Wok King, Sundorne Ave
It’s been a while! I can only apologise. I assume you have all been anxiously waiting for the next chapter in my Chinese Takeaway Adventure!
Imagine having a summer so busy that you don’t even have time to order a Chinese takeaway? Sounds pretty stressful, right? Well do not fear, with pure focus and targeted drive; leaving a takeaway menu in the visor of ‘The Hungry Guy Mobile’ a la Jamie Foxx in Collateral to remind me of my real goals, I held onto my dream and made it through to a more peaceful time where I can once again concentrate on the important things in my life…..like throwing money down the drain proving that all Chinese takeaways in Shrewsbury are of the same standard!
This one has actual flown under the radar a little. I didn’t even put it out on my socials that I had eaten it! What a wonderful surprise for you all. I always pick up a little more enthusiasm for takeaways during the winter. Everyone’s winter dream is surely cozying up on the sofa, watching rubbish telly, discussing what level of sex pest the Go Compare man is on Strictly, and stuffing our faces with food that we ‘should know better’ about…..lovely greasy takeaways!
The other reason this has taken a little while to post about is because I have been trawling the internet, researching Royal history, family trees and lineage. Trying to work out where in the hell the Wok King’s claim to the throne really lies? Or are they just another chancer? Adding to the list of other false claims to the throne, Elvis, Kong, Mervyn (that’s a fairly niche darts reference by the way), Creole, Ledley, Stephen, Billie-Jean, Ben. E, Carole and who I think was probably the closest to getting there, Don. Come on, he forged a crown out of his hair, fair All of these, any many more have previously laid claim to a throne, without any real understanding of what throne it is? Or is there a mega throne that not even the internet knows about. King of the World maybe? Last known claimant was Jack Dawson, last seen on that fateful ship crossing the Atlantic before disaster struck. There are rumours that the Titanic was actually sunk on purpose in a sort of big money banking and insurance assassination conspiracy involving JP Morgan. The story makes a bit more sense when you consider that maybe Rose was in on it. Gives good reasoning to why she didn’t let him on that door. Amazing how she managed to survive against all odds when so many perished and she got away with it too, but then being 1912 she probably didn’t expect so much live camera coverage of the incident. She handled it very well considering. Fair play to her……
And my wife says I waste too much time on Tik Tok conspiracies! I’m the only one who knows what’s actually happening in the world. And while we are on that subject, I for one LOVE the Anunnaki, I have always appreciated their aspirations and especially the architecture. I hope reading this, they realise that they have a big fan here, actually looking forward to their return and one I am willing to cater for the right price.
Anyway, all this searching the internet was fruitless. No mention of the Wok King! So this must be an internal Shrewsbury power battle. The Shrewsbury Game Of Thrones! I’m not sure what the Wok King’s motivation is but hardly feels worth it when you consider all the stress involved with keeping a throne. It’s hard enough to get there, but then to have Mervyn King knocking on your door after a busy service on Friday night to have a strong word with you and challenge you to a ‘few arrows’ and a game of killer, winner takes all?……‘Just have the crown Merv, I’m done!’……..
I wonder what sort of ruler Wok King is? I have always admired Henry VIII, can’t always agree with his methods but in terms of work/life balance - I think he nailed it. Focussed on the important bits; selfish feasting and relentless womanising while maintaining order through a persona of belligerence, where actually he got everyone else to do most of his dirty work! Wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of people left Henry’s hospitality thinking ‘What a lovely bloke? Totally misunderstood!’……I mean, is the Wok King still actually behind the wok or is he getting others to do the hard yards during a busy weekends work?…….
Elizabeth I did an admirable job, high sugar diet, not afraid to enjoy herself, didn’t get bogged down with the whole idea of love, marriage and lineage and had a strong performance on the international scene, built a reputation on winning against all odds! A bit like the Greek football team at the 2004 Euros. Not a bad rep to have!
Maybe Wok King is more of a fair ruler like James Stewart, difficult transition period, managed through relative fairness.
