1st Wok

Very disappointed. I have tried them twice and I usually give a place a third try but they don’t deserve it. The service is bad. The food is sub standard for what is available in this area, the prices are ridiculous. You got my last dollar of business 1^st Wok.
My advice, try ANYWHERE ELSE!

This is my favorite Chinese food. General Tso’s Chicken and Hot and Sour Soup is better than any other place I have been. I had to eat here before going back to Florida.

Hole in the wall, hasn’t been touched since 1993. Shortly after ordering you’ll hear the sizzle of a wok and loud chatter in Chinese-​this place is legit!

OK so this isn’t a stop everything you’re doing and eat this fried rice kind of place, but it is consistently good, predictable chinese take-​out. I don’t understand the bad rap from other folks.
1^st Wok has been my go-​to for chinese food for the past two years. I can always rely on their wonton soup, fried dumplings shrimp or combination fried rice, general tso’s chicken, and chicken and broccoli; I rotate between all these dishes and have never been disappointed the countless times I’ve stopped by after a long day at work. It’s not an eat in kind of place, more like a delivery and take out so don’t expect there to be folks sitting in the restaurant.
This is awesome standard-​american-​chinese food. I have been thankful numerous times a solid establishment like 1^st Wok exists in Calhoun Village to satiate my voracious cravings for quick and dirty chinese food.

I love their egg rolls! I haven’t been able to find any other egg rolls like theirs. They are absolutely the best. Their sweet and sour and fresh spicy mustard are amazing to dip! Yum!!!

I actually would give it 3.5 stars because it really was a decent take out. LOVE the pan fried dumplings! I had Kung Pao beef which isn’t exactly on the menu, but the accommodated for me. Yes it was a little bland, they should develop a better brown sauce and their ratings will likely improve. Chinese food always gets a bad rap for reviews but this is perfect for the late dinner takeout. Dining room is fine too, but I was not dining in today. Staff was very pleasant to me. Would order again for sure.

I find the food here to be very good. The menu is pretty typical and is a great place for takeout. The family that runs this place is very nice. The other reviews surprise me and I don’t think you can go wrong here.

Horrifically, shockingly bad food. They have no shame, this is the absolutely worst food of any nation I have eaten in Minnesota. Before this my benchmark for terrible Chinese food had been the great wall in linden hills.
1^st wok is so comprehensively horrid they should close their doors immediately and the owners should find all their recent customers and apologize for serving food so vile. I am very wary of Minnesota Chinese restaurants but I saw chao fun, fried rice noodles on a blackboard menu.
Sorry 1^st wok, Chao fun is not, i repeat, NOT tiny pieces of rice paste. Yes I said rice paste. the things that were supposed to be noodles were boiled beyond the stage of sticky or just pasty, into an actual state of paste. $ 12.66 of inedible paste.
These people in the kitchen are despoilers of food. Would they try to feed this filth to their mothers or other Chinese people? These cooks are without any human decency and are far beyond shame to serve this kind of garbage to paying customers.

Bland and overall not very good.
The wonton soup was tasteless as was the fried rice.
The sesame chicken was OK but I’ve had better for less money. This place is not for me and if you like your Chinese food to have flavor and be good, this place is not for you either.

So disappointed. We used to go here in the late 90s and it was great… and then we re-​visited tonight. We won’t be back.
We paid around $ 28.00 for chicken lo mein, pork fried rice, and two appetizers (pork wontons and beef sticks). Really? It’s not like we ordered «real» entreés. Or drinks.
The lo mein was so bland. The chicken was decent, but the noodles were sticky and tasteless. There was a stray vegetable I pulled out of the pile on my plate. A shredded carrot? Since it was the only one, I think it was a mistake. Uh… gross.
My husband said the fried rice was okay, but strangely spicy. He didn’t like the beef sticks. They looked like jerky.
The pork wontons were so hard, they were almost inedible and I tore my mouth up trying to eat them.
This is not «run-​of-​the-​mill» Chinese. I can’t give it that much credit. My 2 year old enjoyed the lo mein noodles, but the again he enjoys plain boiled noodles with no flavor.
What happened to this place?

This was the first time I had tried 1^st Wok. I was very disappointed. I had crab rangoon which was very small and very over done. I also had General Tso’s Chicken. It was terrible. The flavoring was not typical for General Tso’s chicken. I am not a picky eater and I could not eat this food. I will not be eating here ever again. I am new to the city and in need of some good chinese food!!!

This place used to consistently good. Tonight it was horrible. We ordered take out and the egg rolls were wet with grease. We couldn’t eat them. The beef and broccoli was also very greasy. Sad to say but after many years we will not be back. We will stick with the old stand bye– lotus to go in loring park.

