The Best Chinese Food in the United States

Perched at the water's edge in Emeryville with a full view of the San Francisco skyline, this dim sum restaurant leans hard into old-school banquet hall grandeur, crystal chandeliers, guardian lion statues, and furniture that screams wedding reception. The classics anchor the menu, barbecue buns, siu mai, lotus leaf sticky rice, and the salt and pepper calamari that nobody expects but everyone orders twice. Dim sum runs into the evening, which is rarer than you'd think.

A live tank of crabs and fish greets you at the door of this spacious Cupertino dim sum hall, which hits peak chaos on weekends when families fill the room and steamer crates stack up fast. The taro puff shaped like a swan, stuffed with scallop-flavored taro, is the kind of thing that makes the table go quiet for a second. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best for dim sum.

Mom Kitchen is a cha chaan teng on Mira Mesa Boulevard, which means a Hong Kong diner where the menu runs long, the room runs plain, and the food shows up before you've finished getting comfortable. The noodles are made in-house, the drinks include hot Ovaltine and salted lemon 7-Up, and the roast duck hangs around for the same reasons you do. Cheap, fast, and a little maternal about clean plates.

Meat on a stick is the organizing principle here, and the sticks arrive loaded, ten pieces high, with lamb cubes, duck tongues, and frog legs all in the rotation. This Jilin-style BBQ spot in the Inner Sunset is the kind of place that makes vegetarianism feel like a personal attack, though the potato discs and tofu skins are quietly essential. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best Chinese restaurants.

A Lanzhou-style hand-pulled noodle shop in a Fremont strip mall where the broth is somehow both chile-fierce and quietly soothing at the same time. The signature beef noodle soup comes with stretchy flat noodles pulled to your chosen width, tender beef, and floating coins of radish. Start with the pigs ears in chile oil if you know what's good for you. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best Chinese restaurants.

Floor-to-ceiling windows face the marina, and the room leans into it with a chandelier big enough to mean business. This is a dim sum hall in Alameda, the check-box slip-and-tray kind, with a menu that mixes traditional and modern. The baked pork puffs, shiny and sesame-flecked, are the thing to track down when the cart comes by. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's best dim sum.

Lazy Susans on every large table and clubby blue ceiling lights give this San Leandro dim sum house more party energy than you'd expect from a shopping plaza. The menu runs through the classics: taro cakes, pork siu mai, rice rolls stuffed with shrimp and yellow chives. The shrimp balls arrive so crunchy that staff split them tableside with scissors, which is a small performance worth witnessing. The San Francisco Chronicle named it among the Bay Area's top dim sum spots.

Teochew rice porridge, served in a clay pot, is what draws people to this casual Millbrae spot, and it does the job quietly and well. The gingery porridge is technically for two but has a way of multiplying when chive pancakes and an order of Chinese doughnuts join the table. Pick your add-ons, crab and prawn being the house move, then customize the bowl with scallions and preserved olive vegetables at the table.

Saigon Seafood Harbor runs a hybrid system: you fill out a paper order slip, then carts bring the food anyway. It's a dim sum parlor in a Sunnyvale strip, and the barbecue pork buns arrive with that glassy, lacquered top that signals someone is paying attention. The siu mai gets a drizzle of chile oil, and the scallop dumplings are translucent little parcels with enough celery to keep things bright. Weekend tables fill fast, so come early or come hungry enough to wait.

A downtown coffee shop and roastery that sources beans from Yunnan, China, then puts Chinese flavors in the cup, like an osmanthus latte or a Sichuan pepper mocha that tingles on the way down. The seasonal rose honey pistachio latte has its own devoted following. There are only a few tables and a wall of beans and brewing gear, so you'll mostly be ordering and leaving, or guarding a seat like it's the last lifeboat.

The biang-biang noodles here get their name from the sound of dough hitting the counter, which tells you something about the kitchen's priorities. This Outer Sunset restaurant serves Shaanxi cooking, wheat-forward and spiced from the Silk Road, with lamb playing a starring role across the menu. The owner, a former photographer from Xi'an, hung the mauve walls with art and a large shot of the terracotta army, giving the room more personality than the neighborhood expects.

Tucked just off the food court at Mekong Plaza, this Northern Chinese bao shop has outlasted neighbors that came and went while it quietly became a fixture. Handmade dumplings arrive chewy and properly sealed, with steamed buns and xiao long bao filling out the menu. Dan dan noodles and a cucumber salad round things out for anyone who wants something beyond the folded stuff. Phoenix New Times named it the best dumplings in Phoenix.

