Chef At Wok

Very sad to see it closed. Was the best Chinese restaurant around and will be sorely missed :/

Seems like some folks here in review land are spoiled by the «plenty» that this society offers. Oh well … some folk may have their noses a little too high in the sky. My nose is level with the Earth.
I had patronized this little restaurant for well over 20 years. I have always found the quality to be excellent and my tummy very happy after dining here. I had brought friends to the Chef at Wok and each and every one of them were pleased with the cuisine and the staff. Upon retirement from my profession (Teaching) a few years ago, I had only dropped by infrequently. That was because of the fixed income syndrome. I just could not afford to eat out as much. I am not sure the owners and staff had clearly understood my changed situation. However, I did make a point of dropping by as often as I could for a good meal and courteous staff.
Notice all the past tenses above?
Well, I dropped by yesterday for a late dinner and found the restaurant dark, appliances piled on tables, and a gracious note posted on the front window announcing that they had closed (apparently forever). I was flabbergasted. Dinner was no longer important. I was sad.
There are some here who may not agree with my assessment of the food and that is fine and fair. Nonetheless, this little restaurant was to me much more than food. It was an extension of my home and my heart, and I will miss it greatly. When I was dining there, I was at home.
Two years ago I lost a friend of 50 years to a stroke. Loss, unto itself, can be adapted to and survived. However, it is the suddenness of loss that one never gets over.
I wish all the owners and all the staff (over all of the last 20+ years) of the Chef at Wok the best of goodwill and of luck always. And, I just want to thank each and every one of them for the quality and goodness they have contributed to my life.
This is my fitting farewell.
… Richard B.

I love this restaurant! I’ve been going here for years and the food is consistently good. They serve large portions and everything is reasonably priced. The lunch special is an exceptionally good value. The family who owns the place is super friendly and service is excellent! Do yourself a favor and try this local gem! Try the bbq pork chow mein and wonton soup.

Wow! Words cannot describe. This place is amazing, I think it’s in the top two Chinese restaurants I’ve ever eaten at. Everything was fresh and delicious. Their sauces are amazing and their vegetables are fresh! I love coming here if you want FRESH delicious Chinese food eat here!

I’ve only had the Kung pao chicken during lunch time. The dish is fairly good. This place is a very small, dingy, hole-​in-​the-​wall. The price for lunch is great though! For about $ 8.00 you get a generous serving + soup & spring roll or BBQ pork. Service is very fast! Which I love because when lunch time rolls around, I’m usually very famished, and I hate waiting. Bonus: they have brown rice!

I’ve been going there for 20 years. Remember the prior owner Allen? Good guy. The Seafood Chow Mein w/​homemade noodles is great but lacks calamari and baby corn that Allen served. Still, it’s my Go To place. I love the texture and taste of the $ 3 extra homemade noodles… I always get them. They were seemingly able to decrease salt w/​o decreasing taste when I asked (personal preference), the Chef succeeded. Like Arnold said…“I’ll be back”. Update, 4/11/16…Richard, I’m aghast… unbelieving, are you blankin’ me? Tell me it’s not so. It was my favorite place.

Oh My Gosh It’s SOOOOOOOO Good!!1
If you’re looking for that old skool Chinese American food they got it. All my favorite dishes, hot and sour soup and Mushu are delicious. They also have a vegetarian deep fried eggplant dish that is absolutely divine and their Szechuan is just as good.
Friendly and fast service in house and for delivery puts the finishing touches making this one not to be missed.

the only time I order from them is when I’m exhausted, and starving, and it’s nasty out, like tonight. Yet everytime I recieve my total, and an HOUR AND A HALF later get my «food» I’m pissed and sad at the same
total is ALWAYS at least ten dollars more than the menu pricing states it should be, and the food? meh. next time, I’ll just get off my ass and go to the deli at safeway, same quality, vastly different prices. phooey on you chef at wok. if you’re going to gouge people, stop saying it’s «free» delivery, and update your menu so no one gets any rude surprises, 33.00 for an egg roll, one cup of soup, half an order of ribs and an order of fried rice!!! seriously?!

We ordered delivery tonight. First, the lady who took our order was friendly and took our order efficiently. Second, the order came VERY fast. As to the food, it was mostly very good. The Moo Shoo Pork was excellent as well as the Yang Chow fried rice. The Almond Cranberry Chicken was unique and rather tasty. They made a big deal about their String Beans with XO Sauce on the menu which we tried but it was unremarkable. The sauce actually tasted a little fishy. My son’s favorite dish was the Crispy Eggplant with Tangy Hot Sauce. We all liked that as well even though it wasn’t really crispy. It had been a while since we have had food from here and we would certainly do so again.

We tried Chef at Wok on a recommendation from a friend. We’ve been searching to find a good replacement for the now closed Louie’s in Ballard.
Chef at Wok is delicious! The almond fried chicken is awesome. The homemade noodles in the beef chow mein are amazing! You have to order the homemade noodles.
What’s more, the service is amazing and the people who work there are very friendly.
We’ve been twice and have been very happy with both experiences. Check it out!

Very good noodles also love they’re dumplings. I really enjoy the chjnease food here.

My favorite new local Chinese delivery. Yangs fried rice was delicious. Steamed pot stickers were good. Pork on garlic sauce was very flavorful.

I came here yesterday evening for my brithday. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to be wowed because it’s a very plain looking restaurant that still had Christmas decorations on one wall! But afterwards we realized that it just shows that they are serious about the food! The Honey Walnut Prawns and the Hawaii 5 «O» were both incredible and very fresh tasting. The vegetable dumplings we had for appetizers, were filled with spinach, tofu, and mushrooms (with the option for steamed, or pan browned – we had ours steamed) were so good we should have ordered more «to go». Very impressed with just those dishes, but since we just moved in to the neighborhood, we will be sure to come back for more.

