Hon

The Maryland branch of our family recently suggested dinner at Cafe “Hun”. Visions of Attila in the kitchen entered my mind.

It turns out that the “Hun” in this Baltimore eatery is spelled “Hon” which every Baltimore resident knows is short for honey as in, “Hey, hon, how’s it going?”

We decided to visit The Cafe Hon on a Saturday night and the potential customers were spilling out the doors. While waiting for our table, we studied the decor. A flamingo theme held sway starting with a two story pink bird on the front of the building. The dining rooms had more, including the piece de resistance, an amazing circular chandelier made out of pink flamingo lawn ornaments alternately glued right side up and down.

A life size plastic Elvis held court in the main dining room, his fingers poised to twang his guitar. Unfortunately, the guitar was missing.

Perhaps my favorite part of the interior design was an entire wall of collage portraits done by third graders of women that appeared to be straight out of the musical Hairspray.

When we were finally seated, the waitress grabbed all the dirty dishes from the previous diners and fled to the kitchen leaving her table cleaning rag behind. I picked it up and washed both our tables: these young workers were clearly in over their heads and needed all the help they could get.

The Cafe Hon is one of those rare eateries that features both real milkshakes and malts alongside beers and wines. The menu was Eastern seafood shack meets classic diner. I can report that all the diverse items we ordered were more than satisfactory with the exception of the chili that had no liquid and I mistook for salsa.

The most lasting memories of this dining adventure were some incredible statements from our waitress. I will quote them verbatim:

When we ordered a sandwich on one of the breads listed on the menu-
“Cheese toast no longer exists”.

When asked if the coleslaw was creamy-
“I don’t know, they change it every day”.

When delivering our dinners-
“We’re low on forks tonight”.

And before our dessert order was taken-
“We are out of a lot of dessert”.

We rose to the occasion and had the remaining sweets, hot fudge and caramel sundaes.

Well, hons, I can tell you that every one in our family would pay a return visit to this wacky restaurant. When in Baltimore, you will have to decide for yourself if you are ready for The Cafe Hon experience. Bear in mind that “diner” and “gourmet” are not synonyms.

 

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3 thoughts on “Hon”

  1. That was really fun. It’s what I always hope a kooky diner will be, and so often is not. Company make all the difference!

    We went back to 34th St. the next week…

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  2. Wow fun. Hon always reminds me of when I was about 12, reading a novel. There was a repeated phrase, “The Hon.” What??? It took me awhile to realize that it was short for Honorable.

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