Thursday, September 10, 2009
Happy Wok's location makes it a winner
TOM ANGLEBERGER Special to The Roanoke Times
With its roomy window seats, the Happy Wok lets diners watch College Avenue while they enjoy Chinese food.
Tom Angleberger knows what he likes. So we've asked him to eat at NRV restaurants and write about them. If you have a restaurant to recommend,
e-mail him. Tom Angleberger
Recent columns
For Blacksburg's Happy Wok, location is everything.
The tiny restaurant's big windows look out on College Avenue, that busy street where students and townsfolk mingle and, hopefully, decide to stop for a stir fry.
Spacious counters line the windows and it's a nice spot to eat and people-watch. There is the slight drawback that some passers-by will gawk at your food. But that serves as a great advertisement for the restaurant.
I took my son there the other day after school. We were before the dinner rush and the restaurant's staff and their families were having a jolly meal for themselves.
As often happens at a Chinese restaurant, we were a little dazzled by the menu.
The Happy Wok has more than 150 dishes to choose from, including Amazing Chicken, House Special Mei Fun, Salt Black Pepper Chicken, Curry Shrimp with Onion and five "perfect health" steamed dishes.
We ordered egg foo yong, sweet and sour chicken, egg drop soup and fried dumplings. They produced a feast for us. It seemed like an absurd amount of food for two people, but we actually made a pretty good showing.
The food itself was what you would expect at any good Chinese restaurant.
The fried dumplings, I'm afraid, were not at all to my liking. I wish I had gone for an egg roll instead. But the rest of our food was all good.
The excitement came from the three containers of sauces we were given. One of these was the candylike sauce that comes with sweet and sour chicken. I'm not sure what the other two were -- one was dark, the other was almost purplish -- but they were delicious on the egg foo yong and rice.
Bottom line: The Happy Wok has a happy spot at the intersection of campus and downtown.
