Best Restaurants in Bellaire, Houston: Chinatown and Beyond
Author
JaseBud
Date Published
The best restaurants in Bellaire, Houston sit along a six-mile stretch of Bellaire Boulevard west of Loop 610, the historic spine of Houston's Asian-American culinary district. Locals usually call this area Houston's Chinatown, even though it now also holds the city's largest concentration of Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Sichuan, and Korean kitchens. The first wave of Chinese-American businesses moved here in the early 1980s after the original Chinatown near downtown was displaced by the George R. Brown Convention Center, and the district has only grown since.
Most of the standouts sit inside strip centers — Hong Kong City Mall, Dun Huang Plaza, Welcome Food Center — and not on standalone corners. Parking is free, dinner moves quickly, and the average ticket runs about half of what you would pay for the same dish inside the Loop. Here are the rooms most worth your drive.
Dim sum
HK Dim Sum on Bellaire near Wilcrest serves classic Hong Kong-style cart dim sum from 10 a.m. daily, closing at 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 9 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Steamed shrimp har gow, baked barbecue pork bun, and turnip cake are the standards. Lines build by 11 a.m. on weekends. Fung's Kitchen, off the boulevard at 7320 Southwest Freeway, has a quieter banquet feel and serves dim sum from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; it is closed Mondays.
Sichuan and northern Chinese
Mala Sichuan Bistro on Bellaire opened in 2011 and introduced Sichuan cooking to Asiatown, named for the mouth-numbing peppercorn at the center of most dishes. Try the cumin lamb, the mapo tofu, and the dry-fried green beans. San Dong Noodle House makes hand-pulled noodles and dumplings in house — get the beef noodle soup. Both are weeknight-friendly.
Vietnamese
Saigon Pagolac on Bellaire is the long-standing pick for bo 7 mon, a seven-course beef tasting eaten in lettuce wraps; it is closed Mondays. Pho Binh, with a room on Bellaire Boulevard, sells what many locals consider Houston's best pho. Crawfish & Noodles on Bellaire west of Wilcrest fuses Vietnamese and Gulf Coast traditions during crawfish season. Note that this stretch of the boulevard is not the city of Bellaire itself, which sits several miles east toward Loop 610; Bellaire's small-town center is a separate destination, and a quiet contrast to the boulevard.
More around Bellaire
For more to do nearby, see our Bellaire things to do guide — most of the nightlife and weekend outings live close by.
Tips for navigating Bellaire Boulevard
Bellaire Boulevard runs east-west, and most places sit in strip centers with anchor stores in Chinese or Vietnamese signage. Cash is still common at smaller kitchens; many newer rooms now take cards. Lunch is the easiest time to get a seat. If you are visiting from out of town, our two-day Houston itinerary pairs a Chinatown lunch with the Museum District, and the best time to visit Houston guide calls out the months when crawfish, lychee season, and Lunar New Year all show up on menus.
Living nearby
If the boulevard is part of why you want to live here, you are not alone. For the larger market picture, see our Bellaire real estate snapshot.
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