The Thai place I originally wanted to go to was apparently closed when I got my lunchtime Thai food hankerin’. So I found this other place in Shakopee. Asian Hon. I read a couple of decent reviews about it, saw some photos, wrote down some dishes I thought I might try if I wasn’t feeling the buffet, and headed there.
I walked in and was the only one there – right about noon? That’s a bad sign. I sat down and the smoking hot Asian waitress came over to ask what I wanted to drink. I said water, but I wanted an order of fresh spring rolls and some of the special noodle soup (I had seen a photo on the internet with a good review, so I thought I’d try it). She was very confused and said, "I thought you were getting the buffet." I assured her I was, but I wanted some other things too. She wasn’t sure about this soup, so I described it and she went back to the kitchen to figure out which one it was. No one knew, so I skipped the soup.
The buffet is a decent sized buffet. Fried and white rice, 5 or 6 entrees, two vegetarian things and some soups. I grabbed as many different things as I could, including a fried egg roll and a bowl of shrimp noodle soup (which I had to use thongs to get – weird and probably a mistake). One of the most hilarious things on the buffet was one of the serving dishes on the buffet was filled with saltines. Seriously.
I went back and started eating. It was one pretty bad thing after another. The shrimp noodle soup was really fishy tasting (REALLY), and I stopped after 2 bites. The egg roll was basically a cinnamon celery roll (I did finish that, but only because I was using it as a shovel for my plate and the sauces killed the flavor). The General Tso’s chicken was preformed and breaded chicken-flavored pieces in a bland orange-ish sauce without any heat. The hunan chicken had a good flavor, but the chicken pieces were a bit inconsistent. The broccoli beef was a bit rubbery and the broccoli was in giant pieces which were difficult to cut into bites. The fried rice was actually really awesome – it had eggs, peas, carrots, shoots, and minimal onions. The thai-style lo-mein was decent as well.
I will admit, I did go up to get a second portion, just to double check, but mostly because I was starving and the fresh spring rolls hadn’t come out of the kitchen yet.
Eventually, the spring rolls came out and looked delicious. They were some of the largest spring rolls I’ve ever seen, and since they’re my favorite, I have eaten these at a LOT of places. It didn’t come with hoissin sauce, which I was bummed about, but sometimes the clear red-ish sauce is good. This was not the case. The sauce was not good at all. The inside of the spring roll was filled with iceberg lettuce, large pieces of pork, some bad shrimp, and some small white noodles. I was super disappointed. It was so bad, I didn’t finish them. I left more than half of one on my plate.
I will say the people that work here are REALLY nice. Yes, the waitress was really cute, but there was a guy who kept popping out of the kitchen who I was really surprised by. I’m going to be incredibly superficial, but I think it’s ok, since I generally look like a sasquatch. He looked like he had been down on his luck for a while and was saving to pay for his Harley that was repo’d when he went to the county jail trying to break up a trailer fight between his wife and his best friend. Mustache, shaggy hair, Harley shirt, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see a crap-ton of biker/racist tattoos all over him, but that’s just the outside. This guy was SUPER nice. He talked to me while I was getting my food, asking me how I was doing. When I left the building, he was out there sweeping, he talked to me out there and talked non-obtrusively about his regular job that he gets home from at 5am. Honestly, this guy was a stand up citizen. I am embarrassed to have judged him at all. That’s what I get for thinking I’m justified being mean just because I look like Sabertooth.
The food was pretty cheap, so I have no complaints about that. But upon leaving, I saw a sign that said the buffet-to-go is $3.50 per pound and they had a scale there to weigh it for you. Classy.
I don’t think I’m going to go back here. Kidding. I KNOW I’m not going to go back here. But if I see that maintenance guy in the Harley shirt anywhere, I’m going to hang with him.
Top 5 things about Asian Hon
1. The people that work there
2. Fried rice
3. It’s cheap
4. Saltines on the buffet slayed me
5. Makes me want to go back and see if I can eat my weight in bad Chinese food. It would cost about $700 – ha ha ha ha
Bottom 5 things
1. Fresh Spring Rolls
2. General Chicken
3. Awful Shrimp Noodle Soup
4. Broccoli Beef
5. Hunan Chicken
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