Salt-and-pepper fried chicken wings and wok-fried noodles are the draws at this casual Cantonese spot on the west side of Houston. It has been a neighborhood staple long enough that regulars tend to know what they're getting before they sit down. Save room for the Hong Kong milk tea and the deep-fried French toast, which arrives drowning in butter and condensed milk, which is exactly the kind of ending a meal like this deserves.

Biang biang noodles get their name from the sound of dough being slapped against the counter, and at this cozy noodle shop on the Ave, that wide, chewy ribbon is the whole reason you're here. The chef has been setting the local standard for years, dressing them in cumin lamb, tingly beef, or just chile oil, which turns out to be enough. Named one of Seattle Met's 50 Best Restaurants, with a second location in Bellevue if you're on that side of the lake.

The beef noodle soup here has a peppery, slow-built broth that earns its reputation quietly. This is a Taiwanese-Chinese casual spot in Irvine, the kind of place where the noodles, crispy pork chop over rice, and spicy wontons keep the room perpetually full. A few Sichuan dishes round out the menu, including a beef tendon with garlic sauce that regular customers seem to order without looking down. Fast service, warm room, zero pretension.

Lao Peng You is a tiny, no-frills dumpling and noodle spot where the dumplings arrive plump, in a dried shrimp broth, and the chile oil is homemade enough to sell by the jar. Two brothers took their grandmother's lessons and ran with them, and the noodles have a pleasing chew. Seats are scarce, so arrive early or spend the wait watching other people's dinner with open envy.

A small cut-out in the kitchen door lets you watch each dumpling wrapper get rolled, filled, and pleated by hand before it hits the boiling water. This tiny Chinese restaurant in a Point Loma strip mall specializes in dumplings from Liaoning province, alongside Dongbei beef noodle soup and rougamo flatbread sandwiches. The boba tea is made with muddled fresh fruit, which sounds like an afterthought until you order one.

Knife-cut noodles made in-house anchor the menu at this casual College Park storefront serving the bold flavors of northwest China. Mouth-numbing red chilies and black vinegar show up everywhere, from chili-oil dumplings to griddled flatbread sandwiches. Kumquat lemon tea and sour-plum juice are on hand for anyone who underestimated the heat. The University of Maryland crowd has clearly done the math on the price-to-fire ratio.

A Cantonese restaurant in the Cass Corridor doing all-day dim sum, which is reason enough to know where it is. Steamed pork buns, rice rolls, chive-and-garlic pancakes, Singapore rice vermicelli, and a hot and sour soup that earns its place on the menu. The room is small and unpretentious, with two- and four-tops filling fast, and the window seats offer a floor show the neighborhood reliably provides. Takeout moves quickly, too.

The chile oil wontons alone have pulled people across town to this downtown Sichuan restaurant, a sister to Sichuan City out in Happy Valley. The menu runs the full range of textures the cuisine is known for: crispy, tangy, soupy, and that particular mouth-numbing heat that makes you pause mid-bite. Order generously and expect your lips to tingle for a while afterward.

Finding dim sum inside a Courtyard by Marriott near West University is the kind of plot twist you normally need a map and a tip from a stranger for. Every dumpling and bun here is made to order, so nothing sits circling in a cart, and the shrimp cheung fun wraps crunchy fried shrimp in house-made rice noodles. There's a tea list and a green tea Old Fashioned, in case lunch needs a second act.

Wooden lanterns and colorful cocktails set the tone at this upscale Chinese bistro inside the Sheraton, where the chef takes Cantonese as a starting point and then wanders pleasantly off-script. Surf-and-turf kung pao and lobster rangoon signal the playful agenda, though the Forbidden Roast Duck, a five-spiced bird with crackling skin served alongside monogrammed bao buns, is the dish the table will still be talking about on the way home.

The front-of-house veteran behind this Cantonese-Sichuan brasserie grew up in his family's Chinese restaurants in Columbia, and XO reads like a fond memory made shareable. Dim sum, roast duck, and chow fun share the menu with chicken wings and caviar, which is either an identity crisis or a very good time. The cocktail list keeps pace with the food, and the crowd skews young and dressed for it.

Hand-stretched noodles tossed in chili oil are the move at this casual Chinese restaurant on North First, where the menu leans into Xian flavors: lamb with cumin, spicy lamb noodle soup, cold cucumber with garlic. The room is low-key and bright, with calligraphy on the walls and a vending machine of decorative figurines near the counter that nobody asked for but somehow fits perfectly.

