‘Masterchef’ Winner Christine Ha Has a New Houston Restaurant in the Works [Updated]

After the wildly successful opening of her stall The Blind Goat at Bravery Chef Hall, it looks like Masterchef winner Christine Ha has an exciting new standalone restaurant in the works.

Filings with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts indicate that a new spot called Xin Chao, which means “hello” in Vietnamese, will open at 2310 Decatur Street, inside the space that formerly housed Decatur Bar & Pop-Up Factory. Business filings for an LLC established for the restaurant back in December list Ha as a managing partner in the project, her first full-service restaurant in Houston.

Following Eater Houston’s reporting on Ha’s new restaurant on Wednesday, the chef launched a campaign on popular crowd-investing platform NextSeed that reached its goal in less than two hours on Thursday.

In addition to Ha’s culinary expertise, the chef has also enlisted the help of chef Tony Nguyen, who operated the much-lauded (and now-shuttered) Saigon House in Midtown. When it arrives, diners can look forward to dishes like clay pot braised pork belly, Wagyu or smoky brisket pho, and tamarind king crab.

Xin Chao is expected to make its debut in May 2020.

• MasterChef Winner Christine Ha Will Open a Houston Restaurant [EHOU]