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Man has eaten at over 6000 Chinese restaurants in US, his personal top 10 list

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RiccochetJ

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
FFS. I've been down in the US for over 10 years and I still haven't found a restaurant that serves ginger beerf :mad:

Fake edit:
Based on this thread, I finally looked it up and apparently it's a western Canada thing and not actually from originally from China. That's why...

DAMMIT!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_beef
 
T

Timbuktu

Member
From his reasoning, i think London can easily have better Chinese restaurants than the whole of the US. The best HK cooks are probably taken by the big Macau hotels nowadays though.
 
J

- J - D -

Member
sprsk said:
If you think "Chinese food" in a Styrofoam box is good food you are unsophisticated.
Click to expand...

Hey, man, don't knock styrofoam boxes. There are numerous hole in the wall places that serve some surprisingly good stuff, many of it homestyle, in styrofoam boxes.

Next thing you're gonna say is stay away from taco trucks, no way the tacos would be any good.
 
C

ccbfan

Member
I agree and this is coming form a New Yorker.

The best 3 Chinese food cities in NA is Vancouver, SF then LA.

New York City is probably 4th but is actually pretty below par compared the West coast. Also Chinese food in Manhattan sucks. The best Chinese food in New York is in Flushing (This is also where the best Korean food is in New York).
 
T

t26

Member
Timbuktu said:
From his reasoning, i think London can easily have better Chinese restaurants than the whole of the US. The best HK cooks are probably taken by the big Macau hotels nowadays though.
Click to expand...

The best HK chef are probably in Toronto/Vancouver/Australia.


As for people wondering why there isn't a lot of Northern Chinese food on the list, you have to remember where the Chinese population came from. In San Francisco it is overwhelmingly Southern China.
 
C

Criminal Upper

Banned
Love all the butt hurt in this thread. It couldn't makes MORE sense why the west coast has the better Chinese food. It's about 5 billions times easier for Chinese immigrants from CHINA to settle in the west coast than the east.

Canada rules all though.
 
M

mrkgoo

Member
Most of what you call Chinese food is probably not what the writer was eating.

Your typical fast food Chinese is such an old outdated style.
 
F

FStop7

Banned
mrkgoo said:
Most of what you call Chinese food is probably not what the writer was eating.

Your typical fast food Chinese is such an old outdated style.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if you look at the photos of the food from the #1 restaurant you can see it's more authentic than the Americanized stuff we're mostly used to.

I still have kind of a hard time believing that all of the best ones are in norcal/socal. I'd think there'd be at least one in Vegas, for example.
 
Goro Majima

Goro Majima

Kitty Genovese Member
But....I like greasy Americanized 90s Chinese food :(

If I want "fancy" Asian cuisine, I usually just go to an Americanized Sushi bar or get Americanized Thai food.

(I'm operating under the assumption that 98% of the stuff I've had is Americanized. Chinese friends told me that everything here has too much sugar (Coke chicken is apparently the real deal though)
 
T

ThatCrazyGuy

Member
Din Tai Fung is the bomb my peoples!

I need to hit up all the other spots on this list.

I would too like to see a top 10 for each state or something like that from him.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
LQX said:
Figured NY would win this hands down. Chinese food outside of NY tends to be made by whites so it's not as authentic.
Click to expand...

lolololololololololol
Monterey Park is 48% Chinese and two-thirds Asian... but I'm sure their chefs are all white.
Alhambra is 52% Asian, the vast majority Chinese.
 
S

Soma

Member
I've been to #7 once or twice when I lived in SF. Definitely some amazing dim sum there.

And I know I've passed by Jai Yun a few times but I don't think I've stepped inside unfortunately. I'll have to check that and Koi Palace out next time I'm in the city.
 
T

ThatCrazyGuy

Member
TAJ said:
lolololololololololol
Monterey Park is 48% Chinese and two-thirds Asian... but I'm sure their chefs are all white.
Click to expand...

