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Some of the worst Chinese food that there is ARE located in the Chinatowns. In New York City, there is better Chinese food to be found in Flushing or Sunset Park than Manhattan.
I will rate them as the following according to personal experience
1) Toronto (Markham-Richmond Hills)
2) Los Angeles (Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Alhambra)
3) New York (Flushing)
4) Vancouver (Richmond)
5) San Francisco
Rating is based on real authentic non-China town Chinese restaurants, which means no general tao chicken, lemon chicken (or lemon anything), sweat and sour beef or heavy oyster sauce on pretty much everything.
Do you agree?
I'm not Chinese or even Asian, but those are the ones that I've heard about from Chinese-Americans as having the best food. I usually hear Toronto as number one and the rest interchangeable depending on where people have been. Not as many people I know have been to Vancouver as the other cities on the list.
I will rate them as the following according to personal experience
1) Toronto (Markham-Richmond Hills)
2) Los Angeles (Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Alhambra)
3) New York (Flushing)
4) Vancouver (Richmond)
5) San Francisco
Rating is based on real authentic non-China town Chinese restaurants, which means no general tao chicken, lemon chicken (or lemon anything), sweat and sour beef or heavy oyster sauce on pretty much everything.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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I would have tried more Chinese food in America, but I was too busy trying Mexican, American and all the fast food joints we don't get here. My only experience of Chinese in the States was dumplings in DC Chinatown, which were like dumplings anywhere.
I've been to China, though. The food ranged from not so great to delicious. My favourite region by far would be Sichuan or Szechuan Cuisine, which I had in Chongqing. I generally don't like Cantonese as much (not a big fan of Dim Sum).
I had never known (Americans?) held Toronto in such high regard for Chinese food, well at least based on the few posts on this thread, but hey, cool .
I'm guessing this is from basing it on having decent Chinese populations (the OP mentions right off the bat, two suburban towns in the Greater Toronto Area, Markham and Richmond Hill, just north of the city of Toronto itself, that are well-known for a recent population of Chinese immigrants) but does it really beat LA or Vancouver?
That also reminds me of recently (I can't remember if it was this year or last) I just happened to come across watching the TV show "Jeopardy!" and they had a question where the clue was "Toronto" but part of the clue mentioned a city that had "five Chinatowns" as well as having the Royal Ontario Museum (which is in downtown Toronto). Watching it, I was like "really? Is that a good trivia clue for Toronto, in addition to the museum? Five Chinatowns. Which five?" and then I figured maybe they were counting a number of small neighbourhoods/regions in the city well-known for the concentration of Chinese population with shops, businesses etc. and that those could be counted as new "Chinatowns" of their own in addition to the "original" or "real" Chinatown.
Moco county, especially Rockville, and Fairfax county have some really good chinese food.
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