Or is he just sitting back a bit more like a more modern ruler. Without too many pressures on maintaining rule, the time is more spent dining out on his ancestors riches, focussing on community and charity work, doing what he has to do to keep face but largely concentrating on helping his realm? And of course taking full advantage of the complimentary VIP tickets to the Variety Show every year……….
Still clueless about any of this, I decided it would be best to judge the King on his food………..
The scene for the takeaway was a bit of a chaotic weekend. It was our wedding anniversary. We hired a full table setting for the weekend and set that up in our tiny (and I mean tiny) kitchen/dining area. We were doing a 70s theme, food, fancy dress, table decor, terrible James Last records from the charity shop, we went the whole hog.
The party was Saturday night but the salmon mousse and the monster sized chicken terrine wasn’t going to set itself so we spent all day Friday prepping.
Our little bab got back from pre-school around 4ish. I’m not sure at what time in the day she left Dr Jekyll behind and fully transformed into Hyde but she inexplicably came home being a total demon. The kind of attitude kids have that is the perfect contraception but the last thing you need when making your first ever gluten free croquembouche………A lovely sprinkling of stress to an already maxed out pressure cooker………
The fridge was packed with nothing but the party food, the kitchen was a state and we were fed up of the 1500 times we had had to do the washing up that day so before we started regretting the entire thing, and more importantly before my unnecessary kitchen stress led my wife to reconsider our entire marriage, we decided a takeaway was in order and with the attitude of the little monster, we thought, lets get dinner eaten, then the Bab in bed, then we can chill…….
I’ve mentioned this before but I have total distain for takeaway delivery services. Adding on 20% to the food prices, then adding a delivery charge, then adding on a transaction fee. That’s the ‘deal’ they offer the final consumer. Lucky us! Let’s also mention the ‘deal’ they offer the restaurant by charging them £100’s in set up fees and equipment loans etc. They’ve basically built a rule on reliance and use our requirement for convenience to exploit everyone. With an almost guaranteed promise that your food will take longer to arrive and will also be luke warm at best. They promise you crispy things that have gone soggy and moist things gone dry……all for an extortionate price.
It’s this reason that I would always normally prefer to go direct to the takeaway, collect or ask them to deliver, anything but those delivery sharks!
After a stressful afternoon attempting to make a gravity defying tower of gluten free profiteroles, it felt right to take the stress out of the ordering, grit my teeth and order through a delivery app. After all, they are there for the convenience and convenience once in a while is not a problem….. It was a process filled with regrets from the outset………
My wife was keen on not eating too much, she is often the voice of reason and balance in my life. Always looking at the bigger picture and thinking a little more forwards that me. The plan was to keep ourselves fresh for the party, not eat too much on the Friday night but order enough that we could keep it in the fridge to enjoy the leftover spoils on a hungover Sunday morning…….brilliant plan and a poignant reminder of why I married this wonderful woman!
……while she was looking at a grumpy, red faced man arguing with a cardboard cone, up to his knees in flat, mealy profiteroles, wondering why on Earth she married him………
The only request she had was our standard order, Singapore noodles with some prawn crackers and sweet and sour sauce to dip! Otherwise ‘you do you, babe’……WHAT! A! WOMAN!
You would have thought that the right course of action would have been to either write down what I needed to order, starting with ‘Singapore noodles & prawn crackers……..’ or maybe just heading straight to those dishes and getting them in my basket of regrets before anything else. Instead, I spent the next 15-20 minutes in utter disbelief at the prices! Trying my hardest to fine where some sort of value for money was. I even decided at one point to try a different takeaway on a different delivery service, that seemed much more reasonably priced and was on my list or takeaways to tackle but I noticed the 1 out of 5 on the hygiene rating and thought, ‘move on Steve, this is NOT something to offer the love of your life on your anniversary weekend’…..keep that for a lonely evening when she is away visiting friends or something.
