A friend of mine recently started working at her alma mater on Bellaire Boulevard and asked for some lunch suggestions. I sent her a list of recommendations. One of those that I used to visit regularly when I worked on the west side was Sinh Sinh, which was an especially good value during lunchtime. Here is an adaption about it from my Houston Dining on the Cheap:
Sinh Sinh is a fair-sized and fairly pleasant, efficiently run restaurant just that continues to draw a steady crowd of area residents and office workers during the day, and a younger crowd late at night, to enjoy satisfying and inexpensive Southeast Asian cooking. The restaurant’s marquee is subtitled with “Chinese BBQ,” referring to one segment of the house specialties. In the back on one side is a glassed-in section where hanging from hooks are whole roasted ducks, burnished red in color and racks of roasted pork ribs.
These preparations will likely not appeal to those whose meat consumption consists mainly of white chicken breast. After roasting, the meats are chopped in a somewhat indiscriminate fashion then served. You will need to pick among the bones and cartilage, especially with the ducks. This can be a little annoying for those not used to it, but the meats are usually quite full of flavor and well worth the effort. From the section on the menu titled “From the BBQ Pit”, these Chinese barbecue dishes were only served until 4PM each day, though I am not sure if that is still the case. The half-dozen choices featuring the pork and duck are an excellent value.
The rest of the main menu has become streamlined (and solely English) during the past decade. Instead of the over 200 items they served about a decade ago, you’ll have to find something from the much more manageable sixty or seventy or so entrées. The rest of the fare is mostly stir-fried and deep-fried and is divided among appetizers, soups, vegetables, seafood, meat and poultry, and family dinners for four, six, eight and ten. The basic soups, especially the wonton and egg drop soups might be better than most places, and are a good way to start a meal. Then there are many beef, pork and chicken entrées, and some recognizable items like Kung Pao Chicken and Moo Goo Gai Pan.
More interesting entrées include Creamy Walnut Shrimp (battered and deep-fried jumbo shrimp served in a cream sauce with honey-glazed walnuts), Oyster Sizzling (battered and deep-fried oysters with scallions and ginger on a sizzling platter), Orange Flavor Ribs, Curry Beef Fillet, and Steak Tips with French Fried Rice. A big attraction for many patrons, and something not on the menu you might be preseneted, is the impressive array of seafood in numerous tanks on display that are scattered about the restaurant. These might be holding tilapia, a type of sole, various types of lobsters, Dungeness crab, blue crab, shrimp, prawns, giant geoduck clams, and some strange-looking denizens of the deep.
Sinh Sinh
9788 Bellaire (between Corporate and the Beltway) 77036, (713) 541-2888
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