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Food guide

Asian food near you: how to pick the right kind

A sign that says “Asian food” usually means one menu covering four countries, none of them well. The good version of almost every Asian cuisine comes from a kitchen that cooks one of them, so the fastest way to eat well is to decide what you are actually craving — noodle soup, rice, dumplings, grilled meat, something fresh or something fried — and let that choose the cuisine.

What counts as Asian food?

In the US it usually means East and Southeast Asian cooking: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Filipino, plus Malaysian, Indonesian, Burmese, Cambodian and Laotian kitchens. South Asian food (Indian, Pakistani, Nepali, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan) is usually listed separately. Each is its own cuisine, with its own signs of a good kitchen.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • One cuisine, cooked properly — A restaurant that cooks one country's food, or one region's, almost always cooks it better than a pan-Asian menu with sushi, pad Thai and General Tso's chicken on the same page.
  • A second menu, or specials on the wall — A section in the cuisine's own language, or a handwritten list of specials, usually means the kitchen is cooking for people who grew up eating the food.
  • Rice and noodles treated seriously — Fragrant jasmine rice, sushi rice that is seasoned and close to body temperature, noodles with spring rather than mush. The starch is where shortcuts show first.
  • Fresh herbs and real aromatics — Thai basil, mint, cilantro, lemongrass, ginger and scallion should be visible and fresh. Dried or missing herbs means a kitchen working from a bag.
  • Sauces that taste of something — Black bean, fish sauce, gochujang, curry paste: good kitchens build flavour from these. Sweet, glossy sauce on everything is the clearest sign of a menu built to offend no one.

What to order

  • Noodle soup: pho or ramen — Vietnamese pho for a clear, aromatic broth with herbs on the side; Japanese ramen for a rich, fatty one. Both are best at shops that make little else.
  • Dumplings and small plates: dim sum or izakaya — Cantonese dim sum is a daytime meal of shared steamed and fried dumplings; a Japanese izakaya is the evening version, small plates built for drinking.
  • Grilled meat: Korean barbecue or yakitori — Korean barbecue is cooked at the table with banchan alongside; yakitori is skewered chicken over charcoal, ordered a few sticks at a time.
  • Something fresh: Vietnamese or Thai salads — Fresh rolls, bun noodle salads, Thai larb and green papaya salad: sour, salty, herby and light. The best answer on a hot day.
  • Curry and rice: Thai or Japanese — Thai green, red and massaman curries are sharp and coconut-rich; Japanese curry is mild, thick and comforting, usually with a breaded cutlet.
  • Something fried and comforting — Korean fried chicken, Filipino lumpia, Taiwanese popcorn chicken, salt-and-pepper squid: twice-fried and crisp is the standard to hold them to.

The Asian food guides

Each of these goes deeper on one cuisine or dish: what to order and how to spot a good kitchen. Numbers are US listings in open map data.

Chinese food 30,057 Japanese food 13,356 Korean food 4,263 Thai food 10,627 Vietnamese food 6,912 Filipino food 1,229 Taiwanese food 410 Sichuan food Cantonese food 27 Malaysian food 146 Indonesian food 105 Burmese food 137 Cambodian food 124 Laotian food Mongolian food 289 Asian fusion food 5,604 sushi 14,100 ramen 1,911 pho dim sum 630 Korean BBQ Pad Thai banh mi dumplings 136 hot pot bibimbap

Where to find Asian food

Open listings put 97,700 Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and other East and Southeast Asian restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 3,152 Los Angeles, CA 1,571 San Francisco, CA 1,291 Chicago, IL 1,215 Las Vegas, NV 954 Seattle, WA 824 Philadelphia, PA 786 Houston, TX 751 Portland, OR 718 San Diego, CA 656 Honolulu, HI 643 San Jose, CA 621

Campuses with the most within a mile

NYU 910 The New School 803 Baruch 803 CUNY Graduate Center 785 Touro University 774 FIT 705 Pace University 460 BMCC 447 Hunter 314 John Jay 284

A few to start with

Counts are listings in Overture Maps open data (September 2026), counted by the town in each address. Independent places only in the examples above, and they are a starting point rather than a ranking.

Asian food near campus

How Savor Scout looks for it

“Asian food” is too broad to search well, so Savor Scout works better when you name the craving — “spicy noodle soup”, “Korean fried chicken”, “dim sum” — or the cuisine. It then reads menus and reviews for that dish, so a Thai place known for its khao soi comes ahead of a pan-Asian menu that happens to list it.

Find Asian food near you →

Looking in a particular city?

Each of these opens Savor Scout with the location already set, so you can say what you want and it searches from there. It covers 1,000 US cities in total — these are simply the largest.

All 1,000 cities →

When you might want this

What to do when you can't decide where to eat How to try a new cuisine What to eat on a cold rainy night Where to get a quick lunch