New King’s Wok – Hopkins, MN

A-Wow, Doughboy, and I needed some Chi-Buf action for lunch (since we now have an official track record of doing so), and I wanted to try someplace I hadn’t been before. I had a fat guy appointment with the Nurse Health Coach (this is where they tell me I’m eating poorly and not getting enough exercise and I’m going to die and blah blah blah), so I decided to counteract the entire thing by gorging myself on MSG-laden fried foods with people I enjoy the company of. New King’s Wok is a much bigger restaurant than I expected from the outside of the place – AND it is in a strip mall. Surprisingly, there are five different buffet stations. Some with American food (including terrible-looking potato skins and unappetizing salmon), some with salad-type things, some with appetizers, some with desserts, and some with entrees. Bonus!!! The appetizers were good, especially the cream cheese wontons. The egg rolls had a bit too much cinnamon in them (I’ve decided I’m just going to have to get used to this here in MN) for my taste, but there was sweet and sour chicken on the appetizer buffet, so that means it’s officially an appetizer. That was good, as well, so no complaints. I grabbed some fried rice and hit the entrée buffet next. I got some sesame chicken, beef & broccoli, and vegetarian lo mein. That was plenty for the first plate. The lo mein was good, although a little bit bland. Sometimes the flavor gets cooked out of this stuff. The sesame chicken was pretty good, but the broccoli & beef wasn’t good at all. The meat was very grainy and chewy and I didn’t want to have a second bite of this, so I ate the broccoli out of it. The sauce and the broccoli were great, but the beef wasn’t good at all. I wanted to try a couple of other things I saw up there, so I headed back for a second plate. This time, I got a bowl of egg drop soup, some medium and hot garlic pork (yes, that’s what it is called – I guess you get to decide), pepper and onion pork, house special mei fun, some more sesame chicken and some more cream cheese wontons. The egg drop soup is the really thick snot-like consistency I’m not a fan of, so I didn’t finish all of that. Sometimes you can water it down with an ice cube or something so it doesn’t stay connected to your mouth as you swallow it, but this was just too thick. The pork had a good flavor, but there were too many stringy and chewy pieces of pork for me to call it good (and it was neither medium nor spicy). The pepper and onion pork was one of the better things on the buffet, so I was glad I tried that. The house special mei fun had a pretty good flavor and was a good replacement for the lo mein. I had to finish up with bowl of soft serve ice cream (chocolate and vanilla, of course). Most of it was good, but there were a handful of small globs of congealed ice cream bits – maybe just had some bad liquid mix or something. I ate it all, so it didn’t slow me down that much, but the little balls that seemed like tapioca every couple of bites was a little disconcerting. Heck, ice cream is ice cream, right?

Overall, I don’t think I’m a big fan of this Chi-Buf, especially for the drive that it would take to get here normally. There are a lot of old white folks there, if that gives you any indication. There isn’t a lot of spice or flavor in this food, so I don’t think I’m going to suggest heading back there. To top the meal off, I got a fortune cookie with poor grammar in it: “You will be unusual successful in business.” Yes, it will be unusual, I’m sure of it… Sigh. Oh well.

Top 5 things about King’s Wok

1. Cream cheese wontons
2. Sesame chicken
3. House Special Mei Fun
4. Pepper and Onion Pork
5. Pretty cheap to eat here

Bottom 5 things

1. Chewy Beef
2. Stringy Pork
3. Balls of something weird in the ice cream
4. Snotty egg drop soup
5. Lo Mein needed some flavor, even if it was Sri Racha

King’s Wok

8480 Excelsior Boulevard

Minnetonka, MN 55343