Monsoon Noodle House — Restaurant in Spartanburg

So today I tried Monsoon out. I've passed this place many times around downtown Spartanburg, as it's within walking distance of my work office. I now almost wish I had kept passing it. Here's the deal: At a first glance at the menu (which is up on the wall as soon as you walk in... Moe's style, I like it), this place appears reasonably priced. And to be honest, it actually is. So far so good. What it's not, is reasonably portioned. While you'll get out for around $8 - 12, you'll be sore at the amount of food you get for the modest price. I had the honey lime chicken wings, which ran me just a few cents short of $10. The meal comes with what I'd consider a half serving of rice, a tiny amount of mixed vegetables, and five wings. The smallest number of wings I've gotten for a ten-spot anywhere, ever. They were also weird... the flavor profile works, but only just so. I found that I was constantly asking myself if I really wanted the next one, and basically, they were just good enough to keep me eating. The next issue is the rice. Though I've only tried one menu item, I was informed by the lady behind the register that every item comes with only white rice, even the stir-fryes on offer. You can get fried rice, but it's a dollar up-charge, and this information isn't listed anywhere on the giant wall menu proudly on display (at least not anywhere conspicuous that I saw, as I spent roughly five minutes looking the menu over). Here's what you get for your extra dollar: white rice, briefly fried on what I imagine is a flat-top in some sort of sauce (didn't taste like soy). No egg, no pork, no lo mein, nada. Sorry Monsoon, sixty seconds of real-estate on your grill isn't worth a dollar I already wasn't planning on. Aside from that, the sauce for the wings is allowed to seep into your special rice, so the whole ensemble ends up tasting of this weird honey lime that we visited earlier, and without the chicken flavor base, tastes roughly of the candies you'd pass over on the trick or treating route. It may also be worth noting that I did get my meal take-out, so perhaps your mileage will vary if you dine in. So my conclusions have been made. I MAY try Monsoon again... perhaps I just didn't order the right meal. However, likely I'll keep walking henceforth, because I have a firm belief that any restaurant that needs to hide behind the notion that YOU may not have ordered correctly seriously needs to take their food...

We were excited to get some soupy noodles since we’ve been feeling a bit under the weather. This place came up on google with 4.3 stars so we hoped it would be good.

When you walk inside, you have to order the food at the counter. The decor seemed somewhat modern with all kinds of pseudo-Asian-style art and young 19-20 something waitresses frantically moving from table to table. There’s a giant board with all of the food offerings to your right which allows you to specify spicyness from 1-5. We decided on the tofu Thai coconut noodle soup, shrimp teriyaki monsoon, and taro boba/bubble tea.

The first thing I noticed about the teriyaki monsoon was that there wasn’t a whole lot of food to it. The second thing I noticed was that it wasn’t very warm. By the 10 minute mark it was completely cold. The third and final thing I noticed about it was how cloyingly sweet it was. In my mind, a great teriyaki sauce should be a subtle blend of salty and sweet. The dish at this restaurant, however, tastes like they just dumped half a cup of sugar into it and called it a day.

The Thai coconut noodle soup didn’t fare much better. The serving was hefty with at least 1.5-2 cups of noodles within, several slices of mushrooms, and around 10 pieces of 1”x2” fried tofu slices. My first and hungriest bite of it left me feeling duped and disappointed. The soup was thoroughly bland and the coconut milk was more of a suggestion rather than a flavor.

The image that came to mind from tasting the food was that of an unscrupulous chef running to Kroger and buying up the cheap, soon to expire vegetables and skipping the salt and spice aisle altogether. My spouse and I know for a fact that we could have made both of our entrees better and so we felt like it was overall a waste of time and money.

The only highlight of our experience was the taro boba tea. It was actually quite tasty and the boba was neither too hard nor too soft. Other than that, the food came out quickly and the restaurant was at least somewhat clean. That said,I would not recommend this place to anyone I care about visiting Spartanburg.

Verdict: Get the Boba....

Where to begin? Not enough staff. Rude management. Below average food.

There is no table service here. You order at the front and wait for your food to be brought out. If you want to order appetizers first, you have to stand in line twice. Fine, I can get with the system. I've seen it employed successfully elsewhere but it clearly doesn't work here.

Our server (who turned out to be the manager) took our table number away once he had delivered our first round of food, so the servers bringing follow-ups had no idea where to put it.

Our entrees arrived before our appetizers. We asked a the manager about the appetizers and he rudely stated that "they will come when they are ready" and just walked away (this is 10+ minutes after being given our entrees). His general disposition was unprofessional.

The entrees were okay, nothing to write home about. My noodles were gritty where powder seasoning was added late and not allowed to cook in. My wife's Drunken Noodles were better.

Several people made complaints about food while we were eating our entrees. The manager was just as unsympathetic with those complaints as he was with our missing appetizers. Somebody brought back a takeout order for a refund. He first argued with them while issuing the refund, then made them take their returned food with them. It was incredible to watch.

The appetizers finally came when we were done with our entrees maybe 45 minutes after ordering. The one bite of seared ahi I tried was awful - it was visually not seared properly and tasted a couple of days old. In hindsight, I don't know why I even tried it.

We asked for a refund. The manager obliged, but didn't say a word to us except "give me the credit card". No explanation, apology, acknowledgement. Again,...