Hot Wok Cafe

This is my new go-​to Chinese restaurant for Fort Collins. Food is very good. It took a while to come out. The restaurant isn’t the nicest but it has plenty of seating. The employees were friendly and accommodating. I would recommend this restaurant. 4 starts out of 5 for Chinese food.

Some of the best Chinese in Fort Collins! While not open on Monday’s, their hours till 10 PM each other night and Free Delivery makes this my «go to» Chinese restaurant in the area. The owner is regularly around and the staff seems pretty consistent; everyone is pleasant and very courteous.
I wish they offered their Fried Rice at Dinner but otherwise their selection is great. The Orange Chicken during lunch has become one of my favorites; they’ll even make it extra spicy for you if you’d like. The Lunch Combo is well worth the under $ 10 price since you get both your choice of rice and soup (or a fountain drink). You can’t go wrong with the Hot & Sour Soup.
I’ve tried another Chinese restaurant in the area and was turned off by their unpleasant demeanor and seemingly lack of grace when dealing with customers. You won’t have that happen to you at Hot Wok Café.

I’ve never gone to the restaurant, but I have gotten food delivered a lot. It’s pretty good. The lemon chicken and the sesame chicken are definite favorites for me, and delivery times are pretty decent unless you have a really large order, then delivery can take over an hour. However today I got the shrimp toast appetizer, which is basically deep fried wonder bread with mashed shrimp on top, and it tasted as good as it sounds. Might explore other options for Chinese food in Fort Collins now.

The food is adequate, the service was severely incompetent. Not only did they screw up the order, they took they’re sweet time doing it and were completely dumbfounded when presented with the issue. If the management can’t hire decent help for their own business then why trust them when it comes to your food?

The General Tso Chicken is the worse that I’ve ever had. It was drenched in a mixture of Worcestershire and soy sauce with a few pieces of chicken, some cabbage and onions. Even worse was the hot and sour soup that was so unbelievably salty that I had to add water. All of this for $ 10?!? I was torn between sending my meal back to the kitchen and writing this review. Honestly how does a place like Hot Wok Café stay in business this long if they are serving such dreadful, skimpy, salt-​drenched food?

Two words. Shacha beef. It is absolutely delicious. Tender beef, a wonderful dark, spicy sauce that I could almost drink. Absolutely tremendous. I would also highly recommend the Kung Po chicken and their fried rice dishes. This is my go-​to Chinese place in Fort Collins. There is no atmosphere at all in the restaurant, and you sit on cheap seats at Formica tables, but it just doesn’t matter! Try it, and the food won’t disappoint.

Pretty standard Chinese food. However, 3 stars for having the best hot and sour soup I’ve ever had. It got me through some hard Sunday mornings in college. God bless you, Hot Wok Café.

Call me what you will, but in my opinion you can’t really differentiate between Chinese food places in Fort Collins. Whether it’s Panda Express or a sit-​down restaurant, you basically get the same thing. Therefore, the quest for me was to find Chinese food that was tasty, not too greasy, and cheap. I believe I have found that in Hot Wok.
First of all, it’s practically impossible to avoid getting a lunch or dinner special. They offer a wide variety of entrees with your side of starch and either a drink or soup. My favorite by far is the sesame tofu. The sesame chicken is good too, but they cook the tofu perfectly in my opinion. It’s crispy on the outside and soft and warm on the outside. If you aren’t a fan of tofu, then I bet sesame anything would be good. The sauce is sweet enough to satisfy any sugar craving, but not so sweet that you feel like you’re having dessert.
I love that they offer brown rice as an option (and don’t charge extra). They also give you broccoli with your entrée, so you can sneak in a little bit of health food while you eat. You can’t really beat the prices either. I remember when ordering delivery (which is free) I had trouble meeting the order minimum of $ 10. I think ultimately I needed to get soup, egg rolls, and a drink to go with my meal.
Bottom line: Hot Wok is great for cheap Chinese food that doesn’t suck. If you aren’t nearby you can get free delivery as long as you spend at least $ 10. Bonus!

The food looked decent enough (appearance-​wise), but the taste was simply not there.
I already knew what I wanted as soon as I walked in. The girl who was taking orders just finished with another customer and then proceeded to walk away from the cash register. I had to wait around 15 minutes just to get my order in, forced to watch this scrawny kid who I think works there talk to her and attempt to stare me down (apparently I was a threat to him and his lower IQ-​ed lover).
I was ecstatic to get the hell out, go home, and eat some good/​decent Asian cuisine. Coming from NY, I do realize it is very hard to match the quality in terms of taste and amount, but what I got was just ludicrous. The chicken tasted overwhelmingly of vinegar and red wine. The vegetables were soggy, moldy, and damp-​tasting. The rice had ABSOLUTELY NO TASTE! Also, how do you manage to mess up a egg-​drop soup? And the amount of food you get for the price you pay? Ridiculous.
I pass by this place every day and every time I do, I can’t help but wonder why this tacky, rude, and incompetent place is still in business.
P. S.: Thai Kitchen, which is around 2 minutes walking distance from this epicenter of blandness, tastes like manna from heaven in comparison.

