Tonight I finally got my ass in gear and got over to Satay2Go in Apple Valley (located near El Azteca, Milio’s, and Home Depot).

Kim wasn’t feeling well and told me to do dinner on my own. I was in no mood to make anything after the 4×10s this week, so I decided on Asian.

People have been asking if I have been to Satay 2 Go since it opened quite some time ago (at least 2.5 years ago) but I usually have Kimmy w/me and her idea of Asian is Lee Ann Chin. I usually humor her there because they don’t use MSG and plenty of other places do (Eddie Cheng among many others).

I walked into the storefront entrance which opens into three different shops and was slightly disturbed by the stench emanating from the nail shop in the middle. My sniffer issues ended as soon as I walked into Satay2Go. The smells were excellent and I was immediately waited on by a friendly woman who emerged from the kitchen.

I was busy trying to make sense of the picture menu taped to the counter but was thankful I had someone guide my choices. Entrees are on the left and appetizers are on the right. They have a selection of large party trays across the top. I was told that I could have any changes to the items that I wanted including vegetarian, easy on the heat, etc.

She asked what I liked and quickly pointed out their Singapore Chow Fun which was listed as a “hawker stand favorite on the streets of Singapore. Flat rice noodle stir fry with shrimp, chicken, eggs, bean sprouts and vegetables.” I was pleased with the way that sounded and also decided to nab an order of Lemon Grass Chicken Wings which are “6 pieces of mouth watering chicken wings seasoned with a blend of Thai, Vietnamese, and Malay spices. Got Wings.” The Chow Fun was $7.95 and the wings were $3.95. None of their dishes are over $9.95 (minus the party trays) and all seemed like they would be a good bit of food.

The woman asked if I would like the noodle dish to be “hot”. I asked her to clarify what she meant by “hot”. She said on scale from 1 to 10 that it would be a 6 or 7. I was cool with that so she quickly disappeared behind the counter and began working on my dish.

While they were working on me I took some photos and looked over the rest of the menu. I was extremely pleased that they do not use ANY MSG and are proud to let you know it. Boom. They have a bunch of Asian drinks, snacks, etc, for sale — nothing really caught my eye so I just waited for my food.

My order was completed quickly and I was happy to leave a tip even though it was take out. I thought the service was excellent and friendly.

I took the food home and dove into the wings first. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the wings. They didn’t have that much flavor and I certainly won’t be getting them again. I was really hoping that they would be great and seriously thought about having them cook up a 30+ order for my next BBQ… No such luck.

The Singapore Chow fun dish, however, was excellent. She was right on about the spice level… It was almost exactly a 6 or 7 on the 10 scale. There was plenty of chicken and shrimp and the serving size was quite large. I didn’t go away hungry after that meal. The single complaint I had was that they kept the tails on the shrimp and I was a bit surprised to chomp down on one. Yuck.

I would certainly return to Satay2Go and try some different dishes. I highly recommend it for take out service (they require a $20 minimum for delivery (which is easily attainable) only after 5pm on weekdays and all day Saturday — they are closed Sunday) but their sit down service would be a bit cramped with room for only 12 people.

Thanks to those working tonight at Satay2Go for making my first experience a great one!

See all the pictures from today here(mobile).

Kim and I spent the weekend and the holiday down in Cincinnati, OH visiting her parents and touring the town including stops at The Book Rack, King’s Island, Skyline Chili, and Montgomery Inn on the river.

We left on Saturday fairly early and arrived before 11 AM in Dayton, OH. Kim’s parents met us and we drove back to Cincinnati stopping at a car show and Graeter’s Ice Cream for some of their excellent ice cream.

On Sunday we headed up to Kim’s sister’s new house near Cleveland for a house-warming party. It was a 4.5+ hour drive and on the trip home we were delayed an additional 45 mins during a randomly full-stopped traffic jam.

On Monday we went to The Book Rack (which Kim had packed an entire suit case full of books to return there) to sell/buy books at a much better price than is offered at Half Price Books. Kim ended up with $45 of store credit and purchased a ton of new books (including a few for me) and afterwards we headed over to Skyline Chili for lunch — mmmm. We made it back to Kim’s parents’ house and hung out reading before going out to dinner at Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse. The ribs were FANTASTIC as always. Kim’s parents’ bought us two bottles of their sauce (we get a couple of bottles a year) and we packed that away for the trip home.

On Tuesday, Kim and I spent the entire day (10:30 AM until 10:30 PM) at King’s Island amusement park. I had been there with Kim before back in 2005 and enjoyed riding the coasters. We don’t get to ride anything exciting here at Valleyfair but OH has two EXCELLENT coaster parks (King’s Island and Cedar Point). We had a blast in the nearly empty park riding almost every coaster and several numerous times. The fireworks at the end of the night were great but the time it took us to get out of the parking lot was not so much ;) On the way home we stopped at White Castle for some sliders — mmmm :)

On Wednesday I headed out and hit a couple of caches in the morning and then we spent the rest of the day at a couple of parks and had a picnic in the afternoon. Everyone in OH is into bean bags and we saw a TON of boards setup in the parks. After the picnic we headed back to the house to pack and head up to Dayton for our flight home. We were back at MSP by 10:30 PM and home by 11:30 PM with Buddy happily wagging his tail for us.

It was a long trip and a lot was done but we had a great time.

See all the pictures (mostly from King’s Island) here (camera).