The best Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles

This sprawling restaurant in Alhambra offers refined made-to-order dim sum all day, every day. Along with cast-iron teapots full of steaming jasmine tea, Lunasia Chinese Cuisine serves their famous steamed and baked bites including giant pork shumai, plump har gow and fluffy BBQ pork buns. You’d be remiss not to try the dim sum house’s dessert offerings as well, like the almond milk tea, a show-stopping dish of hot, sweet almond milk covered by a flaky puff pastry top. You won’t find the traditional push carts, but it’s always an energetic scene filled with families, friends and dates. Don’t want to brave the crowds in Alhambra? There are newer locations in Pasadena, Cerritos and Torrance with slightly smaller menus, if you’re just looking for a quick dim sum hit.

This new-school Alhambra dining destination serves the farm-to-table Chinese-inspired dinner of our dreams, plus an excellent brunch. Highly inventive yet tinged with nostalgia, Yang’s Kitchen is the new-school Chinese restaurant we’ve been searching high and low for. No matter how you order, you’ll find a memorable dish, from the vegan-friendly dan dan campanelle to the ever-present Hainan fish rice, which features dry-aged barramundi atop a wonderfully silky chicken fat rice and a side of ginger-scallion sauce. The fried chicken wings, which come naked-skinned and served with a side of salt and white pepper and a lemon wedge, get at the heart of what Yang’s does best: flawlessly executed Asian-inflected comfort dishes that are far more complex than they look.

Spice fiends flock to Sichuan Impression on either side of the city, probably because its founders—Chengdu natives Lynn Liu and Kelly Xiao—serve a jaw-dropping selection of Sichuan dishes that’ll keep you slurping up hot-and-numbing wontons, noodles, salads and entrées no matter how spicy it gets. Both the Alhambra and West L.A. restaurants build upon familiar options such as mapo tofu and kung pao chicken, and feature harder-to-find items like mung bean jelly tossed in chili oil; wok-fried crab; and the “party in a pot” Leshan bobo chicken pot. Somewhat of a rarity among other Sichuan restaurants in town, Sichuan Impression also offers desserts, including a brown sugar rice cake, and pumpkin mochi wrapped around red bean paste.

You probably know the name by now: Din Tai Fung is the xiaolongbao mecca that started in Taiwan and now has locations in Arcadia, Glendale, Century City and Torrance. Each soup dumpling is meticulously made, resulting in lovely, thin-skinned pouches filled with savory pork—there are shrimp and veggie options, too, but you’ll want to go with the pork—and hot broth; eat with a dab of soy sauce, vinegar and ginger, slurping the dumpling’s soup carefully when you begin. Small plates of noodles, rice dishes and stir-fried vegetables round out the menu, but the stars are the dumplings, some of which you can top with slices of truffle.

In Arcadia and Monterey Park, eponymous chef Tony He is crafting gourmet dim sum of the highest order. While his original restaurant, Rosemead's Sea Harbour, offers a wider array of dishes and more cozy environs, his cooking shines just as bright at his sleeker, more youthful concept with truffle-laced shumai; translucent, fish egg-topped scallop and shrimp dumpling; and not just one, but two jet-black dishes topped with edible gold: shrimp har gow and salty-sweet lava egg yolk buns—the latter best eaten extremely carefully. Among its desserts, you’ll also find a trio of darling sesame-eyed coconut jelly bunnies. Although the final bill is likely to raise an eyebrow among dim sum aficionados, a meal here justifies both the price and the wait, which can get long on weekends if you don’t come early.

This mom-and-pop restaurant in Alhambra specializes in all things braised, including standout versions of soy-braised pork rice that use a variety of cuts and supplemental pickled peppers. The menu spans Sichuan, Taiwanese and Cantonese classics including boiled pepper fish, beef noodle soup and fermented tofu, plus the requisite dumplings and fried rice. Dishes like sliced potato slivers and cucumbers get at the essence of the Chinese cold case, and you can also find a delicate rendition of Shanghainese yan du xian (salt pork, bamboo and tofu skin soup). Plus, Luyixian stays open fairly late and features a few large tables—meaning you can get soulfully made, affordably priced Chinese fare for a crowd until 11pm most nights of the week.

Though its name might conjure up images of New England lobster rolls, this small Vietnamese-Chinese SGV strip mall spot sells the most incredible fresh stir-fried lobster with green onion and garlic in town, all on top of a bed of noodles. Boston Lobster also serves an excellent, melt-in-your-mouth shaking beef, listed here in English as “French style beef cube.” While the rest of the menu is solid (we also love their clams in basil sauce), you’d be missing out if you don’t order their highly addicting signature crustaceans. Those in search of a deal will also appreciate their affordable lunchtime specials menu.

