Wat Wok at The Bank House Hixon

Wat Wok serves up authentic, incredible-tasting South East Asian food. They’re regulars at food festivals and events with their pop-up kitchen, but right now you can enjoy their exquisite dishes in a restaurant setting during their residence at The Bank House Hixon. I went along & can highly recommend it.

I confess that when I was invited to try Wat Wok’s food, I hadn’t actually heard of them.

Based in Stafford, Wat Wok has been cooking Thai and other South East Asian food at functions, weddings and dinner parties for a number of years now. They’ve also been taking their pop-up kitchen to food festivals and events all around the country, including at Stone and Stafford. But somehow, our paths hadn’t crossed.

Thankfully, that’s now been remedied. Last weekend I ate with them during their residency at the Bank House Hixon (at the time of writing, Friday and Saturday nights) to find out exactly what I’d been missing.

Wat Wok

Wat Wok consists of Lina King and husband Richard. Richard is front of house while Lina is the whizz at the wok.

Lina, originally from Cambodia, has over ten years’ experience cooking in Asia and Europe. That includes setting up and running an award-winning kitchen at Lazy Beach in Cambodia.

On my visit, I was lucky enough to be able to chat to Lina and it’s clear she’s incredibly passionate about what she does. Asking her about some of the dishes we’d eaten, she explained that it’s fresh ingredients which make her food taste so good.

Amazingly, she produces all of the food herself with minimal help. Oh, and she also took a breath earlier this year to give birth to their second child.

One of the things I love about what I do is meeting people like Lina and Richard, whether restauranteurs, chefs, artisans, farmers or butchers. I always learn so much and find their drive to bring great food to people genuinely inspiring.

The Bank House Hixon

So, lucky people, right now you don’t have to brave the Autumn-Winter weather to try some of Wat Wok’s food. For the next few months at least, you can head to the Bank House Hixon, a lovely country inn around eight miles east of Stafford.

I’ve written about the Bank House before here and it’s a great place to spend a chilly evening. Refurbished to a very high standard last year, the bars have little nooks and corners with log burners, so it’s a cosy place for a drink.

The restaurant area (above pic) includes original features from the four-hundred-year-old inn, such as the beautiful wooden beams.

Only into their second week in residence, Wat Wok has been a real hit with locals as well as diners from further afield. So if you want to try some of the amazing dishes I’m going to tell you about, make sure you book a table.

Wat Wok Menu

Wat Wok’s menu may change slightly from week to week, but here’s what was on offer last weekend.

As you’d expect with food cooked fresh, and largely by one person, the menu isn’t lengthy. But I think, with four starters and six mains, there’s still plenty of choice.

Also bear in mind that most dishes can be adapted by switching in tiger prawns. Lina can also make some of the dishes vegan on request.

By the way, I should say that it wasn’t just me eating all of the food you’ll read about here. My regular dining companion ID was there to lend a hand and a hearty appetite.

STARTERS

Starters were all priced at an extremely reasonable £4.25 or £4.50 each.

Asian Beef Meatballs

Firstly, we shared a bowl of Asian Beef Meatballs (£4.25) with soya sauce and mango chutney glaze.

The first thing I noticed when this dish appeared was the wonderful, deep aroma of soya sauce.

Soya sauce is often said to encompass the five tastes of salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. The glossy, inviting coating on the half dozen meatballs certainly had great complexity of flavour that was a real delight.

Complexity and complex are words I’m going to use again in this review. Right from the very first dish, it was clear that Wat Wok are producing something quite different from the sort of Thai/South East Asian food you might be used to in pubs and many high street restaurants in Britain.

They’re all about producing authentic dishes and, for me (at the risk of giving away the conclusion of this review right at the beginning!), it was simply the best food of this region I’ve eaten.

But back to those meatballs. Inside the salty, sweet, sour, bitter, savoury glaze was well-flavoured beef with a very firm, meaty texture.

Freshening up the bowl was plenty of rocket and some crunchy slices of radish for contrasting texture. I loved the little sweet-savoury cubes of what I assume was soya and mango chutney gel, dotted among the leaves.

Chicken Satay

Hands up who’s ever eaten Chicken Satay? Okay, that’d be just about everyone.

