TacoCat's TrEats #61: Saying Hey to Authentic Chinese Takeout 🥡

taco.cat (67)in Foodies Unite • 4 years ago

Hey Steemit!

It's time to share yet another one of our recent food haunts during quarantine! Since tasteem is still out of commission, I'm just gonna post random foods that we tried during these crazy lockdown times.

While Singapore has been slowly opening up the past month or so, we've been trying to avoid going out too much anyway as community cases are still popping up now and again. But during the quarantine, we found a new restaurant to patronise and order from called Wok Hey!

We've seen Wok Hey around while mall crawling but never tried it since it seemed a little bit pricey for what is essentially hawker food. But since most hawker stalls don't have food delivery and we were kinda trapped at home during Phase 1 (when only essential workers should be going outside), we decided to give Wok Hey a try.

I couldn't find much information on Wok Hey, but apparently their name derives from "wok hei" in Cantonese, which literally translates to “breathe of the wok”. Which is fitting, since they are (self-proclaimed) the masters of stir fry; specialising in rice and noodle dishes!

All their outlets are pretty much the same; just a simple stall with a digital menu. So they're not a restaurant per se, as they don't have any seating areas and only serve in takeout containers.

Which suited them pretty well for quarantine times actually, since the containers could be easily transported by food delivery. And because the food is packed pretty tight and compact, the heat is very well contained and you would still get your food freshly hot when it arrived!

Their containers remind me of the Chinese takeout containers I always see on American sitcoms like Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory, but I've never actually seen containers like those here in Singapore until we ordered Wok Hey, since most of our takeaway containers are either in styrofoam boxes or plastic rectangle boxes like these:

Source: The Ranting Panda

But anyway, Wok Hey's menu features 3 different types of dishes - fried rice (egg or Shanghai), fresh ramen and fresh udon, each with add on proteins like chicken or beef. You can also choose to add extra toppings/ingredients like vegetables, prawns, mushrooms, etc.

The first time we tried Wok Hey they had a special fried rice with black pepper chicken which was what I ordered, and Sean got a fresh udon.

It was actually really good! And although the containers looked a little small, there was quite a lot of rice in there. The noodles not so much, but it was still really tasty! The chili they use is also really good, and complements the fried rice really well.

I was definitely a fan of their black pepper fried rice, until I realised the next time we wanted to order it that it was gone from their menu! 😩 I have no idea why they removed it because it tasted really good, but alas, it was no more.

We have eaten Wok Hey 2 more times since then, where we tried the Shanghai fried rice:

And most recently, their fresh ramen:

All their dishes are actually really nice and tasty, and they definitely live up to the name of Masters of Stir Fry. Although I would say the Egg Fried Rice can be a tad bland, so definitely ask for chili if you're not afraid of some spice, or add some toppings to go with it.

Apparently, Wok Hey has been around for more than 3 years now! They first opened in late 2016, with their first outlet at Bugis Junction and now they have outlets in various malls across Singapore!

Source: Food in Singapore

They definitely have more outlets in the city center and rightly so, since it would definitely appeal to office workers looking to grab a quick lunch. In that respect, I guess this quarantine might be biting them a bit since almost every non-essential worker is working from home most of the time. But so far they seem to be doing well thanks to food deliveries.

Here's to more takeouts in the future!