Top 5 Chinese restaurants in America

[eatingwitheddie]

One thing is for sure, I don't think there's any (Yes, any) Cantonese food in the East Coast that are even on par with the top Cantonese restaurants in SF or LA, not to mention Canada. Forget about it !

So what restaurants do you like in LA, SF, Vancouver, Toronto etc.?

[eatingwitheddie]

Two that come imm ediately to my mind are the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, near the San Francisco airport and Pings Seafood in New York

Does Hong Kong Flower Lounge still exist? There were 2, one on Geary, which I'm pretty sure is now something else, and the one near the airport in Burlingame? which was especially good in the early 90's, but which I couldn't locate a few years ago and suspected it had passed on.

Edited March 25, 2003 by eatingwitheddie (log)

[eatingwitheddie]

JASMINE & MOONGATE IN VEGAS

I am familiar with both of these restaurants since I have done consulting for one and spent much time in the other.

JASMINE is indeed modeled after a fine Hong Kong hotel restaurant and is both beautiful and authentic (when it tries to be). The chef, Philip Lo has been there since opening and is a very good chef who prepares Hong Kong style cuisine.

THE MOONGATE was originally designed to please Americans and has had to adopt a bi-polar personality in order to please both its Americian diners has well as its Asian (mostly Chinese) high-rollers.

My feeling about the food quality in these places is that it ranges from fairly good to excellent with a large number of traditional Chinese luxury foods available to those who seek them out. There are live lobsters and fish as well as things like dried abalone and scallops. To my mind they would NOT be in the five top American Chinese restaurants, though I haven't eaten there in 3 years or so. They are however worthy of mention, with Jasmine in particular being a lovely place.

The primary purpose of these restaurants is to provide a familiar and somewhat special experience for guests of the hotels' Asian marketing department. After an Asian highroller drops a bundle they want to be able give him/her something comfortable, familiar, and help them forget their losses.

By the way, Chinese New Year in these restaurants can be quite a scene.

[Fat Guy]

To my mind they would NOT be in the five top American Chinese restaurants, though I haven't eaten there in 3 years or so. They are however worthy of mention, with Jasmine in particular being a lovely place.

I guess what I was thinking was that if the Michelin people came in and started assigning stars to Chinese restaurants in North America, Jasmine would be the three-star place based on the way it packages itself, the luxury ingredients it offers, and all those other trappings. (I assume you can also get into the entire 120,000+ bottle Bellagio wine cellar from there.) In fact I'm wondering if there is any other Chinese restaurant here that would be able to make a three-star-esque claim. Whereas, perhaps an actual Chinese-food expert would say it's not good enough on a pure food basis to be considered top-5. But if you look at a place like Sun Sui Wah in Vancouver, which would no doubt be in the top 5, the Michelin types would probably peg it as a one-star (or less) place. Which I suppose just goes to show you the inappropriateness of applying foreign standards to restaurants that don't make it their mission to conform to those standards. The other thing that's interesting about a place like Sun Sui Wah is that you have people sitting at adjacent tables spending anywhere from less than ten dollars per person to upwards of several hunderd dollars per person for food alone. And when you order a gazillion-dollar whole Alaskan king crab the size of a La-Z-Boy they throw it down on the table with very little ceremony, like it's a couple of cans of Coke.

[anil]

....Is the other one a site for foodie travel agents?

Headquartered, I'm sure, in FAT?

YOu mean in Fresno ?

[anil]

......

The primary purpose of these restaurants is to provide a familiar and somewhat special experience for guests of the hotels' Asian marketing department. After an Asian highroller drops a bundle they want to be able give him/her something comfortable, familiar, and help them forget their losses.

.........

Do you know what they do to console big losers in the casinos of MAC (Macau) ?

[Roger McShane]

I must admit that from my wanderings around the US I have yet to have one Chinese meal that would rate with any in Hong Kong or Singapore or the Flower Drum in Melbourne.

I have tried most of the 'name' restaurants in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago and they just don't cut the mustard.

Vancouver is better!

The flavours and textures of real Chinese cuisine just seem to be too muted in the US. A bit like Thai food which is inevitably dumbed down.

[SteveW]

Speaking of a modern day upscale hotel restaurant(Chinese). The one that immediately comes to mind for me, is the Toronto-based Lai Wah Heen Chinese restaurant in the Metropolitan Hotel. It's world renowned for their dim sum(some say the best in the world), but they also have a full menu.

