This review is for their regular dining experience before shelter-in-place.The food here is pricier than other Chinese restaurants in the area but they offer a customizable dry hot pot which no one else does. Dry hot pot is a huge thing in NYC and I'm really excited to see people bring it to Berkeley too. The variety isn't as great as what I'm used to in NY but I'll give them a pass since they're the first ones in Berkeley. It's also a lot more expensive (priced per pound) than what I'm used to but again, I'll give them a pass since they're the first ones here. They charge an extra dollar for rice, which is fair, but I wish they'd give more rice given how spicy and oily the food can be. I always run out of rice before I've finished my dish.I once tried their hot and sour noodles and I thought it lacked a lot of flavor. It wasn't hot or sour. This can be easily remedied in the kitchen with extra spice and vinegar. Perhaps they're trying to cater to a different population? I haven't gotten this dish in China but in all of the Chinatowns I've been in (including the non-official ones - not just the tourist ones!), this dish has always packed a lot more punch. It was also expensive for what it was, since it's almost entirely glass noodles, hot oil, and vinegar. It doesn't feature any meat or seafood like a beef noodle soup dish would. It's just noodles and sauce which is really cheap to make.Overall, I would definitely come back to have more of the dry hot pot. I don't think I'll be trying many of their other dishes though. The people who run the restaurant are also very sweet and check in on me and my friends to ask if we're enjoying the food. They've also spoken to us occasionally in Chinese after having a short conversation (and asking if we know any). The TV is always playing something in Chinese and I like the ambiance. It reminds me of the restaurants I would frequent as a kid in various Chinatowns.
Loki M.
i saw that they're open during the stay in place order, so i decided go get the diy ma la wok. this might be due to the stay in place order and slow business, but im disappointed that the level of freshness for the meat really went down. they look really old and browned, and you can really tell they arent fresh once you get a taste. the veggies however look and taste as fresh as usual, and spice level is perfect.i will still come back because there arent any restaurants like them in the area, but i would recommend you order more of the vegetables than meat for now.
Esther K.
When you walk in you either choose to eat from the menu or get ma la and I went with the ma la. I really like the spicy flavor of the stir fry and I can see why people come here so often because it's so addicting! The next day I found myself wanting to go again. I got medium spicy and it was a good amount of hot considering that I can take the heat of buldak. The bowl of steamed rice was very large and really good as well considering that it's just rice. The price is on the steeper side but overall I would come again!
Yining Chen
Authentic but way too expensive. This bowl plus 1 serving of rice cost 40 dollars.
Jacob S.
If you love genuine Sichuan spicy in self select style, this is definitely the place for it! They have so many varieties of veggies and meat to pick from!
Arno G.
This spicy stir fry restaurant specializes in homemade style of sichuan food.as long as you are good at gauging the weight of your food, you should have no problem with their unique system (aim for about .3-.5 lbs meat and .8-1 lbs of vegetables). The spiciness level goes from low, medium, high. Speaking as someone who likes spicy, medium was a good level to taste the food and feel the heat.
josh f.
Great place for dry hot pot and Szechuan dishes. The cucumber salad was sweet, which was unexpected, but delicious. They have a number of classic American Chinese dishes, which seems unnecessary based on how good the authentic noodles were. Will definitely be back next time I'm in the area. Actually prefer it to the ramen place with the line next door (original destination).
girdlebound
The delicious authentic food of NW China
David B.
I love Tasty Wok and their unusual dishes (Skilled Cucumber appetizer, what a sauce!), so I asked about the problem brought up by another poster here, taring the bowls before they weigh your custom stir-fry meal. (I've been four times in their short life, but always ordered from the menu.) Indeed, they didn't tare (allow for the weight of the empty bowl). It's not a lie, in fact not even unfair--it functions as a set-up price of about $2. But I discovered from Ray (the chef's young son, my waiter) that no one there knew what taring is. (His mom doesn't speak English.) I explained it to him, showed him the "TARE" button, and he got it right away, and discussed it with his mom, who agreed as soon as she understood that she wanted to use the scale properly. I then made sure through Ray that she understood that there'd be a sacrifice for them per serving, but he said that a good relationship with customers was more important, and they'd start taring immediately. You can check that they're doing it right by looking at the scale before they weigh: it should read -.22 lb. (Both types of bowl weigh the same.) I remember loving the twice-cook pork; this time I had a personal favorite, mapu tofu: tofu in fermented black bean sauce, hunanese. Often made with peas, Tasty Wok's comes with scallions, also good. (The dish depends on the quality of tofu, and theirs is an excellent nigari.) One of the advantages of their custom approach is their willingness to adjust their dishes--I prefer a non-vegetarian mapu tofu, so they diced pork into it, since they didn't have ground pork. Now if they REALLY love me, they'll pick up some ground pork sausage!
