A8 China

I want to like this small, clean mom & pop feel restaurant. Unfortunately, the food did not deliver. Three bites was all I could eat of the subgum lomien noodles.

Took 25 min to get my order and they served 3 people that had come in after me. Also the tables were dirty, no one has been picking up the dinner area. The food is not bad but way to slow and dirty.

My first visit was pretty satisfying. No mistakes, no long wait, the food pretty good and less greasy, the lady speaking Chinese was shy but polite and patient, explaining to be the ingredients.
I was sick of bad service in local Chinese restaurants in Madison and wishing to go some place that’s just easy and quick and not too expensive. I was by myself and plaecs with service kinda made me uncomfortable. I therefore ventured in this little, not attractive looking eatery and gave it a try, ready to be underwhelmed. It turned out much better than I expected.
People order and pay in cashier, no tips, and they bring food to your table. It was Sunday afternoon and the place had quite some business. Everyone in the store was Chinese or Asian students.
Cashier speaks English and Chinese, so no problem with language. You choose your own seat and it too very little time for my food to arrive. My biggest concern was the food might be greasy, but it was not bad. They even have the diet version, cooked without oil.
I grow up in Asia and am so used to street food, where eating is really all about food and you will be left alone (which is great now because I’m so sick of answering“I’m fine” 5 times when servers come ask you is everything ok). Street food is quick and easy. There isn’t much service involved, but of course owners won’t just treat you rudely. I was happy with this place because it feels like places I visit where I grow up.
I read reviews on this place and was well aware of my experience contradicting with mainstream. If you are American you probably would consider this place pretty bad, but if you have lived in China or HK or Taiwan you probably won’t take it so personally. It simply shows you a Chinese side of service and food experience.
My slight complaint is, they charge you 50 cent extra if you pay by card, but there’s a sign indicating this. Also, in Chinese minimum charge for card payment is 10, but in English it is 20. That feels tricky.

This place is hit or miss, sometimes it’s okay and worth it and other times it’s no good.

Absolutely no and never again. First of all, $ 9.98 for chicken lomein that’s half oil and half soy sauce? I could barely pick up the noodles with my chopsticks because they were covered in oil. No thanks.
But the main reason this place gets one star (and less if I had the option) is that there is no soap in the bathroom. I went to wash my hands before I ate, and I noticed that there was no more soap; therefore, I did the courteous thing and asked the female cook that there was none, and she told me that they had no more! What restaurant doesn’t carry a backup of soap?! I’m assuming the men’s room didn’t have any either, which means that every time the cooks used the bathroom, they didn’t clean their hands! I gagged. Any restaurant that doesn’t even stock the most basic way of cleaning your hands is disgusting.
Dirty hands, oily noodles, and inflated prices for unsanitary and just flat out bad food. No thanks.

I’m very satisfied with the food for the price. It’s not crazy greasy, you get a very filling portion and it’s inexpensive.
If you’re looking for cheap Chinese, go to A8.

For the price it’s pretty good, and the vegetables are fresh seeming which is more than I can say for most Chinese places. I got a $ 7 meal with crab Rangoon, fried rice, general tsoas chicken and a fortune cookie, good deal

A8 China is located near my building and I’ve gone there several times for carry out. The first visit went relatively well — I ordered my food, waited for roughly 10 minutes and was served quite an average plate of General Tso’s Chicken. The chicken was lacking in flavor and texturally unimpressive but my egg roll and fried rice were decent.
NOW, a few months pass and I decide to return on a lazy sunday evening, and I experience some of the worst service and food of my time in Madison. The restaurant was not ridiculously busy and seemed well-​staffed for a Sunday night, but it took 25 minutes for my one serving of Lo Mein to arrive. During the waiting period, I asked the cashier when I should expect it and she looked confused and seemed to shout back to the cook, correcting the original order. Not good! Although she repeated my order back to me at checkout, I figured that they probably started making something else and had to restart. Worse things have happened, and I figured, if the food was good, I’d be alright with it. On a side note, another bad sign was the lady in the store who was waiting to return a full bag of food she’d ordered earlier!
Anyways, my food finally came and, upon returning home, I encountered a horrendously bland, over-​oiled Lo Mein with dry, flaky fried rice. The only redeeming feature of the dish was the crab rangoon, which was pleasantly sweet and tasty!
Needless to say, I will not be returning to A8 China anytime soon due to my experience with both poor service and food. For better Chinese in Madison, I’d recommend Asian Kitchen or QQ. I don’t mind walking a bit further for an equally priced Chinese dish that’s infinitely better than what A8 serves!

Cheap, but bad. The store itself looks really second rate and the rice I got was dry and aged. The chicken was dry and the sauce looked really artificially colored. Very cheap lunch though if you don’t mind eating a little worse

Decent food. however constantly get delivery orders wrong and service is bad.

Personally, I love A8 China. It’s been my go-​to fast food place since a few years back when I started attending college here. They’ve always had less than $ 6 lunch meals, but they have deteriorated in size. (I don’t mind. I could stand to eat less haha)
It has the best General Tso’s Chicken hands down: sweet and tangy. Asian Kitchen’s is usually tough and dry. The crab rangoon here is slightly sweet and damn tasty.
Another thing definitely worth noting: I’ve eaten there on several occasions and Chinese students frequent it as a popular hangout. It makes sense to me because they actually make some delicious Chinese (non-​gwailo) food.
I don’t know what all these 1 star reviews are about. No offense, but I’m assuming most of these people have never had real Chinese food (basically not that deep fried, sauce slathered, stuff everyone associates with) since half of my mom is a 1^st generation immigrant from Hong Kong. I feel A8 is a more tasty representation than other fast food Chinese I’ve had in Madison.

