Guides

Hand-written guides to Asian restaurants, groceries, and shops across 25 US metros.

Los Angeles

Best Chinese Restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley

East of Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley holds one of the largest concentrations of Chinese and Taiwanese communities in the United States. Along the Valley Boulevard corridor through Alhambra, Monterey Park, San Gabriel, Rosemead, and Arcadia, the regional cooking of China runs deep: Shanghai and northern dumplings, Shaanxi and Yunnan and Guilin noodles, Chongqing roast fish, Hunan and Cantonese kitchens, and Chinese Islamic and Taiwanese cooking. Monterey Park, at the western end, is often called the first suburban Chinatown in the country. This guide is a starting point across the valley and its range.

15 places →

Best Thai Restaurants in Los Angeles

Los Angeles is home to the only neighborhood in the United States officially designated as Thai Town, a stretch of East Hollywood along Hollywood Boulevard, and to one of the largest Thai communities in the country. Its Thai restaurants run from the noodle shops and som tam counters of Thai Town out to Silver Lake, Hollywood, and beyond. This guide is a starting point across that range.

12 places →

Best Ramen in Los Angeles

LA ramen runs deeper than its short list here suggests, and this page will grow as the catalog does. What the current picks share is the thing that matters: broth with real depth, from tonkotsu simmered until it turns creamy to lighter shoyu bowls, noodles cooked with actual attention to firmness, and chashu that has not been sitting all day. Little Tokyo remains the historic center of LA ramen culture, but serious bowls now show up across the San Gabriel Valley and beyond. If a shop offers a firmness choice, take them up on it.

8 places →

Where to Buy Mooncakes in the San Gabriel Valley

Mid-Autumn Festival lands on Friday, September 25 in 2026, and mooncake season in the San Gabriel Valley starts well before it. The good boxes (lotus seed paste with double yolk, the tins people actually give as gifts) get reserved weeks ahead, and the dedicated bakeries sell out of their best runs before the supermarkets have even finished stocking. There are three ways to buy. Dedicated Chinese bakeries make the traditional baked mooncakes and take pre-orders for gift tins, which is what you want if the box is going to a relative or a business contact. Supermarkets stock a wide range of imported brands from mid-August, which is the practical option for eating rather than gifting. And Taiwanese bakeries carry the lighter, flakier styles alongside the Cantonese standard. A note on ordering: if you need a specific flavor or a gift box, call ahead rather than showing up. Availability moves fast in September, varies by year, and the counter staff will know what's actually coming in.

3 places →

Chinese Banquet Restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley

A Chinese banquet is a specific format, and not every good restaurant can host one. You need round tables of ten, a room that can be closed or separated, a kitchen that can fire a set menu for two hundred people at once, and staff who know the sequence: cold plate, soup, whole steamed fish, lobster or crab noodles, roast squab or chicken, a noodle or rice course, and dessert soup to close. The San Gabriel Valley has more of these rooms per square mile than anywhere else in the country, which is why families drive in from across Southern California for weddings, full-month and red egg parties, birthday banquets, and Lunar New Year company dinners. What to ask when you call: the per-table price and how many courses that covers, minimum and maximum table count, whether corkage applies, whether the room can be held privately, and how far ahead they book. Saturday evenings in the spring and fall go first. A wedding date usually needs six months or more. Set menus are priced per table of ten, and most kitchens will substitute courses if you ask early.

5 places →

Best Bubble Tea in Los Angeles

The San Gabriel Valley is where Taiwanese tea chains tend to open their first American shops, so LA boba tracks what Taipei is drinking more closely than any other US region. That means real brewed tea rather than powder, brown sugar boba made in small batches, cheese foam done properly, and seasonal fruit teas that change with what is actually in season. The shops on this list run from international franchises with strict quality control to local studios doing their own thing. Most cluster in Arcadia, Alhambra, San Gabriel, and Rowland Heights, so you can try several in one afternoon. Sweetness and ice are always adjustable; ask for 50 percent sugar if you want to taste the tea.

9 places →

Best Dim Sum in Los Angeles

Weekend dim sum in the San Gabriel Valley is a ritual: big round tables, pots of pu-erh, and either carts rolling past or an order sheet and a golf pencil. The banquet halls of Monterey Park and Alhambra measure themselves against Hong Kong standards, which means thin-skinned har gow, siu mai with real snap, cheung fun that slides off the plate, and egg tarts from the kitchen still warm. Arrive before 11am on weekends or expect a wait with a number in hand. The places here range from white-tablecloth seafood palaces to no-frills rooms where the food does all the talking.

