The House of Ho

Went for a quick phở fix. I was not really impressed with their phở — lacking in flavour and personality. Their broth tasted a bit funny too. Not authentic but more of a fusion.
Ambience was good. Much more sophisticated than, say, the Phở chain. Could be good for either casual or slightly fancier meals. I liked how the table areas were relatively spacious.
Service was generally good and prompt. Our food came out on time, and they were quick enough to bring our bills/​etc when requested.
All in all, a fine place — but I just wish their phở were better.

Went in here over the weekend for a friend’s birthday party. The deco is nice and they put us in a gangsta style VIP table at the back, which we thought was a nice touch as we did not booked before coming in.
We then proceeded to ask the waitress what’s the specialty of the restaurant. She told us everything is good. Thanks for nothing.
We ordered about 10 different dishes to share between 6 of us. The portions are really small but tasty though if you’re looking to eat authentic Vietnamese, this is not the place to go to.
Overall, the food is average. Expect long wait for the the food to arrive and not in the right order either. Best about The House of Ho are their desert. I’ve tasted every single one on the menu and they were all gooood.

I came here on Sunday with 12 friends to try ‘Bobby’s Rock’n’Roll Brunch’. Its ain’t what it says on the tin! It was made bearable by the bottomless Prosecco!
The table was booked for a 2−4pm slot. When we arrived there were not many diners in the main restaurant area. We were ushed into an area at the back of the restaurant, where we were the only ones there. The website says that you will be welcomed with a Lychee Bellini on arrival. Ten minutes in and still no sign of our welcome drink. It aslo sais there would be Edamame and crackers for the table. I couldn’t see any. The website also said that ‘The £29 menu will allow guests to choose an unlimited selection of sharing plates and three signature HO dishes’. We were told we could chose 3 of the sharing plates each and one signature dish.
It looked like the one guy in the back section serving us, was responsible for taking the food and dink orders and doing the drinks as well. Once we had ordered or sharing dishes, our welcome drink arrived (we were only here 25 minutes at this stage).
In fairness the dishes I picked were quite good. I went for the Imeprial Rolls, Duck Phở Cuon and the Chicken Salad. For the mainI went for the ‘Shaking Beef’ dish (£6 supplement). It was very tastey. It’s just a shame that my side of Jasmine rice came out 10 minutes after the beef, by which time the beef was cold. I felt for the waiter, as he was left to being left to his own resources. The Edamame and crackers that should have been there on our arrival turned up after the sharing dishes arrived.
For dessert we had the Chef’s Special (it was the only choice). A really nice Crème Brulee was served up. It’s a shame that the ramekin was the smallest I’ve ever seen. It must have been 2 inches square and no more than an inch deep.
We had to keep asking for top ups of the Prosecco, and told the waiter that as it was over 30 minutes into our 2 hour slot before we had our first, that we wanted it extended, as we were there for almost 2 hours 40 in the end, as the service was lacking on the speed front.
I gave this place 2 stars, unlike the current 1 star trend, purely because I was in good company, and we enjoyed our afternoon in spite of everything. They really should update their website though to truly reflect what the customer should honestly expect. It also says that the brunch is in conjuction with TimeOut. Not a good reflection on what lots of visitors to London use as a point reference.

Came to house if Ho before our theatre show. It’s very close to the prince Edward theatre. We sat down and advised the waitress we only had 30 minutes to eat. She recommended the summer rolls and advised she will let her kitchen staff know to rush the orders.
We ordered the summer prawn roll, it was good and fresh.
As well for the mains we ordered the pork belly and the chicken curry. The pork belly was very small order. And the chicken curry was very average. They had some small onions in it which was interesting and new.
We ordered 1 rice and tried the singha beer. The rice was a bit hard… Not sure why maybe was old or recooked. For portion wise another order of noodle would be perfect, but we were in a rush. The food came very fast which was great! Service was great too.
For the price it is on the pricey side. Our meal together was £39 and it was not enough for 2 people.

