Wei is a Chinese restaurant and takeaway on Tinakori Road in Thorndon, a short hop north of central Wellington. The website sums the food up in three words — authentic Chinese cuisine — and the long bilingual takeaway menu (English alongside Chinese characters) backs that up with an unusually full spread: nearly twenty stir-fried meat dishes, a tofu section of its own, six egg foo yung variations, soups and noodle soups, dim sum-style sides, and fried noodle and rice classics where you choose your protein.
What makes Wei distinctively Kiwi is the other half of the menu. Alongside the Chinese kitchen sits a complete fish-and-chip counter — battered or crumbed fish, chips, potato fritters, hot dogs, spring rolls and deep-fried everything — plus burgers and snacks. It is the classic dual-identity neighbourhood takeaway, worked with confidence on both sides.
Ordering is straightforward: the full menu lives on the website with an online ordering option, and the kitchen answers on 04-471 2918. Updates are posted on Instagram at @wei_thorndon, and there's a regular specials board featuring duck dishes and the much-loved "Spice Bag".
Tucked onto Tinakori Road in Thorndon, Wei is a Wellington Chinese restaurant and takeaway that quietly runs two menus at once. The website leads with three words — "Authentic Chinese Cuisine" — and the long bilingual takeaway menu, printed in English alongside Chinese characters, backs that up. But scroll a little further and you'll find battered fish, chips and hot dogs too, because this is also a proper Kiwi takeaway. It's a combination Wellingtonians know well, and Wei works both sides of it with confidence.
The Chinese half of the menu runs deep. The Meats section alone offers close to twenty dishes: sweet and sour pork, chicken and fish, lemon chicken, chicken cashew nut, gong bao chicken, crispy skin chicken, hot and spicy beef, beef with ginger and spring onion, orange beef, slow-simmered beef brisket, Sichuan fish, and salt and pepper squid or prawns. Tofu gets a section of its own — mapo tofu, seafood tofu, combination tofu and roasted pork tofu — and egg foo yung appears in six versions, from vegetable and shrimp to BBQ pork and combination.
The soups and noodle soups are equally serious: won ton, chicken corn, hot and sour, dumpling, seafood tofu and seafood noodle soups, plus beef brisket noodle soup and the BBQ pork and won ton noodle soup that headlines the site's photos. Sides cover the yum cha basics — pan fried or steamed dumplings, dim sims and BBQ pork buns — with steamed rice alongside.
Then there's the chippy counter. The Fried Foods list reads like any great suburban takeaway: fish and crumbed fish, chips, potato fritters, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, crab sticks, spring rolls, fried won tons, chicken wings, prawns in batter, prawn crackers, deep fried squid, mushrooms and mussels. Burgers with chips — beef, chicken or the "special" — round it out, and the fried noodles and rice section happily straddles both worlds, with chow mein and fried rice (choose your protein) alongside bami goreng, nasi goreng and Singapore-style rice vermicelli.
The site's own heroes give you a shortlist: the BBQ pork and won ton noodle soup, pan fried dumplings, orange beef, sweet and sour pork, and a paper-wrapped serving of fish, chips and a spring roll. The specials board adds duck — duck meat fried rice and roast duck on rice — and the "Spice Bag", your choice of protein stir-fried with salt and pepper seasoning and chilli, tossed through chips with curry sauce on the side.
Feeding a household? The Takeaway Meal Combo bundles four spring rolls and four fried wontons with sweet and sour pork, beef with ginger and spring onion, and a combination fried rice or noodles. Solo snackers get the Snack Combo: a fish, chips, a spring roll and a fried wonton.
Vegetarians have a dedicated section — vegetable fried rice, stir-fried noodles, vegetable tofu, vegetable satay and stir-fried mixed vegetables — while the drinks list runs from Coke, Sprite and ginger beer to juices, iced coffee and a mango ice blend.
Everything here is geared to takeaway. The full menu sits online with a "See MENU & Order" button for ordering ahead, and the kitchen answers on 04-471 2918. You'll find Wei at 318 Tinakori Road in Thorndon, Wellington, and the team posts updates on Instagram at @wei_thorndon.
Whether you're in the mood for a steaming bowl of beef brisket noodle soup or a bundle of fish, chips and a spring roll, the pleasant surprise of Wei is that you never really have to choose.