Mr Wok
About
Chinese
Price Range : Under $10 ($)
Location
Adress: 4831 Nc Hwy 55, Durham, NC 27713
Phone: (919) 544-8385
Business info
- list_altTakes ReservationsNo
- directions_carDeliveryNo
- move_to_inboxTake-outYes
- credit_cardAccepts Credit CardsYes
- local_parkingParkingPrivate Lot
- directions_bikeBike ParkingYes
- accessibilityGood for KidsYes
- groupGood for GroupsYes
- volume_upNoise LevelQuiet
- transit_enterexitOutdoor SeatingNo
- wifiWi-FiNo
- tvHas TVYes
- fastfoodCatersNo
Reviews
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C T.
While Mr Wok is just like another affordable Chinese Buffet during the weekdays and weekend lunch (3.5 stars), the Taiwanese night on every Fri and Sat night is the one of the best places for Taiwanese food in the Triangle Area (5 stars). The Taiwanese/Asian food on the Taiwanese night is very authentic and the specials changes seasonally. Basically the chef of Mr Wok spends most of her free time during the weekdays preparing the Taiwanese/Asian specials.
Base on the chef, all specials are made in house.
By the way, if you stopped by this place during the summer time, make sure you do not miss out one of my summer favorite, shaved ice!!!
Updated: 7/20/12
I am back for the Fri and Sat night special again
Today my favorite specials are: white reddish rice cake, Taiwanese style spiced fired chicken, Taiwanese style noodle soup, Thai style basil ground pork, vietnamese pho, clam chicken soup, muchi (Japanese sweet rice ball), and the shaved ice. The mug/green bean cake is nice too. there are many more specials... I just don't have the stomach for them. -
Mickey B.
STOP! Don't go in the door because they collect the money as you come in, before you get a good look at the 'food'. Yikes! Literally the worst food buffet I have ever encountered. The Worst! Of course there's the dingy interior and shuffling, indifferent waitstaff to make up for the crappy eats.
At first we thought, "Well with all this food spread before us, there would have to be something good." Wrong. We ended up with six plates on our table of uneaten food, I mean we kept trying. There was an Hibachi station where they cooked up your selections to order ... oh my! The chicken tasted like... well, we weren't sure what it tasted like and the beef was tough enough to preclude eating. Another plate of uneaten food on the table. Then we went for the salad bar and the watery wilted salad and dried up shrimp and pans of lumpy (?) pudding (?) were just too sad to even put on a plate.
Hope springs eternal though and I dashed up to try something new freshly dumped on the buffet. Hard lumps of (?) chicken dyed brown and tasting a little bit like fish and sugar. Another uneaten plate. And the sushi bar! I wouldn't touch what looked like leftovers from lunch.
Every so often a waitress would breeze by and say "Everything fine - ok" never giving us a chance to answer. The cashier avoided our eyes as we left so I guess there was some sense of decency. How this place stays open is a modern mystery. I mean it shares a parking lot with a perfectly decent McDonald's and a newly renovated Wendy's.
Why oh why didn't I read the Yelp reviews before we picked this dump for convenience. I hope we don't get sick!!
NOW renamed RED STAR! -
Rebecca P.
I Love this place for a good weekday lunch coming from RTP.
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Ed C.
OMG! I don't ever set my hopes high for any buffet place, but this place makes the Souper Salad near SouthPoint seem like a nice place to eat. Honestly, this is the worst Chinese food I've ever had.
I had eaten here several years ago. I mean several. And while it wasn't the best food in town, I never feared for my health--which I did at Mr. Wok today.
My first clue to turn and run should have been the sanitation rating. It's actually an A, but it's only 2.5 points from a B--and these days restaurants have the opportunity to go above 100, so no telling how bad this really was.
The second clue is that you pay before sitting. My husband remarked that it's probably a safety precaution in case you die. Speaking of nasty, he needed use of the facilities and reported they were dirty, creepy, and in ill-repair.
The food is not the "all-Chinese" buffet I remember from the earlier days of that location. This is a mix--fusion is way too fancy of a word--of "Chinese", "Mexican", "Sushi", etc. I suppose they are aiming to be a minority food smorgasbord. They missed the mark.
The edible offerings were General Tso chicken and Sweet & Sour chicken. I also tried the fried plantains and had to quickly remove them from my mouth. Egg rolls and spring rolls were lukewarm and tasteless. Mixed vegetables were drying up in their space.
You'll find tastier, fresher, and more authentic Chinese, Mexican, and etc. food on the Golden Corral buffet--and not be afraid you'll die of some foodborne illness.
I'm not sure how the other reviewers have been so kind. I can find little redeeming value to this restaurant.
With the loss of 35's buffet in Chapel Hill, my guess is there is no passable Chinese buffet left in Durham and Orange Counties. I guess their time has passed.
. -
Bernard J.
My family and I came in on Father's Day for lunch because we heard the place was under new management.
The food: Standard American-chinese buffet cuisine, replete with the various sauced and fried staples. They also had a decent variety of sushi, along with pastor taco ingredients and pho/curry noodle soup offerings. Everything was mediocre, except the pho, which had the thinnest broth i've ever had and was bad even for buffet standards.
The service: The hostess and waitresses were friendly and attentive. Literally the only positive thing I could note.
The reason for the one-star review: Blatant and appalling false advertising. At the end of our meal (five people), we were charged around $53, not including tip. This contradicted the various advertisements and signage that stated the lunch buffet was a little over $7 a person. When confronted about this, the (manager? owner?) pointed us to a sign printed on a single sheet of A4 paper posted knee-height that stated the Sunday buffet was $9.99 a person. Slightly above and to the left of that was a large, laminated poster at least 20 times larger that listed both lunch and dinner prices for all days of the week, which were the prices that we had expected.
The customer is the lifeblood of any business. A business owner should treat their customers with respect, and vice versa, especially if said business is a dime-a-dozen Chinese buffet. You can try to scam them for a quick buck, but in the end your chicanery will be exposed.
Needless to say, we won't be going back.