7 places →

Best Asian Grocery Stores in LA

A good Asian market is the difference between cooking a dish and approximating it. LA has the full spread: Korean supermarkets with banchan counters and hot-food bars, Japanese grocers stocking fresh sashimi and imported snacks, Chinese markets with live seafood tanks and roast-meat counters, and Filipino and pan-Asian stores filling every gap in between. The stores on this list earn their spot with the things Western supermarkets cannot do: produce for Asian cooking picked and priced honestly, in-house butchers who know the cuts, and pantry aisles deep enough that you never have to substitute.

3 places →

Koreatown Essentials

LA Koreatown is a city within the city, and it barely sleeps. The essentials go well past barbecue: a jjimjilbang where you can sweat, soak, and eat all night; a supermarket whose banchan case outclasses most restaurants; K-beauty counters stocked ahead of the rest of the country; and dessert spots serving taiyaki and soft serve until late. This list is deliberately not restaurants-only, because Koreatown is not a dinner reservation, it is a full day. Park once, walk the blocks around Wilshire and Western, and let the neighborhood set the schedule.

8 places →

Bay Area

Browse all →

Best Japanese Restaurants in San Francisco

San Francisco's Japantown, or Nihonmachi, is one of only three remaining historic Japantowns in the United States, along with those in San Jose and Los Angeles. It centers on the Japan Center and the blocks around Post, Buchanan, and Webster Streets, where sushi bars, ramen counters, izakaya, and tea and sweets shops sit close together. Japanese cooking in the city reaches well beyond that core, into the Mission, Hayes Valley, the Richmond, and downtown. This guide is a starting point across that range.

15 places →

Best Vietnamese Restaurants in San Jose

San Jose has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the United States, centered on the Little Saigon district along Story Road on the city's east side. Vietnamese restaurants, cafes, and sandwich shops run well beyond that stretch and across the whole city. This guide is a starting point for the range: pho and other rice-noodle soups, com tam broken-rice plates, banh mi, and Vietnamese coffee and desserts.

8 places →

Best Ramen in the Bay Area

Bay Area ramen is quietly serious. San Francisco izakayas turn out focused winter bowls, Oakland has destination shops from Japanese ramen masters, and the South Bay chains imported straight from Hokkaido hold their standards. The list here is short and honest; it grows as the catalog does. What earns a spot: broth made in-house and simmered properly, noodles with bite, and toppings treated as more than garnish. Expect lines at peak hours at the well-known rooms, and note that several kitchens make limited batches and close when the broth runs out.

8 places →

Best Asian Grocery Stores in the Bay Area

The Bay Area's Asian markets are regional specialists. San Francisco's Japanese grocers emphasize fresh fish and imported staples, San Jose's Vietnamese and Korean supermarkets carry the full range of Southeast Asian herbs and banchan, and the Indian grocers of the Peninsula handle spices by the kilo. The stores here are the ones locals actually restock at: fresh produce that turns over daily, prepared-food counters worth a trip on their own, and the ingredients that determine whether pho, kimchi jjigae, or biryani tastes right at home.

8 places →

Best Chinese Restaurants in San Francisco

San Francisco is home to the oldest Chinatown in North America, but the city's Chinese food story long ago spread to the Richmond and Sunset, where many locals do their regular eating. The range on this list is the point: Cantonese seafood houses and dim sum parlors, Sichuan noodle shops, Hakka and Hunan specialists, Shanghainese dumpling rooms, and modern kitchens rethinking the canon. Some of these dining rooms have been serving since the early twentieth century; others opened in the last few years. Together they cover a century of the city's Chinese cooking, from congee at dawn to banquet dinners.

8 places →

New York

Browse all →

Best Indian Restaurants in NYC

New York's Indian restaurants run across the city, and Murray Hill holds the strip long nicknamed Curry Hill, a run of Indian kitchens along Lexington Avenue in the upper 20s. The range reaches well past it: through the East Village, the Upper West and East Sides, and Brooklyn, and out to the Punjabi restaurants of South Richmond Hill in Queens. This guide is a starting point across that spread, including the Curry Hill classics, modern Indian dining rooms, and neighborhood Punjabi and halal kitchens.

15 places →

Best Japanese Restaurants in NYC

New York's Japanese restaurants run deep, and the East Village holds one of the city's densest clusters, a stretch around Stuyvesant Street and East 9th Street long associated with Japanese cooking. The range reaches well past it, across Manhattan and into Brooklyn. This guide is a starting point: sushi and omakase, ramen, udon, and soba, yakitori and izakaya, shabu-shabu, Japanese curry, and a tea house.

15 places →

Best Korean Restaurants in NYC

New York's Koreatown runs along West 32nd Street in Manhattan, a block between Fifth Avenue and Broadway signposted as Korea Way and stacked with Korean restaurants across multiple floors. Korean food in the city reaches well past that block, into the East Village, NoMad, Hell's Kitchen, and Brooklyn. This guide is a starting point: Korean barbecue, tofu houses, fried chicken, late-night pocha, and more.

