Din Ho Chinese BBQ

Reviews 4

JA

Jake Lebar

Din Ho is the best family style, Americanized Chinese in Austin. They do an excellent job of staying true to Chinese flavors and style of dishes while gearing them for an American palate and the expectation of localized Chinese Food. Fortunately, they offer many dishes on this spectrum that stray much closer to authentic than most ordinary restaurants of this type do. The menu is extensive and its easy to be struck with indecision. They are particularly known for their BBQ, and I personally recommend the BBQ pork. It is savory with just the right amount of sweet; more often than not it is surprisingly moist. (All of the BBQ offerings are available by the pound to go.) Additionally, if you like seafood, try the Sizzling Seafood Combination: shrimp, scallops, and pieces of tender octopus with vegetables in not-your-average brown sauce. If youre with a group, or like leftover soup the next day, you cant go wrong with the Large Fresh Shrimp Wonton Soup. The broth is good, but the shrimp wontons are excellent with great shrimp flavor and a satisfying chew. At $6 its a great value as it serves 5-6 people. The decor is typical for a well adorned ethnic restaurant owned and managed by those of that culture. The iconography is appropriate without being overly kitschy. Its not particularly fancy, but not neither is it run down. There is a full BBQ cart on your left when you enter that is adorned with the currently available BBQ, including whole BBQ ducks, crispy pork, and more (sensitive vegetarians may want to make note). In my mind, this establishment only has one significant ding against it. Put plainly, the service is often not very good. The waiters frequently are not very patient, and they do not appear often. My best guess is they are assigned too many tables to really spend enough time at any of them. Thankfully they do have people roaming with pitchers of water and tea, so hopefully your glass will not be empty for too long. As long as youre willing to look past the issues with service, Din Ho is an excellent restaurant for Chinese. You should try it at least once if you live in the Austin area; you wont find better, cheaper food of this type elsewhere in town.

CO

Colin Sullender

Ive been looking for the "best" Chinese place in Austin and I think I might finally have found it. After failing to get any reliable suggestions from friends that have lived here for a while, I stumbled across Din Ho Chinese BBQ while plotting my Friday dinner and decided to check it out. I was originally worried that a 6:30pm Friday arrival time would result in a lengthy wait but the restaurant was only about half full. It did start to get pretty crowded a little after 7pm, so watch out for that if you plan on arriving a little later. Service was prompt and unemotional, which is to be expected for this type of simple Chinese venue. The menu is overwhelmingly extensive, with soups, noodles, and rice dishes galore featuring veggies, chicken, beef, pork, seafood, and everything in-between. For those of you that prefer things like General Tsos Chicken, fear not, they have it (how dare you!). After ordering, it took about 5 minutes for our food to be delivered complete with the largest serving of (free) steamed rice that Ive seen in a Chinese restaurant. Seriously, I dont know how many restaurants Ive been to that only give small bowls or try to charge you for it. We ordered the Chicken Lo Mein and the BBQ Pork, both of which were less than $9 and were almost enough for two people separately. The lo mein was excellent and toed the line between being too dry and too saucy almost perfectly. If you want to avoid super salty foods, then this probably isnt the best dish (or restaurant) for you to be eating. The serving size of the BBQ Pork was much larger than anticipated and sadly much of it was relegated to leftovers. The pork wasnt overly sweet, which seems to be a common problem for many Chinese BBQ dishes. It was well cooked and almost melts in your mouth. Id highly recommend you try one of their BBQ dishes as the general consensus seems to be they are the "best" offerings at this restaurant. I definitely will be coming back here in the future for my Chinese food cravings. They also do hot pot, so Ill be checking that out in the near future (hopefully). Plus theres a bubble tea shop right next door!

GA

Gary Hwu

My favorite Chinese restaurant in Austin. Not only is the food delicious, but the portion sizes are also the perfect amount. Im sure many of you have gone to this plaza looking to dine at Ramen Tatsu-Ya, and often finding yourselves discouraged by the long line. Instead I highly recommend going to Din Ho around the corner. I absolutely love their Walnut Shrimp. Their homemade mayo and honey marinated walnuts are made perfectly, not to mention their shrimp is cooked and tastes wonderful (some restaurants serve shrimp that tastes very shrimpy...if you know what I mean). If shrimp is not for you, I would also suggest the Fried Salt and Pepper Fish. Although the fish isnt crispy, the battered fish is still full of flavor. My favorite pork dishes are the BBQ Pork and the Chinese Style Pork Chop. Just to be clear, the BBQ Pork is the pork thats displayed in the front entrance, your typical sweet marinated pork slices. The Chinese Style Pork Chop is pork cooked in a savory sweet and sour sauce. Usually Chinese restaurants serve the pork chop with the bones, but Din Ho leaves the bones out, which I think is considerate of them and why I particularly love this dish. If you like Cantonese style crispy noodles, then the Combination Pan Fried Noodle is a good choice. Its the crispy noodles with BBQ pork, beef, shrimp, and vegetables. Quickly dive into this dish though because the noodles will get soggy from the sauce (although I personally like it soggy since its more flavorful). The service can be very slow sometimes, so you might need to take the initiative to get the attention of a waiter to place an order or to refill the rice. With that said I suggest getting an appetizer like the Fried Golden Bean Curd (Fried Tofu) or the Minced Beef with Egg Swirl Soup. What I love most about Din Ho is that the restaurant is great for groups, and the price is extremely reasonable for the portion size you get. Ive always left Din Ho feeling satisfied.

LO

Louis Dyer

If I could give this place zero stars I would! My family got to the restaurant at 4:45 PM on a Monday. They were all seated and everyone placed their drink orders by 4:50 while waiting for me to arrive. My family said the waitress was rushing them to order so instead of waiting for me to arrive, they placed their food order. I arrived at the restaurant at 5:30 PM because of traffic and sat with my family - who were all upset because they were all still waiting for drink refills. The restaurant was not busy at all. 15 people at the most. I waited about 10 minutes for our waitress to come and take my drink order. She brought over this glass container of iced tea and quickly walked away. About 5 minutes later she returned with a glass of ice and drink refills for the table. She was ready to bolt when I had to stop her and ask her to take my order. Little did I know the waitress was in such a rush, she had skipped over a few of my family members when taking their food orders. With my food order being taken last I was first to receive my order, which had everyone else pissed off; about five minutes later two other plates come out from the kitchen. My sister, who was skipped over, got a mystery plate of something she did not order. When she informed the waitress about having the wrong order, the waitress told my sister that was what she had ordered. Out of frustration we all raised our voices and told her no it wasnt. My sister said she was fine with the order and left it at that. Two others in my party were waiting for their orders to come out, and 15 minutes later they did. All in all by far the worst experience ever. This was nothing like what I had experienced in the past and I doubt that I or anyone in my family will ever visit this place again.