Iron Wok Chinese Express

You get what you pay for. Food so so, staff not attentive (have to request water, tea, etc), didn’t feel welcome when eating in. The food gave one of us the runs, bathroom at rear of kitchen, and they said they were too busy to let us use the bathroom! Our last time was our last time!

Iron Wok is brilliant!
. in saying that we pretty much order the same dishes every time (Ginger Beef + Sesame Chicken and a large rice) but it’s consistently tasty + good quality — when we lived in Kits the delivery sometimes arrived in only 15mins and it was always piping hot and there was always enough for a second dinner the next day, the portions are huge! such good value
Just kinda raging they don’t deliver to the West End. but we’ve still driven out to get fed!

i dont understand the other reviews — Iron Wok is Awesome — ordering by phone is a lovely experience, spring rolls are a 10/​10, ginger beef is ¹⁰⁄₁₀ and all the chicken dishes are made with chicken breast!!!
The takeaway packaging is the highest quailty and the delivery guy is lovely and really fast to UBC
Keep up the great work Iron Wok and dont mind the haters :)

Food Great! Delivery portions not so much

Well I thought I would give them a second try as it was open earlier then my usual Chinese delivery options. The noodles were dry n plain with no flavor. The sweet n sour pork almost resembled a meat like substance that seemed very freezer burned. The quantity of food was the only thing likable except nothing was edible. I guess the quick service might have had something to do with the lack of quality. I placed my order at 3:55 afterwards noticing on the menu that they opened at 4:00 my food arrived at my door by 4:25 and its a 10 minute drive to my place? 30 minutes to take my order make my food and deliver it? My 2 friends eating and myself could only understand this to be leftovers from the day microwaved.

Came for the cheap factor, but almost left because of the atmosphere that left (much) more to be desired. There’s so much potential! It’s a cozy size but the blaring TV and overbearing fluorescent lighting was saddening.
My chicken chow mein was quote tasty, but my friend’s wonton soup was only okay.
The service was very cheerful and friendly though! And I only paid $ 9.
Currently, Iron Wok functions best as a take-​out place.

I would prefer giving a 3.5, but that’s not availble.
No MSG, friendly, reasonably priced, quick home delivery, and plentiful good Canadian Chinese food. The restaurant is located in a largley Caucasian neighbourhood that likes its chicken chow mein, sweet and sour boneless pork, etc and if residents want an authentic gourmet Chinese meal, then they’ll get in their cars anddrive to an authentic gourment Chinese restaurant. There are authentic Chinese items on Iron Wok’s menu but let’s all admit, unashamedly — Canadian Chinese is as much a comfort food as chili con carne or spaghetti with meat sauce. So, Iron Wok provides very good Canadian Chinese when we decide to order in. Their vegetable dishes arrive piping hot and the veggies are nicely crunchy, not limp and overcooked.
This is a dependable, well priced neighbourhood-​centric Canadian Chinese restaurant. It’s on two bus lines and there is lots of parking availabe on several levels, liquor store on lower level. Dinner for 1 take away is still under $ 10.

After moving here from the US, I had oddly been craving «Americanized» Chinese food… like chicken and broccoli. This place sadly missed the mark for me. It was my first experience with Canadian Chinese food and I wasn’t impressed.
When my daughter and I walked in late one Friday evening, there was no one in the restaurant. Someone came in from the kitchen to take our order and we had planned to dine-​in. I’m not sure if I made that unclear or it was lost in translation, but our order was made to go. No problem there, we would just take it home to eat.
We brought our chicken and broccoli home and I was disgusted when we began eating it. I wasn’t sure if the chicken was actually cooked so I recooked it myself. It was rubbery yet slimy at the same time. Even my six year old daughter disliked it.
Maybe it was just an off meal and they offer other great food? Maybe Im just used to something different and I was expecting something different? This is just based on my one experience with one meal.

