Hong Min in Palos Hills [Picture]

LTH,

Had dinner at the Palos Hills branch of Hong Min on Saturday. Hummm, can it be a branch if it's their only restaurant?


Ellen and I went with long time fans of the original Hong Min, George and Betsy, who not only drove, but mapped out the 35-mile drive perfectly.

First an admission, I have always liked Hong Min, but was never as enamored as a number of my acquaintance, RevrendAndy for one, George for two. George was the driving force behind the idea of Hong Min, well, that and the bonus we'd get to torture Andy, who has moved out of town, about eating at Hong Min.

The suburban Hong Min looks exactly like any thousands of Chinese American restaurants scattered across the country. Bar with tv going, a number of drinks that require two straws, cherries and paper umbrellas and pupu platters. No, this is not leading up to me trashing Hong Min Palos, it was very good, to the best of my recollection very similar to Cermak, even down to the flavorful chili oil.

We asked both the hostess and our waitress when Hong Min was going to open in Chicago and got two different answers. The hostess said they were still looking for space and the waitress said they had bought a spot in Chinatown Sq, the spaces there are all individually owned, but could not move in for a year while they waited for the current occupant to vacate.

Personally, I see no need to ever make the drive to Palos again as I can get similar at a number of spots in Chinatown, not to mention 'Little' Three Happiness, though I will admit Hong Min has a wonderful touch with pan fried noodles, especially rice noodle. All in all though, a very nice evening, 'city' Chinese food and wonderful company and conversation.

As an aside, we drove though Worth, where Krapil's is located. Krapil's being one of the steak places mentioned in last weeks Trib as dry-aging their meat. I been to Krapil's a few times and it is a great steak house, though of a certain style. I'd call it Wisconsin Roadhouse style, very casual, servers who think nothing of calling you hun' and gigantic portions of very nice beef at reasonable prices.

Coincidentally I was talking to Hammond last week about Krapil's and he suggested a LTHForum.com outing. I'm certainly game.

Enjoy,
Gary

Hong Min Restaurant
8048 W 111th St
Palos Hills, IL 60465
708-599-8488

Krapil the Great Steak
6600 W 111th St
Worth, IL 60482
708-448-2012

'Little' Three Happiness
209 W Cermak Rd
Chicago, IL 60616
312-842-1964

Anyone know if Krapil's is open for lunch? I may find myself in the neighborhood for an appointment in the next couple of weeks

I went to Hong Min for lunch today. I was always a big fan of Hong Min before she burned down, but I also always ordered exactly the same thing whenever I went: beef and chinese broccoli chow fun (extra extra crispy) and bean cake kow. Today, I had a craving for those crispy chow fun noodles:

And of course the bean cake kow:


Although we recieve the same response everytime we go to the Palos Hills Hong Min, we still have to ask about their plans to reopen in Chinatown. Originally they said they would be open Spring of 2004, so by now I had written off the possibility of a new Chinatown location. Today, however they said that had purchased a location in Chinatown Square, and will be open "either in the Spring or next year." At least it is forward motion.

This is pure speculation, but perhaps Hong Min is moving into the space presently occupied by Joy Yee's. Joy Yee has had a "coming soon" sign up on the windows of a new, larger place a few doors East of their present location for over a year now. Maybe Hong Min is waiting for them to actually make the move.

trixie-pea wrote:Today, I had a craving for those crispy chow fun noodles

Trixie-pea,

And now, after looking at your picture with the crisp rice noodles, I have a craving for crisp rice noodle. As they say in Texas, you done flung a craving on me.

Looks like 'Little' Three Happiness for crisp rice noodle with roast duck and BBQ pork are in my very near future.





Enjoy,
Gary

'Little' Three Happiness
209 W Cermak
Chicago, IL

Hi,

The wee chicken head with the crispy noodles just reminds me of Mr. Bill, "Oh, no!"

me and the 2 antoinette's where looking for something to eat tonight ,so we picked HONG MIN .have not been in a few years
items ordered where

appetizer
# 16 pu pu platter for 2
egg rolls,fried shrimp,crab rangoons,bbq ribs,chicken fingers, & beef teriyaki.

chicken dish
c 6 - phoenix chicken
breaded deep-fried white meat with ham over a bed of pork &chinese veg's

d-4
chicken fried rice

b-4 beef & straw mushrooms
in a oyster sauce


loved it all, 40 bucks

i will be back to hung min


8048 w 111 st
palos hills,il.
708-599-8488

This Hong Min location is so inconvenient for me . . . but I miss the Chinatown Hong Min so, so much so I think a trip to Palos Hills might be in my near future. Thanks for reminding me of the 2nd Hong Min Phil - I needed a kick in the pants.

went to hong min tonight .

had bbq pork kow & phoenix chicken
great food

Can anyone tell me if the Palos Hills location is anything like the late lamented Chinatown location? If their chow fun is anything like the old place it's worth a trip just for that. Do they do dim sum?