But I’d be willing to bet that not many will have tried any as good as we ate at Wat Wok (£4.25).

Yes, the two skewers of perfectly cooked chicken fillet were tender within and had the golden, lightly charred exterior you’d hope for.

But it was that unassuming-looking peanut sauce that knocked my socks off.

I love the combination of coconut and peanut although, in the wrong hands, it can turn out to be an overly sweet disappointment. This, however, was miles ahead of any I’ve had before with real depth.

I tried to identify all the flavours in there. Ginger/galangal? Lemon grass? Lime? Certainly there was some medium heat, cutting through the rich and creamy peanut and coconut.

Alongside there was crunch and freshness in the form of a little dish of cucumber and onion plus a sliver of searingly hot fresh chilli.

Did the last chicken satay you ate taste anything like that?

Fried Pork Spring Rolls

Our final starter was Fried Pork Spring Rolls (£4.50).

Of course, like chicken satay, spring rolls are a mainstay of many a high street restaurant or take away. Good for a nice bit of crunch, but they’re probably not something that’s going to wow you, right?

Think again.

You perhaps can’t tell from the photos that these were very chunky spring rolls. A real mouthful.

Outside, the deep golden wrapper was fried to crispy perfection. None of your pale, soggy and flabby offerings here. Inside, there was lots of veg although the main, underlying flavour was of porky meatiness.

I think many people underestimate the importance of fat in providing flavour and pleasing texture to many dishes. Further, they’ve even been made to feel scared of fat. But these spring rolls were a good example of how a little fat can give a lovely silky mouthfeel as well as enhance the meaty flavour.

The spring rolls were served with a dish of sweet chilli sauce that still had a good whack of heat; unlike the jam-like versions you’re sometimes presented with.

Crunchy freshness was added to the plate via a tangle of shredded cabbage, carrot and spring onion. There were slices of red chilli for those who wanted more heat.

MAINS & SIDES

Wat Wok mains were all £10.25 or £10.50 and there are sides of rice, egg fried rice, stir-fried green beans or stir-fried mixed vegetables (£2.00 – £2.95).

Pad Thai

Apart from green or red curries, Pad Thai is probably the best-known Thai food in Britain; although this dish of stir fried noodles was apparently only invented in the twentieth century.

Wat Wok will make you Pad Thai Vegetable (£10.25) or Pad Thai Chicken (£10.50). We had the latter.

With cabbage, eggs and beansprouts as well as a generous number of large chicken pieces and thick noodles, this was an elegant dish of mainly muted colours. Dashes of green came from the wedge of lime to squeeze over and a stack of garlic or Chinese chives, recognisable by their flat rather than rounded leaves.

Scattered over the top were browned, crispy onions and alongside was another traditional accompaniment: crushed peanuts.

While the dishes we’d eaten so far were bursting with bold, powerful flavours, the Pad Thai offered a very different experience. Here there was subtlety, almost understatement.

All the elements were cooked perfectly: tender chicken, soft egg, al dente noodles, beansprouts and fresh cabbage still with some bite. Bringing all of these together harmoniously was the hint of a delicate sauce based on lightly sour tamarind.

Without any chillies, this attractive dish would be perfect for someone who doesn’t like heat.

The word that keeps coming into my mind is soothing. I could imagine eating a big bowl of this if I wanted some real comfort food.

A Cambodian Curry

Never knowingly having eaten Cambodian food before, and sitting at the table of a Cambodian cook such as Lina, the Amok Curry (£10.50) immediately drew my eye.

Available as a chicken or vegetable version, it’s a traditional Cambodian curry containing coconut milk.

We shared the tender chicken Amok Curry, but there were loads of vegetables in there too; softly stewed chunks of carrot and pepper plus lightly crunchy green beans. A heap of fresh coriander leaves sat on top of the generous bowlful.

Ah, but the sauce! I only hope I have the words to convince you just how good it was. Perhaps inevitably, I think I’m going to have to use the word ‘complex’ again.

Eating this wonderful, vibrant and rich curry I was desperate to work out what the spices were. Of course there were chillies and I guess lemon grass, ginger, garlic, fish sauce. But there seemed to be something elusive that I couldn’t identify. Some ingredient I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I cook a lot of Indian food so, naturally, I went through the spices it might be. Ground cumin? Coriander or fennel seeds? Fenugreek?