Best Chinese in Fort Collins HANDS DOWN. As a long term former employee I may be a bit bias, but the General Council at CSU originally introduced me to this place and I have been hooked ever since. It is a real New York City style restaurant– no advertisement, no fluff, just good honest food.
This is a family owned place which has been in the same location 17 years. The interior is nothing special, and the service can be hit or miss, but the food speaks for itself. Their kung pow, general tso’s, moo shu, and sweet and sour chicken are my personal favorites. The cream cheese wontons (spinach rather than white fish passed off for crab), pot stickers, and any of their soups are great to start with.
While by no means an upscale place, Hot Wok is great for take out or for sitting down to appreciate fresh Chinese. As a former employee I know that everything is fresh, absolutely NOTHING is precooked, and they are very careful in cutting the meats to ensure only the best cuts are used. I should also note that they do not do substitutions on lunch or dinner specials, and do not do fried rice with entries because it is made fresh, rather than sitting on the steamer as is the case with other local Asian restaurants.
In regards to people complaining about management– the owners are there every single hour that the store is open. Both man and wife, every day, six days a week, 10 – 10. They are not going to substitute your food without a fee, they are not going to give you a discount if you didn’t like the food, and they are not going to give you money back if you think you were inexplicably over charged. They never overcharge ever, they do, however, charge when you ask for extra things in your food. They are both first generation Hong Kong immigrants and have worked in the restaurant industry their entire lives and I really do feel that they love sharing their food with others. I would recommend not ordering past 8:30 because sometimes the food quality is a little lower later in the day.
I really hope everyone give this place a try because it is beyond wonderful; a great homey, down to earth restaurant.

This place has the best Chinese food I’ve ever had and it has totally deterred me from eating at other Chinese restaurants. I’ve been out of FC for nearly a year now and still have not eaten Chinese!
The sesame chicken is the best thing on the menu and the egg drop soup is made with chicken broth (pork-​free is somewhat hard to find) and it has fresh spinach and tomatoes… YUM! The hot and sour is also delicious with no pork or beef, and all their chicken is white breast meat.
You surely can’t beat the price, and the dinner portions were always enough for two meals and that was usually the case with the lunches too.
The interior is not very pleasant with the fluorescent lighting and cafeteria style booths but who cares when the food is that good… I usually ordered delivery or take-​out anyways!

Being in a college town there are lots of restaurants that are inexpensive and near campus.
Usually trying restaurants in the collegian area is not a gamble and you can get decent food at a good price. There are some places though that are so cheap that it permeates in the food too. Fortunately in the case of Hot Wok that is not true.
I ordered the Sesame Chicken and while it tasted decent it was not anything fancy either and sometimes that is ok. They have lots of combos to offer during lunch and dinner and soup is included. I was here for lunch. I got the Hot and Sour soup which was fairly tasty and left me wanting more by the time I got to the bottom of the bowl. You get the choice of white or brown rice with whatever you pick as well. So if you are out to really impress your friends by going out to eat this place is not necessarily the best choice but if you want a solid meal, nothing fancy then Hot Wok is a sound choice!

I’m not a big fan of Chinese food, but I do like fried rice and, hands down, Hot Wok makes the tastiest, chock-​full-​of-​meat fried rice I’ve ever had. One order is enough for two or three meals. We’re moving out of state in 18 months and I intend to pay them whatever they ask to show me how they make it before then. It’s that good.

This is near my house, so I have eaten here several times. The food is OK, but the service is deplorable. I was recently overcharged, and when I confronted them, I was treated rudely. I gave them the opportunity to fix things and keep me as a customer, but the staff could have cared less. Seems like this place is staffed with college students and there is no owner/​manager (or anyone who cares) around. I will miss their food, but I will not be back after this experience. If they had just handled the situation a little differently, I would have remained a good customer.

No nonsense Asian joint that gets the food right every time. I love the sesame chicken and spinach wantons. The gyoza here is pretty good! They’re a little expensive for an «Asian food for college kids» kind of place, but the food is good.

Solid, spot on Chinese food with emphasis on fresh, abundant veggies. Really tasty hot-​n-​sour soup! Today’s friendly, courteous and engaged waitress made me smile which all too often I find myself not doing when it comes to customer service in this town … This would easily be a 4 star review if it wasn’t for styrofoam cups, styrofoam plates, plastic utensils and chop sticks that more closely resemble toothpicks on steroids.

Yet another place I went by numerous times before finally trying it. In a prime location just off of CSU’s campus and seemingly specializing in fast, delicious Asian food, Hot Wok Café is tasty and convenient.
The Sha Cha beef that I ordered was good and it appears to be made fresh and you’re given the choice of three types of rice and either a drink or soup. In both price and portion it seems to be proportionally smaller than other places in town like it such as China Wok and College Café. It’s actually a pretty good size for a single meal if you’re hungry and you might have some left over if you’re not as much. Good for a quick stop if you’re hungry in the Elizabeth and Shields area.

This is one of my wife’s favorites from her days as a CSU undergrad. We love the General Tsao’s chicken. Very tasty, though perhaps not all that good for you. It seems to have changed a bit recently, but still good and pretty much the same.
More recently, I’ve discovered some of their tofu dishes, and have enjoyed them — including cripsy tofu (I think).
One of the nice things is that they will give you brown rice at no extra charge.

We got some delivery today and The food was kinda bland. I had the szechuan chicken and it smelt super spicy but when i bit into it it was really lacking in heat or flavor. I tasted my girlfriends dish and it tasted like pretty much the same thing, we had both dishes with lo mein but i was expecting more variation in two different dishes. The food wasn’t necessarily bad by any means, i’d prefer it over fast food anyday.
The Delivery speed was pretty fast and the employees seemed nice.

Hot Wok was my go-​to for Chinese delivery all through undergrad. Okay, so the delivery’s not all that fast, but it’s a lot of food for your money and not having to go get it is nice. I’d actually suggest delivery over dining in– you just get paper plates if you eat there, anyway. The combos are nice because they come with noodles or rice and soup, but the regular entrees are probably a better deal overall. The orange peel beef, General Tso’s chicken, and Mongolian beef are probably my favorites.