Old-​school Chinese-​Canadian cuisine
Full disclosure, I’m Chinese Canadian (ethnically Chinese, born and raised in Canada). Until I was out of high school, I’d probably eaten rice at every one of my mother’s homemade suppers.
I went to Iron Wok to place a takeout order after I finished my yoga class a few doors away. As I’d really enjoyed the fantastic, MSG-​free food at Amy’s, the former Chinese establishment that was here years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see a ‘new’ Chinese restaurant in its place.
The server who took my order for Singapore noodles, Iron Wok crispy chow mein, sweet & sour boneless pork, and stir-​fried fish with vegetables (not on the menu, but this is a dish I order from Connie’s Cookhouse regularly, so why not, I thought) told me it would take 20 minutes to have my food ready. I sat down at one of the tables to wait. It took closer to 30 minutes, but as I was stretching while I was waiting, I was pretty relaxed and didn’t think it was a big deal.
I’m only a 5 – 10 minute drive from the Jericho Village Mall. I brought the meal home to eat with my adolescent son, and I have to say we were both somewhat disappointed. I don’t think I’ve had this type of Chinese Canadian food since I was a kid — like, 40 years ago — eating from Chinese restaurants in Prairie strip malls. I don’t think he’s ever had food like this in his 13 years of life. And I don’t plan on deliberately feeding it to him again.
The two words that come to mind: Starchy and Salty. Many restaurants that avoid MSG tend to use a lot of salt in its place. When I get to know a restaurant, I’ll ask them to reduce the amount of salt in my orders.
The sweet & sour pork? It’s one of my son’s ‘treats’ (though I could probably live the rest of my life never eating it again). Sure, I’ll eat it if it’s there, but the dish we opened up from Iron Wok? It was pure crimson, almost unnaturally purple in colour. How did we know it was starchy? The sauce had completely disappeared, ie soaked into into the balls of breaded, purply meat. Like one of the other reviewers, we found the meat to be tough. Perhaps cooked from frozen, who knows. When you bite into these pieces, the soggy breading separates from the tough meat and the texture does not appeal in the least.
The stir-​fried fish with vegetables? Sure they were busy and this was not a regular item on the menu, but it seemed as if the kitchen had to improvise using soya sauce and maybe oyster sauce. In my experience, one tries to serve white fish with a light broth, not the dark brown, thickened liquid that came with this dish. The vegetables, to the restaurant’s credit, were fresh and somewhat varied (zucchini, broccoli), but everything again was overwhelmed by this dark, overly salty sauce.
The crispy Iron Wok chow mein? I anticipated the fine, fresh egg noodles toasted to a golden texture, with a selection of chicken, char siu, seafood, tender-​crisp vegetables and sauce. The chicken, char siu, seafood and vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrots) were well prepared, not overdone, and could have been nicely fresh-​tasting on their own. Though I have to say, one could taste the sugar added to sweeten the whole dish (this is not uncommon practice in Cantonese cooking, but not so common to be able to pick out the taste of sugar added to the food). But again, something in the noodles just made them zap up the sauce! They were soggy and no longer crispy! How did this happen?
Finally, the Singapore noodles. This was well prepared, with a good blend of spice and fresh-​tasting ingredients. But out of the entire $ 42 I spent, this is probably the only dish I would be able to recommend without hesitation.
I’d had high hopes for this location. Next time, I’ll stick with Connie’s Cookhouse. There, the food has more of a consistent, home-​made quality that we know and can rely on.

Extra star for actually having a basic website for a hole-​in-​the-​wall, but that’s it. Average food, average prices, typical takeout place for the Canadian-​Chinese market. Small place, just a handful of tables.
How it gets 4 stars is beyond me.
Free parking but not much as it’s in a plaza with about 6 other businesses.
Wouldn’t recommend, Broadway Chinese or Tim Kee would be better options.