Customer C.
Its getting to be winter and there is no better way to warm up than to have a tasty wok at Ma La Zui. They have a regular menu and some lunch specials. But what you really want to come here for is the make your own hot pot bowl. It is not a hot pot with broth. Rather, you pick out what you want to have and they stir fry it with garlic and red and szechuan peppers. They have a large assortment of vegetarian items, including lotus root, bamboo, enoki mushrooms, two kinds of tofu, two kinds of tofu skin, bok choy, broccoli, napa cabbage, rice balls (consistency like mochi) fungus, potato noodles, kelp, and spinach. You put what you want in a bowl; they weigh and charge you 11.90 a point; then they cook and put it in front of you. Rice is $1. If you want meat items, they are 16.99 a pound, you put them in a separate bowl for them to measure. I don't eat the meat items but if you are interested, they include fish cake, shrimp, pork blood cake, frog, beef ball, pork, fake crab, lamb, beef, shrimp ball, chicken, quail egg, pig feet, and tripe. Not my cup of tea but they have something for everyone. I strongly recommend the vegetarian hot pot, its delicious. By the way, you can order it mild, medium, or hot. Medium is very hot, so even if you normally like it very hot, you might want to stick to medium. The decor is unexciting but the restaurant seemed very clean.
I love ur food, but u deceived me 2 times. First time I found it: I ordered a spicy hotpot, I pretty sure I picked potato, and I didn't find any potato after u cooked. So yesterday when I ordered again, I pay attention. I picked 5 pieces beef ball, 3 quail eggs, and several vegetable. After u cooked, it became 3 beef ball and 1 quail egg. You disappointed me so hard and I won't come any more.
Yanjun W.
11.18 dinner. I had beef, lamb, chicken, fish ball, beef ball, squid ball, crab meat stick, spinach, green vegetables, Chinese cabbage , kelp, rice noodles, tofu and so on. I ordered not spicy snd a bowl of rice. It was nice. The waiter and waitress were friendly and he asked how the taste was at last. I spent $16.56. The TV was sowing videos of food curing of China.
Robby “睿博” Cortes
Dry Pot is tasty, good vegan options. Low rating because the price is difficult to decipher: based on weight and if there is meat. Not from the menu price. Ended up spending much more than I was planning.
Sunny O.
This is the only place that sells mala (spicy+numbing food) locally so my husband and I decided to try it. It was fairly clean and seemed very new. You pick your own meat and vege and pay per lbs. It's great because you get to control the portions. However, when we got to the scale to weight, the server didn't take out the basket weight (My husband works with weighting scale so he knows). We didn't say anything right away since we thought they would take it off the bill. We picked spicy level 2 and asked for "no cilantro". We get our food and there is cilantro.. oh god.. no big deal, we picked it off. As soon as I took my first bite of food, I smell cigarette so I look around and the owner is smoking right by the entrance doorway and the smell came in as he opened the door for a customer. I couldn't believe what I saw! Who does that?! It's a restaurant, cigarette smells does not go well with the food!! Finally when we were ready to pay, we asked the server about the basket weight and he said it's taken off from the weight. Straight up lie. Well~ my husband smiled and just paid because it's not worth arguing. Tip: make sure they take off basket weight!! Food- average Price- above average Service - lacking, the server dropped off food and that was it. Common sense- none
Flora Z.
It is my first time to try this restaurant. It has quite an interesting concept by allowing customers to choose what ingredients they like, then the chef prepares the customized dishes with the chosen ingredients. It is another level of customization. The flavor of the food is hot/spicy to make my taste buds dance. It is an authentic taste from Sichuan. Price is on the high side, but the food tastes great. If you pay cash, you can get a discount.
