Wokyo Noodle Bar
Cuisine: Asian
Rating: 3.7/5

It would seem unfair to call Wokyo Noodle Bar the Subway of noodle houses but that’s the first parallel that comes to mind. Wokyo is a simple but effective noodle house, you pick out your ingredients and they ‘wok’ it up in front of you, fresh as ever.

Wokyo attempts to keep things fairly authentic on their menu — it’s not a complex menu at that, the main course being noodles or rice, cooked in the sauce you select and the protein of choice. They do carry other appetizers and a couple of salads as well so this is handy if you’re in a larger group. However, their noodle servings are quite satisfactory per person.

In total, Wokyo boasts 8 different sauces — from the Bangkok Coconut Curry to the Tokyo Miso & Sesame. Their ambience feels pretty fresh and mostly friendly. The only caveat in our experience was when I asked the server repeatedly to explain what the sauce ingredients were so I wouldn’t have to look them up off the menu (Seoul is Fiery Sriracha for example), he kept pointing out that the names were next to the sauces already, and I kept trying to explain that I wanted to know what Seoul contained. After a couple of tries, it was just easier to read them off the menu. Wokyo lets you try out the sauces upfront, which is neat.

In an attempt to cover as much of the menu possible, we chose different noodle types (and one steamed rice option) each with a different sauce. I do believe certain combinations would work better than others — the Buckwheat noodles for example may not work that well with something like the Peanut, but an exhaustive list of recommendations would take me too many tries to perfect. Sorry!

We sampled the Fiery Sriracha, the Bangkok Coconut Curry, the Thai Peanut, the Tokyo Miso & Sesame, the light soy. Of these, the one that didn’t work for me was the Thai Peanut — the end result was very dry and a bit tough to enjoy. My guests preferred the Tokyo Miso & Sesame which was delicious, while my personal choice of light soy with buckwheat noodles was also really good. The noodles were all well cooked so we had no complaints there. I personally love buckwheat noodles, but for the traditional noodle eaters, Egg noodles and Udon are both available. One point, if you order the rice option, you would receive the proteins or veggies cooked in sauce, with rice steamed on the side, unlike the noodles which are mixed in.

In addition to a Lavazza coffee bar, Wokyo also has your more traditional Thai Iced Tea and Matcha tea options, hot and cold. I stuck with my tested Matcha Iced Tea latte (soy milk) and that worked well.

Overall, it’s an enjoyable experience, the interiors are fun, just a little quirky and they’ve given the outside area good lighting, which was very appreciated (and resulted in better than average pictures).

Rating breakdown
Ambience: 4
Service: 3.5
Food: 4
Authenticity: 3.5
Value for money: 3.5
Final: 3.7/5

(Ratings are explained here.)

Wokyo Noodle Bar • Zomato
Below Bldg J2, Cluster J, JLT, Dubai
+9714 4551690