Thursday, October 4, 2007

Restaurant Review: Tasty Wok

DONNA CHEN

PLANO — I’ve driven through the Plano Parkway and Coit Road intersection hundreds of times thanks to Central Market and never given a second thought to that washed out green sign in the Enterprise Rent-A-Car parking lot. With a generic name like Tasty Wok and a generic location in a strip mall next to a liquor store, this little eatery appeared to be one of a million General Tsao’s chicken lunch combo plate with eggroll and egg drop soup type places. Why bother?

With limited seating and counter service, Tasty Wok does brisk business serving exactly that, affordable generic lunch combo plates. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find another side to Tasty Wok. The restaurant is a split personality with a regular menu (in lunch and full versions) and a Chinese menu (in lunch, full, and weekend dim sum versions). Out of the Chinese menus, only the lunch version is available in English. So yes, there is an English Chinese menu, if that makes sense.

I’ve tried out the Chinese lunch menu, limited to mostly noodle and rice dishes, on two occasions in the hopes of finding another close-by, affordable (yes Tasty Wok is cheap!), and delicious option for a workday lunch. My first attempt was a to-go order of brown sauce and beef over flat rice noodles ($5.50). I called in 30 minutes prior to pick up and yet, when I arrived 30 minutes later, was informed that my order wasn’t quite ready. A little irked, I sat down and observed the business in action. Tasty Wok is a true mom and pop shop. The wife takes orders at the cash register, answers the phone for call in orders, and rushes around to wait on the five or so tables in the front dining room while the husband works the kitchen in the back. With the phone constantly ringing, a steady stream of walk-in customers for to-go orders, and a full dining room (even if it is small), Tasty Wok was clearly shorthanded on this visit.

When I finally received my food, the beef in brown sauce was in a tall styrofoam cup and the flat noodles and bean sprouts in a separate container. After assembling my lunch by pouring the beef and the sauce over the noodles and doing a little stirring to combine the separate parts, I took a few bites but wasn’t impressed. The beef was tender but the sauce was a little bland. Not too bad for a cheap lunch, but not memorable either.

A couple of weeks later I decided to give Tasty Wok another chance, this time dining in with a companion. I stuck to ordering off of the Chinese lunch menu. On this visit, Tasty Wok had additional help in the form of a kitchen assistant in the back and an extra waitress in the dining room. Service was noticeably faster.

For lunch we ordered two noodle dishes. Shrimp in Lobster Sauce over Flat Rice Noodles ($5.95) consisted of shrimp in a lightly flavored sauce with slivers of egg (like in egg drop soup) over a bed of chewy, semi-transparent wide rice noodles. The perimeter of the dish was lined with stems of quick stir fried baby bok choy, also covered in lobster sauce. I love wide rice noodles, but they’re often paired with heavier black bean or peanut-based sauces. The delicate lobster-egg sauce was a nice change of pace, and the bok choy added that unexpected finishing touch. The shrimp were a little on the small side, but at a mere $6 and with enough food to feed two, this dish is a remarkable feat of low cost versus high flavor and quality.

With the Braised Vermicelli with Shredded Duck ($4.95), I had assumed that at the low price of this dish, duck would be a figure of speech like lobster in the previous dish. I was wrong. There were indeed small pieces of skin-on duck in this dish, which didn’t add anything to the noodles other than an odd, hard to chew texture. The vermicelli rice noodles were paired well with the shiitake mushrooms and seasoned nicely. As much as I love duck, the noodles would have been better with just the mushrooms in this dish.

Tasty Wok isn’t a pretty restaurant with vinyl table clothes, bare walls, flourescent lighting, and cafeteria style furniture. Additionally, language can be a barrier if you require special requests. But if you’re simply hungry and looking for an affordable lunch, Tasty Wok can fill that void with a generic lunch combo plate or something a little more exciting off of the Chinese lunch menu. Some of the dishes border great (i.e. shrimp in lobster sauce over flat noodles) and others are just decent, but none will offend, particularly at Tasty Wok’s low price.

I am interested in visiting Tasty Wok for the weekend dim sum menu since the items are cooked to order. When you’re not in the mood for the whole long wait, loud restaurant dim sum experience but still want a few items to nibble on, this might be the perfect affordable place to call in an order.

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