Seattle’s Best Chinese Restaurants
Seattle’s Chinese restaurant scene continues to improve, expand, surprise, and delight at an absurd pace. New places pop up faster than you can visit the “must-tries” that were already on your list. The classics will be the classics and the familiar chains—Din Tai Fung, Dough Zone—continue to thrive. This tour of Chinese restaurants spotlights places that have a particular specialty, or an especially good version of a specific dish.
While we divvy the list up to make it easier to figure out where to eat, keep in mind that, for restaurants to meet the demands of the dining public, they tend to draw influences from across regional Chinese and Taiwanese cuisines. These are general categories; a Sichuanese restaurant may also have Northern-style dumplings or Cantonese-style dim sum. Being rigid along regional boundaries can be detrimental to a restaurant’s survival, and the variety offers more chances to find a new favorite food.
Spice Specialists: Sichuan and Hunan Cuisine
Spicy Style of Sichuan
Northgate
The restaurant’s Mandarin name is a clever play on a phrase that means “we’re No. 1 and No. 2 best Sichuan” restaurant. The boast makes sense when you taste dishes such as the stir-fried sour-and-spicy shredded potatoes, eggplant with chili peppers and preserved eggs, dry-fried green beans, and steamed pork belly with buns. The potato dish (a telltale benchmark of the kitchen’s attention to detail) hits all the right notes. The ma la tingling of Sichuan pepper isn’t shy in the ma po tofu and it’ll require extra rice as a companion. Spicy Style is located at the Asian Family Center on Aurora Avenue North, so time your visit for when you need to stock up on Asian ingredients.
Chengdu Taste
Chinatown–International District
A Southern California favorite—started by a pair of Chengdu natives nostalgic for break-a-sweat spicy Sichuan—expanded to include a handsome dining room in the Publix building. Classic Sichuan dishes are uniformly great, the laziji chicken exceptionally so. On the menu, it goes by a deceptively tame moniker: crispy chicken with red chili pepper. Bite-size morsels get a deep-fry to lock in moisture, then a wokked follow-up tossed with Sichuan peppercorns, toasted sesame seeds, and generous lengths of red chilies. Chengdu Taste offers two versions of this dish, a traditional bone-in chicken and a boneless take that’s easier to eat.
Dan Gui
Bellevue/Bel-Red, Green Lake
Deciding what to order is easier if you’re with a larger group that can handle ma la and pungent foods. You can’t go wrong with classics: ma po tofu, dry-fried green beans, toothpick lamb, eggplant with preserved egg. Do give fish or chicken with green sichuan peppercorns a try, as well as the sauerkraut beef or fish. For something sweet, the fermented glutinous rice ball “soup” can help tame some of the fire on your palate. The restaurant takes its name from the fragrant osmanthus flower and offers a definite bright spot in a sprawling strip mall. They now have a second location, Dan Gui Blossoms, in Green Lake.
Shaoshan Impression
Bellevue/Bel-red
While everyone deserves to try the silky umami of Shaoshan Impression’s celtuce (listed as “asparagus lettuce” on the menu), the rest of the menu begs you to leave any tender-palated friends at home. The impeccably white walls, spotless white tablecloths, and parade of white tableware showcase the electric red oils and fiery green peppers that define Hunan cuisine. The menu helpfully guides potential rookies through the comparative spice of staples like crispy-edged fried pork ribs (medium spicy) and sauteed beef (big spicy), and holds gems like the steamed fish fillets, which come as a duo with red and green pepper sauces, or the crispy, black-sesame-stuffed sweet dumplings, stir-fried with peppers and preserved vegetables.
That’s Dough Good: Dumplings and Noodles
Dumpling Generation
Edmonds, Lake Forest Park
As the name implies, baskets of steamed dumplings are the move here. The wrappers are hand-rolled—not too thin or thick—and the fillings are savory and juicy. If you prefer some pungency, get the dumplings that include Chinese chives, which have large, flat leaves that aren’t afraid to announce their presence. The kitchen makes its own noodles, upping the game on dishes like beef noodle soup and tomato egg and noodles. It’s always a delight to encounter tomato egg on a menu. To find this dish with noodles doubles the pleasure.
Mama Dough
Kent
The soup dumpling game in the Seattle area has its camps. Mama Dough can hold its own with its xiao long bao, which have thin wrappers that are gorgeously pleated. Filling options include pork, crab, or vegetables—though the vegetarian version doesn’t have soup in them. Surprisingly few restaurants in town serve braised beef pancake rolls; the version here wraps a scallion pancake around sliced shank to create a filling appetizer, albeit tough to share beyond two people. Round out your meal with a few cold dishes, such as the seaweed or cucumber salad.
