Tom Tran
Updated: Oct 21, 2021
Best city for Chinese food in America
Methodology: I count the number of Chinese restaurants with a rating of 4 or above in each major cities by neighborhood using Yelp search functionality sorted by number of reviews. For example, here is a search for most reviewed restaurants in West Village, Manhattan, New York. The goal is to have more coverage of neighborhoods rather than just downtown areas. These restaurants form a sample for each city. We look at the top 60 cities in the US. The requirements for cities and restaurants to be included in the comparison:
- City must have many restaurants: Sample must be 50 minimum
- Restaurant needs to have at least 20 reviews for rating confidence
- Chinese food must be popular there: The proportion of Chinese restaurant out of total must be high to limit the number of cities considered to approximately 10
- The data collected are only samples and the metrics does not reflect absolute accuracy for the entire population. However, the samples are large enough to provide confidence.
- This methodology will exclude smaller cities and cities where Chinese food is not that popular. So if you have only a few amazing restaurants or live in a small city, you will not be counted.
The results are as follows.
Averaging 53% of restaurants with a rating of 4 or higher in the sample, Seattle is American city with the best Chinese food. That is a lot higher than Portland, another city in the Pacific Northwest, in second position with 44%.
Please understand that the results are based on data. The point here is consistency. We look at restaurants across neighborhoods and cover a wide range of them. Your personal opinion of a few favorite restaurants in a city does not matter here.