hot wok cafe

abysmal service, horrible food. this place is on the list.

beware of this restaurant!!!! after having a $9 lunch on may 6, 2019 this restaurant hit my bank account for $5722!!!!! i have never had this happen. called my bank to dispute charge and also cedar park police department to file a crime report. lets hope the restaurant does the right thing, but im not optimistic

the austin area is not known for chinese food and this is certainly the case for cedar park too. having tried all restaurants through the years, we have settled on hot wok. the food is consistently good and made to order. the owners are simply adorable and nice. they meet our chinese food fix!

the customer service and delivery service is horrible. we have been loyal customers and overlooked past delivery and food mishaps. today was the last straw. we called to advise them they forgot to include the double order of rice. first they argued it was in the bag and to keep looking. then they said the rice would be delivered the next time delivery drivers come back. 40 minutes later, we called to ask where the rice delivery was. we heard everything from we never called to ask for rice to no delivery driver wanted to deliver it to to charging a delivery fee for the rice they failed to put in our paid delivery to they would refund our money and come out to pick up the delivered food. the last comment would be funny if situation wasn't so frustrating...they can pick up refunded food but not deliver missing ordered and paid for food. not once was an apology extended. to the owner and shelby...this is a small, competitive world. you may look and see that you are losing one loyal customer who has ordered weekly from you. however, remember that you made the choice to lose a customer and word of mouth is powerful. save your sanity and dollars for a restaurant that values their customers.

my go to choice for new chinese american is to try out their dumplings and their mongolian beef.  if they get both right, i'll be back again.  sadly, hot wok's mongolian beef had a similar problem with a few other restaurants.  the dish was heavy on pepper and spice and lacked some of the sweet notes that you come to expect from that dish.  dumplings were fine, though, and to their credit, i received some type of sweet sauce that i added to my mongolian beef that helped get it to where i liked it.  it was also weighed down with lots of vegetables.  more veggies than beef.

fried rice was barely fried rice.  just white rice, little bit of egg mixed in, and that's about it.

poor customer service. so they're posted hours or until 9 p.m. on thursdays. however, my family i got there around 8:40 p.m. they informed us they would not do any dine in after 8:30 p.m. either you're open till 9 or you're not. we won't be back.

fresh and delicious food!. we have lived all over the world and this is our favorite chinese food take-out place! great cooks, friendly staff and freshly prepared food! our go to take out on friday nights. we always order our usual and it's always ready when we go pick it up!
just moved to the area? this will be one of your favorites!

tiny place in strip center with absolutly zero atmosphere. kitchen crew bustling on thursday night around 7:30 which was interesting.
counter ordering from a young girl that new very little when i asked her questions about the menu. i asked if we ordered an appetizer if it would come out first. she said maybe??
well, it didn't, in fact it was the last thing out. entrees came at different times. food was large portions but bland.
not horrible but disapointing considering some of the other reviews.

i work in the food industry. everything about this place is a1. the staff there are wonderful people and are truly there to please. the environment is welcoming and the food is cheap and delicious. great quality, plentiful quantity and the speed of service is incredible. they make the food fresh right in front of your face. by far my favorite dine-in/take-out place to eat in the cedar park area!

this food is so terrible! i cannot believe they have any repeat business. we had the general's chicken, which was by far the best dish, but was barely passable. the pepper steak and the beef and broccoli were attrocious. the beef in both dishes had zero flavor and the sauce was water thin. we added an insane amount of soy sauce and salt to it and could still not get it to taste like anything. will never eat there again.

nasty people. i had a "hot wok" flyer forcibly placed into my house. yes, someone opened up my screen door and shoved it in the side of the door so it was in my house. i called hot wok to tell them that whoever they hired that is not cool to shove things into my house.

i called up, and explained that i don't like people shoving things in my door. the nice man on the phone told me in broken english : "f&*$ you" and hung up. wow. i would never dream of eating their food with that kind of mouth.

i'm a fan!. whether i'm eating in or having it delivered, i've been enjoying hot wok's food for over a year now. it's a great little place for chinese food, and the staff has always been courteous and fast. the kitchen is open to the front of house, so if you dine in or carry out you can watch the cooking. i always find that kind of interesting.

my only criticism is that their idea of making a spicy dish 'mild' is still a bit hotter than a wimp like me can handle. it's still too good not to eat, though!

wow!!! egg drop soup was very well made, perfect consistency! the fried cream cheese things were the best i've ever had anywhere. i usually hate them and i almost ordered more because they were so good. i will be coming back a lot more and thankfully i live close enough for delivery too!!

great stir-fry. i'm a little bit confused how someone could compare this place to mall chinese food. just because it comes fast, doesn't make it fast food. this place deserves to be compared to any other wok shop around.
stir fry is a difficult technique to master. because the food is prepared over such high heat and so fast, there is no room for error, and it takes a lot of experience to know the signs for success and danger at a glance. such is the experience at hot wok.
i had the dinner combo with fried rice and egg drop soup, and everything came out so fast that it was all in front of me before the soup had cooled off enough to eat without danger! nevertheless, i finally got through all of it to render a verdict.
the fried rice was simple and well-cooked, but nothing spectacular. it was a great complement to my kung pow chicken/shrimp dish, especially when i dumped the remainder in to enjoy them together.
the main dish itself was equally well-cooked, and the sauce was a great blend of spicy and pungent, with the heavy consistency that goes best with stir fry. it's hard to get chicken and shrimp to cook equally in stir fry without overcooking the shrimp or undercooking the chicken, but nothing was wrong here.
the accoutrements to the meal were a spring roll and cheese wonton, and it was refreshing to actually get one of each without having to pay separately for them. the spring roll was very well prepared, and fried to a perfect golden brown without feeling heavy in the mouth. the wonton was also fried well, and didn't have the papery-crispy-ness often found with cheap ones.
and after all this was finished, i could finally eat my soup! egg drop soup is easy to get wrong, because the albumen in eggs is very protein-heavy, and if you don't prepare and store it right, it will seize on you, and film up, and generally just look nasty and have very poor mouth feel. that being said, i was very pleased with the soup i got. it was a just-right blend between the heavy, savory flavors of the eggs and the subtle sweetness from the celery, lettuce, and carrot shreds.
final price for all this goodness? $9.75, excluding drink and tax, certainly not too much for a poor college student stuck up at acc all day. i would not hesitate to go back.

meh. about what you would expect from a chinese place in a mall.