I can identify the giant pink flamingo outside of Cafe Hon in Hampden as one of the city’s icons, however Cafe Hon was always one of those spots I avoided like the plague. I hadn’t heard any great reviews about the place (they were on Kitchen Nightmares) and it just seemed like a tourist trap.

My roommate had recently eaten at Cafe Hon and convinced me to give it a shot for brunch. So we headed over to Hampden to check it out.

Cafe Hon

It’s worth noting that I own a deck of Baltimore’s City Dining Cards which are discounts for $10 at select restaurants around the city so we would need to head over to Cafe Hon eventually to use ours.

Cafe Hon City Dining Card

In order to use our dining card, we needed to hit a $30 minimum so we ordered a little more food than normal. We decided to start by splitting a Chocolate Milkshake. This was really nothing special, it lacked a lot of flavor and wasn’t thick like a milkshake should be. It was almost a chocolate milk.

Chocolate Milkshake

For her meal, my roommate decided to order a waffle (she’s into basic things) however the waffle was also mediocre. It lacked flavor and wasn’t light and fluffy like a waffle should be.

Waffle

I decided to try something a little different and get the Corned Beef Hash. I knew it wasn’t going to be as good as the one I loved at Woodberry Kitchen, but I decided to give it a try anyway. This dish came with homemade corned beef hash, two sunny-side up eggs, potatoes, toast, and fresh fruit. The eggs were cooked nicely (highlight of the meal) but the corned beef underneath was a little saltier than I would have preferred.

Corned Beef Hash

When we first placed our orders, my roommate ordered a Cinnamon HON Bun. The waitress actually forgot about this and we would have just left it that way if we didn’t need to hit the $30 minimum to use our dining card. The cinnamon bun was served at room temperature and tasted stale.

Cinnamon HON Bun

Between the mediocre food and a waitress that disappeared after taking our order (she didn’t come check on us once throughout the meal.) I don’t think I will be venturing back there anytime soon. It’s highly unlikely that the service will get any better and there’s food I’ve enjoyed significantly more elsewhere.

Cafe Hon is located at 1002 W. 36th St. in Hampden.

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Looking for a place to eat? Check out Rachel’s Baltimore Restaurant List.