Wing Wa Taphouse — Restaurant in Depoe Bay

This restaurant is no longer a Chinese restaurant, and is now call 'Wing Wa; The local Nook'. They serve burgers, sandwiches, traditional western breakfasts and pasta, etc. My Fiance and I have never been to this place before, and decided on a whim to try it out tonight, 2/25/2017. Their Grand Opening was on the 13th of this month, and I think they may need to go back to the drawing board on their menu. Don't get me wrong, the ideas for the menu are absolutely splendid. I fell in love with the Restaurant name, logo, and menu when I first saw it and I was beyond excited to try it out.

I decided on the 'Build your own Pasta' option. The choices for sauce, pasta, meats and vegetables were superb sounding. I built a spinach and pesto bowtie pasta with mushrooms, onions and shrimp. My Fiance decided on the Teriyaki Chicken bowl, advertised with stir-fry veggies. The images of the same dish on their facebook page looked amazing, so we had to try it!

I was quoted a 15 minute wait time for our take out order, which is no problem at all. We even lost track of time showed up about 20-25 minutes later. The first thing I noticed upon entering the restaurant was the smoke in the air. Things happen in the kitchen, so I was not worried by this at all.

The second thing I noticed was that the entire restaurant was empty, however, I ended up waiting another 8-10 minutes for my order.

I've worked in 3 different restaurants, both front and back of the house as a waitress and a cook, so I COMPLETELY understand errors in the kitchen and asking customers to wait extra time for carefully prepared food. Sometimes it happens, so I am more than happy to wait a while longer for good food.

The third thing I noticed during my wait, because I decided to walk around the empty room, was that nearly 13/20 available (seemingly clean and prepared) tables were dirty. And not just a few stray smudges kind of dirty. Every table was covered in crumbs, (or ceiling dust?), and even some of the napkins placed "kind" of neatly under the forks were dirty and torn like someone had wiped their face with it and left it there!

At this point, I am hoping that the cook shines through and the food is worth the wait!

Unfortunately, it was one of the biggest let downs.

I have never had more tasteless pesto pasta in my life, and the only thing that gave it flavor was the SINGLE SLICE of mushroom they allowed me. The entire dish was two fist worth portions of bowtie pasta, covered in tasteless pesto sauce, and garnished with a single slice of mushroom and 4 shrimp. (And yes, I tore that dish apart looking for mushroom, but alas, only that single one.) Now is a good time to mention that the shrimp were under cooked and squishy.

My Fiance, who ordered the chicken teriyaki bowl, was also incredibly let down.

The portion size was great, with a lot of rice and the most of the veggies they advertised. He was pretty excited for the stir fry broccoli in his dish, (he's a big veggies guy), but after searching, he also only found a single floret the size of the end of his pinky finger. The carrots, onions and cauliflower were hot, but nearly still raw with a crunch. There looked to be no signs of sauteing or stir-frying on any of the veggies, or even the chicken itself. The entire dish, even down to the rice and the teriyaki sauce was incredibly bland and lacking in flavor.

Please understand that I do not normally leave negative reviews, and we are by no means picky people. Even if the order is wrong, as long as it tastes good, we'll eat it! But this had no taste! The location, menu, setup and theme behind this restaurant are wonderful and inviting. However, the quality of food will definitely need work before we'll be returning.

Maybe we'll try again in a few months after they've been on their feet...

Worst Chinese food and services we’ve ever had, hands down. Had to walk into the restaurant to order to go because “our phones haven’t been workin all day, we don’t know why” and shrugged his shoulders. Okay- no problem. But wait there’s more… While waiting for the order I noticed the Bar tender serving the bar and all the tables simultaneously and not keeping up well. Instead of serving people with customer service skills- he told people coming up to the bar to complain; “I told you that I’ll be with you in a minute.” Had I not already paid for the food and I wouldn’t have to stand there and wait for this bar tender to refund me… I would have walked out, it was that bad. When I popped up at the bar again after sitting and waiting for the food for 20 min., This bar tender looked at me and then order the window all packaged up and just handed it to me- didn’t even check to see if what I ordered was in there. Got home 5 min later and had no sweet and sour sauce for the chicken, no king pao beef at all. My daughter tasted the chicken (without s/s sauce) and ran to the bathroom to vomit. The other dish we ordered which was supposed to be Kung Pao beef, was a half filled container of I think stir fry rice but I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a mixture of chopped bbq pork, bean sprouts and rice and some other things that looked like it was probably yesterday’s left overs! Needless to say the meals went in the trash. What a waste of time and money. Wish I could have called to talk to the manager about the experience but of course their phone is stilling ringing busy. You couldn’t pay...

I was staying in Depot Bay for just one night. Had a great dinner at Gracie's Sea Hag Restaurant and asked the bartender there if there was an after hours place that the locals frequent. She told me Wing Wa. Especially on the weekends when they have karaoke, apparently it's the place to go... So of course, I had to go check it out. This is definitely the place that the locals end up... at least on the Saturday night that I was there. Sat down at the bar counter and I ordered a local craft beer and the sliced pork appetizer. Both were delicious 👍🏼 I stayed and spoke a bit with Mae, the co-owner who was bartending, as well as some other staff members and regular patrons that gave accolades to the business, the family, and what this place meant to them as a function of the Depoe Bay Community. So after hanging out for an extra hour in this restaurant/bar/karaoke bar business, I realized that Wing Wa Taphouse was very much appreciated by both the staff & patrons of this place.

Bottom Line: 9.2 out of 10 for quality of food and fun atmosphere. Could use some improvements with beer selection perhaps and I thought the place could use an interior design change to make it more appealing...