Hot Wok Cafe — Restaurant in San Mateo

I go here every so often because it's predicable and close to my work. Overall, the experience here is nice, the wait and cook people are very friendly and happy. The chefs are Latino -- and I love South of the border food -- but uh, odd to find Chinese food not made by Asians. Hurrah for diversity anyway :)

Ultimately, it comes down to food, and this is where things start to go awry. They do sweet and sour soup fine, though it's hard to mess that up, surely.

In a nutshell, if you want quick cheap Americanized variations of Chinese-ish slop in okay quantities, this would be perfect.

If you're seeking good authentic Chinese food, like most mall places, this is not.

Pros: Reasonably priced for the area. Decent parking around the oddly designed strip mall. Takeout pickup is separate from the main restaurant (it's in back, sorta). Clean restaurant and bathrooms.

Cons: Too dang salty. A bit flavorless.

My experience (think 2.5 stars):

Having been away for a few weeks and anticipating a nice dish with the characteristic flavors of Clay Pot, on my most recent experience I ordered their Hot Wok Deluxe Clay Pot.

Either they gave me someone else's order by mistake, or their version of Clay Pot is like an over sauced and over salted beef and broccoli with some extra veggies and stuff thrown in. No rice, no noodles, definitely not made in a clay pot.

My tongue is burning from all the salt on this thing, and believe me, I like to put salt on stuff, but this didn't require any of that or soy sauce.

Maybe it was loaded with MSG, I don't know. It was a bit gross and I have a bit woozy headache now but I was hungry, so I ate it anyway. I have an iron stomach.

Preparation: This came to me in a styrofoam container like what you'd get a burger in, with a plastic fork. I was rather expecting something more, er, bowl like. With...

Came here yesterday as we by accident mistook it for Hot Wok Bistro which is by far the best Chinese food I’ve had. But this place, Hot Wok Cafe, with a name that’s hella similar is the worst Chinese food I’ve had. Weird huh? One name on either ends of a Chinese food spectrum.

We ordered Mongolian beef & vegetable fried rice = worst $36 I don’t in a restaurant. The meat I wasn’t even sure was meat and the rice was stale as stale can be… hella hard. Won’t eat here agaaaaaaaain. Thankfully we didn’t get upset stomached, but I was waiting for it.

There was something weird we noticed and want to know if others have noticed it or were we hallucinating. The waitress who took our order, her mouth would open to talk, she wouldn’t move it but full sentences words was coming out, like there was someone in her mouth doing the talking. The weirdest thing. I thought I was hallucinating and later when I was talking about it with my husband he said he thought he saw that too but thought he was tired. I need a third opinion!

But my suggestion wouldn’t be to eat here… just go in and ask...

Once upon a time this was a great place for family style Chinese (yes Americanized) food. That was under the previous ownership. The current owner doesn't seem to care about the service, the food quality, the decor, or the overall dining experience. What they do seem to care about is how high they can get the prices. If this was great food, hell if it were even moderately good food, $9-$13 per item would be okay. But for mediocre food in small portions it's just too much. Look, I love hole in the wall restaurants and I'll even pay a high price if the food is really good, but when you realize that Panda Express is the same quality and charges much less for it, that's when I have to say goodbye. And understand, even if a Panda Express were right next door to me I'd go out of my way to avoid eating their food. Like I will be going out of my way to avoid (and it really pains me to say this)...