Wok On the Wild Side

Decided to give this place another try after a year, and it turned out to be a lot better than expected! Got the beef noodle soup, which came with a pretty big portion of noodles!
They also have black bean noodles (ja jang mian) here. Came with a large portion of noodles too. Overall it was pretty yummy, but a tiny bit too salty.
Takes about 15 – 20 min to wait for food, so it wouldn’t be ideal to eat here if you just want a quick bite.

Pros:
The taste of the is pretty great, I actually pretty recommend the lamb hot pot. But however, that’s the only thing I felt which is positive PERIOD!
Cons: Seriously! FOR WHOEVER is deciding to go to this place, ASK them about the specific quantity of the food that you want to order! I don’t know wtf they are thinking but I ordered a sweet and sour rib today and they literally give me a huge plate with food the quantity of only a child’s fist! And for $ 10! Are you fking serious!!! I counted the number of the tiny rib on the plate (Cuz I was so shocked) and there are about 12 tiny pieces of it, FOR $ 10! So yeah about a dollar per small piece of meal you get… And my friend who got a huge portion of it last time, which I don’t get why… Seriously! Make sure to ask them!!! Or else they will fking fool you!!!

Horrible service. Had to wait 45 min for my food. People who came 30 minutes after us got food before us. Additionally it took them 10 minutes to take my order. And on top of that the employees just ignore the customers. Never coming back. Absolutely ridiculous. Wont be surprised if this place goes out of business. In fact I hope it does.

This place is good, but the service is terrible. Called in 30 mins in advance to avoid wait but arrived and still waited 25 minutes.

I don’t understand how a business that runs like this can be profitable. After waiting in line behind 3 people for a to go order, I was told my food would be brought out shortly. It has now been an hour and fifteen minutes and I am still waiting in a half empty restaurant. I see little reason, regardless of quality of food, for a «fast food» style eatery in Isla vista to continue to exist like this. I hope this is an outlier in the Wok experience because otherwise I foresee a miserable end.

I really enjoyed the food from here. It’s refreshing to get even the slightest amount of authenticity at a restaurant in IV. The food was not coated with grease like it can be in other Chinese restaurants. The portions are really big.
Entrees are around $ 10, but they also have some cheaper items like soup, noodles, etc.
I would give this place 4 stars for the food, but it only gets three because the service is not very friendly. The woman at the front counter seemed to have a real attitude, and ignored us standing at her register for awhile.
The furniture is not very inviting. The tables and chairs are just metal– not comfortable and not a place I would want to eat at, so just get it as take out!

The customer service here is TERRIBLE. The lady working the front acted irritated and ignored my questions about the menu. She was on her phone the entire time and never once looked at me in the eyes. I was severely irritated and wanted to leave but since this is the only Chinese place in IV I was stuck. Even if the food is good most likely will not be back. She offered absolutely no help, would not recommend her at all !!!

I had their won ton soup the other day. For $ 6.99+tax, I got a reasonable portion (like 10 won tons and a liter of soup). As far as won ton soup goes, they did a pretty stellar job (though it’s hard to mess up soup).
Like a lot of the other reviewers, my biggest problem was with the service. When I greeted the cashier as I entered, she just looked up at me and returned to whatever she was doing by the counter (clearly more important than a spending customer, I guess). Then again, good service in IV can only really be expected from the chains that standardize that kind of behavior, whereas ma and pop places like this understand that they can get away with that kind of behavior in a small college town sort of setting where there aren’t a lot of options.
At any rate, expect authentic Chinese cuisine, but don’t expect warm service.

This place had always intrigued me. Saw a picture of the «spicy beef chow fun» and it looked amazingly savory and greasy so I ordered that today.
The total came out to be 9.71 for the one entrée which I thought was pricy but would be justified if they portion size was big enough. Unfortunately it wasn’t. By the end of my meal wasn’t nearly as full as I had wanted to be, especially since I paid $ 10. However, the noodles came out tasty and didn’t disappoint– perfect amount of spiciness and the beef was yummy too.
The place was busier than I expected considering the poor ratings on Unilocal.I personally thought there was nothing wrong with service and that the menu was pretty big and impressive. Just had to dock two stars off for price & portion size.

