by Jerome Espinosa Baladad

Created on: February 21, 2011

Many top rated restaurants in New York City’s (NYC) Chinatown show up in various lists, depending on your source. Certain names stand out because of a variety of reasons, primary of which is the dining out experience offered in any of these food places. Many have tongue-in-cheek appearance mainly because of the high costs of running a food place on a location where real property prices are among the most expensive in Manhattan. 

Also, many of these top rated restaurants look like wall-in-the-hole places. But you may keep the frown for now but look forward to a delightful food experience when you visit one of these restaurants. You can be assured the food is impeccably awesome, freshly prepared and the price is just perfect even if you bring everyone in your immediate family. Most do not even accept reservations and would prefer that you pay in cash. The dining out experience calls for you to just show up and be possessed with that adventure-some approach when it comes to venturing to this fascinating neighborhood in NYC. These top rated restaurants include (not necessarily rated according to number):

1) Wo Hop Restaurant. This is a located in the basement, one floor below street level on 17 Mott Street, between Chatham Square and Worth Street. There’s another one with the same name on street level but instead go down to this spot as the food is reputedly better. Service is consistently known to be attentive and friendly. It’s also a good idea to bring your family here for mini-celebrations for whatever spur-of-the-moment reason you may have. 

2) Prosperity Dumpling. Honestly, this is really more of a snack food outlet (somewhere on Eldridge Street) but the place is highly recommended to NYC residents and visitors who just like to taste something very basic in Asian food: dumplings. Depending on the time of your arrival, you’ll be surprised to see many students here spending their pocket money for an early dinner before heading home. On a much later time, you’ll see office workers of all types showing up asking for dumplings to-go. Others prefer to munch on their orders right there. Make sure you get a piece of the sesame pancake in addition to your dumplings – they’re always freshly made and flavorful.

3) Joe’s Shanghai. This is the branch of the restaurant chain that opened its first store in Flushing (which currently hosts the largest ‘Chinatown’ in NYC, and still expanding) in Queens. It even has 3 outlets in Japan. As such, you have better assurances that the food you will have here is among the top rate in NYC’s Chinatown, with a distinct international flavor. Take a leisurely stroll in Chinatown heading south of Canal Street going towards the direction of the Lower East Side until you find yourself in front of its store on 9 Pell Street (close to Bowery and Doyers Street).

Choices you may also want to consider and explore include: Lam Zhou Handmade Noodle (close to the F train’s East Broadway stop), New Wonton Garden (on Mott Street), Shanghai Café (also on Mott Street), Vegetarian Dim Sum House (on Pell Street), and the Nice Green Bo Restaurant (on Bayard Street).  Each represents another choice where you can have an array of diverse offerings of Chinese food cooked a bit different from the typical. Just be experimental and be willing to be part of the throng of crowds who head down Chinatown to get the best value for their hard-earned money. 

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