This review is for their regular dining experience before shelter-in-place.The food here is pricier than other Chinese restaurants in the area but they offer a customizable dry hot pot which no one else does. Dry hot pot is a huge thing in NYC and I'm really excited to see people bring it to Berkeley too. The variety isn't as great as what I'm used to in NY but I'll give them a pass since they're the first ones in Berkeley. It's also a lot more expensive (priced per pound) than what I'm used to but again, I'll give them a pass since they're the first ones here. They charge an extra dollar for rice, which is fair, but I wish they'd give more rice given how spicy and oily the food can be. I always run out of rice before I've finished my dish.I once tried their hot and sour noodles and I thought it lacked a lot of flavor. It wasn't hot or sour. This can be easily remedied in the kitchen with extra spice and vinegar. Perhaps they're trying to cater to a different population? I haven't gotten this dish in China but in all of the Chinatowns I've been in (including the non-official ones - not just the tourist ones!), this dish has always packed a lot more punch. It was also expensive for what it was, since it's almost entirely glass noodles, hot oil, and vinegar. It doesn't feature any meat or seafood like a beef noodle soup dish would. It's just noodles and sauce which is really cheap to make.Overall, I would definitely come back to have more of the dry hot pot. I don't think I'll be trying many of their other dishes though. The people who run the restaurant are also very sweet and check in on me and my friends to ask if we're enjoying the food. They've also spoken to us occasionally in Chinese after having a short conversation (and asking if we know any). The TV is always playing something in Chinese and I like the ambiance. It reminds me of the restaurants I would frequent as a kid in various Chinatowns.
i saw that they're open during the stay in place order, so i decided go get the diy ma la wok. this might be due to the stay in place order and slow business, but im disappointed that the level of freshness for the meat really went down. they look really old and browned, and you can really tell they arent fresh once you get a taste. the veggies however look and taste as fresh as usual, and spice level is perfect.i will still come back because there arent any restaurants like them in the area, but i would recommend you order more of the vegetables than meat for now.
When you walk in you either choose to eat from the menu or get ma la and I went with the ma la. I really like the spicy flavor of the stir fry and I can see why people come here so often because it's so addicting! The next day I found myself wanting to go again. I got medium spicy and it was a good amount of hot considering that I can take the heat of buldak. The bowl of steamed rice was very large and really good as well considering that it's just rice. The price is on the steeper side but overall I would come again!
Authentic but way too expensive. This bowl plus 1 serving of rice cost 40 dollars.
If you love genuine Sichuan spicy in self select style, this is definitely the place for it! They have so many varieties of veggies and meat to pick from!
This spicy stir fry restaurant specializes in homemade style of sichuan food.as long as you are good at gauging the weight of your food, you should have no problem with their unique system (aim for about .3-.5 lbs meat and .8-1 lbs of vegetables). The spiciness level goes from low, medium, high. Speaking as someone who likes spicy, medium was a good level to taste the food and feel the heat.
Great place for dry hot pot and Szechuan dishes. The cucumber salad was sweet, which was unexpected, but delicious. They have a number of classic American Chinese dishes, which seems unnecessary based on how good the authentic noodles were. Will definitely be back next time I'm in the area. Actually prefer it to the ramen place with the line next door (original destination).
The delicious authentic food of NW China
I love Tasty Wok and their unusual dishes (Skilled Cucumber appetizer, what a sauce!), so I asked about the problem brought up by another poster here, taring the bowls before they weigh your custom stir-fry meal. (I've been four times in their short life, but always ordered from the menu.) Indeed, they didn't tare (allow for the weight of the empty bowl). It's not a lie, in fact not even unfair--it functions as a set-up price of about $2. But I discovered from Ray (the chef's young son, my waiter) that no one there knew what taring is. (His mom doesn't speak English.) I explained it to him, showed him the "TARE" button, and he got it right away, and discussed it with his mom, who agreed as soon as she understood that she wanted to use the scale properly. I then made sure through Ray that she understood that there'd be a sacrifice for them per serving, but he said that a good relationship with customers was more important, and they'd start taring immediately. You can check that they're doing it right by looking at the scale before they weigh: it should read -.22 lb. (Both types of bowl weigh the same.) I remember loving the twice-cook pork; this time I had a personal favorite, mapu tofu: tofu in fermented black bean sauce, hunanese. Often made with peas, Tasty Wok's comes with scallions, also good. (The dish depends on the quality of tofu, and theirs is an excellent nigari.) One of the advantages of their custom approach is their willingness to adjust their dishes--I prefer a non-vegetarian mapu tofu, so they diced pork into it, since they didn't have ground pork. Now if they REALLY love me, they'll pick up some ground pork sausage!
