WOK IN THE CLOUDS — Restaurant in New York

I wish I had taken pictures of the dishes, but I went here with some great friends on a whim. We were on a mini-food crawl around the midtown area, and I saw Wok in the Clouds with high ratings. Plus, I feel like it's really hard to find good Indo-Chinese cuisine in NYC for some reason, so I took a leap of faith here.

On the outside, it looks like a hole-in-the-wall joint. On the inside, do not be fooled. The inside of the place is appealing, too. Seriously, this place needs more in-person dining. I felt like I was dining at a better restaurant in India. I was smiling the entire time I was there because I knew this place was going to be good. The service was great. We started with the vegetable hot and sour soup, chicken sweet corn soup, and chili garlic fried shrimp for appetizers. Then we got grilled garlic tilapia, vegetable szechuan rice, chicken steamed momos, and tandoori wings for the main dishes.

For the appetizers, I loved the shrimp. It tasted like Indian Ocean caught shrimp, and it was fried to a pleasant crisp.

For the meals, I really enjoy tilapia because it's an easy cut of fish to prepare, and this did not disappoint. The chutney/sauce that was served on it was a bit on the sodium heavy side, so be mindful of that. I think the szechuan rice can be spicier, but the amount of vegetables to rice ratio is perfect. On a lighter note, the chicken momos!!! It's seasoned and extremely flavorful. I would buy three orders of those next time. It tasted like the seasoning my mom prepares her kebabs with. Honestly, some of the better momos I've had in NYC. For the tandoori wings, I wish the skin had more char on it or was crispier because soft skin on chicken wings takes away from the taste of the spices, in my opinion. Flavors for the wings were okay. Would be curious to try it tandoori style but then drenched in the chili garlic batter for frying like the shrimp. Might be a crazy combination, but I'd like to see it happen.

So, when I went, we were out celebrating a friend's birthday, and there just so happened to be a restaurant photographer here. She took photos of the restaurant and kindly approached us and asked if we wanted some pictures taken of us; we agreed. She took a lot of shots and printed some of the better ones so that we could take a look in case we wanted to purchase them. We ended up buying 10 pictures priced at $20 each. So the odds were in our favor that day because they came out great, especially for a joyous occasion.

Little notes: The slices of lime they serve is just like the one in India, so that was a distinct memory I had, and they serve sodas you probably grew up with like thumbs up and limca. This place is more popular with delivery places, but I would love for this review to change that outcome. Again, staff was exceptional and...

Ever since moving to NYC in 2016, I have been on the hunt for excellent Indo-Chinese cuisine. Loads of restaurants here claim to make it, but they don’t do it well. I thought I was doomed to only eat my own home-cooked Indo-Chinese whenever cravings hit, until a friend mentioned this newly-opened gem. Rushed there as soon as I could, and WOW, was I blown away.

Everything from their Vegetable Hakka Noodles, Schezuan Fried Rice, Gobi Manchurian (dry) and Chilli Paneer (gravy) is just lip-smacking perfection, with each bite reminding me of my favourite restaurants back home. The second time we visited, we also got Ginger Fried Rice and Baby Corn manchurian (asked for a substitute instead of Gobi and they obliged). Very reasonably priced and they don’t skimp on the portions so the value for money is fantastic. I can’t wait to go back and try their Chopsuey and other items!

P.S. - Their spice levels are also incredible, just as spicy as restaurants in India, so unless you’re really able to tolerate heat, I would stick to Medium spicy (which itself can deliver a kick to the uninitiated).

I will say that their Vegetable Tandoori Momo was not on point (the dough was a bit tough and chewy), but that didn’t matter too much to me.

I am basically obsessed with this restaurant and will never eat Indo-Chinese anywhere else in the city. I even walked all the way (30 mins) from where I was yesterday just to pick up a massive order and take it home for dinner and...

SCAM ALERT

I usually don’t write bad reviews, but I wanted to come here and warn anyone else planning to go here after reading these good reviews.

Even though the food was good, the bigger shock came later. One of the most egregious things a manager of a restaurant had pulled off.

After we had our food, we asked for the bill without ordering any dessert. The manager personally came up to us and said “he had prepared a special surprise dessert for us and was going to bring it out to us.” He asked if he can bring it for us since he specially prepared it, so we were pleasantly surprised and agreed, even though we didn’t really want dessert. Anyone would assume that a special surprise they didn’t order would be on the house? But they ended up bringing two subpar chocolava cakes with no “lava”, and ended up charging us 14$ for each!!! He never told us he’d charge us for the “surprise” he’d prepared for us?

They only serve fancy Saratoga bottled water and denied giving us plain tap water when we asked for it. And they ended up charging 8$ per bottle, even though the menu says 4$ per bottle.

He clearly knew what he was doing and just conned us for 60$. We would’ve visited otherwise but after this I don’t think anyone...