Review: Fire Wok

On the recommendation of one of my loyal readers (who really should comment instead of email ;)), Tina, Ethan, and I tried Fire Wok on Johnson Drive by the arts theatre despite a promise to ourselves that we would never eat at Chinese buffets again.  Our aversion to Chinese buffets comes in no small part from the preponderance of fried foods, oils, and those prepackaged cookies that pass as dessert (mmm…imitation Oreos), none of which are healthy.  However, we were in a hurry and we were hungry and we were in the neighborhood–a deadly trifecta.

Fire Wok turned out to be pretty good.  I have to admit that it is hard for me to approach Chinese buffets that same after my conversion to vegetarianism because so many dishes have meat.  However, I was able to find several vegetable only dishes that were good and used my seafood exemption to chow down on the critters from the sea.  Much to my diet’s chagrin, they had fried scallops aggressively seasoned in salt–a masterpiece of fried seafood eatery if I’ve ever seen one or as I told my wife: “The first hundred of the scallops were great.  The second hundred were just okay.”

Tina, still engaging her carniverous side, chowed down on the sweet and sour chicken and the chicken on a stick all of which met her approval (Her comment: “The sweet and sour chicken was unbelievably good.”)  She also felt the egg rolls would be good to most people’s taste (“It was warm and crunchy and tasty.”  But, according to her, they had too much meat.  Even as a vegetarian I’m not sure how you have too much meat.)

On the downside, there was a plethora of fried and heavily oiled foods, leaving us with the choice of either rolling with the grease and suffering a stomach ache or eating nothing but plain fried rice.  In other words, Fire Wok ain’t health food.

All in all, if you are down on Johnson Drive or if you are just hungry for Chinese and do not mind the heaviness, you gotta put Fire Wok on your list.