Wok Ever Palace — Restaurant in Kirklees

(Edit:

The establishment’s response appear to have taken my written review out of context in order to form a defence rather than carry out the simple troubleshooting tasks as suggested. I have removed a paragraph in order to add this edited note as well as updated my review to highlight this.)

The décor suggest a restaurant of above average food. Rather than authentic Cantonese food, or even the cliché British recreation, I would describe the food at Wok Ever to be at best resembling a mediocre takeaway served up on little plates. Fortunately for them, Cleckheaton is devoid of a barely acceptable Chinese takeaway on a Tuesday. Tasty Life in Heckmondwike shuts on a Tuesday.

The cliché dishes are good enough, however, Wok Ever's owner(s) appear to have the audacity to include items such as Typhoon Shelters Style Soft-Shell crabs for £8 per HALF a previously frozen crab. What arrived on the table was completely unrecognisable from the original Typhoon Shelter style or the later heavily fried garlic Typhoon Shelter style. It was a little plate of soggy mixed veg stir fry soft shell crab. Charged £16 for it. It was an insult not only to the now-closed Typhoon Shelter eateries but to every Chinese kitchen ever. This item is listed under "Chef's Recommended Starters".

Wok Ever also produced their idea of a "Signature" Steamed Seabass with Ginger & Spring Onion. What arrived appeared to be two skinny supermarket Seabass filets with a barely detectable amount of ginger and spring onion. Overcooked, tough, dry and without any detectable amount of soy sauce. They charged £18 for this insult.

It is as IF a small child never previously having cooked attempted to produce the dishes following badly written instructions. Using a microwave.

On to the subject of the cliché dishes, please get the phone out and revisit what a young chow fried rice is. It certainly shouldn't be brown. Margins are tight but a Chinese place ought to use genuine AAA jasmine rice.

On the subject of service, a person arriving in a wheelchair should not be loudly and publicly asked whether a table on the ground floor is preferred.

And not twice.

However, I do not believe the front-of-house staff member to have malice. It is my belief this is the owner's doing. The owner bosses his staff around in a belittling and condescending tone. There is no please, there is no can you? would you? There appeared to be no respect or honour. This is then regurgitated by staff.

We were attended to by two staff members. They were kind, fast to service and did it all with a smile. The female member answered questions clearly and with speed. She was most definitely on it. Both staff members appeared to work in fear of being bossed around by the manager.

Had we only been attended by the two staff members that would have been fine. However, the owner(manager) also approached us frequently. When I say approached, I mean hassled. We had to ask him to leave us alone. Despite asking to leave us alone, at the end of the meal whilst trying to depart at speed he returned to hassle us for feedback. Had we the time we would have given him this review in person. I am still happy to tell him straight in person however we are never to again visit.

I would recommend that you delete items from the menu. Your chefs need only watch a few YouTube videos to make improvements to the rest. One would expect 5 chefs with 15-20yrs of experience to know better. Perhaps they are bored.

Clean and dry your plates. Discard old, worn and damaged plates. This is a Chinese restaurant. Where are the chopsticks?

Your staff are human beings, please speak to them with respect and kindness. There is no advantage to bossing your staff around in front of customers. Read the room, stop buzzing around and hassling customers. Meals taste better without the presence of a toxic personality. Like every organisation, a restaurant starts with its manager. That improvement can be made for free.

Fortunately for Wok Ever, its local demographic has lower than average standards-judging by your seabass and...

£9 1/4 duck arrived freezing in a plastic tray without even condensation, with the plastic bag of pancakes thrown on top of the meat??? It clearly hadn't been warm for ages (he said on the phone he was not busy, so why the issues? If you're quiet then why did it takeover 90 minutes to arrive?) £3.80 S&P chips arrived soggy and inedible (£3.80 even if hot and with chillies, onions, peppers etc is crazy, these were lacklustre to say the least). Main was, of course, cold but as manager told me on the phone, I could microwave it, asking me if we had reached a solution to my issue seen as how I didn't want them dropping off another order because..... I despise food waste and he wanted to take the old food back to throw away and would not come with fresh food otherwise. It had already been over 90 minutes waiting unexpectedly, and at 9PM on a worknight it was already too late to be eating as it was.

Manager went from saying they would collect my food (just told him I was unfortunately going to have to eat it as it was so late already), refund me digitally and I was never to order from them again, to then offering me a £5 discount on my next order. If I see that is the case as I have ordered from these guys and collected on 4/5 occasions and only ordered online twice. If he comes through with the discount I will edit this review to say so, but the fact remains the manager was rude, unaccommodating and they sent out food for the price of what some families live on for the week which was way below the standard I had come to...

After visiting a couple of times with family over the last few months -- lovely experiences and food top notch. So,we were looking forward to eating here as a couple this evening. Skipped starters ane ordered 3 main courses to share. Singapore ve]rmicelli ok but not memorable. Special Fu Yung was overcooked and the prawns were as hard as rocks. And my birds nest scallops with mange tout and celery... Words fail. I turned the contents of the 'birds nest' ovet several times - scallops small, sliced thin and about 5 in the whole dish. This is by far not the cheapest dish on the menu but only just fell short of being a vegetatarian dish. When my sister had it last year it was a totally different offering and I had been so looking forward to it. Such disappointment. I sent it back, but it was brought back to me with the comment 'the scallops are underneath' - no they weren't. (Maybe a couple more thin slices of small scallops had been added, but nowhere near. Warranting the price tag). I know times have been hard for the restaurant trade over the last couple of years. And prices generally have been increased across the board in an effort to recover lost ground. But when the desciption remains the same, the price increases but the food on your plate diminishes in quantity and quality, you have to think hard about...