As local lasses at the Ciao meet in Birmingham, Katy (Pussykaty) and I were given the high-pressured job of being city guides for the weekend.
Whilst I sat back for most of the time and let Katy do the work and take the blame on Saturday night, around 7.30pm, bellies started rumbling and thoughts of Chinese food begin to fill the head. Given a brief of cheap, good and lots of it I remembered a place recommended to me by a close friend who regularly travels all the way from Coventry to eat there.
So our small group: Me, Pussykaty, Superpricee, KirtsyJane, TallTone and The Mad Cabbie trek our way down to The Big Wok. (not the Bog Wok as the category says, I have asked Ciao to change it but until then it amuses me)
Location ********
Set in the heart of the city’s Chinese quarter the restaurant is ideally located for the clubs and pubs of the area as well as the Birmingham Hippodrome.
Down a small side street opposite an Ibishotel it would be easy to miss it if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
Well the inside is a lot like what I would imagine the works canteen at Ikea would look like. It’s basic, pale ‘wood’ tables of various sizes and shapes set in large brightly lit painted in a plain cream colour. It has a clean minimalist look, the owners of the restaurant have obviously sacrificed sumptuous surroundings in order to offer cheap food.
A mezzanine floor housed a small smoker’s area, although this added the inconvenience of having to walk down the stairs to get your food (but that’ll teach you for smoking, hey? LOL!).
There is a large bar in the one corner of the room where drinks can be ordered, but not collected as they are delivered to the table, and the meals are paid for.
It was very hot, we had already spent the afternoon sweating like the cast members from Tenko in the hotel and it didn’t look like we were going to stop now. Someone procured some paper towels for wiping hands and mouths but I used mine for mopping my poor fevered brow.
We were seated right next to the buffet area, which was pretty good, although it did get rather busy and crowded at times.
I didn’t use the loos but Katy seemed impressed by them.
It’s a hustle, bustle place with music pumped through, which I felt was a little on the loud side. A very cosmopolitan clientele off pre-clubbers, families, old and young the atmosphere is very much like a hotel food hall.
Service *******
As it was 8pm on a Saturday night we had to wait for a table, not having booked, we were left waiting in the entrance for a fair while, I cant tell you exactly how long as I don’t wear a watch but it may have been about 15 minutes. There was nowhere to sit while waiting for a table and that made the wait seem all the longer.
Had we booked I’m sure we would have been seated in much sooner as a number of people were ushered past us while we waited.
When we were taken to our table the waitress tried to take our order before we’d even pulled out our chairs, it seems everything is hustled and bustled here. Were weren’t however rushed in any way, shape or form with our meal and we didn’t see the waiters again apart from to clear our tables of empty plates and get us a coffee.
The place was full of staff, seating people, cleaning tables, refilling the buffet, serving duck and just generally running around like blue-arsed flies. All the staff I spoke to seemed friendly and any empty plates were cleared from our table within a reasonable amount of time.
The Food ********
They offer around 70 dishes in the evening (5.30pm to 11.30pm) for £7.99 and 50 dishes during the day (12pm to 5.30pm) for £4.99. A full menu of all the dishes offered can be found on the website www.bigwok.co.uk. (under 2’s go free, LOL!)
There is a salad bar in the corner consisting of a number of fresh salad items and chicken, I didn’t try the salad but it all looked nice and fresh.
There is a counter of starters including sesame toast, mini spring rolls, spare ribs, wan tans and a selection of soups and dips. The ladle for the sauces was incredible hot so in my haste to get the metal from my skin at soon as possible I ended drowning most of my plate in sweet and sour sauce, but then that was half my aim anyway.
Prawn crackers were available and I had a few until I saw people scooping them out of the bowl with their hands, that kind of put me off.
The starters were all lovely and mostly nibble sized. I didn’t try any off the meat starters or soups but I have been told they are very nice. The only thing I didn’t like was a thing which looked a little like cheesy chicken balls, I still have no idea what it was suppose to be, but to me it was a bit like eating bogeys (and no, I don’t make a habit of bogey eating).
The main course counter offers a good, if not exhaustive, selection of Chinese food as well as a smattering of Indian, Thai, Malaysian and Mongolian food. For those of you that can’t do without they also do chips. This is accompanied by the usual selection of rice and noodles.
Duck, Yuk Shung and satay are served from a counter separate from the main buffet area. I’m also informed that they do a fish in Cointreau and Orange Sauce, which is a very strange dish, I had no desire to try this particular delight.
I had boiled rice, chicken in black bean sauce and tiny garlic mushrooms all of which were delicious, good quality and well cooked.
Dessert consisted of a selection of different cakes, fresh fruit salad (that seemed to have a little too much apple for my liking) soft whippy ice cream and scoop ice cream. We had the choice of vanilla and strawberry ice cream but I am told that there is usually only one flavour on offer (and that chocolate flavour is really nice)
Cutlery is collected from a table at the side and all seemed nice and clean, TallTone got himself a pair of chop sticks. I am sooo impressed by anyone that can use chop sticks as I can just about manage a fork.
Drinks are reasonably price considering the fact we are in the middle of town. They have Carlsberg, Tetley’s, Strongbow (£2.10 a pint) and Guinness (£2.40 a pint) on tap as well as a selection of bottled beers and alcopops (from £2.30). Soft drinks, hot drinks, wine and spirits are also available.
Conclusion **********
Well I cant speak for the rest of my party, I’m sure they’ll speak for themselves in time, but I can’t fault this place for the quality of the food and it offers superb value. I cannot think of anywhere else in the middle of a large city centre that would offer so much for so little.
It’s probably not the best place to go if your main aim for the evening is to go for a meal and you consider the surroundings an important part of a restaurants appeal but as a pre-club, pre-theatre, pre-party place its just great.
Cheap simple nosh. Can’t beat it.
PS: Apologies to Katy who I am told wanted to post an op on this first, he he! (I’m sure yours will be better than mine)
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Damn! reading about this now, I wish I came with you lot instead just to stuff myself silly with chinese food! Being chinese and eating the same cuisine everyday doesnt bother me one bit! Luckily I didnt go, otherwise I be teaching you all how to use chopsticks (its a doddle, really!) This seemed really cheap as well, as the ones in London (where I go) are usually over £10! Regards, Ray
kazziebears 20.08.2002 18:26
I wish I'd known about this place, I love Chinese food, Ken was telling us how good it was the next day at breakfast. Never mind we had a good time at Pizza Hut and theres always the next time!
Kazziebears x
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Advantages: very nice food, cheap, and very near bullring, fast food! Disadvantages: not comfortable to eat, crowded and stuffy during busy hours. dodgy place
punkygal 29.06.2007 (29.06.2007)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of The Big Wok - Birmingham
Advantages: very nice food, cheap, and very near bullring, fast food! Disadvantages: not comfortable to eat, crowded and stuffy during busy hours. dodgy place
punkygal 29.06.2007 (29.06.2007)
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Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of The Big Wok - Birmingham
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Aug 19th, 2002
very helpful by (100%):