No fortune cookies? are you kidding me?!

The pork chow mein consisted of an ample mess of overcooked bok choy, maybe some onions (I’m not sure that’s what they were), and roast pork. The pork was juicy with the sauce (which had a decent flavor, the sauce, that is), but the pork had an odd flavor that I recognized as meat that’s been previously frozen and maybe a little freezer burnt. The fried noodles were the thick kind (not the slender round kind) and were stale enough that I could not eat them. The dish came with a side of particularly flavorless fried rice that had (also previously frozen) peas and carrots in it.
I also got a side of crab rangoons. They were thin, but greasy and creamy and tasty. And the plum sauce reminded me of the plum sauce I had as a kid when my parents ordered carryout — glowing and orange and sweetly delicious.
The rangoons didn’t redeem the meal. The quality of the ingredients in the chow mein was unacceptable. I don’t care how inexpensive the food is, it’s not worth it if it isn’t edible.

Lousy, worthless Chinese food easily outdone by any other restaurant in the area. Their prices aren’t any lower, and their food is noticeably worse. Fuck you A8 China. Why are you still open?
Some time ago I ordered the pepper steak and onion, knowing full well that they were going to overload the dish with peppers in order to minimize the amount of meat they had to give me. This disregard for their customers should have been the first sign that I was making a big mistake eating here instead of just going down the street to Asian Kitchen or calling up Jade Garden for a delivery. At least as AK, they overload one order with more food than you could comprehend eating in two sittings.
Thinking myself to be quite clever, I asked A8 to omit the peppers and put extra meat instead. Their response? Give me more onions than I ever thought fucking possible. I swear could smell my order down the block. I opened the box to find a massive pile of milky clear, floppy, disgustingly overcooked onions covered in ground pepper, overflowing its way into my rice and looking similar to and about as appetizing as a pile of maggots. Buried underneath were literally — and I shit you not — FOUR pieces of meat. Unsurprisingly, they tasted like peppery rubber and after 3 seconds of chewing, turned into an ball of lard-​flavored chewing gum.
Rice was undercooked, eggroll was soggy and tasted microwaved, like the shit you buy at Sam’s Club. Don’t eat here. Ever.

Yeah… I’m not sure how this place survives in Madison. Food is greasy and bland. Walk on by…

WARNING: DO NOT ORDER FROM HERE
Starving and exhausted after driving cross country 3500 miles, all my boyfriend and I wanted was some yummy chicken chow mein delivered to us after eating nothing but PB&J and bad gas station food for 7 days straight. What was delivered to us was nothing resembling chicken chow mein. I don’t even know what it was, but chicken chow mein has been my favorite chinese meal since childhood, so I know what it is even in all of its slightly varying forms, and this was not it. We called the place to explain the mistake and they tried to tell us that their chicken chow mein is just «different» and refused to replace it for us or even give us money off of our order. We are extremely easygoing, reasonable people when it comes to stuff like this as my boyfriend has delivered pizzas for years and I have an extensive retail and customer service background. We get that mistakes are sometimes made and we approached this mistake in a very understanding manner; unfortunately this place does not seem to give two sh*ts about their customers. Don’t insult me by trying to convince me that I don’t know what chow mein is, a**hole. Whatever we did get, which we were stuck with, tasted terrible, so the mistake and the complete lack of customer service that followed aside, I wouldn’t even recommend this place as suitable food for human consumption.

Was told this was really authentic Chinese food. I’m not judge of oriental authenticity… but I can tell you: I did not enjoy the food. Lots of grissle and fat. Kind of gross. The sauces were a little bland.
My ex bought a copy of Legend of Zelda with the gold cartridge from this place, though. Tell me that that’s something you look for in a Chinese food restaurant.

A8 China is like the lowest on the totem pole when it comes to Chinese Food. The fried rice wasn’t even fried, I mean WTF? That’s SO false advertising! The food wasn’t even good! STAY AWAY!

You can’t beat this.
All day special:
one pork egg roll or order of crab rangoon
one entrée (choose from 30 or so dishes)
steamed or fried rice
can of soda
until 4pm, $ 5.19
after 4pm, $ 5.79
if you want it «large», $ 6.79
I had hunan chicken which featured large pieces of white meat chicken, no gristle, lots of seemingly fresh veggies (broccoli, peppers, onion, etc.), and a nicely spiced and not too sweet sauce. The fried rice was yellow and nothing spectacular. It’s a great deal for takeout. The small filled me up (and I have a big appetite for Chinese takeout!)
I haven’t experienced any customer service problems, but while I was there waiting for my food, there were two other guys waiting. One had ordered a small special with general tso’s and one had ordered a large general tso’s. They called out «one kung pao chicken» and it seemed like it could have turned into a big debacle, but the guys who wanted general tso’s corrected them and the guys behind the counter promptly brought them their correct orders.
I did appreciate the health department’s «symptoms of norovirus» flier posted on the soda refrigerator…

Well, it’s cheap and they deliver. I live right across the street and I still make an order for delivery. I wouldn’t recommend eating in or pick-​ups – they do not specialize in customer service. Use
instead.