Its getting to be winter and there is no better way to warm up than to have a tasty wok at Ma La Zui. They have a regular menu and some lunch specials. But what you really want to come here for is the make your own hot pot bowl. It is not a hot pot with broth. Rather, you pick out what you want to have and they stir fry it with garlic and red and szechuan peppers. They have a large assortment of vegetarian items, including lotus root, bamboo, enoki mushrooms, two kinds of tofu, two kinds of tofu skin, bok choy, broccoli, napa cabbage, rice balls (consistency like mochi) fungus, potato noodles, kelp, and spinach. You put what you want in a bowl; they weigh and charge you 11.90 a point; then they cook and put it in front of you. Rice is $1. If you want meat items, they are 16.99 a pound, you put them in a separate bowl for them to measure. I don't eat the meat items but if you are interested, they include fish cake, shrimp, pork blood cake, frog, beef ball, pork, fake crab, lamb, beef, shrimp ball, chicken, quail egg, pig feet, and tripe. Not my cup of tea but they have something for everyone. I strongly recommend the vegetarian hot pot, its delicious. By the way, you can order it mild, medium, or hot. Medium is very hot, so even if you normally like it very hot, you might want to stick to medium. The decor is unexciting but the restaurant seemed very clean.
Restaurantji Recommends
I love ur food, but u deceived me 2 times. First time I found it: I ordered a spicy hotpot, I pretty sure I picked potato, and I didn't find any potato after u cooked. So yesterday when I ordered again, I pay attention. I picked 5 pieces beef ball, 3 quail eggs, and several vegetable. After u cooked, it became 3 beef ball and 1 quail egg. You disappointed me so hard and I won't come any more.
11.18 dinner. I had beef, lamb, chicken, fish ball, beef ball, squid ball, crab meat stick, spinach, green vegetables, Chinese cabbage , kelp, rice noodles, tofu and so on. I ordered not spicy snd a bowl of rice. It was nice. The waiter and waitress were friendly and he asked how the taste was at last. I spent $16.56. The TV was sowing videos of food curing of China.
Dry Pot is tasty, good vegan options. Low rating because the price is difficult to decipher: based on weight and if there is meat. Not from the menu price. Ended up spending much more than I was planning.
This is the only place that sells mala (spicy+numbing food) locally so my husband and I decided to try it. It was fairly clean and seemed very new. You pick your own meat and vege and pay per lbs. It's great because you get to control the portions. However, when we got to the scale to weight, the server didn't take out the basket weight (My husband works with weighting scale so he knows). We didn't say anything right away since we thought they would take it off the bill. We picked spicy level 2 and asked for "no cilantro". We get our food and there is cilantro.. oh god.. no big deal, we picked it off. As soon as I took my first bite of food, I smell cigarette so I look around and the owner is smoking right by the entrance doorway and the smell came in as he opened the door for a customer. I couldn't believe what I saw! Who does that?! It's a restaurant, cigarette smells does not go well with the food!! Finally when we were ready to pay, we asked the server about the basket weight and he said it's taken off from the weight. Straight up lie. Well~ my husband smiled and just paid because it's not worth arguing. Tip: make sure they take off basket weight!! Food- average Price- above average Service - lacking, the server dropped off food and that was it. Common sense- none
It is my first time to try this restaurant. It has quite an interesting concept by allowing customers to choose what ingredients they like, then the chef prepares the customized dishes with the chosen ingredients. It is another level of customization. The flavor of the food is hot/spicy to make my taste buds dance. It is an authentic taste from Sichuan. Price is on the high side, but the food tastes great. If you pay cash, you can get a discount.