Chef Ho

Chef Philip Ho in Sunny Isles Beach shines with some of the best dim sum and Chinese fare in the city. Ho is no stranger to Asian fare with flair: He worked as the dim sum chef at the Setai for several years before opening this place of his own. The dim sum selections are on the menu during the week but get rolled through the dining room on carts during weekends. That's the way to go -- what you see is what you get. You can hardly go wrong with any selection, because the cuisine is uniformly impressive. Some of the hits: congee, a rice porridge that isn't offered often locally; chive and shrimp dumplings; steamed green-tea duck dumplings; scallop and black truffle dumplings (!); rice crêpes wrapped around various fillings; taro cakes; shumai; and barbecued spare ribs. The non-dim sum portion of the menu knocks it out of the park as well, from thin hand-pulled noodles coated and threaded with chopped shiitake mushrooms to a lean loin of honey-sweetened barbecued pork to amazing house-made tofu and eggplant in black-bean-chili sauce -- alone worth the drive. Don't miss the egg custard tart with black truffles or the steamed egg custard lava bun for dessert. What else can we say? Go to Ho!