Xi’an Noodles
Downtown Seattle, Downtown Bellevue, University District
Biang biang noodles take their name from the satisfying thwack you hear when chefs slap skeins of dough on the counter. The impact creates fissures that lead to wide ribbons with ragged edges, the specialty of the northwest Chinese city of Xi’an. These chewy, hand-ripped noodles center in most dishes on the menu. Order them as a soup, or as a bowl tossed with spicy cumin lamb or just some chili-flecked hot oil. The original U District location just received a thorough remodel; the downtown outpost is a counter on the second floor of Westlake Center.
Triumph Valley
Renton
If it feels like you just arrived to eat dim sum amid the dark wood paneling of an upscale chain restaurant, you have likely stepped into one of Triumph Valley’s multiple sprawling dining rooms, formerly a location of The Keg Steakhouse. In place of salad bars and big hunks of beef are live tanks of seafood and tables filled with multigenerational families passing purple mochi filled with molten salted egg yolk across the table. The dumplings are big, with the telltale rusticity of being hand-made. Though it opened with wide-ranging ambitions, including converting to a hot pot restaurant at night, the in-table stoves stay covered now, as the restaurant focuses its attention on dim sum and seafood—and diners should too.
Sun Sui Wah
Bellevue/Bel-Red
Vancouver’s superior dim sum long drew Seattleites north to places like Sun Sui Wah, which first opened there in 1988. In 2024, Sun Sui Wah decided to make things easier by bringing the dim sum south. Seattle no longer lags so far behind in quality, but the sleek, modern style and formal nature of the service that is common there is a rarity here. The comprehensive menu, photo-illustrated and laminated for diners to check off items with a dry-erase pen, hews fairly classic by international standards. But few places in Seattle have this kind of range—from the restaurant’s signature roasted squab to a chocolate mousse dessert shaped like a sleeping puppy. Though the enormous television the width of the room does disrupt the upscale chandeliered vibes a bit when it shows sports highlights, it also makes for an enticing Sunday combination of Seahawks and siu mai. And those siu mai, along with lacy-crusted taro dumplings and other dim sum favorites, come plump and precise.
Wonton Noodle House
Edmonds
Comfort comes in more than 100 different forms here, with the dozens of varieties of the eponymous signature dish combining beef brisket, bouncy wontons, fish balls, and more with a tangle of yellow noodles in translucent golden broth. The other four pages of the menu show off nearly as many types of congee (pumpkin and fish fillet is a star), dry and fried noodles, and classic Hong Kong dishes. While plenty of noodle houses in town do a decent impression of these specialties, the duo of housemade sauces—the XO used by the kitchen and the chili oil on the table—keeps customers coming back. Even (especially) after a fire in 2021 destroyed the original location and forced the restaurant to move north into this larger space, conveniently tucked into the north side of Ranch 99.
Hot Pot Hot Spots
Qiao Lin Hot Pot
Downtown
On the grand axis of hot pot restaurant characteristics on, both the quality and variety of each element—broth, sauces, and slate of dippable items—deserves scrutiny. This Chicago-based mini-chain crushes on all of them, plus racks up bonus points for things like having a giant stuffed panda bear to hang out with while waiting (and waiting and waiting, this place is no secret) and the most robust “sauce bar” (think snacks-and-desserts buffet) in town. It’s open late, it serves beef on golden cow statues, and even offers a 64-item tasting menu for the indecisive or curious out there.
The Dolar Shop
Bellevue
The Dolar Shop is extra, in that most early 2000s sense of the word; in its enormous platters of geoduck and displays of fresh shrimp, high-end meat and house-made meatballs, and the extensive sauce bars. Even if black truffle hot pot isn’t your vibe, the individual pots allow everyone to choose their own style, something particularly helpful for vegetarians and folks with allergies, for whom hot pot can otherwise be a minefield.
All Under Heaven
Looking for Chai
Bellevue, Edmonds
When the Three Spiced Chicken with Basil (aka three-cup chicken) arrives at the table, it’s a moment of exaltation and appreciation. Chunks of bone-in chicken have the right amount of seared edges; sauce is a caramelized balance of soy sauce and wine. The basil ties it all together. For fans of dry-fried green beans, Looking for Chai’s version contains bits of pork and dried shrimp. The sizzling platter with chicken steak or pork chop is a mess of food that many folks find irresistible.