They have one of the best honey walnut prawns that I’ve had. Maybe they can cut down on the sweetness of the sweet and sour sauce. But overall it’s good food wise.
I really wished they had a bigger place though, it’s too small and parking is always an issue. I work right across the street so it’s really not a problem for me.

Solid Chinese takeout. I won’t say it’s the most amazing I’ve had, but it was tasty. Beef and broccoli was good, rice was a little undercooked. I’d recommend the mu shu pork or sweet and sour chicken (the chicken is perfect but the sauce is a little too star anise-​y in my opinion.)

I’ve ordered here a few more times since the last review and I decided to up the rating to a 4. I called not sure what I wanted and asked for suggestions on some chicken and beef dishes. They recommended the Walla Walla Tender Beef and the Cranberry Chicken. I opted for the beef and when it came it was delicious. Beef was super tender and the onions cooked perfectly. The sauce had the perfect amount of spice and is now one of my staples. I haven’t tried the Cranberry chicken but the person on the phone said it was a very popular dish. I’ll try that next time.
The homemade noodles are great and I always get the house special since it’s got a variety of proteins and veggies. Pan fried potstickers are a must as well.
If your in the area or in their delivery range I suggest you try them.

Never again. We recently moved into the neighborhood and were excited to have a (decently reviewed) Chinese delivery joint just around the corner. We gave it two shots, which was two too many. The damage:
* Honey walnut prawns that can best be described as inoffensive
* Greasy house chow mein, redeemed only slightly by the handmade noodles, which was unfortunately enough for us to give them a second chance
* A half-​order of Safeway deli-​grade BBQ; innovative use of food coloring to give the cold, mealy cutlets a suggestion of «BBQ» quality
* General Tso’s chicken coated in a doughy breading and a bland sauce
* House special fried rice with beef, chicken and shrimp that all had the bitter, slightly metallic taste of previously frozen meat product
* On the upside, their white rice is competently prepared
To add insult to our injured palates, our second (and last) order arrived fully one hour after it was placed. We should have refused it at the door.
My fortune after Meal #2 says it all: «Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.»

Let’s start by saying the experience I had with the staff on the phone was awful. I had to listen to a phone call between the woman and her manager because she wasn’t farmiliar with their delivery parameters. This woman then refused to substitute tofu for pork in the pork w/​garlic sauce entrée for the lunch combos. The menu clearly makes statements about substitutions being $ 1, and tofu substitutions being $ 3.75. I was willing to pay this, but she refused, saying «tofu is different.»
The food, however, was pretty darn good. My lunch combo ended up having a veggie spring roll, fried rice, hot and sour soup, and veggie chow mein. My coworker got the same thing with egg drop soup and cashew chicken.
The veggie spring roll was good and well constructed, and I like that it’s an option in the first place. A little bit of sauce with it would have gone a long way, though. If I had ordered sweet and sour chicken, I could have just dipped it in that sauce. I didn’t order that, though, and was left with a tasty but dry roll.
The hot and sour soup was one of the best I’ve ever had, but a little heavy on the mushrooms. Everything else in it was delicious.
The fried rice was probably the best part of the meal, I loved the little hint of soy sauce flavor it had. This was important because again, they gave us no sauces.
The veggie chow mein was not very good. Maybe I just thought that because my original entrée was denied… It was a little limp and soggy, and the veggies didn’t have much flavor to them. The zucchini was overcooked and the carrots undercooked. No real flavor at all.
For my coworker, the egg drop soup was satisfactory. Average, pretty good.
The cashew chow mein was lacking any vegetables at all. It had nothing but broccoli stalks. No fluffy broccoli tops, just the bottoms. Very weird. These are the things that make a cohesive dish. Maybe it’s just because I’m a vegetarian, but 100% meat and sauce in an entrée is an incomplete dish. They did save it by including all of the wonderful veggie sides in the combo, but if you had ordered it by itself, it would not have been yummy.
#1 biggest problem, and the reason they lost that third star: No soy sauce packets, no fortune cookies. I don’t need a fortune cookie, but isn’t that standard?
Honestly, I would like to try this place again. I would like to eat in the restaurant instead of delivering, because it was really still edible. But if you’re an international district chinese food snob, don’t stop by.

I just tried this place for the first time and I’m not exactly blown away. I usually always go to Honey Court in the International District so maybe I’m spoiled, but my honey walnut prawns had what I can only describe as a «basic» sweet taste, reminded me of that «salad» that comes with EVERY teriyaki meal in Seattle. The prawns also seemed way less incredible, smaller, and gave off more of a «deep fryer» vibe that I don’t like at $ 13. I also got the BBQ pork, which itself is decent, if not a little bit bland, but the spicy mustard or whatever that stuff it comes with is known as, tastes like straight up horseradish and not really like mustard. the spicy mustard at the Safeway deli is better. not cool. I will try it one more time in the future before giving up all hope but I’m not expecting much after this.

Yikes! What’s up with all the bad reviews?
This has become one of my regular Chinese delivery joints. Delivery time is reasonable (even when I’m a jerk and order dinner during the 5pm Aurora rush hour) and service is friendly.
And, the food is delicious! My favorites are Shanghai spring rolls (juicy, salty, pork filled), smoked salmon fried rice (c’mon, we’re in Seattle!), Hawaii-​Five (every meat under the sun in a savory, tangy sauce — it’s weird and wonderful), and tofu with black mushrooms in oyster sauce. (The tofu is lusciously soft and flavorful.)
I might even visit the restaurant in person someday!