Speaking to Lina afterwards, it turned out there were no dry spices in the curry at all. Just freshly pounded ingredients like the chillies, garlic, ginger etc. Together, these had created the perfect combination of salty, hot, sweet and sour that’s the satisfying hallmark of South East Asian cuisine.

As with the satay sauce, the creaminess of coconut had been cut through with the balancing, fresh acidity of lime. The chilli heat, which began warmly, gradually built to leave a pleasurable tingle on the lips and tongue.

A bowl of Egg Fried Rice (£2.50), cooked perfectly, was just right for soaking up the last of the powerful curry.

Pad Kra Pow

Our final shared main course was a dish I definitely wanted to try: Pad Kra Pow (£10.25).

Described as stir-fried pork in chilli paste and Thai basil topped with a fried egg, Richard explained that this Thai comfort food is little known in Britain, although everyone who tries it loves it. Certainly, after seeing our plate arrive, the people at the table next to us, a local couple, decided that’s what they’re having next time.

I loved the look of the dish, with its slightly retro semi-circle of cucumber slices topped with halved cherry tomatoes. Note the attention to detail with the scoring on the outside of the cucumber.

I’m mad about eggs and think there’s not much that can’t be improved by sticking a fried egg on top and letting its runny yolk trickle over the rest of the plate. And this fried egg was a good example: brownly crisp at the edges with a nicely oozing yolk.

This dish was slightly sweeter than the others, but this was pleasingly offset by the tang of salty fish sauce, making it another balanced dish.

There was a substantial hit of chilli heat too. Just in case that wasn’t sufficient though, we also got a side of Lina’s homemade spicy Ko Kong chilli sauce (£1) which has a five-chilli rating. But even there, all that heat didn’t overwhelm the rest of the ingredients like garlic and fish sauce.

DESSERT

After all that feasting, we’d planned to go home without dessert.

But it didn’t take much persuading to share a portion of Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango (£4.50). I adore coconut in any form, sweet or savoury, so this was right up my street.

Besides the delicately scented coconut rice, stickily good, there was a big jug of sweet coconut milk sauce. I confess I could probably have sat and drunk that through a straw, all on its own.

Mango can be such a disappointment, flavour wise and texture wise, if not perfectly ripe. Happily, these slippery slices were bang-on. Fragrant, sweet, juicy and with a tart edge.

Highly Recommended

As it was only Wat Wok’s second week at The Bank House, I think they were pretty brave asking a food reviewer to come along and see what I thought.

Yes, Lina’s been cooking for years both abroad and here. They’ve also built up a dedicated following among those lucky enough to find them at food festivals and street food events. But that’s not the same as cooking in someone else’s (surprisingly small) kitchen and having to iron out any teething problems.

For Wat Wok though, that self-confidence was justified.

We were presented with faultless plate after faultless plate. Every single one brought real pleasure.

Like most Brits, I was already familiar with a number of these South East Asian dishes. But the quality here, like Chicken Satay or the Spring Rolls, took them to a different level of interest and flavour. Then there were those that were new to me, like the Cambodian Amok Curry and minced pork Pad Kra Pow.

Whatever you choose, I think there’s a good chance that you’ll love it too. That certainly seems to be the feedback so far and the restaurant was almost constantly full when I visited.

At this standard of cooking Wat Wok’s great value for money too. For a starter and main course you’ll pay around £15 per person, plus £2.00 – £2.50 if you want rice to accompany a curry.

If their food continues to be this popular, Wat Wok at The Bank House could be around for a lot longer. I’d love to see even more of you go along, see what it’s all about and make that happen.

Highly recommended.

Book Wat Wok at The Bank House here

ALL PHOTOS © MOORLANDS EATER & NOT TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION

(thanks to Ian Dakin Photography for some images)

Disclosure

I was invited by Wat Wok to try some of their food and was not charged for what I and my partner ate. As always, my review is an honest one based on my own experience.

Where a meal, product or service has been provided without charge then a note such as this will always be included in the post containing my review.

Read more about working with Moorlands Eater on my About page here