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House of Ho is a Vietnamese restaurant, conveniently located on Old Compton Street in Soho. They offer a contemporary menu with a nod to Vietnam’s culinary culture, keeping the menu light, healthy and low-fat (as much as possible). We at Vada visited Ho for a mid-week dinner, pleasantly surprised by the enticing atmosphere, bamboo interior and red décor.
After being guided to our window seat, tucked away from the 10m-long bar, giving us a great view of the world passing, we relaxed deliberating the most important decision of the day: what were we going to eat? House of Ho’s menu is not traditional, in place of a starter and main, you choose from a range of dishes, each designed to be shared.
We chose the coconut lemongrass steamed prawn rolls with vegetables noodles (£5.50), Bobby’s (the chef) shredded chicken pomelo salad (£9), crispy marinated squid (£8.50), grilled octopus (more delicious than it sounds, so don’t be squeamish) (£7.50), griddled duck breast (£13.50) and ’shaking beef’ (£12).
Our top three dishes were the smokey duck – which melted in the mouth, the octopus – meaty and well cooked with the choice of four flavours (smoked black pepper, smoked sea salt, kumquat and chilli) and our absolute favourite: the 30 day-aged grass-fed Aberdeen Angus beef – a must try!
The wine list is by no means the best in Soho, but asian-fusion food often warrants a cocktail or two, Sake or a chilled beer such as Singha all of which Ho provide. Having said this, we accompanied our dinner with a bottle of chilean Chardonnay (£31).
Ho is reasonably priced (within London) for authentic Vietnamese food (under £30 per person for plenty of food alone).
If you’ve got any room left, House of Ho offer their own form of Happy Endings, a small selection of seductive desserts. We recommend the Lemon scented Crème Brûlée.
House of Ho is located at 55-59 Old Compton Street, London, W1D 6HW. For menus, information about the chef behind the food (Bobby Chinn) or to book a table, visit Ho online at houseofho.co.uk.
