8557 Research #116, 832-8788
Monday-Saturday, 11am-1am; Sunday, 11am-10pm
Din Ho is one of the top four or five Chinese venues in town, and we have been enthusiastic fans for a number of years now. When one enters the dining room the focus is instantly drawn to the barbecue counter on the immediate left, where the workers are hacking roast ducks, chickens, and slabs of char siu pork into bite-sized bits. Many diners come here for to-go portions of these, and there’s usually a line.
It seemed like a natural way to begin one of our meals: a delicious platter of half duck, half pork ($7.25). The duck is moist, nonfatty, and covered with a burnished thin crispy skin. The pork is meltingly tender and exceedingly flavorful, especially when dipped into the pool of duck juices. Both are the best in town, and even better than we remembered.
There is a lack of conventional appetizers on the menu, so a good option is the Golden Fried Bean Curd ($6.20), which is a plate full of crispy, golden cubes of tofu with custardy alabaster centers. The tofu flavor is very fresh, and it comes with a soy-vinegar-garlic dipping sauce, all the better with the addition of chile paste.
Wanting to try a different soup, we opted for the House Seafood Soup ($6.95), a huge silken bowl of rich chicken stock with egg thread, shrimp, scallop, and crab, with chunks of cuttlefish and fresh fish. The flavor is clean and oceanic, and its a good base on which to build your meal. Sizzling Beef With Black Pepper ($8.20) is succulent caramelized strips of fork-tender beef paired with scallions, bubbling on a sizzling platter, and bathed in a pepper sauce that doesn’t overpower. Outstanding.
Bean Curd With Pork in Sichuan Hot Sauce ($6.75) is good, but this version is made with chile paste in vinegar rather than the more authentic spicy fermented bean paste and Sichuan pepper – not our favorite recipe, but toothsome regardless. Sautéed Snow Pea Leaves ($8.20) are normally on our short list of choices, but the night we had them they were of proper flavor (bathed in stock and garlic) yet overcooked, and slightly tough and stringy. We’d loved them for years when cooked with dried scallops, a dish that has vanished from the menu. Bring it back, please!
Shrimp and Scallops in Garlic Sauce ($9.20) left us yawning; their version is made with sweet chile sauce instead of preparing it in the more traditional brown sauce style, and is heavier on ginger than garlic. The shrimp and scallops were properly cooked, but in relatively modest supply, and overpowering preserved baby corn shouldn’t show its vile face in this dish. Singapore Style Fried Noodle ($6.20) is a standout: your choice of fresh, flat rice noodles or vermicelli (go with the flat) briefly tossed in a white-hot wok with curry powder, shrimp, and julienned veggies. The flavor is smoky, subtly spicy, and absolutely perfect. Addictive!
Even though we had some minor hiccups with our most recent meals here, we stand firmly behind the quality and taste at Din Ho. The menu is huge and all encompassing, the prices are very reasonable, the portions are large, the product is fresh, and the service is top-notch. Whether you’re dashing in to grab some roast pork, duck, or chicken (or a to-go order), or settling in for a complete meal, you will seldom leave disappointed.
This article appears in September 24 • 2004.
