Hon’s Wok III

This restaurant is a really good choice for Chinese food. Their vegetable lo mein is delicious. We split an order of orange chicken and it was out of this world good. Fair price as well.

I used to really like this place, but the neice of the original owner has it and the customer service is horrible. They are constantly finding ways to give you less food. Who ever heard of 60% noodles and 40% juice. I complain about the lack of noodles. The guy was rude and they called the police and told them I caused a disturbance by asking about the food. They told police I was dissatisfied with my food and they not want me questioning them about their food. Said I was cursing when I simply asked a question about my food. They got for $ 3.35 for a Chinese Nightmare.

Been going to HW for years because the consistency of the flavor of the food has been good. I’ve tried other places and even Asian restaurants on the higher end of cost and I’ve found this place to be very palatable. There’s even curry chicken on the menu which is somewhat rare for Chinese places. When I’m in the mood for good food that isn’t a greasy spoon-​esque type of place and I have the option to dine in versus take out only.

Service is not good when it comes to Satisfaction. They purposefully short on meat and substitute with an unnecessary amount of vegetables. When asked to get chicken replaced I was informed that they could not make their money if they gave me something else. Needless to say, I will never eat here again.

I got the large order of vege fried rice last night. Broccoli and bean sprouts were accounted for. Carrots and green pepper minced and barely discernible. Totally absent was any trace of onions, mushrooms, or eggs. In other words, vege friend rice minus the veges. Disappointing.

So… I have to preface this with the fact that I LOVE hot and sour soup. It is the comfort food that got me willing to try spicy things. It’s the thing that I ate at every single chinese buffet and every single chinese fast food place growing up. It one of those things I thought you can’t mess up. EVER. And messing up hot and sour soup is pretty much the WORST THING EVER. I mean, it’s really just vinegar and lots of pepper with the right veggies and an egg or two and some corn startch. Easy peasy, right?
Apparently not. I got take out here and while everything else wasn’t horrid, the hot and sour soup was and to me, that’s unacceptable.
My boyfriend liked this general tso’s chicken just fine but I thought my mongolian beef was somewhat lackluster. I also asked for fried rice… there wasn’t anything in it. I don’t expect my fried rice to have veggies or meat. but I expected some egg pieces. Seriously, I always assumed that defined chinese style fried rice… at least that’s what I learned growing up. It was egg-​fried-​rice in chinese!
So… this place gets a 1 star because they offended me by not having drinkable hot and sour soup. It may not be fair, so please keep that in mind — especially if you don’t order hot and sour soup ever.

As previously mentioned, this place is good, cheap, and quick… let me add fresh to the list. Maybe it’s fresh because they take pride in what they do. Maybe it’s because I’ve been coming there off & on since they opened. Then again, I don’t really care WHY the food is good/cheap/quick/fresh…just that it is all of these things. Special fried rice, crab rangoon, the mysterious sauce that is egg foo young «gravy»…must have when I’m in StL.