Yea, don't think that guy has been to the Asian parts of San Gabriel Valley. I doubt there is white dudes cooking anything, heh.
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
I don't care what anyone says: Americanized Chinese food is the fucking bomb.

Despite nearly every restaurant serving the same exact thing that tastes the exact same.

General Tsao's, some sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, crab and cheese rangoons, a little bottle of Kikkomen and some sweet/sour sauce and it's like eating at a Michelin starred restaurant.
 
A

A Pretty Panda

fuckin' called it, man
Favorite chinese dishes go!

For dim sum I love this shit.
0N7BW.jpg


For like a dinner thing I love peking porkchops
VqFur.jpg


For americanized stuff I guess it'd be sesame chicken.
 
3

3phemeral

Member
2. Sea Harbour, Rosemead, California (Los Angeles area)
3. Elite Restaurant, Monterey Park, California (Los Angeles area)
4. King Hua, Alhambra, California (Los Angeles area)
6. Din Tai Fung, Arcadia, California (Los Angeles area)
Click to expand...

I've eaten at these places quite a few times and thought they were good, but I've never eaten outside of Alhambra (Michigan doesn't have much in the way of Chinese food, but they have some interesting Thai...food in Grand Rapids).

I never really thought they'd be considered the absolute best (considering my only experience has been Alhambra/Rosemead/Pasadena/San Garbiel), but what I bolded ware quite excellent for my tastes. Din Tai Fung Dumpling has some excellent, super juicy dumplings (and I mean, literally filled like a bag of juice in addition to the filling); Elite Restaurant has a good selection of Dim Sum for relatively cheap prices - most their stuff was excellent (I can't vouch for the seafood, though, since I don't eat it), and King Hua was also quite good. At all these places, for 10 bucks you can get your ass stuffed beyond belief and have awesome food.

I'm so glad to be heading back for a month and a half next week.
 
D

dakkumauji

Member
Not surprised with Koi Palace being number one.

It is always crowded and the lines there are pretty long.

As good as it is, I prefer going to much less crowded places with decent food.

Though, I wasn't aware that number 7 was that good. I think I always passed by it to my mom's workplace and never really gave it a second thought.
 
shira

shira

Member
bengraven said:
I don't care what anyone says: Americanized Chinese food is the fucking bomb.

Despite nearly every restaurant serving the same exact thing that tastes the exact same.

General Tsao's, some sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, crab and cheese rangoons, a little bottle of Kikkomen and some sweet/sour sauce and it's like eating at a Michelin starred restaurant.
Click to expand...
That's because American fuck yeah Chinese food is loaded with salt/sugar/MSG

Traditional Chinese food has a lot less.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
madmook said:
Fuck LA, you mean the San Gabriel Valley, which occupies 70% of this list.
Click to expand...

Los Angeles County. I'll allow it. /millslane
 
bengraven

bengraven

Member
shira said:
That's because American fuck yeah Chinese food is loaded with salt/sugar/MSG

Traditional Chinese food has a lot less.
Click to expand...

That's cool. I'd be open to trying traditional food and I guarantee it's much healthier.

But I don't care. Honestly. It's hard to hear someone talk about how horrible a person you are for liking something, but I genuinely enjoy eating the food quite a bit so I just kind of fingers in the ear "la la la" my way past foodies when they whine.

I suppose it's like an occasional drug user who's not addicted, snorts a line or two every couple months at a party, really really likes it, but knows too much would be bad and is fine without it, but he's not going to stop loving those moments when he is high on it.
 
B

Big-E

Member
Couldn't disagree more. I am from Vancouver and we have Hong Kong food on lockdown and I am enjoying the mainland food here in China a lot more. Hong Kong food is more bland and less diverse than what you can get on the mainland.
 
C

CTE

Member
Big-E said:
Couldn't disagree more. I am from Vancouver and we have Hong Kong food on lockdown and I am enjoying the mainland food here in China a lot more. Hong Kong food is more bland and less diverse than what you can get on the mainland.
Click to expand...

