Wok n Fire SB — Restaurant in Barrington Township

To start with the ONE positive thing about this place… the restaurant itself is gorgeous. Beautiful ambience, lots of things to look at. We walked in, and were seated immediately as the restaurant was primarily empty. After we got seated, it was probably at least 20 minutes before a waiter approached our table, and another 10 before even a glass of water was put on our table. Like I said, the restaurant was fairly empty, so not sure what the holdup was. When the waiter finally asked us what drinks/appetizers we wanted, we each ordered 1 drink, and 2 appetizers to split. One appetizer showed up after a ridiculous amount of time, the other appetizer NEVER showed up. Our food finally arrived at our table, at this point, probably an hour after we had been at the restaurant. My fiancé‘s food was decent…he ordered some orange chicken, and it was really good. I ordered a noodle bowl, and it was completely tasteless. Tasted like a bowl of water with 3 dinky little pieces of beef in it and some tasteless noodles. I thought maybe it was just me being overdramatic because I was so starving (and pissed after not receiving an appetizer we ordered), but my fiancé tasted it as well and he said it tasted like absolutely nothing. The broth was not even salted. It was just water. Finally, the waiter showed back up with our check, and he presented us with a little platter of cinnamon/caramel bananas as an “apology”…. instead of apologizing, I’m not really sure why he didn’t just bring us the food that we asked for!!! We ordered it for a reason. The fact that we ordered an appetizer and it literally just never came is mind blowing to me… and then to try to present us with a dessert that we didn’t order? To “make it up to us”. The service here is absolutely atrocious. Not to mention… I saw our server playing on his phone near the waiter/server stand 5 times that I counted. I definitely DO NOT recommend ever going to Wok N Fire in South...

I haven’t been to Wok N Fire in over a year. This seems like a restaurant on life support. There is a new menu with fewer options, a redesigned space that closes off the previous show kitchen/sushi counter where you could watch the sushi chef work. There were also only 2 people in the front who had to cover waiting, hosting, bartending, bussing tables and running food. While they worked hard more staff are needed to provide good service. Service was slow.

The interior ambiance is good if a bit dark. Those are the high points.

We ordered the chicken lettuce wraps appetizer . The ground chicken was served lightly warm and very bland. The lettuce leaves were wilted and also somehow lightly warmed. The accompanying dipping sauce was doing all of the lifting flavor-wise.

For entrees, we had the pad Thai noodles with scallops, orange peel chicken, and sichuan chicken with stir fry rice.

All of the food was served slightly warm.

The pad Thai noodles were lacking in flavor, also missing the peanuts and cilantro that are typical. The scallops tasted fishy and not fresh. Also the scallops are coated in a light breading which implies crunchy/hard sear. These were very mushy.

The sichuan chicken was served with veggie fried rice. The whole dish was inconsistently heated with a few spots that were warm and others at room temperature. The fried rice is definitely not fried, and was room temp.

The only decent meal here was orange peel chicken served slightly warmed with white rice. Good flavor and the best of the 3 entrees we had.

I used to enjoy Wok N Fire. I won’t be going there again.

Overall, the food was bland and warm. Panda Express is dishing out better food. Go there and save yourself...

Wife and I have been here many times. Most recently we went to their "launch of their new menu" event. Which required a reservation. We figured it would be busy but given that it was mid-week we weren't sure.

When we arrived for our reservation time (15 mins early) the restaurant was busy but not slammed. There was open tables. I was disappointed to find out we were seated on a high -top table near the bar even though there was a number of open tables in the regular seating area.

We were seated right away and given menus. Our server came somewhat quickly. Greeted us and took our drink order....from there it was all downhill. Although my wife's drink order came out right away that was basically the only thing that came out in a timely manner.

I think our server was the only one covering that whole side of the restaurant?

Our small appetizer that consisted of 4 small pieces took over an hour to come out. Our sushi which didn't require any cooking took like an hour and 15 mins. Our server was nice but didn't really offer us anything for having to wait so long. Wasn't really overly apologetic either. I'm not sure how management allowed the restaurant to be this understaffed during an event like this, but it was pretty disappointing that they knew there was issues and the manager never once checked on us. I'm not even sure there was one working that day since I never saw them.

In the end our food was decent but not AMAZING. Kinda pricey for the quality...The new menu was kinda underwhelming and honestly it's not that different from what they offered previously.

The inside of the restaurant seems kinda dated and honestly in need...