So I am retarded and just now realized (since 2009) that my review was for the wrong 1^st Wok!
Here is my review for the *correct* 1^st Wok:
For what it is, American-​style Chinese food, it’s pretty good. The restaurant décor is nothing special, but the service and food are great and consistent. My family has been going here since 2000, and it’s basically our go-​to for classic American-​style Chinese food. If you want extra sauce on your sesame cold noodles or egg fu young, no problem! And their lunch menu is a fantastic deal.

Good cheap Chinese food.
There is nothing fancy about 1^st Wok, but when you want simple Chinese food it hits the spot. Lunch is just the right size, and dinner portions are huge.
I find most hot and sour soup in Minneapolis is neither hot or sour, but there’s is surprisingly good. And the subgum fried rice is great hangover food.

I love the portions here. I always get it on Sundays after a rough Saturday night. I tend to like spicy food so it’s awesome that they will make it spicer upon request or even less spicy if you have Scandinavian taste buds. $ 13 for a meal that a 26 yr old guy will split into two meals in my mind in a great deal and it reheats well because it is made so fresh!

1^st Wok is fast, cheap, and not fancy. But hey, if you’re hungry it does the trick. The service is always great for me. They are really friendly and helpful and the food comes fast!
Yeah, it’s not the greatest Chinese food, and no it’s nothing special or delicious, but it satisfies a craving and the lunch special is not a bad deal at all. Choice of soup, fried rice, and an entrée for around $ 7. And, like I said, it comes out fast, so it’s great for a quick lunch break.
The chicken is not bad quality, but is better when it is not breaded. My go-​to dish for the lunch special is the «Hunan Chicken». It has quite a bit of chicken, especially for a lunch special and has a lot of veggies as well. Plus, the sauce has a nice little bite to it, which I like.
Overall, 1^st Wok is an A-​OK quick Chinese lunch stop, nothing special, but nothing horrible either.

Totally average. My Hunan chicken was not spicy, even though I spied a few red flakes in there. Kung Pao chicken was OK. We tried the pork won tons and couldn’t find any pork. As my fiancée said, I guess that’s what you get for $ 3. It’s great that it’s so close to satisfy random Chinese cravings, but it’s not somewhere I’d make a trip to get to.

About a week back I was headed in the direction of Saint Louis Park to visit an old pal of mine, and having to kill time, I opted to check out the little strip mall off of West Lake Street & Excelsior Boulevard not too far off from Lake Calhoun. I hadn’t been in the area for years, so I had to stop by, and, wow was I surprised about some of the changes that had taken place. One of the few things that hadn’t changed over the years was the little Chinese Restaurant in the mall.
I heart Chinese food any day of the week and twice on Sunday, so for me, it really wasn’t a hard «Gee, where do I go for dinner…» routine.
After finding a place to park in this busy little mall, I sauntered over to the restaurant, and despite the plethora of cars in the parking lot for various reasons, the little Chinese food restaurant was relatively quiet inside. With the exception of the phone in orders, I could hardly tell it was dinner time. Which, was by me, a-​ok since I do like to dine without a ruckus of kicking and screaming family members and their parental units in tow. (Not that I don’t like kids, I do — I just would like to eat in peace and actually hear the company I’m with.)
I was seated and within seconds, someone was there to take my drink order, and when she came back in a minute or two, she took my food order. She was courteous and polite and pretty much didn’t harass me into making a decision like I’ve encountered at other restaurants.
I ordered my usual for trying a new place (cheese wonton and pork mushuu), and less than five minutes after I placed the order the food arrived.
For me, it was pretty average fare. It wasn’t the best, and it certainly wasn’t the worst (which for me — worst wise is Hop Wong — we order through work — I have no idea where it is.) It was tasty. It was hot. It was like what you’d find at literally a hundred other Chinese food restaurants in the city.
Is this place something to go out of your way for? Only if you think it’s the best Chinese food restaurant ever. Is this someplace to avoid — again with the only if you think it’s the worst place ever. Everyone and their mother has a best or worst Chinese food place to go to or avoid.
If you want to start someone on Americanized Chinese Food, then, this place is a good place to start.

What a great place. Ranks right up there with Lotus in Loring park. The crab Rangoon was a nice balance of garlic cream cheese and crab– not unlike some other places where they taste like cream cheese and sugar
The main dish I had had excellent presentation and garnish. Vegetables were fresh and cooked well. Meats were flavored well and not over powering. Service is 5 star. Will be back for sure

Its a bad sign right off the bat when you walk into a restaurant at peak dinner time and the place is empty. I now know why no one else was there, the food is not good.
Even though my group were the only ones in the Restaurant the service was pretty bad. Long wait time to place order and had to ask to get refills.
My experience with other Chinese restaurants in the Twin Cities made me think my General Tso Chicken was going to be bland so I ordered it spicy. Well either they have the spiciest Generals to begin with or they somehow made it unbearably spicy. My mouth was burning and I had no water to quench it due to the lack of refilling my glass.
The food was not all that good and it was over priced compared to other Chinese places nearby so I will most likely not be returning here.