Man! Another 1-​star place!
What’s wrong with London? It’s like standards are dropping everywhere!
Here we have what looks like a fancy place and then you go inside only to find it’s basically an expensive Asian tapas place.
What does that mean? It means you pay more here for a tiny dish of flavourless nothing than you pay for a large main course at any one of a multitude of places in the area. Just pick any other place. No really, anywhere. Even Subway.
I had a summer roll. It tasted nothing like summer. It did taste a lot like nothing though. In fact it exactly tasted of nothing. And it cost £6.
And then I went for lobster. It looks like a bargain at £18 until they tell you it’s only half a lobster. And then you get it and it’s actually more like half a crawfish, in glass noodles that taste like salt.
What an absolute rip off. I am so disappointed :(

I don’t really understand the negative reviews. Maybe I had better luck. I always order the beef. The sauce is great. I usually order 2. The calamari was crispy and quite tasty.

A big group of my friends and I went here for dinner on the weekend. The idea of the place is lots of small sharing dishes. Asian inspired. The food was very good and a couple of sharers each was plenty. Only criticism is when it comes to paying. They were rather funny about people splitting the bill on card. In this day and age it’s not really big a deal! Plus with 11 of us no one wanted all that on one card! Disappointing attitude from the staff at the end despite us paying a massive service charge.

House of Ho was one of the Vietnamese restaurants I tried when visiting London. The food was not really authentic but twisted in a good, very creative way. The portion was small compared to other Vietnamese restaurants I tried for the same price, but if you just want to try out some new ethnic cuisine and get a good drink, this might be a good option.

I have been to all of Bobby Chinn’s restaurants going back 10 years ago in Hanoi and the new location and the new one in Saigon that is closed now. Food didnt disappoint me. Portion sizes were definitely small but considering quality and the tapas price, i dont think it was pricey. Dome vegetable dishes could have been slightly bigger such as morning glory though.
As it was a busy Saturday night, service was rather slow but one of the managers was a great sports and we ended up just ordering more food and wine. Think the service level has improved definitely compared to their opening period and food is as usual great at any of Bobby’s restaurants.

If you’re interested in the health benefits of drinking your own piss but are too afraid to actually do it you can have a practice run in this place by ordering a bowl of phở.
I ordered the beef version. It came with luke warm ‘broth’, tasteless, textureless noodles, some literal scraps of beef (dunno from what part of the animal) and a side dish with a bit of fresh chilli, a handful of bean sprouts and an old sprig of mint on it. These things I chucked into the bowl in the hope they would infuse the pisswater. They had the power of a twice used chamomile teabag, so I added as much salt as there was in the container as well as some table scrapings and as much of the table varnish i could get under my nails to impart some sort of meaty flavour.
I gather some ‘lucky’ people have received a promotion where you get this Phở for free. That’s still about £5 too expensive in my book. Muggins here paid £9.
see ya.

I came for a promotion that was running — free Phở so I can’t complain too much.
Who can say no to free? I certainly can’t! So I booked a table for 2 on Saturday lunch. Upon arriving the ambiance was nice, low lighting, no loud music and enough space to sit without feeling you were sat on top of someone else.
There were four choices of Phở, I opted for the beef and my husband had the chicken. We also ordered some jasmine tea, but were disappointed to find out that they didn’t have any. My husband opted for some green tea instead. They regularly filled up our glasses with water as well.
When the phở arrived a small plate of beef, beansprouts and chilli arrive alongside a bowl of noodles small plate of sauces to add (Soy, Oyster and Chilli), the beef seemed quite pink, which was surprising. I put the ingredients into soup alongside some of the dip and started to eat it. The phở really lacked in flavour and didn’t have much taste to it and after finishing it I still felt reasonably hungry as the portion wasn’t huge.
When my husband’s tea arrived it was tepid, the waitress even told us this before he drank it and asked if it was warm enough as they couldn’t get boiling water for some reason I couldn’t understand.
When we paid they left us with a loyalty card that was stamped for one Phở, but I left it behind as I doubt I’ll be back for more