Famous across the Southland for their shengjianbao (pan-fried Shanghainese soup dumplings), this casual, cash-only takeout spot with locations in Monterey Park and Alhambra sells a wide, affordable array of Chinese cuisine. Having operated in the area for over 20 years, Kang Kang Food Court has drawn the likes of celebrity Momofuku chef David Chang through its doors for its piping hot, juicy deep-fried soup dumplings. However, the rest of its menu is full of quieter delights, like a mini shrimp wonton soup and Suzhou-style fresh pork mooncakes, that keep locals in the know coming back time and time again.

Quality dim sum at this Cantonese seafood eatery ensures there's always a bit of a wait, but the above-average fare (foie gras-infused minced beef, Chinese celery dumplings, shiso-fried duck kidneys) will force you to choose carefully when it's time to tick off boxes on the encyclopedic paper menus. Don't fret if you don't speak Cantonese: the large, picture-filled menu offers a variety of meat, vegetable and seafood dishes that make it easy for anyone to order. With hot dishes flying out of the kitchen (there aren't any traditional carts here), the menu features a lengthy selection of steamed buns, shumai dumplings and a variety of abalone dishes, some fetching $100 a serving. A few of the favorites include: pork fried dumplings, deep fried tofu in abalone sauce, and chicken feet fried durian pastry.

This Shanghainese institution with locations in Chinatown, Pasadena, Monterey Park, Alhambra and the City of Industry is known for its fantastic soup dumpling and array of casual dishes. Both their crab and pork-stuffed varieties are top-sellers. The skin is nicely supple but tough enough to hold the ball of meat and surrounding soup without easily tearing. They also have a great dish known as seaweed fish in English. The texture is similar to Japanese tempura, but flakier, and it’s served with a fresh slice of lemon on top.

Known and loved for its affordable Taiwanese breakfast menu, Huge Tree Pastry is a no-frills spot in a Monterey Park strip mall that offers several excellent budget-friendly dishes, including fantuan: bundles of sweet purple or white wrapped around scrambled egg, fried youtiao (cruller doughnuts), pork floss and pickles. You can also find scallion pancakes, pan-fried radish cakes, baked sesame bread and full-sized youtiao, which are perfect for dipping into a cup of steaming hot soymilk (available in both sweet or salty). Note: Cash only.

Whether you're in Highland Park (Joy), Silver Lake or Downtown L.A., Vivian Ku's beloved Eastside-ish restaurants bring a new-school spin to Taiwanese and Chinese classics like thousand-layer-pancake sandwiches, mapo tofu rice bowls and comforting bowls of wonton soup. Extremely affordable (most items run under $12) and hyper flavorful, the homestyle dishes at Joy and Pine & Crane don't exactly recall the banquet-style splendor of many San Gabriel Valley restaurants, but they do bring Chinese food within convenient driving distance of much of the city proper.

The husband-and-wife team of Alan Lam and Grace Li built a cozy dumpling destination with goods that live up to the name. Before you have a chance to choose from the variety of jiaozi, every table receives a complimentary dish of peanuts, celery and firm tofu tossed in chili oil. Along with choosing boiled, steamed or pan-fried dumplings, guests can opt for the noodle soups and rice bowls. For those looking for a little Luscious outside of Monrovia, Highland Park’s Mason’s Dumpling Shop offers a more limited menu, albeit the same dumplings, as its sibling restaurant in the deep SGV.

Mala—the unique numbing and spicy quality of Sichuan peppers—remains the ultimate name of the game at Mian, a more casual, streamlined restaurant concept from the Chengdu Taste team with locations in West Adams, Artesia, San Gabriel and Rowland Heights. Here, the restaurant’s easily decodable menu (for both spice and numbing level) ensures the heat-averse can rest easy each time they order a bowl of Chongqing-style noodles or pick from the varied selection of hot and cold Chinese appetizers. 

This venerated L.A. institution’s original Chinatown location dates back to 1965, although you can now find 12 other sleeker outposts specializing in fast-casual meals and dessert scattered across the San Gabriel Valley. However, we’re most partial to the O.G. Phoenix, with its sparsely decorated dining room, steaming hot jasmine tea and long menu full of dependably delicious plates of Hong Kong-style and Americanized Chinese cuisine. House special congee, Hainan chicken and a delectable steamed Chilean sea bass in a bath of soy sauce and sesame oil are just three dishes from its hundred item-long menu worth an order when you visit Phoenix Chinatown, where time itself almost seems to stop entirely.

With locations in Pasadena, Santa Monica, Playa Vista, Sawtelle, Manhattan Beach and Woodhland Hills, Dan Modern Chinese provides fast-casual Chinese food with a level of consistency and convenience that’s conducive to rush hour takeout runs and third-party delivery. While not every item is a winner on the menu, a few standouts—including the pork xiaolongbao, the saucy, garlicky dan mien (served with your choice of protein) and the Dungeness crab fried rice keep us coming back to Dan time and time again.