[3] The restaurant has been open since 1976, and has long been a "favourite late-night Chinatown dinner spot" among Toronto residents.
[3][4] Its current owner, Johnny Lu, has worked at New Ho King since he was 14 years old, and bought the restaurant in 2019.
[9] The Toronto Star food critic Gerry Shikatani praised the restaurant in a 1999 review, writing, "It is quite simple, not high-end dramatic.
[11] The reviewer Alexandra Clark in 2003 praised the restaurant's hot and sour soup, General Tso's chicken, and the garlic sauce flavoured eggplant and shrimp.
[12] In a 2008 review, Ben Kaplan of the National Post found the restaurant to be a "Cantonese greasy spoon ... as good as we've tasted any hour of the day".