Kanda Iron Beijing Wok - Lightweight and Durable - Perfect for Authentic Japanese Cooking - 13 inch

This wok is great for cooking all kinds of Asian food! Light weight and good weight balance on the pan and handle. The quality is good, and I like the welded handle (not riveted). This is a traditional wok and you have to know how to take care of it. Like cast iron pans, seasoning is important. It will last for a long time if you take care of it. As explained in the instructions, it cannot be used with electric stoves. I love this little wok!

Full disclosure, I am NOT a paid or sponsored or influenced review writer for Amazon. We all know that they have them. I'm just a guy who likes to cook.I made a mistake in buying this 11.8 in Kanda Wok. It is going back to Amazon. Btw, I already have a 14 inch carbon steel wok. It works great and is well seasoned, but I wanted a smaller one for simpler and less complicated meals - quick stir fries and stuff.PROS:Hmmm. The wok is very light. I like the angle of the handle which is not angled upwards so much like many woks. For most of us, we don't get the pleasure of cooking on a high BTU burner which are much lower to the ground than our standard stove tops. It is a one piece wok and the welds looked okay.CONS:Well, I guess there's really only three of them, but each one of them is a deal breaker.First, the bottom of this wok is supposed to be usable on an electric stove which means to me that the bottom must be flat. I have a glass top stove, so it should have worked well. It did not.The bottom is not flat, so how in the world do they think it's going to work with an electric stove top? I will say though that it's not as round of a bottom as others are. Still, they don't say that it's a round bottom wok. I guess Kanda thinks that this is some kind of hybrid wok.Second, this wok was very hard to season. It took a long time to get off the protectant that they sprayed on the metal and there were areas of the metal that didn't seem to season nearly as easily as other parts. I think this might be because those areas that didn't season easily we're probably a lot thicker than the other areas.I could have seasoned 2-3 woks in the amount of time it took to season this small wok. Yes, I have seasoned a few woks. I do this outside with my propane burner.After I she's in the walk as best I could, I stir fried some green onions and celery. Although, I could tell that the veggies didn't slide around that well, I went ahead and did the de facto egg fry test. It was a total failure. The egg stuck to the bottom bad and was way too brown on the bottom center.Third, I don't think it would make a whole lot of difference unless you were cooking for long periods of time or with high heat all the time, but the handle did get too hot to hold when I was seasoning the wok. Now, this is not normal cooking, but I wonder how much it takes to heat up the handle too much since the handle is metal. It's probably best to stick with a non solid metal handle.$65 is a lot of money, but I took a chance and now I'm thinking of the old adage, buyer beware. By the way I looked at the item just a minute ago and because they only have one left it's now $70. Don't buy it! Save your money and buy another one that clearly states its carbon steel with a flat bottom and the picture is clear that it has a flat bottom.

This is the first wok I've owned, so this review is from a total newbie.This utensil is huge by comparison to my cast iron frying pans. Kind of a shock when I opened the box. It looks large enough to stir fry up a meal for a large family with no trouble. Finding a place to store it in my small house will be a challenge, but it does have a hole in the handle for hanging it somewhere.It's a nice-looking piece of kitchenware. The welds are all clean and smooth, and the finish is nice. I gather from watching a couple of YouTube videos that I'll need to season it the same way I do my cast iron stuff, so that's not a problem.I was a bit concerned that the handle would heat up too much to use it bare handed, but that wasn't a problem on the first outing. It might get hot if you're cooking a big meal on it, but things cook up so fast that I didn't notice any problem with the handle overheating.This wok is specificially designed for gas stoves. Says so right in the description, which I apparently skipped over. I cook with electricity. I imagine a seasoned wok chef (pun intended) would be appalled that I would use such a thing on an electric stove, but it's what I have, so I gave it a shot. It works. The bottom is rounded, so I suspect it doesn't heat as evenly as it would on a gas stove, but it heated up enough to turn my chopped-up hamburger into taco filling in about two minutes, which seems pretty good to me. I also tried a bit of stir fry in an effort to be "traditional," and that worked fine, too.In addition to the stir fry cooking this tool is made for, I think it will be useful for cooking almost anything that doesn't need to lie flat in the pan. It's large enough to cook a serious amount of food in one go. It cooks fast, and the cleanup is quick. I think it's going to find its way into my normal cooking routine. Next up I'll try hashbrown potatoes. That should be interesting.

I've used this wok to cook quite a few different meals and have even used it to deep fry wings, and everything I've made came out really good. It heats up fairly quickly & evenly, but it doesn't hold the heat like a true professional grade hand hammered wok holds heat, which is why I gave this 4 stars and not 5. Its also pretty small so you can cook for 2 ppl at a time without sacrificing the quality of the the food. It cleans very easily as well, with just hot water, which is always a welcome feature for any kind of cookware. I am happy we added it to our kitchen and will get many years of enjoyable cooking and eating as a result!

First off, the metal seems thinner than I expected. I don't really do weight training or anything, I'm just an average guy and I'm very confident that I could bend and roll the metal by hand, so over time with heat I'm a bit skeptical it will keep it's shape, but we'll see. The welds and overall appearance is a bit rougher than the pictures but it is large and has a good balance/shape. Also it would be nice if the handle offered some kind of rubberized grip or texture.

Simply put, an iron wok like this will be your best bet at making perfect meals. As long as you know how to keep it usable with oil and proper cleaning methods. It is fairly light, has a welded and formed handle, and hasn't yet had any damage that would impair cooking after 10 uses so far.It heats even on lower heats and doesn't stick all that much either. Huge recommendation if you want a more advanced tool for cooking, while also one that is capable of the largest amount of wok meals.