RiceBox is one of the first hip and modern Cantonese restaurants in Los Angeles that really hits the mark. Diners can create custom rice boxes, choosing from the signature char siu (barbecued pork), black soy-poached chicken, crispy seven-spice pork belly, or a vegan special. Chef and co-owner Leo Lee uses only organic produce, as well as ethically-sourced, sustainable, and hormone-free meat. The signature char siu (barbecued pork) uses Duroc pork and is marinated using a family recipe that’s been passed down for more than three decades. The triple-roasted porchetta is marinated overnight, cured, roasted for three hours, and then smoked. Look for a new restaurant from the team in Sherman Oaks in the coming months.

Silver Lake staple Pine & Crane cemented Vivian Ku’s status as one of the city’s best new-school Taiwanese chefs, but at Joy on York, she blends these flavors with quick-and-casual Chinese classics for totally unique cold salads, comforting noodle bowls, and some serious thousand-layer–pancake wraps. Nearly everyone orders the minced Kurobuta pork on rice with a soy-braised egg and pickles, along with the dan dan noodles with a sesame peanut sauce, cucumbers, and cilantro. Extremely affordable and hyper-flavorful, everything Joy dishes up is, well, a joy. The Hakka mochi dessert alone is worth braving the parking along York Boulevard. Look for Ku’s cooking in Downtown now as well.

After running a successful restaurant in China and working at Panda Restaurant Group in Los Angeles, Tony Xu opened Alhambra’s Chengdu Taste in 2013. Angelenos quickly took notice of the restaurant’s fiery Sichuan cooking. One of the restaurant’s signature dishes is the diced rabbit with “younger sister’s secret recipe.” Other must-try dishes include the Sichuan-style mung bean jelly noodles with chile sauce, mapo tofu, and toothpick lamb with cumin. There’s an additional location in Rowland Heights for those who reside further east.

Yang’s Kitchen is a hip and modern spot that strives to source local, sustainable, and organic ingredients when possible. The daytime and dinner menus draw from Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Californian influences. Yang’s Kitchen sources almost all of its vegetables from the farmers market. All proteins (meat, poultry, eggs, dairy seafood, etc.) are humanely raised with sustainability in mind. Chris Yang, the restaurant’s chef-owner, spotlights small dessert businesses by selling their pastries at the restaurant. Besides the constantly rotating desserts on hand, top dishes include the roasted squash kale salad, braised pork with multigrain rice, cold sesame noodles, chicken liver mousse, smoked salmon hash, breakfast plate, and mochi pancake.

Jiang Nan Spring specializes in Zhejiang cuisine made with lots of seafood and seasonal ingredients. Jiang Nan translates to “south of the river” and refers to the areas south of the Yangtze River, which include Shanghai, Hangzhou, Jiangsu, Fujian, Ningbo, Shaoxing, Anhui, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang. One of the most unique items on the menu is the traditional Chinese dish beggar’s chicken. This dish rarely appears on menus because of its complexity and lengthy preparation. Beggar’s chicken consists of marinated chicken wrapped tightly in layers of lotus leaves, parchment paper, and dough; chef Chang bakes the dish slowly on low heat. Other house specialties include stir-fried crab with rice cakes, braised pork belly, lion’s head pork meatballs, eight treasure rice pudding, and osmanthus glutinous rice balls.

Newport Seafood is an institution in the San Gabriel Valley. The star dish is the house-special lobster fished from tanks and stir-fried with heaps of chopped chiles, scallions, roe, and garlic. The family-style restaurant uses Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Thai flavors. Signature items include lobster, shaking beef, crab with tamarind sauce, and sashimi-style elephant clams.

