Yelp's Second-Best Chinese Restaurant Of 2024 Isn't In NYC Or LA

Popular business review site Yelp just published its list of the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants across the United States for 2024. Noting that searches for Chinese restaurants spike on the platform every December, the list's curators selected the best independent Chinese eateries in the country by analyzing review data.

While major U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago are typically considered to be the epicenter of award-winning cuisine in the country and contain many of its Michelin-starred restaurants, a number of the top Chinese restaurants on Yelp's list come from smaller locales. In fact, the second-ranked spot belongs to Jayd Bun in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, which specializes in freshly made dishes like pan-fried buns, noodles, and dumplings from chef Annie Parisi.

Yelp identified the restaurant as its No. 1 Top New England Restaurant in 2022, and users consistently rave about the food, giving it an average rating of 4.8 stars with 295 reviews. One Yelper highlighted by the platform referred to it as "Literally one of the best meals" they had all year. Though the top spot on Yelp's Top 100 Chinese Restaurants list went to Maxi's Noodle in Queens, New York, third and fourth place went to eateries in Sacramento, California and Amherst, Massachusetts, respectively, proving that delicious Chinese food can be found nationwide.

In addition to the Top 100 list, Yelp also highlighted trends from across the highly-rated Chinese restaurants on its platform. Among them are a rise in regional specificity, a focus on noodles and dumpling dough made from scratch, and an uptick in the popularity of hotpot, a traditional Chinese style of customizable soup. Jayd Bun, where chef Annie Parisi cooks food that channels the meals she grew up with in Tianjin, China, checks a number of these boxes. Rather than sticking with familiar Americanized Chinese staples, like chicken in sweet and sour sauce, egg rolls and chop suey or chow mein, more and more diners are opting to diversify their palates and seek out authenticity — at least if Yelp's numbers are any indication.

While early Chinese restaurants in the United States, such as Pekin Noodle Parlor, the oldest continually operating Chinese restaurant in the country, typically tailored their menus to represent Chinese cuisine quite broadly and appeal to American customers, there is a wide variety of regional cuisines within China that Westerners may not be accustomed to. The diversity of Yelp's Top 100 Chinese Restaurant list underscores the many different types of Chinese food, and trendy customers' preferences for a dining experience that most closely mirrors one you might experience abroad. It's no wonder that Jayd Bun's customers appreciate Parisi's specialties like thick and spicy yo po noodles with bok choy.