Ding How Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in San Antonio

I don't understand the good reviews. By far the worst restaurant I've eaten at, not just the worst Chinese restaurant, the ABSOLUTE WORST restaurant. I made the mistake not looking at the photos first as I would of had an inkling about the focus on quantity over quality. Majority of the food was bland and cold.

Our family ordered the lunch specials and here are the summaries for each order:

Lemon Chicken- extremely large portion, sauce lacks depth, and rice is a weird texture and not like any fried rice I have ever seen. It is more like days old boiled rice that wasn't quite fried. The sauce is some type of red sauce. I could not eat the rice.

Sweet and Sour Pork- again, extremely large portion, sauce had no flavor and had too much gelatin or cornstarch. It was as if they microwaved it beyond the acceptable temperature and then cooled down into a goop. The meat tasted old. The food was served cold with the rice and was all inedible.

Mongolian Beef- served cold and flavorless with the rice.

Mongolian Chicken- served semi-warm and flavorless. Served with the rice.

Other food we ordered and here are the summaries for each:

Crab Rangoons- a misnomer as there was zero crab or even crab flavor in these. Just a dollop of flavorless cream cheese.

BBQ Pork Ribs- extremely chewy. It took over 30 minutes to eat one. I believe these had been previously cooked and then put either in a fryer or oven way past cooking time. This made the meat tough and inedible.

Egg drop soup- was decent and came out before the rest of the food.

Egg Roll- very large and tasty. This is the only item I actually ate in full. It came out before the food.

Iced Tea- served unsweetened and not much of a flavor.

Service

The server was pushy and wanted my husband to share his soup. He did not want to and she still brought 4 bowls despite asking for 2. Also, the servers are zigzagging everywhere with their carts. The food carts used to serve the food are dirty and have not been cleaned in a long time. Gratuity is automatically added (not sure for how many people).

Ambiance

Tables too close together and many people talking loudly. Waiting area crowded and as aforementioned, servers and other workers zigzagging through tables and crowds. Everything has years of accumulated dirt such as the restroom and walkways and the serving carts.

Conclusion

I don't understand the appeal of this place. I always saw this building but never ate here and after trying it I will never return. I don't know what Chinese food people have been eating to believe that this is the best Chinese...

Hello reader,

For context, I’m visiting from out of town and am not a San Antonio local. However, I believe my palate to be refined and my standards high. The journey began when my family drove to another local eatery— Chopsticks. However, the line was out the door and we were feeling discouraged after waiting for a few minutes. After a few google searches we came upon this restaurant and hopped back in the truck. It was a bit difficult to find parking, but before we accepted our helpless failure and got back to googling “food near me”, a single spot revealed itself to us. We made our way inside and were seated in the blink of an eye, the snap of our fingers, or even perhaps the click of a heel. What a delight! We were sat and our drink orders were taken faster than a frog on a hot rock. Again, whoopee! Then, we agreed to all get a hot and sour soup and a Pu Pu platter to start things off. The hot and sour soup was like a party in my mouth and man, it really got the party started. We decided to get two entrees to share amongst the three of our attending family members, since the appetizers had our once ravenous hunger nearly assuaged. We got the orange chicken and spicy garlic shrimp noodles— both were specials, which felt fitting for our special Sunday night family vacation dinner. When the entrees came out of the kitchen and were brought to our cozy table in the corner, my eyes boggled at the sheer enormity of these helpings! The orange chicken was fit for a football team (go cowboys!(even though I really only care about the talented cheerleading team, haha)). Anywho, though we immediately realized we needed to decide who was going to ask for the takeout containers seeing as we nearly definitely would never finish our plates, we dove in and got to tasting. I will say the platter and soup outshined their successors, but the chicken and shrimp dish were still a delight. We packed up our to go containers and finished our drinks happily. I didn’t much prefer the lighting in our corner of the establishment, finding it too bright for a dimly lit dominion yet seemly too dull for an illuminated interior. However, the conversations shared over this tasty meal brightened my day, right along with the quick customer service. Well, I’ve really outdone myself here with this review, my faithful reader, but it’s all to say you should be inclined to visit this restaurant. And if you do I hope it’s with good company on a bright sunny Sunday just like I...

Me and my boyfriend always drive by and say we would never step foot here. We've seen so many questionable things going on in the back but after multiple friends saying it's great we gave it a shot. I was so excited. We ordered the crab ragoons for appetizer and lg egg drop soup. We were actually extremely surprised. The ragoons were good even tho there wasn't any crab. The egg drop soup came with mushrooms which we enjoyed. The waitress did say the ragoons come frozen but honestly you couldn't tell. After our appetizer we were extremely excited to try our food since the first round was so good but we were quickly disappointed. I got sesame chicken. It came out 20min before my boyfriends food. He ordered the BBQ duck. I don't mind food coming out staggered but it was literally enough time to finish my meal and him just watching and talking to me lol. It really didn't bother us but I can see how annoyed some other ppl could get by that. Anyway my chicken was extremely dry. They gave me a huge plate of what looked like fried pork skins. Seriously. It wasn't appetizing to look at. The stripes of chicken were so thin and dry. It tasted like it was drenched in pork fat. I'm NEVER the type to send food back. I will take my lose and eat. I just won't return but it was so dry and inedible I had send it back to be taken off the bill. The whole time me and my boyfriend have been together I've literally never had to send a plate back, I think it's embarrassing when ppl do that. Skip to his duck. It was even worst then mine. I didn't get a picture of it but if u just imagined a rotisserie chicken that was forgotten In the back for about 15min, that was it. My boyfriend was able to eat thru his meal but we both walked out disappointed and laughed about it. Won't go back. Plus we were seated in front of the kitchen and entrance and had to see all the clutter in the office and shelves. The owner may have slight hoarder tendencies because we kept feeling like we were on kitchen nightmares and Gordon was going to waltz thru 🤣 the waitress and staff were friendly and nice. The employees seemed to have great morale and relationships so that was a plus. But the...