Savor Scout › Food guides › Fried rice
How to find good fried rice
Fried rice is the dish every kitchen makes and few make well. The good version is smoky, light, every grain separate and coated — not wet, brown and heavy with soy.
What separates a good one from a bad one
- Wok hei — The smoky flavour of rice tossed in a very hot wok. It is the main thing that separates great fried rice from average.
- Separate grains — Day-old rice that is dry enough to fry rather than steam.
- Light seasoning — Salt, a little soy, white pepper. Dark, soggy fried rice is over-sauced.
- Egg scrambled in — Small, fluffy bits of egg through the rice.
- Regional variations — Yangzhou, Thai with fish sauce and lime, Indonesian nasi goreng, Japanese garlic rice, Hawaiian with Spam.
What to order
- Yangzhou fried rice — With shrimp, char siu and egg.
- Thai crab fried rice — With lime.
- Salted fish and chicken fried rice — Cantonese, savoury.
- Kimchi fried rice — With a fried egg.
- Pineapple fried rice — Thai-style.
Where to find Fried rice
Fried rice 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 wok hei, smoky and not greasy, and lets you specify a regional style so you are not handed a generic takeout version.
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
Chinese food, Thai food, Indonesian food