The best kinds of Chinese restaurants you can go to are (first and foremost) hood places where everything is coated in a thick layer of grease and probably MSG, and high class (for a Chinese restaurant) places where they serve several different kinds of seafood, besides just shrimp fried rice and crab rangoon, and they give you that fou fou sprig of lettuce to rap your egg roll in. A restaurant like Hon’s Wok III falls somewhere in between. It’s one of these places where you order your dinner from a list of roughly 79 combination plates, all of which are just slightly different combinations of the same three ingredients, a seeming mathematical impossibility (but this is a Chinese restaurant). Normally, I would never bother with a restaurant like this, and I’m not saying you should either, but I’ll admit every now and again I get a hankering for a good ol’ fashioned combination plate: deep fried bits of boneless mystery chicken slathered in high fructose corn syrup, an egg roll or a couple of crab rangoon on the side, and a little fried rice to balance things out, to make it all seem a bit less ridiculous. Whenever fried rice is the healthiest part of your meal (or would that be the fortune cookie?), you know something has gone truly wrong. Fuck yeah, ‘Merica.
Nine times out of ten when I go to these places I get the General Tso’s Chicken, and I’m reminded that it’s disgusting. I’m left feeling even more regretful than I would otherwise. The sauce is entirely too sweet. It needs some heat or some tang or something. General Tso’s Chicken is only suitable for eight year-​olds and the developmentally disabled. Hot Braised Chicken is better, because it’s got a bit of a kick to it, but just barely, and then it’s got those nasty, dried out red hot chili peppers mixed in with the chicken, like landmines for your lunch, lest you try to eat it. I feel like — again — an eight year-​old picking them all out before I can start eating. They really should focus on incorporating that heat into the actual sauce, instead of giving you the entire pepper. What sense does that make? Hot Braised Chicken appears to be the signature menu item at Hon’s Wok III. It’s listed first and foremost on the menu. You can get it in either the boneless mystery chunks or whole chicken wings. I’ve had the boneless mystery chunks and I’ve had the wings, but without the sauce on them. Some Chinese places have really good chicken wings. Hon’s Wok III is not one of those places. Their wings taste like they’re lacking something. They’re probably not designed to be eaten without General Tso’s, erm, sauce on them. Again, I don’t want to come off as patronizing here, but they might consider coming up with a separate preparation for the wings that don’t have sauce on them.
Without trying all 79 combination plates, I’m gonna go ahead and suggest that Sesame Chicken is your best bet. That way you’re still getting the deep fried chunks of boneless mystery chicken, but the sauce isn’t as sickeningly sweet as the sauce on General Tso’s Chicken, though I’m sure it’s still got plenty of HFCS in it. The good stuff kids go for! It’s more of a fluorescent orange in color, and it’s got a bit of a tang to it (which might come from actual Tang), and they sprinkle it with sesame seeds that are kinda salty and hence delicious — not that crap they use on seeded Wonder-​brand hamburger buns. They must toast these or something. I think I’ve had the egg rolls at Hon’s Wok III before and they were fine, just like the egg rolls almost anywhere else, from fancy schmancy places that call them spring rolls all the way down to Jack in the Box. All delicious, as far as I’m concerned. But I always go with the crab rangoon, because Hon’s Wok III does crab rangoon right (or wrong, depending on your perspective); lots of gooey, creamy, almost sweet cream cheese inside. Not that pasty actual crab mixture. Eww! The one real weak spot at Hon’s Wok III is the fried rice. It’s kinda flavorless anyway, because Hon is a shitty cook (yeah, I said it!), and the fried rice you get with a combo plate doesn’t have anything in it. Not even bits of onion, egg and what have you. But what are you gonna do? The whole thing only costs $ 4.75. You shouldn’t be eating there anyway.

Meh. Not the best Chinese I’ve had, but not the worst either…
The veggie lo mein was bland and I was disappointed because I was not given crunchy noodles for my egg drop soup (which was also incredibly bland).
My search for decent Chinese in my neighborhood continues…

When you go to a beat up strip mall Chinese food restaurant, you really can’t expect much… and this one fit the bill. I have eaten there twice on a lunch break from work. The first time I dined in and wasn’t impressed. Recently I decided to get a Chicken Fried Rice order to go in order to eat in my car and listen to the radio. I’m a huge fan of Chicken Fried Rice. For the large order, it was $ 5.85, which is par for a large order of fried rice. The food was literally up in about a minute.
*Side note… it is always nice to get your food super fast, but it always makes me think that the food wasn’t prepared to order and has been sitting around for a while.
Now I’m sure they have chicken and fried rice back there ready to put together, but it hurts the taste of the fried rice because it doesn’t get cooked with the chicken.
I would say that I got slightly less than the normal amount of chicken. 95% of the chicken was toward the top and not evenly mixed throughout the rice. Also the rice was well below average in taste and dry.
If this is the only chinese food place in the area and you HAVE to have chinese, then I guess go for it, but I would avoid this place.