Reviews Wok N Toss

It may well be the epitome of the local Chinese takeaway with what I had, Wok n Toss. Presumably (with the proximity to the university) it is a fall-back favourite with students, and everyone else residing around it. By the epitome, what I mean is that you know it is far from the finest representation of Chinese cuisine, and it would not last a day in Chinatown, but dammit if it is not so tasty. What you get here is what it is - it asks to be ordered in bulk, and the servings are hot, decent and unpretentious.

Well, again I knew what my Monday was going to be for yet another week. There was another WWE Live event released, this time being Battleground. In preplanning for that, there was one routine that I went back to - finding a new place for delivery. At that time, I was thinking about something a bit different than usual - you can only have Indian so many times, and I wanted to save up pizza for a bigger event. Going through the options on Menulog, this basically was what sounded good - and I was home for lunch, they delivered during the lunch time period, and put two and two together. So it was just onto the website, logging in the requests and appointed time then the waiting game was set to happen.

Getting on to describing the level of service, usually when it comes to delivery there is not that much to be said per se. If they come promptly on time, or are earlier than expected, then of course that is a bonus in their part and being late is definitely a demerit. This time around, it was about on time give or take a few minutes (I allow leeway).  What can give some better points to the service is how astute and observant the staff can be regarding the orders. Even if it sounds pedantic, at least that indicates work ethic and observation skills. The day it was set for delivery, a couple of phone calls came my way about it to check it was correct with the second one giving a bit of a head's up on the availability of an ordered item. Asking if I wanted to swap something, I just thought of one on the top of my head and all was good to go.

No other way but Pan-Asian is how Wok n Toss can be described with its menu. Maybe except Australasian in parts. It takes influence from Chinese, Vietnamese and - to a lesser extent - Thai cuisine in presenting the meals. What is also quite definite is that you are spoiled for choice with this place. Heaps of snacks are available as entrees, from the fried to the fresh.

Getting to what was meant by "Australasian", the selection includes several burgers and sandwiches - some are Asian-influenced - along with omelets. Perhaps a bit odd, but it is still an option. Moving along, what is also available for purchase includes many kinds of soups including pho, and tom yum, many rice-based meals and sides (the brunt being fried rice), roast meats, Thai stir fries, a good range of Chinese dishes which include stews, stir fries, brisket, hot pots, and multiple take-away classics along with noodle and rice based stir fries and chow meins, finishing off with quite a bit of tofu.

I cannot start off one of these meals without getting some sort of entree. A couple usually do the job, especially in a meal for two big eaters. The selection is often a bit samey, so it gets a bit hard to find something unusual every so often but I do try on that regard. Selecting a couple of entrees, I went with some takoyaki and prawn toast. A bit on the oily side aside, both of these were quite tasty. The prawn meat on the toast was particularly sweet this time around and the generous seasoning of sesame seeds made for a good finisher. It was crispy and tasty. As per usual, there is no way yet that takoyaki has yet not been good - the flavour of octopus was tasty, the sauce was thick and delicious plus all the trimmings around. So far, we are onto something good.

For the main parts, consider them kind of standard with the takeaway - but I still ordered them because they are usually quite big winners. These were a honey chicken and a sweet and sour pork. Both these meats were well fried and crispy, making them more delicious than usual. The meats were tender, and the sauces were both thick and tasty - sweet with the chicken thanks to the honey, and well balanced for the pork along with having pineapple and capsicum mixed throughout the sauce. Not much else to say but winners as per usual. As a neat touch to the honey chicken was having it on top of rice noodles.

On top of that, I specifically ordered for my dining buddy a "Vietnamese Crispy Pork Baguette" - in the end, like being the sharers we are, it was cut in half. Whatever it did say it was, there was no fooling anyone. This was a version of a bahn mi, and a competent and tasty take on it at that. It might have been the bread they used, or perhaps the mixture of pate, butter or sauce on the bread, but whatever it was there was certainly a fantastic rich and buttery taste to it. The meat was tender, sliced well and with a good flavour and bit of fat on the side (possibly helping with the aforementioned texture), and freshness of the cucumber and coriander in it was a contrast. This would make for a great snack.

To go with the rest of the items, I added on some fried rice. In particular, the sambal chilli and fried egg variety with barbecue pork added in. This could have been a tad spicier in parts, though I am not complaining too hard. The ingredients were generous throughout, particularly the big bits of pork mixed into well steamed rice. This was really meant as a side, and as a side it was brilliant. Thumbs up to it.

So, this place might might not be the most authentic one around being a far cry from most of the best Chinese places that I know. But when it tasted this good, when it managed to hit the spot as precisely as it managed to do here, that is something that I do not care about. That being said, it won't be among the finest Chinese food around but when you consider it to be its own entity, then many strengths were met. For which a 4.0 score is the perfectly adequate score to describe it all. What I envision this place to be is a fallback for delivery when there are some guests - namely family and close other ones - over. The fact that it is deliverable is the final cog in the machine for the pinnacle of Chinese takeaway.

Decided to try something new and spotted Wok N Toss on the web as an option at Mt Gravatt. We went for an early dinner last Saturday and chose to dine-in. It is quite a small dine-in area, but this is a 'take-away' focused business after all, and the seating/decor provided is quite pleasant with an almost cafe style vibe. My partner in crime and I chose 2 mains and 2 sides and we shared a taste of each others choices. We ended up with Chicken Cashew & Vegetables, Satay Beef, Special Fried Rice and Coconut Rice, with our 2 drinks this equated to $46 ($23ea) which is well within our budget for a dinner out. The staff were quite friendly and the service was fairly quick and we soon realised that we had a lot of food, as the portion sizes were above what we had expected. The Special Fried Rice itself could've been a meal on its own. For me the Coconut Rice was a little bit of a let down on the flavour front, but the Chicken, Cashew & Vegies was as I expected. The stand out was the Satay Beef, when it was served it looked quite ordinary, a lot of carrot on top (not my fav), but as I mixed in the plate I was pleasantly surprised, it was full of flavour, with even a few pieces of pineapple to change things up and added to the dish.