If you think healthy fast food is an oxymoron, think again – Wok’n Noodle has mastered the art of combining these two features and adding “delicious” into the picture. 

On busy Normanby Road, surrounded by offices and industry, Wok’n Noodle is somewhat of a hidden haven. Step through the enclosed court- yard into the small restaurant and you’ll be greeted by owner Lee Chang Woo and his friendly team. Lee has put almost two decades into the business he founded in 2005 and remains a passionate owner-operator. His wide smile breaks readily. Lean and fit, Lee is also a walking advertisement for the nutrition-focused direction of the menu.

Whether you’re reducing carbs, cutting them out altogether, eschewing meat, or just eager to fit as many of your five-plus a day as possible into one tasty meal, Wok’n Noodle has got your back.

The Caveman Diet section has been designed by Lee to work for those keen to avoid unnecessary extras. The components of each dish have been selected and portioned to make for a meal that’s intentionally balanced across carbohydrates, protein and fat. The carbs come from vegetables such as kūmara, as there’s no rice or noodles in the Caveman Diet options, and no oil or sugar has been added. They make it simple to choose – you can pick from meat, seafood or vegetarian and then add your preferred sauce. Take the choice I made as an example – the vegetarian option, thanks, with the red curry sauce. Within about eight minutes, a bowl arrived at the table piled high with freshness: chunks of pumpkin and kūmara rubbed shoulders with strips of carrot and red pepper, florets of broccoli and plump tofu puffs in an aromatic red curry sauce.

“I’m originally from Seoul in South Korea,” says Lee. “I came to New Zealand 25 years ago and studied at AUT. I took over a café that was on this site, but it wasn’t doing well so I decided to do something Asian instead. Back then, Korean food wasn’t really well known, not like it is now, but I saw that Thai food was really popular and so was the noodle bar concept, so I decided to open a noodle bar and serve Thai food with a bit of fusion.” 

To that end, all Lee’s staff are from Thailand, including his head chef Jit, who has been working here for 13 years and is a dab hand at turning out seriously good Thai flavours in the bat of an eyelid. Of course, it’s all about the prior work that goes into these dishes. Jit blends soy sauces and makes pastes from scratch, including the chilli basil paste that goes into his signature pork belly dish, which Lee recommends. Okay, he admits, “the pork belly isn’t the dish to order if you’re being health conscious, it’s more of a treat and it’s really delicious”. Lee and Jit and fellow staff members are a tight team, as manager Jane pointed out when I visited. “We all get along well and we have a great boss.” I dine out often and I swear that a restaurant with happy staff comes through in the food served.

As well as the Caveman Diet, customers wanting to lighten the carb load can opt for either a smaller portion of rice or noodles, or none at all. And – unlike in some or many restaurants – that doesn’t mean you’ll just get less good food on your plate. At Wok’n Noodle, if you opt for less or no rice or noodles, the kitchen just goes larger on everything else. So for example, a serving of cashew nut chicken (one of the most popular menu items) that arrived at my table had around half a cup of steamed jasmine rice dwarfed by a huge mound of stir-fried fresh vegetables in a rainbow of colours and plenty of tender chicken breast (breast is used in all the dishes), all of which has been subjected to the fiery lick of the wok for that tell-tale, flavour- imbued searing. An order of ginger beef with no noodles announced itself as a dishhearty enough for lunch with enough left over for dinner: the generous portion of beef was juicy and flavour- some, again alongside a colourful parade of vegetables, including perfectly crunchy bok choy and a generous handful of coriander leaves on top.

As much as generous servings and ultra-fresh produce have always been a fixture of Wok’n Noodle, so has a community feel. Having been at the forefront of the business for so long and counting local families as some of his most loyal clients, Lee has seen children grow into teens and then adults. “I have a second branch in Shortland St in the CBD and some of my loyal customers there are lawyers and bankers that had been coming to the Normanby Rd branch since they were young.” Lee serves a neighbourhood that he enjoys being part of. “This community is strong – people don’t move a lot from here, they stay and there are lots of families with multiple generations here. It’s an interesting area; it looks pretty hidden, but there’s a really good mix of things happening – lots of people living here, lots of workers, schools, and we’re very close to other large commercial and retail areas.”

Post-Covid, takeaway orders have outgrown dine- in custom and while the cute cardboard cartons are hard to resist (Lee was inspired by takeout scenes in American TV series), there’s plenty of merit in pulling up a seat. You get to watch happy people at work, say hello to other customers, and if the weather is playing ball, the sheltered courtyard is a lovely spot on a sunny evening, with something from the drinks list in hand and the western sun smiling down on you. 



Wok‘n Noodle

61 Normanby Rd

Ph: 09 630 6651
Web: woknnoodle.com
Email: orders@woknoodle.com