Back to the Wok King………
By this time, my mind had wondered back to whether the croquembouche was actually setting…….right, just get it ordered. It’s in the basket of regrets, confirm order, pay……confirmation! Order is on its way.
Cue my wife entering the fray…….’is it ordered?’…..yeah, all sorted……then the penny dropped………..OH FOR F**KS SAKE, I FORGOT THE PRAWN CRACKERS……….
The Order:
Singapore Noodles
Prawn Egg Foo Yung
Special Egg Fried Rice (with Sauce)
Sweet & Sour Sauce
Curry Sauce
Mixed Vegetables with Cashew Nuts
Small Chips
The Price……
An Eye Watering £57.50
After a few internal growls at myself (I really hate getting things wrong), logic prevailed……we’ve just spent the best part of £60! They will almost certainly include a free bag of prawn crackers. Surely its courtesy. I mean, at £3.40 for a bag off the menu, they have to be making enough money of regular sales to warrant some generosity.
OK, calm down, it’s all going to be fine. Here’s hoping our newly crowned King will see fit to reward his new followers with some kitchen scraps as a gesture of good will. After all, maybe he is a modern ruler with community focus……..
We ordered about 4.45ish, ETA 5.30…….the food arrived at exactly 5.30, bang on time! Well, it was 5.34; we have an issue with our address, we live in a sort of hidden square (its not actually hidden, just from the vision of any delivery driver), so we always get a phone call saying ‘we are outside’ and I’m like, ‘no you’re not’ and they’re like ‘yes we are’ so then I have to walk out onto the road and say ‘no you’re not’……then I gleefully skip home with my takeaway or parcel in hand……
I could feel the warmth pouring out of the bag - it was super hot. My concerns about the delivery service briefly waned a little……don’t get excited Steve, check your bank balance, it’s just taken it right up the wrong un………
During the 45 minute wait for food, the child monster had become unbearable, unbearable to a point where we decided we would flip the plans. Drag out til bedtime, have food afterwards. Now we have the problem of keeping the food warm - although it was almost nuclear so shouldn’t be too bad.
In the hope of maintaining some kind of fair testing in whatever this research project is, I slipped a freshly cooked chip…….soggy and cardboardy, but not dry and mealy….disappointing but that could just be my mood.
When bringing the takeaway back to our chaotic nest, I had noticed that it was bizarrely uniform in its bag. There was some chaos missing from the bag. It was pure container, what if the Wok King hadn’t deemed fit to show us some mercy and deliver some free prawn crackers……….what if he had kept them all for himself a la Henry VIII?…….the kind of news I couldn’t face in the current stress pit I was in, don’t look at it, don’t think about it……
It wasn’t long until I had to face the music. I pre-warned my wife that she may on a direct train to prawn cracker disappointment. I dropped the prawn cracker bomb in the only way a husband knows. While running out the room as quick as possible…..to put the bab to bed…..
Almost £60 and not a prawn cracker in sight! It’s actually quite remarkable. I don’t usually expect freebies and I genuinely think we should be grateful for what we get, and lets rub my face right in it, I didn’t actually order any?! but sometimes a price tag just leaves a certain level of expectancy. Maybe it was the internal battle I was having with myself about cocking up one of the only things my wife asked me to order and actually I shouldn't have expected the Wok King to tidy up my mess. Would I tidy up his mess? Maybe if he was going to chop my head off a la Henner’s but surely he wouldn’t do that in 2024? I actually checked my notes and the previous takeaway from Lee Sing was a very similarly sized order, in fact, a little bigger and came to £41….so we are looking at around £16-17 more for less food….that’s significant. Bedtime in our house normally gives me clarity, its a peaceful time I enjoy and something I work my schedule to rarely miss. The clarity I got from this was that actually, yes, it was expensive, yes, the King didn’t tidy up my mess, but why should he, and actually, maybe this is worth the price tag and maybe this is going to be the most exceptional start to a wonderful weekend of celebrations…….the food turned up bang on time and totally piping hot, actually not a bad start…….