The service was very bad, and we had to wait over 50 minutes for our food because they got my order wrong 3 times! They also charged me twice the amount that they are supposed to, so I had to go back and have them refund me. Do not come here. Just wok away!

Had some other stuff this time and upgrading my review. Their stewed chicken and mushroom and Beijing lamb hotpot and they were pretty good.

OMG WOK ON THE WILD SIDE HAHAHAHAHAHA. Service is shit and the lady boss just glares at you. It’s only filled with Chinese fobs because its the only place where you can Chinese food that isn’t panda express. I lowkey like the chongqing hotpot tho and literally came here like multiple times a week my last quarter in sb. AHAHAHA. That and the sweet and sour ribs are the only good things on the menu. Other than that STAY AWAY. It’s expensive and not worth the price or portion.

I didn’t really have problem with service. Since I didn’t have to pay tips, I figured that meant I wasn’t going to get much service. The employees were not blatantly rude, they just didn’t smile frequently, if at all. They also didn’t go out their way to help you by asking if you need water or recommend what to order at the counter.
The menus are located at the counter and the dishes are in Chinese and English. They also have additional dishes that are not in menu. Those are handwritten in Chinese and posted next to the counter. If you can’t read Chinese then you basically won’t be able to order those items.
There are plenty of tables and you seat yourself after you order at the counter. The walls are decorated with stickers of lotus and koi fish and lanterns. The large hot and sour soup (~$ 8) came out first and relatively quickly. It was hot and tasted authentic. We were serve small bowls of rice. I don’t know if there are free refill and I didn’t ask since I didn’t need any.
The sweet and sour spare ribs came out next. The portion seem kind of small for $ 10, but it tasted good as well.
We kept waiting for our shrimp and egg white dish to come out. We had to ask the server twice and he said it was being prepared. We ended up getting that dish after we finished the soup and the spare ribs. At first glance, I was surprised at the amount of shrimp and eggs used in this dish, since restaurants usually skimp out on the shrimps. I guess it is worth it for the hefty price of $ 12. Even though we were full, we decided to taste it. The after taste definitely packs a punch. If you are not used to the taste of the rice wine, you will most certainly be repulsed by the taste.
Judging by the demographics of the patrons and my own personal experience, I would say that the food served here is very authentic. The prices may seem high, but all the restaurants in the area (such as Phở Bistro) charge around the same amount for an entrée. I think I will be back, especially for the hot and sour soup.

Doesn’t get more authentic for there regional dishes. If you are expecting sesame chicken from Panda Express this is not the place for you. American Chinese food is very sweet while traditional Chinese varies from region to region. I recommend any of their hot pots which will have a numbing affect from the chiles. The owner is very nice but doesn’t speak much, But she will try always to smile and remember you. The 3 chefs in the back are great guys they really care about the food and are always smiling. I always go right before they open so I can talk to them about food. They always make sure to make my dishes extra spicy. I haven’t tried there combos but the seem very popular with the Asian students.

The Chongquing Beef Noodle Soup was alright. It tasted like spicy phở and the beef was a bit tough. I also didn’t like the noodles but I was satisfied with the broth.
I tried the fried rice, and it was really good. Nothing wrong there.
There are absolutely no condiments out on the tables for us to use such as soy sauce, salt, pepper, and hot sauces. The service was okay, the utensils were not served with food. When you eat here, you kinda have to do everything yourself except make the food.

The lack of service and funny tasting water don’t help this place, but the soups I’ve had here are delicious. The prices are also very reasonable.
The mapo tofu was large, lacked meat, and was so salty that it made my mouth tingle in discomfort. Also, some of the Americanized stir fry dishes contain too many onions.
I would eat here again just to have the chonqing beef noodle soup.