Can anyone tell me if the Palos Hills location is anything like the late lamented Chinatown location? If their chow fun is anything like the old place it's worth a trip just for that. Do they do dim sum?

I finally took the plunge and registered here (had been a lurker for many years) just to respond to this post. And my response is an enthusiastic "Yes". My wife & I had one of our first dates at the old Chinatown location, and she often dreamt of the curried chicken puffs, but we never could quite drag ourselves all the way out to the Palos's. We finally made it last year with about 10 friends that were sampling as many Dim Sum locations as we could find. So far PHHM (Palos Hills Hong Min) is the best Dim Sum we've had on the tour, and that includes Phoenix. It was long enough ago that I can't remember everything we ordered, but I'm pretty sure some of the highlights were lovely shrimp & chive dumplings, the aforementioned curry puffs, and very good fun. Then we got the bill, and people laughed out loud. We left something like a 30% tip because we couldn't believe we got that stuffed with that high quality food for such a ridiculous amount of money.

Can't say anything about the Chow Fun, unfortunately.

This is very good to hear. Years and years ago my friends and I ordered feasts at Hong Min in Chinatown, though we always started with curry chicken puffs and usually had beef and broccoli chow fun. I've missed those dishes a lot. A trip to Palos Hills is in my future.

TomC wrote:Can anyone tell me if the Palos Hills location is anything like the late lamented Chinatown location? If their chow fun is anything like the old place it's worth a trip just for that. Do they do dim sum?

I finally took the plunge and registered here (had been a lurker for many years) just to respond to this post. And my response is an enthusiastic "Yes". My wife & I had one of our first dates at the old Chinatown location, and she often dreamt of the curried chicken puffs, but we never could quite drag ourselves all the way out to the Palos's. We finally made it last year with about 10 friends that were sampling as many Dim Sum locations as we could find. So far PHHM (Palos Hills Hong Min) is the best Dim Sum we've had on the tour, and that includes Phoenix. It was long enough ago that I can't remember everything we ordered, but I'm pretty sure some of the highlights were lovely shrimp & chive dumplings, the aforementioned curry puffs, and very good fun. Then we got the bill, and people laughed out loud. We left something like a 30% tip because we couldn't believe we got that stuffed with that high quality food for such a ridiculous amount of money.

Can't say anything about the Chow Fun, unfortunately.

That's enough for me. We're going this weekend. Is the dim sum every day or just the weekend?

Don't know; we were definitely there on a weekend.

A review on City Search says dim sum is Sundays only.

A quick called confirmed Dim Sum every Sunday 11:30 am till 4pm.

Wife luv'z dat stuff...will have to cart her over there for a try SOON!

Went for Dim Sum Sunday. We had some beef balls, curry chicken puffs, steamed chicken pot stickers and fried shrimp balls. Had a few other things but forget the names of them. We added on a order of shrimp fried rice and a seafood combo plate.

Wife said it was ok nothing super popped out for her and nothing bad was tasted. Kind of a neutral...yeah it was ok type feeling. I would agree just a decent/ok meal. I am not a fan of dim sum or much Chinese type foods but I dont mind trying new joint I never been to regardless of the food type.

I will be back and order somethings I spotted on the menu that sound good like to try....Spare Ribs with garlic sauce, Smoked Crabs description reads -Crabs (shell on) smoked with ginger and green onion, Chinese style BBQ ribs (appetizer) and some snails. Never had any snails and would like to give them a go.
Place was nice and clean inside, not to busy Sunday we were there bout 1:30ish, good service and I spotted a tank of good looking live crabs and lobsters on the way out.

No pics did not have cam. will have to get some next visit.

Happened to drive by it today and immediately made dinner plans, helped by sending a photo of the sign to an old fan who reminded me of the BBQ pork onion puffs. Said puffs were the high point of supper, followed by hot and sour soup, and the shredded chicken with Chinese pickled vegetables. Only the potstickers fell short, as far too doughy.

Surrounded by women taking their even more elderly relatives out for chop suey (behind us) or sweet and sour shrimp (next table) but that may have been mostly because we were there at 5. (And, to be honest, the sweet and sour shrimp looked delicious).

Confirmed that dim sum is still Sundays 11:30 to 4, and now that we know how to get there (Archer to Roberts to 111th), we'll be back.