hot wok cafe

the austin area is not known forchinesefood 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 ourchinesefood fix!

my go to choice for newchineseamerican 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.

fresh and delicious food!. we have lived all over the world and this is our favoritechinesefood 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!

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 forchinesefood, 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!

great stir-fry. i'm a little bit confused how someone could compare this place to mallchinesefood. 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 achineseplace in a mall.

great!. this is a great little place to grab food for a family. we can typically feed a family of 5 for $30. the orange chicken, dumplings, and curry dishes are top notch. i'd rate this place 8 out of 10 forchinesefood. the staff is always nice to us, fast and responsive.

great littlechineseplace. cheap, good and plentiful. when i'm not feeling well, their hot & sour soup really hits the spot. their pork dumplings are additctive and quite frankly, we haven't had a bad thing on their menu. the staff is friendly, and when you walk in, you feel like you've walked into a nice little mom & pop type place.