Chinese Cuisine Onto the Dinner Table of American Households (2/2)

Voted the city's best, this is where locals go for a taste of China, including such traditional dishes as Happy Family, a combination of king crab, shrimp and scallops, plus kung pao chicken, a spicy mix of chicken, peanuts and vegetables. 907-272-3308 Peking Gourmet Falls Church, Va. Opened in 1978 in a Washington, D.C., suburb, this full-service upscale establishment specializes in authentic Northern Chinese cuisine. Peking duck is the house specialty, but diners — President and Mrs. Bush have eaten here — also will enjoy gourmet wontons, moo goo gai pan, and shrimp with fresh, hot peppers. 703-671-8088; pekinggourmet.com Tony Chan's Water Club Miami, FL View chefs at work in an open kitchen with floor-to-ceiling windows or just enjoy a beautiful waterfront view, the Miami scene and great, upscale food. Menu offerings include tako su (octopus and cucumber with sweet vinegar sauce), braised duck with pineapple, and sweet and sour sea bass. 305-374-8888; tonychans.com Yangming Bryn Mawr, Pa. Variety reigns at this upscale, Chinese fusion restaurant. Separate kitchens, one for American food and the other for Chinese, Thai and Szechwan dishes, keep the crab cakes and steak away from the sea bass in rice paper with wasabi and tempura-battered ahi tuna. 610-527-3200 How the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants are selected? Out of a database of more than 41,000 Chinese restaurants in America, 5,000 first-round candidates are cross-referenced and selected to the basis that candidate restaurants must have scored well in food/restaurant reviews in either local or national media (newspapers, magazines, online publications, etc.). The second round involves reviewing candidate restaurants against a set of criteria: 1) 40% of the menu items should be Chinese cuisine, 2) minimum of 3 years in business, 3) recipient of a minimum two awards of local dinning excellence. Thus qualifying the list to 500 restaurants nominees to enter the final ranking. In the final round, public ratings on the web and votes by local diners of nominated restaurants made significant contributions to the winning status of the nominees. An appointed panel of judges composed of respected industry leaders & experts reviewed and selected the final 100 winners.