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Steve

Edited March 26, 2003 by SteveW (log)

[eatingwitheddie]

I must admit that from my wanderings around the US I have yet to have one Chinese meal that would rate with any in Hong Kong or Singapore or the Flower Drum in Melbourne.

I have tried most of the 'name' restaurants in New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago and they just don't cut the mustard.

Vancouver is better!

The flavours and textures of real Chinese cuisine just seem to be too muted in the US. A bit like Thai food which is inevitably dumbed down.

I have enjoyed Flower Drum in Melbourne, found the good things quite good, great in fact, but not consistent across the board. I had even better food at a Cantonese seafood restaurant in Sydney. It was called Century I believe. I went with the famous chef Tetsuya Wakuda (an everyday patron) and we got great product and treatment.

Without doubt Vancouver's best is world class. I found Sun Sui Wah excellent and have heard great comments about other venues there.

I worked at NY's Shun Lee which has a real split personality. One can get a world-class meal there but this is usually most often encountered when pre-ordering and they put on the 'Ritz' for you. Come in off the street and it can be excellent or disappointing and Americanized, depending upon what you order.

This dual personality is something which must be included in this discussion as it happens in many Chinese restaurants worldwide. Pre-ordered banquet food is often at a different level than food sold on the a la carte menu.

Over the years I have frequently pointed this fact out. Often a chef may be able to cook a fabulous meal for a table of 10, but doesn't have the skills and /or desire to be an executive chef for a large and busy operation. The reverse is true as well.

Edited March 26, 2003 by eatingwitheddie (log)

[Fat Guy]

Although the split personality phenomenon seems to be greater in the top Chinese restaurants than in, say, the top French restaurants, it's nonetheless a phenomenon that I think exists in almost all restaurants except, at the extremes, places like, definitely on the one hand, McDonald's, where uniformity is the mission, and, perhaps on the other hand, Chez Panisse, where a the mission is proactively egalitarian.

[eatingwitheddie]

Although the split personality phenomenon seems to be greater in the top Chinese restaurants than in, say, the top French restaurants, it's nonetheless a phenomenon that I think exists in almost all restaurants except, at the extremes, places like, definitely on the one hand, McDonald's, where uniformity is the mission, and, perhaps on the other hand, Chez Panisse, where a the mission is proactively egalitarian.

This is true to an extent, but the banquet is a broad -based integral part of Chinese culture. It is the most common way people entertain friends. The degustacion is something one might experience by seeking it out at a top restaurant. I don't believe it is nearly as pervasive in western food as a banquet service is in the Chinese community. I believe this is of great significance.

From my experience, attitude plays a big role. A young goal oriented French/western chef who fantasizes about having a starred Michelin restaurant someday, is of a very different mind-set than the typical Chinese chef who is more concerned with production than art. I know there will be many exceptions to this kind of blanket statement, but by and large this has been my experience.

If one were to compare the gap between the a la carte food quality in a starred Michelin restaurant and the food served at that same restaurant's degustacion, vs.

the gap between Shun Lee's off the menu food vs. Shun Lee's banquet food, I think the differences might be striking.

Edited March 26, 2003 by eatingwitheddie (log)

[SteveW]

The split personality phenomenon at some Chinese restaurants & their reasons for it, as described by both the FG & Eddie, are very interesting. Could another reason for it be discrimination? Asians would get the authentic Chinese food menu, with the non-Asians would get the Americanized menu.

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Steve

[Fat Guy]

That may be the case in many instances, but it can often be overcome through persistence. Part of it is just the (reasonable) assumption that most roundeyes aren't interested in the good stuff. If you can communicate that you are interested, and really get them to believe it, you can access a better (or, rather, more authentic) class of food. Sometimes there's no way to penetrate the prejudgment, but usually even if the waiter is super-thick there's a manager around who gets it. I also think, as time goes on and the number of people interested in gastronomic exploration grows, the category of "white people who actually want to eat the real stuff" is becoming more ingrained in non-Western waitstaff.

Are all the best Chinese restaurants really big? I haven't noticed many jewel-box "boutique" Chinese upscale restaurants. It seems most of the best places are four stories high and have the seating capacity of the Meadowlands.

[tissue]

The big ones are the Cantonese seafood ones that do dim sum for lunch. Good Shanghai or Szechuan restaurants tend to be a lot smaller in size.

[SteveW]

Another obstacle, the authentic Chinese food menu, might be only in Chinese!! And the waiters might have limited English language knowledge.

