If you can't trust award-winning food critic Jay Rayner, who can you trust? (Apart from me).
I do have to admit, my visit to Blackpool's Wok Inn was accidental. My plan was to meander and find a restaurant which featured in the town's 'Restaurant Week' list.
A first stab at getting a meal faceplanted when I was told the kitchen would be closing for an hour. I continued to wander and wonder if I had made the journey in vain.
Then, I came across a building with a slightly uninspired exterior. Though I figured, you can't eat a wall so I gave it a go.
Inside however, was a different story. A medley of colours and fabrics, it felt like you were walking into a collage book belonging to someone planning to build a restaurant. The result is an immediate feeling of comfort, the kind of place where you feel as though you've been a hundred times before.
There was nothing repetitive about the eclectic menu. Spoilt for choice, I knuckled down to ensure I would leave on a full stomach. You don't earn the name 'Greedy McGreedy' without putting in the hard yards.
In a slight rush having dilly-dallied too long to find a place to eat, I went with the 2 course meal (available before 6pm and after 8.30pm for £20) and decided to order all of my food to arrive at the same time. The starter, a pork gyoza, is the first to go under the microscope.
For anyone who hasn't tried to make a gyoza by hand, it's like threading a feral cat through the eye of a needle. These however, were not only easy on the eye, but a delight for the stomach. A crisp edge acting as the suture for a delicious interior. The minced pork and veg mix a strong opener indeed.
The main was a chicken ramen. Meat stewing in a quality homemade broth, the marker of its quality tested and confirmed by a spoonful of the liquid on its own. Noodles, edamame, sweetcorn and an egg make up the rest of a strong ensemble, if slightly lacking a cutting edge.
Last but certainly not least, I ordered a cauliflower 'Bang Bang' (£5.50). The vegetable nesting inside a crispy coat and sweet glazed marinade that arguably takes the biscuit. So good, that it forces you to take your time for fear of it all being gone too soon.
Dessert was limited to ice cream, which I decided to forego. My own take is that it would be better to end your meal with a walk to any one of Blackpool's brilliant parlours.
Surprises did not end with the food, a visit to the bathroom revealed a phallic shrine that must be seen to be believed. Glass encasing a tribute to the human member that would not be out of place in a gallery.
Arguably also an incidental testament to the fact that the Wok Inn truly packs character.
When it came time to leave, I could have rolled out the door. It was only on said way out that I noticed an article attached to the glass, a review by the venerated Guardian food critic Jay Rayner.
Out of habit I never read other people's reviews until I have written my own and so after cobbling together my take, I digested Rayner's.
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It is difficult to disagree with anything he said, "hot, colourful and dizzyingly eclectic" is bang on the money when it comes to this establishment.
Wok Inn also featured in his 10 best value places to eat around the British coastline, published in 2022 among the catalogue of awards and honours attached to its name.
Yes, if his approach to finding restaurants is akin to an elegant Labrador looking for truffles, then mine is that of the humble pig stumbling across a prize winner through sheer greed. Regardless of how you end up in Michael's Wok Inn, you will not leave disappointed.
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