Despite its placement on one of San Antonio’s busiest streets, Hung Fong has plenty of parking behind and next to its location, so getting there is easy enough. Inside the restaurant, there’s a mix of tables and booths for customer seating and a handful of decorative red knot pieces hanging throughout the space. A neon American flag was lit and fastened to the ceiling above the center of the dining room, as another neon flag that appeared to be for Taiwan remained unlit next to it.
When I visited, a host quickly seated me in a small booth next to a wooden wall that divided the dining area from the kitchen and food prep. Now and then, a server would emerge either carrying plates or pushing a rolling cart toward tables that had larger orders. The woman who was helping me out was so effortlessly kind and personable that she seemed to know several customers whom she was assisting that day.
The Hung Fong special lunch menu is available from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Dine-in meals come with a tea, and all meals come with a side of pork fried rice and fried wontons — the latter of which can be substituted with an egg roll or two rangoons for an additional charge. Prices listed on the menu are between $10.49 and $12.39.
Lunch specials include several traditional and American Chinese dishes, including sesame chicken, Mongolian beef and moo goo gai pan. Ultimately, I decided on the beef and broccoli, and I upgraded the dish to include an egg roll for a total of $11.64. I barely had time to sip on my sweet tea before the server returned with the food steaming hot on a plate.
The beef had an ample amount of savory brown gravy that seeped its way into everything else on the plate. The sauce had a strong onion flavor that lent itself to the pork fried rice and the bottom side of the egg roll. In other words, there was plenty of flavor to go around the plate, so I didn’t find myself reaching for the soy sauce bottle set on the table like I would at some places. I’ll add that the broccoli kept some of its crunchiness, something I could appreciate next to the tender beef.
Hung Fong is an easy choice for an affordable meal, especially if you’re trying to escape the office for your lunch break. The service is excellent, the food is good and you can get in and out in under an hour. It’s a bonus that the restaurant comes with almost nine decades of history and character.
Find it: 3624 Broadway, San Antonio, TX 78209