I received an email inviting me to an enticing complimentary bowl of phở, so thought it was high time we tried the place. How disappointing it was.
As a PR and marketing exercise it sucks! We were presented with half a bowl of noodle and a side plate that was no bigger than a teacup saucer holding a morsel of meat, a handful of beansprouts and some mint leaves. Nothing like their promotional photo. And to cap it, it was nothing special.
As I love Vietnamese summer rolls, I ordered a plate and also a plate of the morning glory as I love the Malaysian dish to compare this Asian fusion. The portion sizes are more than tiny, they were minute. The summer rolls were even smaller than the prawn or meat dumplings in dim sum, 6 bite size pieces, at £5 a pop, and the plate of morning glory was even more disappointing, a handful of strands that did not even fill the tiny saucer size plate, with half a lime filling the other half of the tiny plate at £6, seems extortionate. Needless, to say we left hungry and poorer for our next appointment, and had to grab something else to eat en route. A waste of time and a fare.
It’s a shame their Sunday brunch at £29 looks good value as unlimited sharing plates, unlimited prosecco and wine, however, if you read the small print, there is a 2 hour turnaround, so if the service is slow, this limits how much you can eat and drink!
I will not be going back, as I do not have any confidence in their advertising, and I do not want to spend an average of £20-£25 and still feel hungry.

Came here for the free Phở bowl that was advertised on their website. I’m thankful for the free bowl they offered, and should be happy that it was free, but I wish it wasn’t free so I wouldn’t have been lured in. The broth was not good. It was like water with salt… nothing «broth» about it. The other reviews rave about this place. maybe for the other things on the menu… DO NOT order the Phở here.

Top 10 London brunch place (for me). The all-​you-​can-​eat bottomless champagne brunch is a great idea. Great communal activity. Cool location. Live jazz/​folk band on weekends. The food is not exactly dim sum. However I didn’t have any complaints about it — nor did my other 5 brunch companions. And we are picky eaters!

Food: The portions were VERY small. There were just two of us and we ordered four appetizers and two mains and still left hungry. The food didn’t blow us away and was average. We ordered the pork belly because people raved about it, but ours wasn’t cooked very well and was way too fatty. The best dish of the six was the Shaking Beef with the BBQ Ribs as a close second.
Drinks: The cocktail list had a good variety of rum, vodka and gin mixed drinks. I had the Rum Dragon which was very good, but a little too sweet.
Price: Way too overpriced for what you received. For six (small!) dishes and two cocktails our bill was 73.41 GBP.
Ambiance: The restaurant was hopping on a Friday evening.
Service: The hostess was very nice and showed us directly to our table. Our waiter was very knowledgable about the menu and had opinions on each dish.
Would I go back? No, because there are better Asian options in the city.

House of Ho located in the centre of Soho serves modern fusion Vietnamese cuisine. Most of the dishes we ordered were quite tasty though portion sizes were rather small. The best dish was the apple smoked pork belly.
The drinks menu has a large selection of cocktails, the staff are willing to make customised cocktails too!

Bobby Chinn is the brain before the newly opened Vietnamese modern cuisine restaurant in the heart of Soho. With two successful restaurants in Vietnam until his belt, I was very excited to try House of Ho.
The place was difficult to find, as the door was plain and seem hidden on the busy street of Old Compton Street. Once opened you were transported from the busy world of London and greeted with dark brown décor and a modern restaurant and bar setting and greeted with friendly smiles, perhaps the plain looking door seemed fitting for this transformation. Or, some might think it was over doing it!
The menu was short, with 6 starters and 6 mains. So on a table of 4, we decided to order to share to enjoy a variety of dishes (and as you often do with Asian cuisine). The most anticipating dish of the evening was the apple braised pork belly!
My heart sank when I saw the pork belly, succulent with a translucent layer of fat and crispy pork skin, being brought out in a small pot (£14), in a 10 cm x 10 cm cube, militarily placed inside the pot infront of me. I looked at the rather small portion– not willing to share it with my dining companions.
The unforgiving portion sizes made me wondered what was all the hype about?

