Wok Box eat-in cozy and carry-out friendly
WOK BOX 55 A-1 KELSEY DR. ST. JOHN’S, N.L. PH. (709) 726-3222
It’s not the unscathed, fourlegged, hard chairs that tell the tale. It’s the booth seating with its heavily cracked and creased upholstery. The Wok Box on Kelsey Drive gets lots of bums on seats. I suspect many Wok Box outlets do. The chain, founded by Blair Stevens in 2004, in Edmonton, answers a need: a need for fresh, decent food, a need for food that can be gluten-friendly, vegetarian or vegan, food that’s reasonably priced, accessible, fast and, if need be, portable.
The name Wok Box refers to the take-out box in which the food is served. In the case of Kelsey Drive’s Wok Box, it could also refer to the boxlike shape of the restaurant. It’s what you get when you sign on with, well, box stores. An unintentional association, to be sure. Selecting such a high traffic area in which to situate a restaurant is good business. (Downtown restaurants could benefit from more retail development on Water and Duckworth. Shops bring shoppers and shoppers need fuel.)
Inside, a large plaque featuring the face of Buddha with enigmatic smile, hangs on the wall. Its presence must have a calming influence on especially hectic lunch and supper periods. The effect might be slightly diluted by a nearby poster showing the cartoon face of an angry, teeth baring sumo wrestler advertising Wok Box’s large take-away packs, meant to feed anywhere from 13 to 60 people.
Open kitchen
Opposite the image of the venerated one, brightly lit menu boards list the innumerable and interchangeable dining options available at Wok Box. Below the menus, cooks chop and stir in an open kitchen. Diners have the choice of sitting at tables or in the well-worn booths. The narrow vault, a mix of stone and wood surfaces, is bathed in daylight at the front and recedes into a narrow, booth-lined passageway at the back.
After ordering and paying at the counter, we brought bottles of beer to a booth and waited for our number to be called. Belgian Moon was the bottled beer that caught our attention, a Molson Coors product with crafty label, most likely brewed here in St. John’s. We’d never
drunk a Belgian Moon or any other moon. The cloudy, ambercoloured drink tasted of orange peel and coriander. It paired nicely with our food.
Crunchy vegetarian spring rolls started things off. Mostly stuffed with softened cabbage, they were quite full and fine, and benefited from Wok Box’s plum sauce dip. The sauce was surprisingly bright and flavourful for a mass-produced product.
Niggling noodles
Chopsticks are available, but I found them useless with Wok Box’s ribbon and hokkien noodles in the pho, and Singapore cashew dishes respectively. The Vietnamese beef pho’s ribbon noodles were so slippery it was impossible to get them to stay, for any more than a few seconds, between the sticks. A plastic fork and stainless spoon came to my rescue. There was plenty of thinly sliced beef, noodles and meaty, basil scented broth, which rose almost to the rim of the bowl. Steaming pho is a treat on a freezing day.
Now for those hokkien noodles. They’re thick, and the Singapore cashew dish — with processed chicken — that I ordered was weighed down with them. The noodles had formed a clump making them impossible to eat with chopsticks. Even the plastic fork got a bend on and threatened to break, but I managed. The dish, apart from being noodle heavy, was slightly cloying. I liked the vegetables, nuttiness and spice but it was too salty and too sweet.
Spouse ordered the most enjoyable dish of all. It was a rice dish called Jungle Lemongrass — with shrimp added for extra protein. The bottom of the bowl was filled with white, sticky rice. A combination of vegetables and shrimp, tossed in lemongrass infused Thai curry sauce, was spooned over the rice. The shrimp was succulent, and the flavours balanced.
We saw no dessert options at Wok Box, unless you count the saccharine dips and sauces. Noodles, on the other hand, come in four styles: chow mein, hokkien, ribbon, and udon. Shrimp, chicken, beef, and tofu are Wok Box’s proteins. Add fresh veggies to whichever combination of the above you like, and chances are you’ll end up with a reasonably healthy, good tasting lunch or dinner for your box, or bowl.