Diho Square, on Bellaire Boulevard just east of Ranchester Drive, is one of the shopping centers built by the family that started Houston's present Chinatown. In 1983 Hong Kong native T. D. Wong and his nephew Kenneth Li, a commercial real estate developer, together with the investor Chun Yao, developed a center at Bellaire and Ranchester, named it Diho Plaza and opened Diho Market there, the first Asian supermarket in the area. Li later told the Houston Chronicle that they chose the corner because Bellaire was a major thoroughfare running to the Medical Center, close to U.S. 59 and surrounded by houses. Diho Square, across Ranchester from Diho Plaza and anchored for years by the Welcome Food Center, was built before Dynasty Plaza and belongs to the same first wave. The family later rebranded it from its Chinese name, Ding Ho Guang Chang, as Diho Square, also known as D-Square.
Other builders followed. Dynasty Plaza, a 120,000-square-foot complex, went up in 1986 and 1987. In October 1993 thirteen bilingual Chinese and English street signs were installed along the two miles of Bellaire from Fondren Road to Beltway 8, and in 1999 Hai Du Duong opened Hong Kong City Mall on 25.5 acres farther west.
The Wong family renovated the center around 2020 and widened its mix of tenants. By late 2025 Japanese ramen, Korean barbecue, shabu-shabu and a Vietnamese dessert cafe shared its storefronts with older Chinese businesses, the same mix that has led many Houstonians to call the district Asiatown rather than Chinatown.
Getting there
29.7060, -95.5441
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