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Steve

[eatingwitheddie]

The split personality phenomenon at some Chinese restaurants & their reasons for it, as described by both the FG & Eddie, are very interesting. Could another reason for it be discrimination?  Asians would get the authentic Chinese food menu, with the non-Asians would get the Americanized menu.

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Steve

Typically I don't think it's about discrimination at all. Rather I think that it's about provinciality.

It's good business to please your customer and the restaurateur is just trying to provide their customer with what THEY THINK THE CUSTOMER WANTS. It is about stereotyping and misjudgement: all non-Chinese eat sweet & sour or don't like offal, something like that. From time to time there may be discrimination involved, but I think it is mostly secondary to just not making the right call.

Edited March 26, 2003 by eatingwitheddie (log)

[Fat Guy]

SteveW: That's why you have to watch the food coming out to the other tables.

[eatingwitheddie]

SteveW: That's why you have to watch the food coming out to the other tables.

That's exactly right!

Plus it always looks better on the other side of the tracks.

[Craig Camp]

Is a restaurant like Ben Pao Chinese or some type of Oriental inspired blend? Lettuce Entertain You can be heavy on the theatre and light on food authenticity. I do enjoy Ben Pao by the way.

Ben Pao is Chinese.

On Lettuce, I disagree with you partly...

Althou some of their restaurants probably arent wholly authentic..like Cafe Ba Ba Reeba and Scoozi some are tremendous and very true of the cuisine they represent...tru, Everest, Ambria come to mind immediately....

Everest and Ambria are authentic in spite of Lettuce because they are the personal statements of Jean Joho and Gabino Sotelino. The Lettuce accountants leave them to their art. Outside of their restaurants Lettuce can get very 'cute' with their food. My question then is Ben Pao authentic or just theater? I am no expert on Chinese cuisine so I think this is a legitimate question. That said Ben Pao is a regular stop for me when I am in Chicago – although since Jackie Shen went to Red Light I tend to head there.

[Stone]

I remember going into a Korean restaurant years ago and they refused to serve me something because "you wouldn't like it." You know, as much as I wanted to experiement, they're probably right -- for most Americans. (Not that they shouldn't have given it to me anyway.) I wonder if it's just because the majority of Americans (another blanket statements) probably aren't interested in offal and it's not worth it for the restaurant to have it on the menu (may it will even scare away Americans who are already worried about cleanliness and felines). Or maybe it's that "authentic" Chinese food won't appeal to the average American. The experts here refer to "dumbed down" Thai food, etc., but maybe that's what they have to do to sell it to the market. (I have to add, that having spent a few months in Thailand, I don't think the food here is necessarily "dumbed down." There's some pretty bad food in Thailand also.)

Edited March 26, 2003 by Stone (log)

[Fat Guy]

Well, I've seen it happen that a waiter says "you wouldn't like it" and the customer says "I want it anyway" and then sends it back saying "I don't like it" as though it's the waiter's fault. I'm sure once that happens to a waiter a few times he becomes pretty jaded.

[eatingwitheddie]

Are all the best Chinese restaurants really big?

I think that this question brings up a category of restaurant that we haven't spoken about. Sometimes small family-run type restaurants can be the brightest jewels. There may only be a couple of chefs in the kitchen. When mom or pop is a terrific chef and cooks almost all of the food themselves or keeps an especially close eye on the kitchen, one can come across some of the most exciting and delicious experiences. J & J Wonton House in Victoria BC comes to mind. And even though it's not Chinese but Thai, Sripraphrai in Queens falls into this category.

[tissue]

SteveW: That's why you have to watch the food coming out to the other tables.

A lot of the best dishes are written in Chinese and posted on the walls.

[trillium]

My question then is Ben Pao authentic or just theater? I am no expert on Chinese cuisine so I think this is a legitimate question. That said Ben Pao is a regular stop for me when I am in Chicago – although since Jackie Shen went to Red Light I tend to head there.

I hate authenticity arguments, but I can't help it... my vote would be no, Ben Pao is not "authentic". Their menu has inspired laughter and derision by the ethnic Chinese food hardliners in my circle. But in a way, it all depends on who you ask. If you asked someone from Hong Kong if Singaporean fried noodles was an "authentic" dish they'd probably say yes, but if you asked a Singaporean, they'd give you an emphatic no. All that being said, I think you can eat well there.

regards,

trillium

[SteveW]

A fairly scientific way to gauge if a Chinese restaurant is authentic or not, is do a quick head count in the % of dinners that are Asian.

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Steve