text: Wah Kee goes beyond your typical Hong Kong style noodle house Its diverse menu is what warrants the stars The variety of green vegetables dishes downhome Southern Chinese soul food more on this clay pot cousin of the Korean bimbimbap offering with a variety of toppings Korean kalbi kimchi Vietnamese Pho and Thai dishes are extraordinary for a place of this sizennI cannot comment on the SE Asia and Korean items as I did not try them but I did have the wonton noodle soup with tendons The soup had MSG in it but I expected that in an area that did not have a large Chinese population The wonton and tendons were good I expected chopped scallions on top but was surprised not to see any It would have been nice to have Chinese broccoli in the soup instead of cabbage but does not make it a deal breakernnOn the menu is salted fish and pork patty stewed pork hocks and tripe from the Taishan region of China This reminds me of the food that my mom used to make I can remember her chopping pork round into grounded pork and mixing in chopped water chestnuts to make the pork patty This stuff is down home Chinese southern soul food for me nnI also had the clay pot bo zai fan with ribs in black bean sauce I felt it did not have enough black bean sauce but then again there is never enough as far as I am concerned The beauty of the clay pot is that when you are finished with the food you can pour water into the pot and soften up the rice that is crusted on the bottom Once that is soften up enough to be scrapped you are in for a treat of a rice wafer with a smokey water flavor I know what that sounds like but it tastes much better that what I have described Trust me When I was growing up my siblings and I fought for this treat because there was only but so much to go around This time I did not have to share HAHnnI read one of the reviews about having been to China and this not comparing to that experience That is very unfair This is Madison WI This is not even to mention that all of China has many very diverse cuisines and it is very hard to master all the cuisines Europe is not nearly as big as China and no one can be a master at French Spanish German Greek eastern European etc The pot stickers scallion pancakes and steamed soup buns xia lung bao does not compare to ones found in LAs San Gabriel Valley but that is a community that is close to Chinese and the majority of them from Taiwan That is their soul food But without having to fly hrs this is not too bad and a bargain to boot nnWah Kee is not the best Chinese restaurant on the planet but it is pretty good for Madison and it is pretty good for down home soul food just about anywhere As previously stated just for the salted fish pork patties green vegetable variety On Choi Yu Choi Spinach etc clay pot and Asian and SE Asia choices it gets four full stars If it had Cantonese BBQ meats hanging in the window roasted duck soy sauce chicken etc it would get