Critic's Review
This place used to be New River Pizza; they moved across the street 4 years ago; and the same people have dusted it off and opened a Chinese concept. The idea is to 'gastropub" the recipes and to charge 50% more than Chinese fast food. "Asian Fusion" is the term they use; a term coined in the 80s which is synonymous with "Overpriced Chinese Food'
They're trying to pass this off as a restaurant, but I've been in the place before and it was just a takeout counter. There's a few tables and it's a bit nicer than the card tables they have in some Chinese Take Out places, but I'm glad I decided to do take out.
You can get 2 dumplings for $4 or 6 for $9; I expected these to be better than what I get for $1 each at every other Chinese restaurant. I ordered 2 dumplings and chicken fried rice. They don't have the staple pork fried rice; they've replaced the classic char siu pork (which is one of the reasons to seek out Chinese Food) with pork bellies, which is a fancy name for uncured bacon. I don't want bacon fried rice.
I went next door to the Qwik Mart (don't ever go there, it's a horrible store) and came back a few minutes later and I took a seat. I hear a voice "Would you like to pay?". No, not really, but I will. He says $22.16. "Say What?", "No, it can't be". I look at the bill. "Ah, I said, you charged me twice for the dumplings". Some confusion ensued; apparently 2 dumplings means 2 orders of 2 dumplings. Why would anyone pay $8 for 4 dumplings when you can get 6 for $9? Use your head, man.
He voided the item and I proceeded to wait for my order to be ready.
The food comes in a shopping bag rather than a cut up orange crate, which is worth 50% more all by itself.
When I got home I opened it up to find that I'd been hoodwinked into paying $18 for $7 worth of food. They snuck a New River Grill menu in the bag.
The packaging is odd. For 1000 years fried rice has been packaged in white boxes; now we have something different. Maybe to mask the portion? What was particularly troubling is that it didn't look properly stir fried. The vegetables were raw. It looked like they cut up some green onions and threw then in. But they weren't cut in the normal way.
No condiments. No soy sauce. No mustard. No duck sauce.
The dumplings were equally horrifying. Tiny pressed dumplings. I tried to bite into one of them. Rubbery skins, and something chunky and chewy inside.
I took a look at it looked like they stuffed them with pulled pork; closer inspection showed a very un-dumpling like filling. They also don't give you the standard scallion sauce that usually comes with dumplings. This stuff is much worse. Probably a "chef" creation.
That's not what goes in a pork dumpling. These were the worst dumplings I've ever had, and that includes bad buffets. Rubbery dough filled with chewy chunks of pork. Good God.
I can't eat fried rice that hasn't been properly stir fried. The oil and MSG are the entire point of Chinese Food. Plus I don't want raw vegetables. Luckily I have a wok.
There were clumps of brown sticky stuff in the rice that I initially thought was a bug (rice can look like legs!). I still don't know what it was, but I've never seen anything like it in fried rice before.
There was a decent amount of chicken in the rice, but it also wasn't stir fried. Fake Chinese food for certain.
Conclusion
I don't want to be one of those guys who says "I'm from NY so I know Chinese Food", but when I worked on Wall Street and lived in Queens I probably ate Chinese food 3 times a week either for lunch or dinner. The Chinese food in South Florida sucks; plain and simple. There was a glimmer of hope when Hong Kong Chinese Food first opened, but they've gotten progressively worse to the point that they are now just as bad as everyone else.
This, on the other hand, doesn't measure up to the worst places, because it's not really Chinese Food; at least not as we know it. At best it's no better than the worst Chinese food you can find, and it costs 50% more. A losing formula no matter which abacus you use. It's sort of ironic that a place named "Wok" has fried rice that doesn't seem to have been properly cooked in a wok.
I've described their sister restaurant, New River Pizza, as a Pizzeria masquerading as a restaurant. This place is a Chinese take-out restaurant masquerading as an Asian Fusian restaurant. And a really bad one at that.
Some Chinese guy will buy this place once these guys give up and hopefully sell actual Chinese Food. This place has no chance in it's current form.
Cool Logo though.
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