left, though, there were maybe ten or fifteen people crammed into a space the size of an average bathroom.

Part of it is that the entire ordering system is dysfunctional. They don't use names or order numbers or even the content of the order, and the orders just sit on the counter unlabeled, so nobody knows what the hell is up if there's more than one or two customers. But the other reviews saying that they have no freaking idea how to adapt to Covid, and that the staff are rude and uncommunicative, are spot on as well.

TL/DR: this place is just comprehensively terrible. I'm sure the food is passable (never got a chance to find out), but there are lots of other Chinese restaurants and most of them aren't this kind of trainwreck. Give one of...

China Bistro's dumplings remind me of my childhood. Their Chinese name translates to "Mama's Water Dumplings," which is exactly correct. My family makes dumplings that taste like these, with high portions of vegetables, low oil, and smaller meat portions in the filling. In fact, my family uses less meat in our filling than China Bistro does. We also make our own dumpling wrappers, which, relative to machine-made wrappers, are thicker and chewier--just like China Bistro's. It's very labor-intensive. So. If you need more meat in your dumplings, or the dumplings are not to your taste, that's fine. Go somewhere else. Just don't blame it on China Bistro being cheap or doing it wrong. To the best of my knowledge, China Bistro's dumplings are the best, most authentic Chinese home style dumplings in the DC Metro Area. Separately, I've never had service issues. From all these negative reviews, I do not doubt they have had service issues. Having said that, they've always been nice to me and, as far as my experience goes, the service has been perfectly fine. I only wish they...

5 stars for food and 4 stars for service. This place is where you go to get your dumplings fixed. I like fried “mama special” dumplings but I think the soup dumplings is even better (it would be really nice if there is more soup inside the dumplings though). I also like their Beijing Style Noodle (don’t mix the noodle with the paste. Grab the noodle put it on your plate then scoop the paste to your plate that way you can adjust how much flavor you want). Also their small appetizers are good. Here come the 4 stars rating. I been here many many times. Usually the service is good. However, there are times that the servers give me the change back and wait around to see how much I’m going to tip. I hate it when people does that. It makes me feel uncomfortable. My standard tipping is 18% to 30% but if the waiter does that I would go down to 15 or even 10% depend on the quality of the service. TO THE OWNER: please train your staffs to not do that to the guests, just drop off the change and walk away. Don’t stare at the money and wait to see how much the guest is...