The heat radiating from the takeaway was so apparent, it was very reassuring but what was quite confusing and a bit disconcerting was the total lack of aroma coming from it. We have had other takeaways that fill the whole house with the quintessential scent of a Chinese takeaway. Giving you a proper nasal teasing and making you salivate wherever you are in the house.
My very limited understanding of GCSE science suggests that the molecules should actually be more volatile in a hot state, so that should make them more air bourne and make things smell more? But then I ‘learnt’ that over 25 years ago, maybe science has changed? Maybe the Wok King has changed the science? Maybe my understanding of the science is totally wrong? Maybe they are just some really good containers?
They weren’t really good containers at all. The food was just completely odourless. In fact, the recurring theme was water. Everything had a certain level of moisture within it. The egg foo yung was literally drowning in water. That can happen when frozen prawns are cooked and sometimes when you seal up freshly cooked egg, some moisture can run out of it. But this was like someone had actually added water to the container. What it meant was that all the flavour had essentially been washed off it and what you were left with was a sort of eggy, prawny, stagnant water and the food tasting of just about nothing……uh oh, my clarity was clouding over again. Thoughts of THAT crouqembouche was returning….what if it wasn’t set, what if it just collapses all over the tropical fruit salad, I’ll be the laughing stock in front of all 6 of our friends who were coming round………
To be fair to the Wok King, another common theme of the food were really plump and juicy prawns. A lovely texture. Just lacking in seasoning and flavour.
A chip dunked into curry sauce is one of my calling cards of this whole thing. Every takeaway, dunk a chip. It’s a fair test that way. The curry sauce had a good flavour. Good, balanced spicing, a peppery hit without being over bearing and it was thick. I mean like ‘thicc’ kind of thick. A really lovely thick. I can only really describe it as the texture of cold, spreadable instant gravy, but it was hot! The sort of thick that is exactly what you want, while also exactly how you don’t want it!
Another obsession of mine when it comes to this project has been the varying glow of sweet and sour sauce. This one was up there, nice and unworldly. But it was also quite thin. Yet still had a certain level of gloopiness. A sort of watered down, thickness that still just about holds its own. Its a really hard texture to achieve. It’s to do with the Water Activity in the sauce and the amount of available water left in the sauce. Essentially without boring you too much about sauce science it means they’ve used a really effective starch or the starch has been absolutely cooked to optimum perfection in the sauce.
Not something the Wok King can claim, this is the work of one of his cronies. Wherever he bought the sauce from - they are the water activity heroes here.
Being a great technical achievement in sauce making, it doesn’t mean its actually a good thing when you’re eating a sauce. The sauce was weirdly gloopy and too wet at the same time. It was like heavy, thick water if that makes any sense. Making it hard to stick to anything and making it impossible to stop it from invading every part of my plate. I tried to build a chip dam across my bowl which helped. What would have been perfect would have been scooping up the sauce with some prawn crackers………(awkward emoji)
The lack of aroma continued across every aspect of this takeaway. As if the King had sent out a decree that no-one in his realm shall smell anything again. My mind was in quite a negative place by this point. The spiral of negativity was real. I was on the look out for problems. WHERES THE SAUCE FROM OUR EGG FRIED RICE?
…..actually the rice had been tossed in it. Not that you ever would have noticed, as the rice also lacked any flavour or aroma. It was adorned with those now synonymous juicy but tasteless prawns and also scattered with chunks of frozen meat. My days in the ready meal world mean I am more than familiar with the tell tale signs of low quality frozen meat - the marks of the factory conveyor belts shamefully brand every difficult to chew chunk.
I don’t expect the best quality meat to be used in any takeaway but by this point I just couldn’t let go of the price tag. Food will always be about value for money for me. I just couldn’t escape it now.
Whenever I get this negative I try my hardest to find balance and when I am on a bit of a negative run, I have actually got really good at taking a step back and trying to change my mindset. It’s one of the wonderful skills that my wife has bought out of me and really helped me develop.
