Rice Box Express - Sarasota Chinese Restaurant

Reviews 6

JA

James Sweeney

Tonight my girlfriend and I ordered delivery from here, and typically the food has been good, leading to rice box becoming our "go to" for our chinese cravings.. There had only been one instance over the course of the last year or so that they had made a mistake with our order and like any good business charging on the higher end of pricing for chinese delivery would, they made it right by correcting the mistake and replacing and picking up what they sent us with the correct order. Tonight was a completely different experience upon recieving our $32 (after tip) order of our 2 regular dinners. My girlfriends order was the terryaki chicken over lo mein as ordered, but the chicken was completely different then every other time weve ever ordered it! (What I thought was) No big deal right? Well just give em a call and ask them to make it how it had always been no harm, no foul.. (What actaully happened) Wrong!!!!! When we first called them back to explain our disatisfaction we were basically told by the person who answered the phone that we were welcome to drive our "delivery" order back to their store but otherwise there was nothing they were willing to do about it and that we didnt know what we were talking about because they sent us the same food as every other time weve ordered. Basically the food was prepared correctly from our end but they sent us different chicken then usual and my girlfriend didnt like it. We arent and werent critisizing the cook but questioning the inconsistancy and asking for it to be given to us how it always had been. My girlfriend called them back to speak with someone more qualified to help us with our problem at which point I got on the phone and requested a manager. The person I spoke with said they were the owner and the person who had cooked our order. I explained our problem and said all we wanted was someone to simply replace it cooked how we had always ordered it. He then began to repeat that we were wrong and were simply mistaken this was the same thing we had always recieved when ordering this specific meal. We arent stupid, mistaken, or wrong pal. They sent us something different then usual and then told us we didnt know what we were talking about. For the prices they charge we expected an adequet level of service and some consistancy with the menu, and unfortunately neither of which were available tonight. Sadly enough the owner apparently is doing so well customer complaints dont matter and customer service isnt important. If we were offered any sort of olive branch we would have been happy and I wouldnt have spent any time writing this review, but this guy was certain we were wrong even though we had ordered the same thing many times and tonights order was noticably not our usual.. We will be taking our business and reccommendations elsewhere as will be our opinion to anyone asking it of us. We prefer spending our money places our business is valued and appreciated and according to the owner that was just fine with him..

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MI

Michael Davis

Best Chinese food EVER. Plus the guy working there is super cool and helpful for Take Out. I think they do *not* use MSG, which is fantastic. So Im visiting my mom from NY City. Until eating at the Rice Box, I thought Flushing Queens was home to the best Chinese food. But Sarasota is where its at and my whole family agrees. We like *Spicy* here is our order using the 5 Star rating for each dish: 1) Ma La + Beef = 5 STARS If you like spicy, tongue-tingling Sezchawan style, GET THIS. Ma La with Beef is enlightening. Amazing. 2) Thai Curry + Chicken = 5 STARS Also spicy. This Thai dish features the coconut milk and patented white curry blend + visible spices. LOVE. 3) Szechuan Garlic + Chicken = 5 STARS There are *grill marks* on the chicken, which means Rice Box takes Chinese food preparation to a whole new level. Flavors pop. 4) Eggplant + Tofu = 4 STARS This is among the best Eggplant weve had, however, our mom was the only one who actually likes eggplant. Our least favorite dish in general, but our mom wanted a vegetable... WE ARE GOING BACK. There were no left overs and we agreed we want to revisit Rice Box before we leave. LOVE.

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TO

Torquemada X

My wife and I ordered for the first time after seeing the Google reviews. We ordered the meal for three people and had the upgraded pork fried rice(dry and lacking any flavor), orange chicken( almost like a hardened chicken nugget with no orange sauce to speak of/dry), steak with bell pepper( lots of bell pepper, a small amount of grayish beef), and cashew chicken which was the best tasting of the bunch but thats not saying much. We also had the fried wantons which were extremely dry and overcooked. The best part of the meal was the Chinese donuts we had for dessert. We tasted an amount of each dish and threw the rest out. Absolutely terrible Chinese food. The delivery driver was an extremely nice older gentleman. We visit Sarasota quite often and had much better fare at the buffets. I can honestly say this was the worst tasting Chinese food ever. I could under stand one bad dish but the entire meal?! At least we gave it a shot

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Lorena Salyers

Wish I could give half a star especially after reading responses to some other reviews. Ordered Chinese food to a hookah bar I was hanging out at. Food was okay paid a delivery fee and they couldnt even bother to give us utensils to eat with. Called right away to see if maybe the driver could just turn around and drop some off. Was told it would be 30 minutes and that we should have asked if we needed it. I have never had this happen with any other place. Even when I order it to my house the other places always provide me with utensils and some dont even charge a delivery fee if you pay over a certain amount. Service is not good and staff is obviously very rude. How can you even talk to customers in this manner ? I know you will probably just respond saying you dont want me as a customer like you did to other people and thats fine because I will never come back.

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D

D Long

Took AN HOUR AND A HALF to get to my house I live only 5 mins down the road. And the food is COLD. Driver told me it took and hour and a half because he went to someone elses house first, for another delivery, and it took a while. FAIL rice box FAIL! then my appetizer is mixed in so the sauce got all over everything else, meaning chicken wings are now soggy messes. The old lady answering the phone (who you couldnt understand very well) was basically didnt give a bleep. and I finally hung up on her because I couldnt understand her anyway. Go elsewhere if you dont want cold food and crappy service. $27 worth of Chinese is now expensive dog food. added: I was pulling meat off the bone for the dogs food and there was A HAIR imbedded in the sauce and cooked part. Im not even serving this to the dog. That is just NASTY

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AD

Adam Ott

Terrible. Probably the worst Chinese food Ive had in Sarasota. Spicy tofu combo was not spicy, sauce was overly sweet and watery. Tofu was completely flavorless. To make matters worse it seemed like I also may have gotten over charged. The combo with no rice and extra vegetables cost me 14.42 at lunch. Combo was supposed to include an egg roll, but that was extra on the bill. When I asked if that was correct, they made some excuse and said thats how it is. I normally dont leave bad reviews very often but this place was simply gross... I could have eaten 10x better food from Pings around the corner for $6.75 with better portions. Go to Yummy House, Moon Wok, or even Pings for a much better meal.

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