The lazy Susans are built into the tables, which tells you this is a big, convivial Chinese restaurant in Mesa that expects you to arrive hungry and in numbers. The menu swings wide, from Hunan-style heat and dry pot to roasted duck and dumplings, with enough Americanized classics to keep the table's one holdout happy. The takeout bags flying out the door suggest the neighborhood has already figured this place out.

A glass-enclosed bar stocked with specialty bottles sits inside what looks, from the outside, like a busy takeout window. George Yang's is a full-scale Chinese restaurant with spinning lazy Susans for big groups, cocktails for date night, and a sprawling menu that runs from orange chicken to a Kung Pao three-seafood dish that earns its own conversation. The kind of place that handles both a family reunion and a Tuesday equally well.

An all-you-can-eat dim sum spot in Duluth doing exactly what the name promises: as much har gow, pan-fried pork buns, and sesame balls as you can manage in 90 minutes. You order in rounds, three items per person at a time, which keeps things orderly and the kitchen honest. Congee and egg fried rice fill the gaps. Bubble tea costs extra, cash gets you a discount, and the race against the clock adds a certain competitive energy.

Photos of dim sum taped to the wall serve as both menu and ordering system at this no-frills Buford Highway dim sum spot, which suits regulars just fine since they already know what they want. Order off the menu rather than waiting on carts, and point confidently at shrimp rice noodle rolls or pan-fried turnip cakes with lap cheong. The BuHi mural wraps around the corner of the plaza if you need a reason to walk afterward.

A robot trundles your dumplings to the table, which makes sense once you realize this is a QR-code-order, counter-service dim sum spot in an Alpharetta strip mall. The menu leans traditional Cantonese, with har gow, siu mai, and char siu bao alongside soup dumplings and sheng jian bao for a cross-regional sweep. No rolling carts, but the robot more than compensates for the theater gap.

The carts roll from opening until mid-afternoon at this dim sum restaurant in Duluth, after which you can order off the menu all day. The room was clearly a steakhouse in a past life, which adds a certain unintentional charm to the weekend rush. Weekends fill fast, so expect a wait. The doufuhua, a tofu dessert in ginger syrup, makes a quietly persuasive case for ending a savory meal on something soft and barely sweet.

A vast Cantonese dim sum hall in Norcross where the carts actually keep rolling until three in the afternoon, with a dining room big enough that you're not elbowing anyone for the last har gow. The weekend crowds that pile into Duluth tend to skip this one, which is either the city's best-kept secret or just a matter of geography. Order congee alongside whatever the cart brings by and settle in.

A food stall inside Jusgo supermarket, Lao Wei Dao does Shanghai-style dim sum, which means no rolling carts and no Cantonese shortcuts. Order from a kiosk and wait, because the dumplings are folded to order. The xiao long baos and pan-fried pork dumplings are why people bother making the drive out to Duluth. Closed Wednesdays, counter service, and genuinely easy to miss if you've never thought to look inside a grocery store for dinner.

A cavernous dim sum hall where carts start rolling at 10 a.m. sharp on weekends, and a line forms before the doors open. The room is big enough that a cart loaded with shrimp rice noodle rolls or egg custard tarts might not loop back your way, so flag down whatever looks good while you can. The kitchen picks up the broader Chinese menu at 11, but most people come for the carts, which run until three in the afternoon.

Blossom is a Cantonese-leaning dinner room at the Cosmopolitan-adjacent end of the Strip, built around traditional Chinese design principles, which means mirrored leaf walls and chandeliers shaped like dew drops. The lighting is soft enough to forgive anything you do to your chopsticks. Expect a proper sit-down dinner with a tableside Beijing duck carving, so dress like someone who plans to be photographed near crystal.

A Chinatown noodle shop where the namesake bowl, listed plainly as "Chongqing hot numbing spicy noodles," does exactly what it promises with Sichuan pepper and red chile oil doing most of the talking. The menu is narrow by design, each strand matched to a mood, and the tan tan noodle soup goes richer and heartier for anyone who needs a reason to stay. Prices are firmly in the single digits, which explains why the stools fill fast.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan spot with so many Houston locations that you've likely driven past one this week. The menu leans hard on chili heat, with a flounder dish served in a bubbling pool of pepper and ginger, plus Sichuan beef and a fair amount of tofu for the vegetarians in the group. Expect a counter-service lunch crowd with a high tolerance for numbing spice, and a bill that stays comfortably in the twenties.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan restaurant with enough Houston locations that you're probably standing near one right now. The menu runs on numbing peppercorn heat, and the hot diving fish brings flounder swimming in chili broth with cucumber and ginger. Tofu dishes give vegetarians something more interesting to do than watch. It's a no-fuss spot where you wear whatever you wore to work and leave smelling faintly of chili oil.

