Savor Scout › Food guides › Chinese BBQ
How to find good Chinese BBQ (siu mei)
Siu mei — Cantonese roast meats — hang in the windows of barbecue shops: lacquered ducks, red-edged char siu and slabs of crackling pork belly. A combination over rice is one of the best cheap lunches anywhere.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Char siu with charred edges — Sweet, sticky, red-edged barbecue pork. It should be juicy, with caramelised corners.
- Roast duck with crisp skin — Lacquered, aromatic, served with its juices.
- Siu yuk crackling that shatters — Crispy roast pork belly. The crackling should be light and bubbly.
- Fresh batches through the day — Good shops roast several times a day.
- Ginger-scallion oil — The classic condiment, served with chicken and pork.
What to order
- Two-meat combination on rice — Char siu and roast duck.
- Siu yuk — Crispy pork belly, by the pound.
- Soy sauce chicken — Poached and glossy.
- Wonton noodles with char siu — As a meal.
- A pound to take home — For dinner.
Where to find Chinese BBQ
Chinese BBQ is mostly found at Chinese restaurants, so that is where to look. Open listings put 30,324 of them across the US, and these are the cities and campuses with the most.
Cities with the most
New York, NY 855 Philadelphia, PA 364 Chicago, IL 339 San Francisco, CA 293 Los Angeles, CA 258 Houston, TX 215 Las Vegas, NV 195 Orlando, FL 133
Campuses with the most within a mile
NYU 178 Pace University 160 BMCC 148 Touro University 135 Baruch 132 The Graduate Center 131
A few to start with
- 8A Sakura Sushi — New York, NY
8 Murray St, New York - China Fast Wok — Philadelphia, PA
1500 John F Kennedy Blvd, Philadelphia - Silk Road & Cafe Juice — Chicago, IL
19 S LaSalle St, Chicago - Shanghai China Restaurant — San Francisco, CA
1559 Mission St, San Francisco - Peking Tavern — Los Angeles, CA
236 S Los Angeles St suite g, Los Angeles - Hunan River Express — Houston, TX
1200 Smith St, Houston
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.
How Savor Scout looks for it
The search reads for siu mei, char siu, roast duck and Cantonese BBQ, and treats a window of hanging meats in reviewers' photos and descriptions as a strong signal.
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.
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Houston, TX
- Philadelphia, PA
- Phoenix, AZ
- San Antonio, TX
- San Diego, CA
- Dallas, TX
- San Jose, CA
- Austin, TX
- Indianapolis, IN
- Jacksonville, FL
- San Francisco, CA
- Columbus, OH
- Charlotte, NC
- Fort Worth, TX
- Detroit, MI
- El Paso, TX
- Memphis, TN
- Seattle, WA
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Boston, MA
- Nashville, TN
- Baltimore, MD
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Louisville, KY
- Portland, OR
- Las Vegas, NV
- Milwaukee, WI
- Albuquerque, NM
- Tucson, AZ
- Fresno, CA
- Sacramento, CA
- Long Beach, CA
- Kansas City, MO
- Mesa, AZ
- Virginia Beach, VA
- Atlanta, GA
- Colorado Springs, CO
- Omaha, NE
- Raleigh, NC
- Miami, FL
- Oakland, CA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tulsa, OK
- Cleveland, OH
- Wichita, KS
- Arlington, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Bakersfield, CA
- Tampa, FL
- Honolulu, HI
- Aurora, CO
- Anaheim, CA
- Santa Ana, CA
- St. Louis, MO
- Riverside, CA
- Corpus Christi, TX
Related food guides
Cantonese food, Peking duck, Chinese food