by Jeremy Iggers | June 9, 2009 • I stopped in yesterday at another of my favorite cheap lunches, the $6.45 buffet at K-Wok, and discovered that some big changes are in the works. Owners Yang Pham and Kim Miranda Trang – he’s Vietnamese, she’s Malaysian – have sold the restaurant to Ramon and Mia Agne. The Agnes are from the Phillipines, and the restaurant will soon be adding some traditional Filipino dishes like loempia (spring rolls), pancit (fried noodles) and adobo (stewed chicken or pork) to the Chinese-Vietnamese-Malaysian menu. Pham and Trang are retiring, but Kim is sticking around long enough to teach Mia Agne her culinary repertoire.

Iggers Digest is the blog of Jeremy Iggers, the TC Media Alliance’s executive director. Jeremy is also the creator of TCFoodies, a local food networking site.

As for the buffet, ($6.45) the selection is much smaller than the Chinese mega-buffets you’ll find in strip malls, or even what’s offered a few doors away at the Lucky Dragon. But K-Wok’s lunchtime offerings include a lot of dishes seldom seen on local buffets. The selection varies from day to day, but yesterday’s buffet included Malaysian chicken curry and char kway teow (soy sauce noodles), Vietnamese spring rolls, egg rolls and little steamed packets of sticky rice with yellow bean, egg and pork wrapped in a lotus leaf; as well as steamed Hainan chicken and banana cake.

K-Wok.1813 Riverside Ave., Minneapolis, 612-338-4238.

Author: Jeremy Iggers

Jeremy Iggers is a journalist, university instructor and social entrepreneur with interests that include food, philosophy and global-local connections. Previously, he was a staff writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and publisher of the Twin Cities Daily Planet. He lives in south Minneapolis with his wife Carol and two cats.