The positive saviour of this entire meal were the vegetables. Especially the vegetables! The broccoli in particular was absolutely brilliant and amongst the best we have had from any takeaway. The texture was just perfect. A hard thing to achieve in a takeaway that has to be delivered, then left in containers to continue to steam!
The mixed vegetables and cashew nuts were a highlight for me. The cornflour gloop that normally adorns the mixed vegetable dishes is often a highlight. It doesn’t work anywhere else, but with a Chinese its almost what you want. There wasn’t too much gloopy water in the Wok King’s version, which again, is a balance of good for some, bad for others. In this instance it was a nice, light relief from the otherwise largely watery consistency.
The other positive dish, both thankfully for my taste buds and also the survival of my marriage was the Singapore Noodles. A decent flavour and in stark contrast to the rest of the takeaway, on the drier side. Some more light relief! It could have had more seasoning and a slightly more lingering flavour but it had some decent heat and was pleasant enough.
In terms of my eating habits, I often give out clear signs as to how much I have enjoyed a meal. In a buffet sort of environment, and I would class Chinese takeaways as this, if I haven’t finished my first serving and tucking into a second serving of anything before you are half way through your first mouthful, I’m not enjoying it. If I don’t go for a second serving, at all, its a tell tale sign. Never think it’s politeness……If I don’t finish my first serving, there are big problems (but that is almost unheard of).
I was more than content with just finishing my first serving and leaving it at that. Maybe that was the influence of my wife’s plan to not over eat ahead of our indulgent Saturday plans?
Sunday was the real day of reckoning. Hungover, gasping for some sort of hangover cure. We were right in the midst of some serious reminders of our age and why we don’t go out anymore. Although we were childless (thanks to some Grandparent heroes) so it wasn’t all bad. Tucking into this takeaway cold was where the problems really showed themselves. Now completely tasteless, my science around the volatility of molecules being proven correct. All the dishes were swimming in some stagnant water, some dishes tasting quite soapy, while others being a confusing mix of dry and watery at the same time. It was not enjoyable at all. But you can’t blame the Wok King for this. He didn’t design his food to be eaten cold!
I wouldn’t say this takeaway was a let down. Just a bit of a non-event. It was definitely unique. For me, completely unique in its lack of flavour and aroma but I am not the most subtle of eater or cook. In fact, subtlety is lacking in just about every aspect of my life and personality. But I am not everyone. So I can see how this could be a nostalgic favourite for people. It definitely delivers in different ways to all the other takeaways we have tried so far.
The one thing I cannot get over is the price tag. With such a mark up, I just need more bang for my buck. The Wok King is obviously a belligerent and selfish ruler, refusing the share his wealth with his subjects. It’s a real shame but also for me a great example of what some simple generosity like a bag of prawn crackers can do to put people in the right frame of mind. I say it all before, the most important part of a meal is setting the customers expectations in the first 5 minutes and on arrival. Get off on the wrong foot and it’s an uphill struggle to get people back on board!
I should also point out that I am very aware that I don’t ‘deserve’ freebies and I acknowledge the responsibility for ensuring prawn crackers are delivered lies with me, not the Wok King. But it worries me that that would have tipped the total price at over £60, which is barmy for a takeaway for 2, even one ordered to feed one an a half meals.
On the note of the prices - I want to also point out that lets not forget 20% of the price went in the pocket of the dastardly delivery services, along with a £5.50 delivery charge, plus a transaction fee. It’s unfair to put this on the Wok King, and if you take this off the price, it is only marginally more expensive that other takeaways!
I feel like the Wok King’s claim to the throne won’t be worrying any of the other rulers in the ‘Shrewsbury Game Of Thrones’. I’m happy to let him rule over Sundorne, I will happily let him carry on doing his thing, I won’t be disturbing him again!
…..but what I will be doing is ordering a pallet of prawn crackers to keep in my lock up so we are always prepared for my own ineptitude!