He already said in the article that Vancouver and Toronto has the best in North America. This is just for the US.
 
T

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Big-E said:
Couldn't disagree more. I am from Vancouver and we have Hong Kong food on lockdown and I am enjoying the mainland food here in China a lot more. Hong Kong food is more bland and less diverse than what you can get on the mainland.
Click to expand...

The USA annexed Vancouver? Man, I really haven't been paying attention to the news.
 
Proelite

Proelite

Member
Author should have specifically said best Cantonese food in America, because some people might prefer Sichuan.

The best Sichuan place in Manhattan is the Hot Kitchen in East Village. I highly recommend everything there except for the seafood dishes. My favorite dish, steamed pork belly with buns, ironically isn't spicy at all.
 
H

Henchmen21

Banned
There's a place that recently opened up here in Utah around my neighborhood that is frankly awful. Everyone I know says that Panda Express is crap and nothing more than a chain but they still have the best Orange chicken that I've ever had.
 
H

Hasphat'sAnts

Member
Spent a summer in Alhambra/Monterrey Park. I've been to 5 on this list.

Pretty depressing if they are the best America has to offer.

The most authentic available would be Cantonese cuisine because of the established immigrant communities, but it doesn't me they are the best. It all really comes down to taste.
 
N

numble

Member
Big-E said:
Couldn't disagree more. I am from Vancouver and we have Hong Kong food on lockdown and I am enjoying the mainland food here in China a lot more. Hong Kong food is more bland and less diverse than what you can get on the mainland.
Click to expand...
I agree. I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, and now live and work in Hong Kong, I also went to school in NYC. But I've spent significant time all over the Mianland. I find something like the streets around Central Minority University in Beijing to be more culinary interesting, and there's a serious deficiency of certain types of Mainland food in Hong Kong, like Xinjiang food or Lanzhou Muslim food, but even Sichuan food is more rare than it is in Beijing. And of course there isn't as much in the way of street food. I know Hong Kongers who went to school in Beijing and they also miss the food; I showed one photos of a Xinjiang street cart in New York City and they say it's because it's easier for Xinjiang people to immigrate to America than to Hong Kong.

CTE said:
He already said in the article that Vancouver and Toronto has the best in North America. This is just for the US.
Click to expand...

TAJ said:
The USA annexed Vancouver? Man, I really haven't been paying attention to the news.
Click to expand...
He's talking about the author's focus on Hong Kong food, particularly saying that virtually all Chinese agree that Hong Kong has the best Chinese food. Remember 6/10 of the restaurants are Dim Sum (Hong Kong) and another one is yet another Hong Kong restaurant.
 
E

etiolate

Banned
I would like to try a high end, healthier version of american chinese food, but the gf hates american chinese food. The best place I knew of closed down some years ago. Most of what I eat now is Cantonese style, namely dim sum.

Haven't been to any of the places listed here yet, but I'll probably hit up the SF ones.
 
N

NinjaMouse

Member
Now I've had some darn good Chinese food here in NYC, but I have to admit, the BEST I've had was in Orange County, CA. The dim sum there was unreal. Jing Fong in Chinatown, NYC is pretty excellent, but the stuff in OC was out of this world. I don't remember the name of the place, though =(
 
A

Acid08

Banned
Big-E said:
Couldn't disagree more. I am from Vancouver and we have Hong Kong food on lockdown and I am enjoying the mainland food here in China a lot more. Hong Kong food is more bland and less diverse than what you can get on the mainland.
Click to expand...

People from Vancouver support a shit hockey team and cannot read!
 
H

Hasphat'sAnts

Member
Big-E said:
Couldn't disagree more. I am from Vancouver and we have Hong Kong food on lockdown and I am enjoying the mainland food here in China a lot more. Hong Kong food is more bland and less diverse than what you can get on the mainland.
Click to expand...

Cantonese food has a lot of seafood and they don't want to cover up the taste of the raw materials.

There are 8 different styles of cuisine in China and each have their specialties.
 
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