Oh lordy. My dining enjoyment here was almost overshadowed by my cringeworthy opening act. So I’m the first to arrive (for once) and welcomed warmly to a table. 4 of my friends show up at the same time and as they’re seated, a different waiter is patiently collecting their coats. I could see that he was already pretty laden up, but given it was freezing and I already had a lot of jumper layers to deal with around my seat and my coat is pretty big, after a moment’s internal deliberation and feeling slightly cheeky, I jumped up and asked if he could take mine too. As I tugged my coat out from under me and held it out, I finally locked eyes with the ‘waiter’ and realised that the guy giving me a (hopefully sarcastic!) exasperated sigh over an armful of coats was in fact… Mr Bobby Chinn, head-​chef and owner of the place. Woops.
Ok in my defence his hair has grown since I saw him on Saturday Kitchen. Well maybe. By like an inch. Ok there’s no excuse — but I’m hoping his ensuing ‘there’s always one…’ as he took my coat was in good humour! He was happy floating between tables for the evening, serving dishes, asking our opinions and stopping for some light-​hearted banter. Actually he showed he had a playful sense of humour later on, gently mocking why 2 of us omnivores would choose to dine with 4 vegetarians! Before they (and any veggies reading this) could take offence though, he reeled off an impressive list of main dishes stated with meat that he would tweak to veggie, like the pomelo salad without the crab and so on, so we felt pretty well taken care of.
These ‘off-​menu’ dishes made the meal more interesting for my veggie friends so don’t be shy if that applies to you! I was intrigued from the start though given the unusual menu split into light & raw, hot & grilled and ‘Ho’s dishes’. As always, sharing is caring and the 6 of us got a mix of dishes (the only way to eat). Have to say the duck phở cuon noodle rolls were perhaps my faves, a really nice mix of flavours though I think a lot of that was down to the sauce they came with. Smokey aubergine dish was average (though I learned what a scallion was), morning glory side dish was better, and the chicken potato curry was great. If you have the self-​control to say no when Bobby comes to recommend more dishes, you might just have room for the molten chocolate cake too which had just the right rich gooey cocoa middle without being overly sweet.
The drinks menu is equally interesting though you should brace yourself for some awkward cocktail puns on the word ‘ho’ (Ho’rny Devil anyone?!). The Nam Fizz of prosecco and lemongrass shochu caught my eye as suitably unusual and turned out delicious. Not sure if it was having Bobby wandering around but the servers were chatty about the dishes and really attentive throughout even though the place was heaving, which makes all the difference.
Bring friends or bring a date — the low lighting and simple wooden/​bamboo décor is an inviting bubble in the middle of soho. I think those looking for authentic Vietnamese food will be disappointed — with dishes like ceviche on the menu this is definitely more ‘fusion’, but whatever label you want to put on it my tastebuds and I had a good time :)

I know there’s been a lot of hype surrounding Bobby Chinn and HoH, but to be honest — I’ve never heard of him until I saw HoH featured in The Nudge. I’m not trying to discount his status or skill as a good chef, but I just mean that I’m not usually in the know about famous chefs. That being said, I didn’t have any crazy high expectations on this place — just that I was gonna get a good meal.
I like that the menu is changed weekly, calling in fresh ingredients and a rotation of dishes for a new experience each time. I think there may be 15’ish items on the menu, divided into hot and cold appies, and mains. These are all smaller /​sharing type dishes, and are on the smaller side. For the menu on the week of Jan 11, we ordered the following items to share between 4 people:
— Mushroom rice roll
— duck rice roll
— crab and pomelo salad
— smoked aubergine
— stuffed fried tofu
— chicken potato curry
— smoked pork belly
— monkfish in caramel sauce
— morning glory
— rice
— molten marou chocolate lava cake
My favorite dish from the night was the morning glory, and the mushroom rice roll. They were all seasoned nicely. though the rice noodle was a touch too thick. In general, I’ve had rice rolls before with a thinner rice noodle wrap, which seems to absorb thin sauces better in general. Either way, I did like these 2 dishes, but I wouldn’t say amazing. Actually the crab and pomelo salad wasn’t bad either.
As for the rest of the dishes, I felt that they were forgettable. There were definitely some strong flavors coming in from the sauces, but the main ingredient in the dishes were underseasoned or overcooked. The curry was really mild, not in terms of spiciness, but just the flavor. I definitely tasted the smoke in the aubergine dish, but the aubergine itself was bland. When I bit into the aubergine, and the meats — aside from any sauce, the meat itself was just… flavourless. Everything seemed to need a sprinkle of salt. The monkfish was a bit overcooked, it was a bit firm and dry. In Asian cooking, its common to have a sweetened soy sauce base for sauces, but I felt there was too much sugar.
In general, there were lots of different flavors that hit the palate, thats for sure! But I think a lot of it needs more balance.
We were still hungry in the end, but didn’t want to order anything else from the menu, so we crept onto dessert. Normally we’d order at least 2 – 3 desserts to share, but we decided to play it safe with the molten chocolate lava cake. As mentioned before, I’m not a chocoholic (though I have a soft spot for dark chocolate), but I felt it needed a bit more of a chocolate sweetness to it. I prefer preferred the grocery store molten bake-​at-​home ramekins by Gu…
Anyhow, on the way home after dinner — I leafed through The Evening Standard, which had printed out their review on HoH, and echoes how I felt about the food. They also made the same comment about Gu. Funny enough, The Metro also did their review the next morning, with similar sentiments. Though I usually don’t pay attention to the reviews in the papers, we were on the same page when it came to HoH.
For 4 people, 10’ish dishes, and 4 cocktails, it came to about £32 /​person. I felt the quality of the food didn’t justify the price tag, so I don’t think I’d come back here again. If the food was good, then hell yes — we would have put down more money on a few more dishes, but most of them were a bit of a let down. We were still hungry in the end, so we hurried over to Chinatown before Yan Guang Supermarket closed — they serve steamed pork buns for £1.70. Yep, these little buns saved the day. In fact, maybe the best thing I ate all evening…