A+ Hong Kong Restaurant
Chinatown-International District
If the opinion of an 80-year-old Chinese grandma matters to you, the braised beef brisket stone pot at A+ Hong Kong Restaurant is the best in Seattle. Indeed, the brisket and tendon hold together until you take a bite. The bed of napa cabbage under the braised beef deserves its own award, cooked to the point of translucence, but before it loses structural integrity. Other stone pots include the eggplant with XO sauce and sliced beef, which has just enough funk and arrives still bubbling in its cauldron. If quantity of food is an important measure, the lunch plates offer enough rice for two meals. The salt and pepper chicken wings are deep-fried crispy and laced with just enough curry to make you obsess about it but not so much to overwhelm the flavor profile. We could go on. Or you can just go now.
151 Days Chicken Soup House
Redmond
If you go to a chicken soup house that raises its own Arlington Bresse chickens on a farm an hour north of Seattle, it stands to reason: You get the chicken noodle soup. 151 Days serves its signature noodle soup with slivers of chicken, chopped cilantro and green onions, fried shallots, soft-cooked egg, and greens. The light-bodied broth goes down easily. Potstickers shine thanks to Berkshire pork filling that tastes memorably fresh and clean. The tofu salad combines slivers of potato and radish alongside the fried tofu. It’s a can’t-stop-eating-it dish that’s sumptuous enough to be an entree salad.
Vivienne’s Bistro
Mercer Island, Downtown
Chef Danna Hwang, previously of Peony Kitchen, now oversees these upscale dining rooms, marked by wooden lanterns, high-backed booths, and a preponderance of citrusy cocktails. Hwang’s menu starts with Cantonese flavors, then moves in unexpected directions like mu shu tacos, clam chowder croquettes, or squid ink rice baked with a decadent topping of cheese. Even familiar dishes like honey walnut prawns or wontons get plated for looks as much as flavor; Vivienne’s showstopper is the Forbidden Roast Duck platter, a five-spiced bird with crackling skin that arrives with a DIY array of herbs, radish, delicate lemon slices, and monogrammed bao buns.
Lucky Barbecue and Noodle House
Bellevue/Bel-Red
They had us at “chubby duck.” This fast-casual spot for Hong Kong–style noodle soups, rice dishes, and congee is part of the food court area adjacent to Asian Family Center. Noodle varieties include thick or thin egg noodles, or several different rice noodles; you can top them with duck, beef brisket and tendon, fish balls, squid balls, and barbecued pork. Roast pork, ribs, chicken, and duck are all on the barbecue menu. When you select a duck from the case, you can specify a skinny or chubby duck. Bring on the fat.
Imperial Garden
Kent
The dim sum menu contains all the favorites and any extras make great takeaway. The kitchen uses lump shrimp in its har gow, delivers perfectly fried (i.e., not greasy) sesame balls, and focuses on making great pork for its steamed barbecue pork bao. But Imperial Garden’s star remains the Beijing Duck—shaved pieces of meat topped with planks of lacquered duck skin, served with condiments and translucent steamed pancakes. A whole order commands the table; a half order lets you explore more of the menu. While the restaurant uses white tablecloths and is spacious enough to accommodate large banquets, the vibe isn’t formal. Folks are as likely to come after shopping next door at 99 Ranch Market as they are for a special occasion.
Happy Food
Chinatown–International District
As I started a meal at Happy Food, a group finishing up at one of the other five tables was discussing both how soon they could return and if they should order another dish just to take home. A single bite of the scallion oil fish filet, tender curls of sole swimming in a light, allium-infused oil bath, and anyone would do the same. The dish embodies the delicate, seafood-based cuisine of Zhejiang, the province from which owner Ye AiFang hails, and Ye, with her sincere and enthusiastic service, embodies the restaurant’s cheery name. After digging into heaping plates of frilly edged noodles, sweet fermented rice ball soup, and an order of vinegar cabbage, any diner will, too.
Wild Cumin
Kent
The dusky smoke unique to smoldering coals permeates the chunks of skewered lamb, themselves tenderized by tidbits of fat threaded onto the skewer and nearly crusted in cumin and chili powder. Cooking the Xinjiang Uyghur food of in Wild Cumin’s kitchen is Chengbiao Yang, founder of Seven Stars Pepper Szechuan Restaurant, one of the first Sichuan restaurants in the city. He remains a master noodle-maker and shines elsewhere here, too: The slightly sweet Xinjiang salad of red onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and the resplendently fresh housemade yogurt. But while the grilled meat at Wild Cumin is wonderful, it would improve greatly with a dollop of acknowledgement that the cuisine comes from the Uyghur people, against whom (and whose culture) China has been on a genocidal campaign since at least 2017.