12 places →

Best Soup Dumplings in New York

A proper xiao long bao is engineering: a skin thin enough to see through, pleated shut, holding hot soup that only releases when you bite. New York takes them seriously in two places at once. Flushing is the heavyweight, where Shanghainese kitchens fold to order and the standard is set. Manhattan holds its own with East Village dumpling shops and Midtown Shanghainese dining rooms. The technique to eat one without a burned mouth: lift by the knot, rest it on the spoon, bite a small hole, drink the soup, then finish it with black vinegar and ginger.

8 places →

NYC Chinatown Food Guide

Manhattan Chinatown rewards walking. Mott Street and East Broadway still hold dim sum parlors that have poured tea for a century, bakeries selling egg tarts and pork buns for pocket change, and roast-meat windows with lacquered ducks on hooks. Newer arrivals, from Malaysian kopitiams to hand-pulled noodle counters, keep the neighborhood moving rather than preserved in amber. Come hungry and graze: a bakery stop, a dumpling order, carts at a banquet hall, then dessert. Weekends are crowded for a reason, and most of the essential eating here still costs less than a Midtown lunch.

8 places →

Best Thai Restaurants in NYC

New York's Thai restaurants concentrate in Queens, where Woodside Avenue in Elmhurst and the nearby blocks in Woodside hold one of the city's densest runs of Thai and Isaan kitchens. The range reaches across the rivers too, through the Lower East Side, the East Village, Hell's Kitchen, and the Upper East Side in Manhattan, and into Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, Park Slope, Boerum Hill, and Kensington. This guide is a starting point across that spread, including the Isaan specialists of Elmhurst, the Thai kitchens of Woodside, and neighborhood restaurants across Manhattan and Brooklyn.

15 places →

Boston

Browse all →

Best Chinese Restaurants in Boston

Boston's Chinatown, downtown by the Theater District, is the only historic Chinatown remaining in New England, packed into a few blocks around Beach Street and Harrison Avenue. The city's Chinese food reaches well beyond it, into a second cluster in Quincy and out through Cambridge, Allston, and Brookline. This guide is a starting point: dim sum and dumplings, hot pot, Taiwanese cooking, and the regional kitchens of Sichuan, Hunan, and the northeast.

15 places →

Chicago

Browse all →

Best Chinese Restaurants in Chicago

Chicago's Chinatown, on the Near South Side around Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue, is one of the largest Chinese communities in the Midwest, and one of the few in the country still growing. A second cluster sits north on Argyle Street in Uptown. Between them the range runs wide: dumplings and noodles, Cantonese roast meats and dim sum, Sichuan and Shaanxi cooking, and Chinese bakeries. This guide is a starting point across the city.

15 places →

Houston

Browse all →

Best Chinese Restaurants in Houston

Houston's Asiatown, along Bellaire Boulevard in the southwest of the city, is one of the largest Asian commercial districts in the United States and the center of the city's Chinese dining. The regional cooking is well represented: Sichuan heat, Cantonese roast meats, dumplings and bao, and Chinese halal cooking, in Asiatown and across the city in Midtown, River Oaks, and beyond. This guide is a starting point.

15 places →

Best Vietnamese Restaurants in Houston

Houston has one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the United States, and its Vietnamese food gathers in two main areas: the Bellaire Boulevard corridor in southwest Houston, the city's Asiatown, and the Midtown blocks along Milam and Travis long known as Little Saigon. This guide is a starting point across both, plus the banh mi shops, pho kitchens, and neighborhood restaurants spread across Montrose, Garden Oaks, and northwest Houston.

15 places →

San Diego

Browse all →

Best Japanese Restaurants in San Diego

San Diego's Convoy District, in Kearny Mesa, is the city's main Asian dining strip, recognized by the city as the Convoy Pan Asian Cultural and Business Innovation District. Japanese restaurants are a large part of it: ramen shops, yakitori and yakiniku counters, izakaya, and sushi bars along Convoy Street and the blocks around it, with more across the city in Old Town, Hillcrest, and beyond. This guide is a starting point.

15 places →

Best Vietnamese Restaurants in San Diego

San Diego's Vietnamese food centers on City Heights, where a stretch of El Cajon Boulevard was designated the city's Little Saigon District in 2013. It reaches north into the Convoy District in Kearny Mesa and the Mira Mesa corridor, and west into North Park, Hillcrest, and Golden Hill. This guide is a starting point across that spread: pho and banh mi, banh cuon and banh bao, and the vegetarian and Hue kitchens along El Cajon Boulevard.

15 places →

Seattle

Browse all →

Best Vietnamese Restaurants in Seattle

Seattle's Vietnamese community centers on Little Saigon, the commercial core within the Chinatown-International District, around 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street. Vietnamese restaurants, delis, and coffee shops run from there out across the city, into Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, the University District, and West Seattle. This guide is a starting point: pho and other noodle soups, banh mi, rice plates, and Vietnamese coffee.

14 places →