Sizzling Hut

In a word: Hut or not.

The specs: #01051  
404 N. Main St., DeForest, WI 53532
Details at Yelp, official web site, Facebook

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JM ate the General Tso's chicken with a soda.
Nichole ate the cashew shrimp.
We split an order of crab rangoon and got a free packet of almond cookies.
The bill was $14, or $7/person, plus tip.
JM gave Sizzling Hut a B; Nichole gave Sizzling Hut a B+ (see our grading rubric).

Tucked away in a forgotten strip mall just minutes from the DeForest Norske Nook is Sizzling Hut.  We got a fairly standard afternoon set of late lunchy eatables and have to report: it is just fine.

Sizzling Hut is De Forest's Chinese restaurant in a box.  They seem to be going for more deals than the standard, with daily lunch specials that migrate from good value to 'are you paying us to eat here?' territory.  One of the key awesome things was the guy behind the counter, who served our food, might have cooked it, and was identified on our receipt as "boss." He was avuncular and genial, despite the respite of no diners in the mid afternoon that we interrupted. He was never too close or too far away.  The food arrived not too soon but not too late either; for openers, the crab rangoon were simple, hot and crabby.

As for the entrees, JM's General Tso's was not really spicy (related aside: there seem to be too kinds of restaurants, those that warn that anything sharper than Minute Maid is spicy, while the others have spiciness scales where anything above a "1" is guaranteed to melt your face into a tiny puddle. Do we need an international Scoville-to-star rubric?) but tasty and filling.  There was just enough rice, but a vegetable or two more wouldn't have killed JM. Would it, JM? 

Nichole's cashew shrimp was very salty, but packed with vegetables. The fried rice had bits of egg in it, a plus. And on the way out, Boss gave Nichole two packets of almond cookies just because.

There's not much to add. We are so infrequently in DeForest that needing a Chinese place there is the least of our concerns (getting from Madison to the Nook for a weeknight dinner before it closes is a different story). But you can do a lot worse, and perhaps Sun Prairie denizens might find the down-homeiness of this place superior to their current East Asian options.