Chef Ho's

I've been a satisfied regular for about a year. However, our last order for the parchment shrimp was disappointing. Even so, what was most bothersome was their lack of apology. Far from shrimp seasoned with salt and pepper, lightly fried, and topped with ginger, as described, the shrimp were covered with a heavy flour coating of some sort which seemed to be an uncooked afterthought, as though they were so busy they weren't able to finish what they started. I sent it back. While I can make allowances for a mistake because of being unusually busy due to the weather, it was the lack of an apology and admission that the dish was not prepared properly. They refunded the cost, but they refused to at least say they were sorry. "Nobody else complained," they kept saying. That's all. "It didn't seem to occur to them that possibly other people didn't complain because they received the dish the way it was supposed to be and that mine was a mistake because they were so busy, or that sometimes people don't bother complaining-- they just don't order it again. I've only had to send food back one other time in my life. It was a French bistro. They couldn't have been nicer about it. Not only did they not charge us for the dish, they served us dessert at no charge.

I go back just for the Peking duck, but after last night's experience it's unlikely we'll be patronizing this place again. We had Peking duck for 2, and also ordered Chef Ho's Beef and a Bean Curd dish. Service was extremely slow. We waited a good 25-30 minutes before our duck was served. The previous time we were there, the waiter tore every single Peking duck roll that he wrapped for us so the sauce was dripping down our hands as we ate the duck rolls. This time the rolls were only partly torn. However, the beef had way too much breading and tasted more like bread than beef (not good for a highly recommended dish), and the bean curd was extremely salty. I generally like to add a lot of salt to my food, but this was even too much salt for me. The sauce on the bean curd dish tasted like it was pure soy sauce poured onto the bean curd and then they added some corn starch to thicken the sauce. I was extremely disppointed with their food and could probably get better Chinese food at a take out place.

I just ordered in sesame chicken. It was completely burnt and they didn't even cook it in the tangey orangey sauce, it was this weird brown sauce. The egg rolll was also very overdone.

I've been going to Chef Ho's for many years, and I find that it is consistently the best Chinese I've had in NY. I especially like their dried hunan shredded beef which is very difficult to find at other Chinese restaurants.

I ordered takeout (on May 7th 2010) fried rice and it was burnt dark brown and tasteless for no reason. I also ordered BBQ ribs and they were burnt crusty and old looking once i took it out the bag - some meat was off the bone - like burned off - tortured like - I was so surprised at a restaurant in the 80s serving takeout like this - I should have known once it was ready within 5 minutes.

terrible quality. barely any meat, mostly breading. amateur attempt. will not order again. threw most of it out.

Ok another NYC story. Ordered from Chef Ho and they told us 1 hour for credit card orders. 45 minutes for cash. Huh?