(After a nice relaxing afternoon sunbathing and floating down the Pembina River in August (its taken me a little while to get this post up, yes I know.. and its well past the warm hot lazy dog days of summer.. with us heralding the call of snow soon brrr!). So rather than slave over a hot stove, we went home, showered off the sunscreen and river water and headed down to Hok Wok for a quick dinner. Service is prompt and though waitstaff have varying levels of English, but are polite and efficient even if you don't have any friends that speak Chinese.
We ordered the sticky rice stuffed deep fried boneless chicken wings to start as it was KimChee's favorite appetizer. Her hubby knows he has to bring some of these home whenever he wants more brownie points!
This boneless chicken wing with crispy skin is loaded with seasoned sticky rice, diced Chinese mushrooms, diced Chinese sausage. Its deep fried to perfection with the meat moist and succulent. Dunk into the malt vinegar provided to give it an additional punch of flavour. I ate mine before snapping a pic of the interior, so here's a pic from a previous visit where we had a 6 course set meal. Nom!
Next was also KimChee's favs - fish maw soup. We ordered a small, which was more than enough for the three of us - we each got 2 bowls of this savory hit the spot soup.
The soup is loaded up with a few pieces of fish maw, as well as some fried pork skin. You can add in a touch of red wine vinegar or white pepper to temper the seafood flavors if you like.
We felt like seafood tonight, so we ordered the Garlic, pepper and spice shrimp. We had expected them to be shell on and sauteed with a mixture of salt-garlic and peppercorns. However, Hot Wok put a more Westernized spin in it - battering de-shelled shrimp in a light batter, deep frying and then tossing it quickly with salt-garlic and hot peppers. You don't get as much fresh shrimp flavor as you do compared to the traditional version, but still a tasty and spicy number.
We then dug into this off menu item Salted fish and chicken fried rice. KimChee's hubby was craving salted fish, a traditional staple in many Asian kitchens and luckily Hot Wok had some stocked in their kitchen. This simple salted and air dried ingredient adds in a punch of rich salty flavor when added in little crumbled pieces to the fried rice. A touch of scrambled eggs, diced chicken, peas and iceberg lettuce rounds out this simple and hearty dish.
Finishing off our meal, we had a red bean dessert. Light, creamy with a touch of coconut milk? and not too overly sweet, it was a great way to finish off the night
the VERDICT
Overall, a good place to grab a really inexpensive and authentic Chinese meal. And really, the only place for decent stuffed chicken wings in the city.
Hok Wok Restaurant
Address 16520 100 Avenue Northwest Edmonton, AB T5P
Phone (780) 486-3378
Hours Mon-Sat 4pm-midnight, Sun 4pm-10:30pm
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