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China Bowl
440 E. Ortega St, Santa Barbara
Phone: (805) 963-6450
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Reviews by the General Public
good , 7/10/2009
Reviewer: alexandra
from Santa Barbara, CA
china bowl restaurant is good
like chinesse food
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Try Somewhere Else, 6/30/2009
Reviewer: Michael
from Santa Barbara, CA
Unless every other Asian restaurant is closed I suggest looking elsewhere. My benchmark for all Chinese restaurants is hot and sour soup. Everyplace I have been, except here, uses chicken stock, China Bowl uses brown liquid of indeterminate source that tastes like brown. If fact, the kung pau chicken was not spicy and tasted like brown. The eggplant vegetarian tasted like brown. It all tasted like brown.
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Tony V from SD, 4/6/2009
Reviewer: Anthony
from Santa Barbara, CA
Food was great...i had the Kung Pao Chicken and it was super dank(real good)...fried rice the same...pretty much people who didn't like it must have had a wierd random experience. I have done electrical work for them and watched them make their food right when people ordered and then proceeded to watch people love it and say they did. Carlos, the owner, is the man...and the service and delivery kick ass...so if you are one of the people unlucky to have a one bad experience...don't trash a place until you really tried it.
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Huge Delivery Menu, Decent Food, Customer for Years, 2/10/2009
Reviewer: Jon
from Santa Barbara, CA
As someone who orders allot of take out I find the overcritical
posts about this place unwarranted. No its not the best chinese
food I have ever had, but its delivered quick, hot and at a very
fair price. China bowl/State Street Cafe has a huge menu with
much to choose from. In my house 1 person may want Chinese and
the other may want a burger, they do it all and at a fair price
the other delivery options in this town will cost you $30 a
person plus delivery fees ! I will continue to support this
place as they have always been a great option for us !
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Unknown, Unchewable Meat
Reviewer: Dan
from Santa Barbara, CA
This is by far the worst food I have ever paid for. The General Tsu's and Orange Chicken were literally inedible, with pieces of "meat" that you couldn't even chew, and the exact same sauce on both items. We waited over 90 minutes for the food to be delivered and were treated rudely when calling to check up on our delivery. I understand that restaurants get busy, but it was a Wednesday night and they told us 40 minutes. When we called to complain about our entire experience, we were transferred, put on hold and finally hung up on. We will definitely not be doing business with the china bowl again.
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Pretty much NO FLAVOR-BLANDNESS RULES!!!
Reviewer: Ben Koski
from Santa Barbara, CA
This is the worst chinese food I've ever had. Absolutely no flavor whatsoever. They have sandwiches on the menu for God's sake people. SANDWICHES!! No real Chinese place has sandwiches. This is like someone pulled the leftovers from the garbage at Panda Express and sucked them dry of flavor and repackaged it as China Bowl. Just garbage for garbage eaters who place quantity over quality.
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Very Poor Service
Reviewer: James
from Santa Barbara
This place has very poor service. For example I call at 9:48 and order a prime rib and pot stickers. The guy who answered the phone says "We can't do pot stickers, they take 15 minutes and we close in 12 minutes". Give me a break. I even offered to drive over and pick it up to save them the time. He didn't care.
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chinese food craving night
Reviewer: natalie
from SB, California
Came here on a Monday night with the biggest craving for Chinese food! Their menu has a large array of choices from American food to Chinese cuisine. We ordered traditional common dishes, which were okay--could of used a lil BAM in them. But the worst part was how rude the man taking our order was. He gave us the impression that we were unappreciated customers. I plan to return to this restaurant with high hopes of friendly service!...It sort of makes the meal!
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Its good.
Reviewer: mg and the mrs
from santa barbara, ca
Look, lets be honest, when you order from Carlos, you know what you are going to get. A friendly voice taking your order and hot food delivered to your door. What more can you ask for? I'm a nice jewish boy from San Francisco, so I know what great chinese food tastes like. This is not that. It is, however, delicious, tasty, fresh cooked and extra spicy when requested. There are several chinese restaurants in Santa Barbara, and only a handful of them are actually worth eating at. This is one of the places worth eating at. Yes, the food will be better if you eat there, and you can! There is a fun little "patio" in front and a friendly man at the window. The food will come out to you on plates hot and fresh. Good times at a great price. We have our favorites and they are always good, sometimes very good, and you have the ability to customize your food. Pick a meat, vegi and sauce. As well, each item comes with rice, spring rolls and a won ton. Yum! So all this together along with the entire other half of the place, The State Street Cafe, and you have the best place in town for chinese and almost anything else. We suggest you try it.
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Wanted to love it...
Reviewer: Nicholas M
from Santa Barbara, CA
I've passed by China bowl several times and have always wanted to try it. Usually hole-in-the-walls are surprising delicious, and I figured this would be the same experience. My wife and I went there for pick-up last night and the cashier (I believe the owner or manager) was incredibly personable and genuine. Very impressed. I was a little bit surprised by how many menu items there were, but considering that Cheesecake Factory is able to get away with it and still have good (or atleast passable food), I didn't hold it again them.
So the food: there was a lot of it. I ordered Beef Broccoli and Kung Pao Chicken. Both came with fried wontons, egg rolls, and lots of rice. They were also served as if the entree was soup...way too much liquid!! The taste...well I couldn't call it bad, because there was no taste whatsoever!! Nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. I even added salt (adding salt to take out chinese!?!?), but even then, I couldn't coax even the smallest bit of taste. Completely and utterly bland. So, I guess I can only review the consistency. Besides the liquid deluge, the Kung Pao Chicken was standard, but the Beef in the Beef Broccoli was soft....kind of squishy. So, unfortunately, I cannot recommend China Bowl no matter how much I wanted to love it because of its convenience and service. In the end, however, it's all about the taste, and China Bowl had none of it.
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