House of Ho is a new modern Vietnamese eatery that has just opened up in Soho, and currently on soft launch with 50% off food. It officially opens on January 6^th.
I enjoyed my visit but I wasn’t blown away. but perhaps that may have been because my date and my own dietary requirements limited our experiences. Also I also am not quite sure they grasp the concept of vegetarianism, I have a sneaky suspicion there were pork rinds on the wild mushroom wraps but what we don’t know, makes things begrudgingly tastier I guess.
To set the scene the restaurant is modern exposed brick work chic. The staff are ultra polite and kept checking we were happy. Plates are generally for sharing, and they recommend 6 in total for a couple — I think 5 may have sufficed as I was pretty stuffed at the end and didn’t have room sadly for dessert. The menu isn’t the largest but there were enough vegetarian variations for my beau. We ordered the aforementioned wild mushroom wraps. I only ate one, but thought they were pretty delicious, my partner who ate the rest said they could have done with a bit more kick and flavour.
I had the salmon tartare — which was also good but could have done with something else too, even though there were some side seasonings with it. We also had a vegetarian version of their chicken potato curry — this was absolutely my favourite dish of the night. The sauce was wonderful and didn’t over power the generous and well prepared vegetables, and I can only imagine how good the original chicken version would have been. We also had tofu stuffed with vegetables in a spicy sauce and smokey aubergine — a vietnamese version of baba ganoush I’d say — yummy.
And I believe restaurant owner and TV chef Bobby Chinn may have come by to check on us but being oblivious I asked him about the whereabouts of my chicken wings — which I fear may have been forgotten about. A missed opportunity to chat with him about the restaurant. However a win in other ways as he kindly brought the wings over to my table and oh my they were so amazing, soft, and tender and yummy. I felt very gluttonous eating them on my own but one of the perils of marrying a vegetarian.
They didn’t serve coffee at all when we asked and I think I was hoping for something a bit more inventive in the tea menu. Still they had delicious coconut water to drink, and what looked like a decent cocktail menu.
So overall the menu with 50% off food and with service came to £30. Very reasonable if you can make it to the soft launch in the last few days. I’d recommend House of Ho outside of that discount period though. Although the restaurant didn’t quite hit the 5 out of 5 stars spot for me. Perhaps the music as a little bit too loud — the speaker was right above our table, or maybe it was hearing one of the chefs order the waitress to go ‘faster faster’ with the food, or maybe i am just mourning the lack of soupy phở goodness at Ho and am not modern enough for modern Vietnamese. I helpfully can’t quite put my finger on why but regardless it was good and I left feeling full to the bring and satisfied. The end.