Brandon Zau

If you want quality Chinese food, avoid five-star Chinese restaurants. Having tasted both authentic and Americanized Chinese food, I can confidently say that you will almost always find the latter in highly rated Chinese restaurants.

If you want quality Chinese food, avoid five-star Chinese restaurants. Having tasted both authentic and Americanized Chinese food, I can confidently say that you will almost always find the latter in highly-rated Chinese restaurants. Genuine Chinese food is served in hole-in-the-wall restaurants that house family businesses.

There, cheap Chinese New Year decorations hang on the walls year-round, and sticky tabletops grip onto your hands whenever you touch them; but most importantly, the food is out-of-this-world delicious. After dining at several Chinese restaurants with varying ratings, I have finally discovered the perfect medium: 3.5 stars.

The reviews are often lower in these family-owned Chinese restaurants due to the poor dining experience and lacking ambiance, not due to the taste of the food. Lower reviews generally come from a Western cultural perspective, seeing that Western dining culture focuses more on ambiance and top-notch service than actual food quality. On the other hand, five-star Chinese restaurants provide a more pleasant customer experience at the cost of the quality of the food, which is often bland and Americanized to cater to an American customer base. 

Looking back on my dining experience at the lower-rated Shanghai Family Restaurant in Cupertino, I still crave the mouth-watering dishes served there. The interior of the restaurant featured worn-down walls, with the bottom half painted bright red and the top half covered by a patterned mint green wallpaper. Occasional specks of white peeked through the peeling paint on the walls, serving as a testament to the restaurant’s longevity. Flimsy red posters of large golden Chinese words accented the colorful walls, and a large floor space of round tables, each topped with rotating glass trays, crammed the small room. 

The sound of oil sizzling on hot woks came from the kitchen, followed by the scent of freshly fried potstickers, sauteed vegetables and spiced meat. Customers held lively conversations, and I felt proud when I could understand the miscellaneous Chinese words thrown around the room. Though the restaurant was far from luxurious, delicious scents permeated the air, diverting my attention from the lacking ambiance to what we were really here for: the food. 

We ordered a tang cu pai gu (Shanghai sweet and sour pork) and cai fan (vegetable fried rice), and I am not exaggerating when I say these dishes were some of the best I have ever eaten — even my mother and sister agreed.

However, when I ran to Yelp to see what others thought about this restaurant, I was surprised to find that the restaurant only received a three star rating. Many of them criticized the restaurant’s service and ambiance. Of course, although those can be important considerations, the main priority of a restaurant should be on its food. 

Chinese restaurants run by small families often lack fancy interiors because of budget constraints and a prioritization on food quality. These hole-in-the-wall restaurants instead serve authentic, delicious food as they are run by Chinese families well-versed in their country’s cuisine. In Chinese culture, dinner also serves as a time to reconnect with family and friends. The enjoyment that comes from talking and laughing with loved ones compels me to disregard my surroundings and indulge in the vibrant conversations at the table, so much so that I rarely take notice of the restaurant’s ambiance.  

On the other end of the spectrum, I dined at a 4.5-star Chinese restaurant called The Mandarin. The restaurant boasted an extravagant interior and provided top-notch service. The restaurant had two stories, both filled with tables covered in ivory tablecloths and topped with perfectly set silverware. All of the waiters wore black suits and tended to customers the instant they sat down, politely introducing themselves and informing customers about the chef’s specials. 

Although I appreciated the attentive service, the restaurant lacked the homey feeling that characterized my favorite Chinese restaurants. The restaurant’s name further gave me the impression that the restaurant’s food would not be the most authentic, and indeed, it was not. The majority of the dishes we ordered tasted like a slightly higher quality version of Panda Express and did not reflect the true flavors of Chinese cuisine. In other words, I was quite disappointed with the food there, despite the high rating the restaurant received. 

Cuisine plays a major role in representing a culture as a whole. Chinese food especially holds a special place in my heart because it was my comfort food when I was growing up and served as a medium that connected my family and me. During lunch or dinner, my family often shared stories over my Grandma’s home-cooked hong shao rou (red braised pork belly) and hot xi fan (congee) with rousong (meat floss). I always viewed my grandma’s cooking as her way of expressing her love for me and my family, and I was always in awe of how flavorful her cooking was. 

I viewed her cooking as her love language, and I could see the amount of effort and precision that went into her cooking. She would watch Chinese television for hours on end, learning new recipes just to ensure that my family would never grow tired of her food. During dinner, she would gaze at me with inquiring eyes that asked “do you like it?”. I would always look back at her and smile with my mouth stuffed— it was delicious. Grandma’s cooking taught me that food expresses a special type of care that words alone fail to convey. 

Now, I bring that mindset with me as I dine at restaurants. I disregard the superficial aspects and focus on the food, knowing that the effort that went into the cooking means so much more than speedy service and fancy decorations. I hope that other customers will also realize the effort that goes into the dishes at these lower-rated, family-run Chinese restaurants. If they are willing to disregard the slightly lower rating and follow the 3.5 star rule, the Chinese food that awaits them will not disappoint.