This Sugar Land outpost is a casual Sichuan restaurant, one of a chain that has quietly spread across Houston until you're rarely more than a few exits from one. The menu leans hard into numbing, chile-heavy cooking, with the flounder in the hot diving fish as the signature, and the tofu section is long enough that vegetarians won't feel like a footnote. Dress code is whatever you wore to work, and so is the price.

Flounder served in a hot bath of pepper, cucumber, and ginger is the kind of dish that announces where Cooking Girl stands on the question of restraint. It's a Sichuan restaurant with outposts scattered across Houston, so the odds are good one is nearby. The menu leans into the numbing, oily heat the region is known for, with beef, chicken, and tofu all pulling their weight. A practical neighborhood spot, not a special-occasion production.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan restaurant, and the Westheimer branch is one of a sprawling family that has put a location within a short drive of most Houstonians. The menu leans bold and numbing, with flounder in a chili broth that arrives looking like a small, spicy aquarium. Vegetarians get a real section of tofu to work through, and the check stays friendly. Bring a friend with a high tolerance, or a good water supply.

Cooking Girl is a casual Sichuan spot on Heights Boulevard, one of a small empire of locations spread across Houston, so a bowl of numbing heat is probably closer than your nearest pharmacy. The menu leans hard on chili and peppercorn, with a flounder dish served in a pool of broth that arrives looking like a dare. Tofu and vegetable dishes keep the non-meat crowd fed. Expect an easy dinner at easy prices.

Turquoise glazed tiles, dramatic florals, and a sixth-floor view over Chinatown and Telegraph Hill set the tone before you've touched a menu. This is a tasting-menu Cantonese restaurant from the chef behind Hakkasan, and it carries that same instinct for precise, composed presentations of classic dishes. Come for cocktails if the full commitment feels like a lot; the view alone justifies the elevator ride.

The full bar sets Fortune Nong Jia Le apart from its Wash Park sibling, though the kitchen stays on the same page: dumplings, Shanghainese noodles, and fried rice alongside heartier plates like crispy half duck in soy reduction and pork belly with potatoes. It's a casual Chinese restaurant that trends slightly more polished than most in its orbit, the kind of place where the menu reads like someone's grandmother is actually cooking.

The live seafood tanks near the entrance set the agenda at this Cantonese dining room, where the kitchen has been turning out Hong Kong-style crab, lobster, and fresh fish for Houston since the family arrived from Hong Kong decades ago. Weekend dim sum draws a crowd that knows better than to sleep in. It's a big, bustling room, and the sweet-glazed barbecue pork alone tends to settle any argument about where to sit.

The menu here is basically a suggestion, since the family running this Chinatown restaurant has been known to steer you away from it entirely and just decide what you're eating. That's not arrogance so much as confidence, and the Shanghainese cooking that lands on the table tends to justify the approach. Pork confit egg rolls with basil and chile sauce are a signature. Cash in on the experience; just don't expect to be in charge.

Open rafters, pale pink tiles, and bright teal accents set the tone at this casual Chinese spot on Clement Street, where Brandon Jew runs a room that looks like it was designed on purpose, because it was. The sweet-and-sour chicken, rice-battered and stuffed into a homemade pineapple bun, is the kind of thing people come back for. Housemade sodas round out a menu that treats the nonalcoholic drinks as a feature rather than an afterthought.

The former Biscuitville location gives nothing away from the outside, but inside this Sichuan restaurant the menu runs deep into the province, with thirty-plus dishes built around the tongue-numbing peppercorns the region is known for. Dan dan noodles, dry pot chicken, and wontons in red oil sit alongside the General Tso's and crab rangoon for anyone easing in. The heat here is the slow, creeping kind that sneaks up on you.

Noodle Topia is a casual Madison Heights noodle shop where someone hand pulls the noodles within view of your table, and a robot may roll up to clear your bowls. The bowls run from numbingly spicy Sichuan to a rich lamb broth, with green onion pancakes and toasted pork buns on the side. There's plenty of seating and parking out back, if you spot the easy-to-miss driveway. Eater lists it among Metro Detroit's best Chinese restaurants.