Placed a large order tonight and was told it would arrive in 30 minutes. I called 40 minutes later and asked if the driver was delayed as I had not heard from him. Person on the other end confirmed that the order was out but I had to ask that he call the driver and see if he would be much longer. 50 minutes after placing the order, the driver calls, lost. I repeat the detailed instructions to finding my address (it’s not that hard really, we have take out delivered often enough.) When it was over an hour since originally calling and I had not seen the driver again, I called Iron Wok. Someone new answered and after I explain the situation, the person asks me «What would you have me do? All I can say is I am sorry.» At this moment the driver appears. My food is cold. It’s been in his car for maybe 45 minutes. The Spring Rolls are smashed. You can see this through the bag. I tell this to the voice on the phone and he repeats that he is sorry and that there is nothing he can do. So, I look at the driver and tell him, I am not accepting the food. Not paying for it and that he needs to go. He spits on my door! Swears at me and utters threats against me. He is pissed off that he is now very late for another delivery and that I am not accepting this poor service. When he gets back to the street he stands there for almost 5 minutes screaming that I am a fucking asshole.
So, it’s somehow MY fault that he was late by over 30 minutes? It’s my fault the food was consequently cold? That he had smashed my order in his car before he arrives?
Not sure how that works but I’ve filed a report with the RCMP and I’ll never call there again. I hope some of you see this and decide against it too.

Yummy chinese food that is inexpensive, fresh, and quick. Mix of authentic chinese food as well as Western favorites. The sweet and sour pork was loved by everyone and vegetables were fresh and perfectly cooked. Surprised that a bill for 5 people was around $ 30 bucks. They do delivery as well. Definitely one of my staple restaurants for nights I don’t feel like cooking. Now I am craving this for dinner tonight …

Friendly and fast service, plus the food is consistently good

* Too exotic for me *
The Vancouver area is home to a lot of regional Chinese cuisines. Be it the lamb specialties from Xin Jiang (
), the Xian style meat sandwiches (
), the spicy hand pulled noodles from Huaxi (
), the Hong Kong wife cakes from Kam Do (
), the Shanghai delicacies from Shanghai River (
), the Tianjin specialties at O’Tray (
), the Korean Chinese at Da Ri Won (
), the HK Western food at BT Café (
), or the Indian Chinese food at Green Lettuce (
).
I love the variety. But I realized I’ve never appreciated perhaps the most exotic of them all — Canadian Chinese food. I’ve never set foot in a Wok Box. I’ve never had Alberta Ginger Beef. I’ve never had an Ottawa egg roll. I have been to one or two bad Chinese food court spots, but trying a place that excels at this yet unappreciated regional delicacy seemed like a good idea. So I decided to finally bite the bullet and venture out of my comfort zone and try a classic Canadian Chinese lunch from a well reviewed place.
Well, that sounds like a nice cover story at least. The truth of the matter is that I was trying to go for a quick lunch at La Ghianda (
) before a meeting and they were simply too crowded to get me out in time. So I walked around the corner and entered the world of Iron Wok.
The world of Iron Wok is one of lunchtime specials. I ordered the Szechuan beef on rice lunch combo ($ 6.50).
Things started off with a complimentary bowl of wonton soup. The broth was overly salty, and didn’t have much flavour other than the salt and perhaps some MSG for good measure. The wontons were the frozen variety and had a slightly mushy skin with a clump of meat inside which was warm but not hot. Thankfully they gave a generous glass of water as I needed it desperately. 1 Star. Photo:
The main then arrived. The plate was mostly veggies. The veggies were in fact fresh and not frozen. But they were like the three little bears. The zucchini was a bit mushy as if it had been in the iron wok a bit too long. The celery was still almost raw. The snowpeas were just right. The beef was tender, but had a slightly odd texture. Hard to describe. The sauce was once again overly salty and not much flavour other than perhaps a dash of MSG. Ok, my guess is a lot more than a dash — likely from a container of chili sauce that was heavily pre-​seasoned. 2 Stars. Photo:
I’ve concluded Canadian Chinese food is just too exotic for me. I can’t handle it.

Cheap, fresh, and quick. Probably the best place to get chinese takeout in the point grey dunbar area.

Very good Chinese takeout (or if you live nearby and spend at least $ 18 they will deliver). Massive quantities. We ordered three items (two noodles and one fried rice) for $ 25, and it was enough food to feed at least four people. Delivery took an hour (they had said 45 minutes when we ordered), so plan in advance — don’t wait until you’re hungry to call.
They use MSG by default, so be sure to request no MSG. Also note that the wonton and spring rolls have MSG in them and can’t be ordered without.