Chinese Spareribs in Bellevue, WA

Whenever I think of New York Chinese food a few dishes and condiments come to mind. Specifically chop suey, lo mein, wonton soup, duck sauce, fried wonton crisps, and best of all spareribs. However for some unknown reason if you try to find this food in the other parts of the country the typical Chinese restaurant employee looks at you like you just left the nut house. Granted this speaks to the true authenticity of theses dishes ( in relation to China) but I don't care about authentic Chinese food. I only care about authentic New York Chinese Food. Now you can imagine the overall sense of joy I felt when during a random web search I uncovered a review of a Chinese restaurant in Bellevue, WA called Best Wok that supposedly had Spareribs!

So what does one do when your wife says she wants Chinese food for dinner and you know a place that has spareribs that is 20 minutes away. Simple you lie and tell her it is just as close as the other Chinese restaurant and drive really fast!

I ordered several things from Best Wok to get an overall sense of their food. On the menu for the evening was wonton soup, spareribs, orange chicken, and roast pork fried rice. The wonton soup was close to New York style but not exactly on target. The soup tasted good and had loads of roast pork but the wontons where not typical New York Wontons. While the filling was good, they use the thinner wonton wrappers while most New York Chinese Food establishments use the thicker wonton wrappers which I prefer. One thing they did not have was fried wonton crisps to use in your soup like crackers. That tasty addition seems to evade me no matter where I live. The spareribs had the right flavor and appear to be cooked in the right sauce however the ribs themselves where larger than I am used to and seems a bit fattier. I am not expert in cuts of pork ribs but either the ribs I grew up with were not true spareribs or the ribs from best wok were a different cut. Either way I was just delighted to have ribs that came even close to the flavor I love. As for the the orange chicken to be completely honest it was a bit soggy for me. Perhaps that was just because of the 20 minute drive in each direction I had to make to get it. The roast pork fried rice was good but was on the salty side.

Net-net the food at Best Wok was pretty good. Best of all it is as close to a Chinese sparerib I have been able to find in all of Washington. So if you are expat New Yorker living in the Seattle area looking for the New York style Chinese food I recommend you give Best Wok a try.

Best Wok Menu