3112 Newport Blvd.
Newport Beach, CA 92663
Every so often there's a restaurant that I have to double-check to make sure I haven't written a review for yet. After nearly 950 different restaurant reviews on this blog in 13 years, it's possible I could have forgotten one or two, especially at my advanced age. I did double-check, and this is definitely my first review on this blog of Ho Sum Bistro in Newport Beach.
You'll have to excuse me for thinking I've reviewed this restaurant before. Back about twenty years ago, I spent quite a lot of time on the Balboa Peninsula hopping from bar to bar at least three to four times a week. Yes, it was great fun, but now that I'm older I love my quiet nights on the couch. Back then with all of the beverages I consumed, it was imperative that I get a good base of food before imbibing with too many cocktails. One spot that was in my heavy rotation was Ho Sum Bistro.
It has been about 15 or so years since I have eaten here. During that time they had a fire that closed them for over a year, but they have been back from that setback for four years now. Ho Sum is kind of stuck in a time warp. Their website uses Mapquest to share their location, they have two newspaper reviews that they proudly share on their website, from 2002 and 2005, and they use the term 'Califoriental' to describe their food, which some might find offensive in this day and age.
The Ho Sum Bistro menu is divided into salads, soups, veggie dishes, noodles, dim sum, mu shu, rice options, and other specialties. Only one item on their very big menu will set you back more than $17, which could be considered a steal in this neighborhood. Ho Sum is also well known for its Sunday champagne brunch, an all-you-can-eat affair, with unlimited veggie fried rice, salads, and six of their most popular dim sum offerings for $20 a person. Unfortunately, we were not here during brunch hours, so it would be the regular menu for us. Let's see if Ho Sum Bistro is just as good as I remember it from back in the day.
The six of us decided to divide and conquer the menu at Ho Sum Bistro. For the most part, we ordered what we wanted and decided to eat family-style. I do not recall which one of us picked these Crispy Crab Bellies ($10.25), but they should not be allowed to pick the next time the six of us go out. These reminded me of Hot Pockets filled with cream cheese and what I believe was imitation crab meat. This was served with a citrus-ginger sauce, which did these no favors. I had one bite and discarded the rest. One of my worst bites of 2022 so far.
My dad is not really a big fan of family-style eating, so he ordered this Small Hot and Sour Soup ($6.49) for himself. He called this great. He loved the veggies and flavor of it. It was filled with vegetables and had a very pleasing sour taste, which he really enjoyed. It did look good from across the table.
Katie was excited to try these Cha Sui Bao ($11.25 each). This was another thing that I was less than thrilled about. The bao was very doughy and the ratio of dough to pork was way off. I could not even get a good taste of the barbecued pork inside. Another miss for me.
No one will confuse these Ho Sum Dumplings ($9.75) with anything that you could get at Din Tai Fung or any other place serving dumplings. They were filled with very little chicken and the promised spicy cilantro sauce was anything but spicy. These were okay, but if you are a fan of dumplings at more famous spots, you will be disappointed by these.
Forget for a minute that Ho Sum Bistro still calls this an Oriental Artichoke ($9.25). What makes this Asian? It's basically a halved steamed artichoke with sweet and sour sauce poured over it with some sesame seeds thrown in. Not exactly the most authentic Asian food I've ever seen, and not even really a good-tasting item. The sweet and sour sauce was very overpowering and it did not really inspire me to eat much of this. Skip it.
When these Crispy Filled Chicken Wontons ($9.75) first hit the table I thought they had made a mistake and given us coconut shrimp instead, but these were indeed chicken. The breading was very thick but was crispy. There was not a lot of chicken in here, but this was still the best starter that we had this evening.
When you go on Yelp and check out Ho Sum Bistro, you will see that they get a lot of love for two things, their combo salad, and their fried rice. My brother-in-law selected the Large Shrimp Fried Rice ($14.25). This was very large portion size and with the price of shrimp these days, a very reasonably priced entree. Along with the rather large shrimp, they added bean sprouts, mushrooms, shredded carrots, and cabbage to the brown-tinged rice. This was not very greasy or oily and was enough for lunch the next day for Jarrod.
Another Katie pick was this Greg's Garlic Chicken ($14.25). Lightly fried chicken pieces were served with a whole cavalcade of vegetables. This was fine, but I was definitely hoping for a lot more garlic, as I did not detect any in the bites I had. Not an awful dish, but just a little bland.
As I was eating this Half Combo Salad ($9.95) I was confused as to why I liked it so much. I couldn't stop shoveling it in. It's a mix of their chicken and sesame salads. It has not changed in the fifteen years since I had it, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it since I last had it fifteen years ago. The red ginger and sesame oil and vinegar dressings work well together, coating the shredded chicken and lettuce perfectly so each bite is balanced nicely. This was the half version, which is enough for three adults, so unless you are hosting a football team, there's probably no need to order the full-sized salad. I took the rest of mine home, and it did not really keep too well the next day.
The Califoriental Rice ($10.95) was our last item of the evening. This chicken, vegetable, and rice dish was pretty uninspiring. It was really quite plain tasting, it needed some textural contrasts, and required some soy sauce to wake it up a bit. Not a big fan.
If it wasn't for the combo salad and the shrimp fried rice, this visit to Ho Sum Bistro would have been a complete waste. Yes, the prices here are low and the portion sizes are way more than generous, but if those two things mean more to you than quality, you may have found your new favorite restaurant. Ho Sum Bistro has been around since 1987, and maybe back then people did not know what Asian food should taste like. I'm hoping that in the 34 years since then we have evolved a bit, but I have my doubts.
Out of five lollipops, (because Shirley Temple used to vacation in Newport Beach during the summer when she was a kid, and she sang the song Good Ship Lollipop in her movie Bright Eyes back in 1934), five being best to zero being worst, Ho Sum Bistro gets 1.5 lollipops.
For more information about Ho Sum Bistro, head to their website by clicking here: http://www.hosumbistro.com/index.html
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