I think the rating would scare people off but I’m glad I came here. The food is not exactly the American-​Chinese food you’d expect for Isla Vista. It’s very asian here, that’s probably part of the issue people have with the service. My expectations weren’t high but honestly there isn’t good service in Isla Vista anywhere.
Chongqing Beef Noodles were very good. I don’t normally order off of pictures but I went with it this time.
Not a bad place to eat. It’s not the greatest though, but more deserving than its current rating.

so. Look I know I’ve been writing reviews for this restaurant cuz I come here A LOT. I am Chinese and I do think this place is authentic but they do really have very bad service and that’s why I wrote so many mixed reviews. But this will be my last one because I will never go to this restaurant again.
I came to this restaurant with my friends and the most disgusting, gross, unbearable thing happened in my life. We ordered the $ 14 hot pot. The restaurant has an option of adding meat into the hot pot so I added $ 3 worth of lamb.
The hot pot came and we started eating. AND I found a piece of plastic in the food. It’s like those plastic bag handle. It was like 4 inches long. At first I thought it was tofu skin because if you google tofu skin you can probably understand. AND I bit onto it and found out it was part of plastic bag. This is like the grossest thing you can ever imagine. I almost threw up and even when I think about it right now I still feel something stuck in my throat.
This isn’t it. If the restaurant would be apologetic I would probably not be writing this right now. I asked the waitress to refund us (just the hot pot money). And she refunded me $ 14. And when I asked what about that $ 3 she was like (word for word) «well you guys ate half of the hot pot already».
I dropped my jaw when she said this. Look I almost threw up when I bit into that plastic and you wouldn’t refund me cuz «we ate half»? Little fobby chinese waitress, I’m not trying to be racist or anything but I came to US when I was 16 too but THIS IS NOT how restaurant works, not in China, let alone in U.S. If this same thing happened in any other restaurant our whole meal would be on the house already. I didn’t ask u to refund everything, I ONLY asked you to refund the hot pot and is it that hard to not to be stingy about $ 3???
It’s not that I care about the $ 3, it’s this restaurants attitude that is making me sick. Just cuz you are the only Chinese restaurant in IV doesn’t mean you have to do this to your customers. Good job wok on the wildside, I used to come here almost 3 times a week. And you just lost a customer Good luck on your future business with this kind of mentality and dreadful management lol

Two Words: Wok Away
I reaaaally did not want to go here, but my potential (training) client wanted to go. I ordered the kung pao chicken. It was really bland and cold in the middle. I guess they only microwaved it for 20 seconds. The sauce was more like a MSG soup. Service is non-​existence.
I’d rather «Wok On the Other Side.»

Please read my last review! I went on and on about all the previous five star and one star reviews and whether or not they were sincere. I had a lot of messages and comments some supporting my views and others challenging them (to say it nicely)
My friend Lily had a higher opinion of it than I did and we thought it would be fun to revisit the restaurant together. Lily is my expert in Chinese cuisine and she ordered off of the Chinese menu. Things I would never even know exist!
I have to say that I was quite impressed by the food! The portions were generous for the money, very different than my first experience. The taste was very, very good and while it isn’t Lily’s favorite Chinese restaurant in the area, I think she enjoyed it as well.
That said, the restaurant has SO much farther that it needs to go. It was complete amateur hour when we were there. The ordering was awkward and slow, two of the four dishes that we ordered were wrong and had to be sent back. It was a meal of explanations, arguments and apologies.
I want to say that it is OK that the place has no atmosphere whatsoever because it is in I.V. But why shouldn’t it be a more visually pleasant dining experience. As I mentioned in my first review Wok had an almost entirely Chinese clientele which I think says volumes about the authenticity of the food.
Ok there you have it, my previous one star review is now a two star. Come on Wok, it won’t take too much to get me up to three stars! The food is already there!