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Food guide

How to find good Chinese food

There is no such thing as Chinese food in the sense the phrase is usually used. There are at least eight major regional cuisines that differ from each other roughly as much as Italian differs from Swedish, and the most useful thing you can do is learn which one you want.

What separates a good one from a bad one

  • A regional identity, stated — Sichuan, Hunan, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Dongbei, Xinjiang, Fujianese. A restaurant that names its region is cooking something specific. One that offers all of it is cooking a takeout menu.
  • Two menus, or a second page — Common and worth asking about. Many restaurants run a translated regional menu alongside the American-Chinese one, and it is frequently where the good food is.
  • Wok hei — The smoky char of a properly hot wok, unmistakable in fried rice, chow fun and stir-fried greens. Underpowered burners cannot produce it.
  • Vegetables cooked with attention — Stir-fried greens with garlic is the cheapest thing on many menus and one of the best tests of the kitchen.
  • Numbing, not just hot — For Sichuan food specifically. Real Sichuan peppercorn produces a tingling numbness distinct from chilli heat. Its absence means the kitchen is cooking Sichuan-style rather than Sichuan.

What to order

  • Sichuan — Mapo tofu, dan dan mian, shuizhu fish, dry-fried green beans. Numbing and hot, and far more varied than its reputation.
  • Cantonese — Dim sum, roast meats, steamed fish, clay pots. The most restrained and technically demanding of the major cuisines.
  • Hunan — Hotter than Sichuan and without the numbing. Smoked and cured meats, pickled chillies.
  • Shanghainese — Xiao long bao, red-braised pork, drunken chicken. Sweeter and richer, soy and sugar forward.
  • Dongbei / Northeastern — Wheat rather than rice, cumin lamb, dumplings, pickled cabbage. Hearty and increasingly common in American cities.
  • Xinjiang — Uyghur cooking — hand-pulled laghman, cumin lamb skewers, big plate chicken. Central Asian rather than East Asian in character.
  • American Chinese — General Tso's, crab rangoon, chop suey. A genuine and historically significant American regional cuisine. Judge it on its own terms rather than as a failed imitation.

Where to find Chinese food

Open listings put 30,057 Chinese restaurants across the US. These are the cities and campuses with the most of them.

Cities with the most

New York, NY 853 Philadelphia, PA 363 Chicago, IL 338 San Francisco, CA 292 Los Angeles, CA 256 Houston, TX 215 Las Vegas, NV 193 Orlando, FL 133 San Jose, CA 124 Portland, OR 119 Sacramento, CA 115 Baltimore, MD 113

Campuses with the most within a mile

NYU 177 Pace University 160 BMCC 148 Touro University 135 CUNY Graduate Center 131 Baruch 131 FIT 115 The New School 112 Jefferson 77 Community College of Philadelphia 69

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.

Chinese food near campus

How Savor Scout looks for it

Chinese searches key off regional names first. Searching for Sichuan food returns kitchens whose menus and reviews use Sichuan vocabulary rather than the highest-rated restaurant with the word Chinese on the sign, and mentions of a separate or translated menu are treated as a strong positive signal.

Find Chinese 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

Where to eat with a big group Where to eat on a Sunday night Where to eat late at night Where to eat when half the group is vegetarian