Nature Pagoda is a tiny mom-and-pop that has been around since the ’90s. The entire menu is based on traditional Chinese medicinal principles meant to balance the body for optimal health. The quaint restaurant serves traditional herbal teas and medicinal soups, but the star is clay pot rice (bao zai fan), a Hong Kong specialty. The rice at the bottom of the clay pot is crispy, while the interior rice is moist and steamed with ingredients like mushrooms, bamboo shoots, Chinese sausage, pork ribs, and salted fish with ground pork and tofu. All clay pot rice dishes are made to order, so prepare to wait.

Auntie Kitchen is one of the most solid restaurants serving traditional Cantonese fare. There are three locations, and the newest in San Gabriel offers the most extensive menu of the three. Known for its Cantonese barbecue, Auntie Kitchen is rare among Hong Kong barbecue shops for offering the popular Hainan chicken rice. The dish comes with complimentary soup, and portions are generous while prices remain reasonable. The expansive menu includes items such as beef brisket noodles, wontons, and rice rolls. The barbecue section offers an abundance of choices, and the Five Flavor duck is among the most popular meats. The duck is stir-fried until the skin becomes golden, then cooked for hours over low heat. The five flavors include fragrant, spicy, sweet, sour, and umami. Auntie Kitchen also serves roast pork, barbecue pork, roast duck, and soy sauce chicken. Customers can even pre-order roasted goose.

Tam’s Noodle House opened during the pandemic selling only frozen Hong Kong-style wontons and dumplings. Now that indoor dining is in full swing, Tam’s has established itself as one of the go-to Hong Kong cafes in the area for casual Cantonese-style foods like curry fish balls, barbecue pork, beef stew lo mien, steamed rice rolls, pineapple buns, and Hong Kong-style milk tea. All the noodles and dumplings are made in-house, including three varieties of egg noodles (wonton-style egg noodles, rice noodles, and flat egg noodles). 

Ji Rong is a San Gabriel Valley staple that specializes in traditional Peking duck, which comes with thin pancakes, shredded green onion, julienned cucumber, and hoisin sauce. The duck skin is sliced thinly over a layer of fatty and tender duck meat. The bones are all removed, making it easy for diners to make their own wraps. There are no walk-ins for Peking duck; make sure to call ahead and reserve a duck at least an hour and a half to two hours ahead. Although the Peking duck is the star dish, mapo tofu, stewed pork belly, kung pao chicken, and lamb skewers are also standout options.

Red 99 Grill Bistro specializes in Shanghainese cuisine, but also has a handful of Sichuan- and Hunan-style dishes on the menu. The signature dish is the red braised pork belly prepared with soy sauce, rice wine, sugar, and other spices; the gelatinous skin and fat melt easily in your mouth. Other popular dishes include Shanghainese eel, loofa, drunken chicken, Shanghainese stir-fried rice cake with crab, and green onion scallion noodles. Red 99 also makes one of the best renditions of jiuniang yuan zi, a subtly sweet and boozy dessert soup with fermented glutinous rice, dried osmanthus flower, and chewy glutinous black sesame rice balls. 

Colette is the latest addition to the Los Angeles dining scene, helmed by former Embassy Kitchen chef Peter Lai. Lai showcases his innovative and complex Cantonese-inspired cuisine, and one of his most sought-after off-menu items is the Crispy Flower Chicken, a traditional Cantonese dish that takes at least six hours to prepare and features a deboned, air-dried chicken pressed with shrimp paste.

Colette offers a variety of rare and unadvertised dishes, including stir-fried lobster sticky rice, lamb stew, and winter melon soup. The off-menu Dungeness crab curry is served with pan-fried vermicelli that soaks up the curry’s flavor, while Lai’s spin on geoduck two ways includes a classic sashimi preparation and a less traditional porridge (pao fan). Beloved dishes like beef chow fun, cola-glazed chicken wings, and salmon carpaccio are also on the menu.

Mr. Chopsticks has been a mainstay in the area for over three decades and is one of a handful of Cantonese restaurants that still provide free soup at the start of the meal. The lunch menu includes 40 affordable and amply portioned specials, like beef chow fun, kung pao shrimp, chicken wings, and salt and pepper shrimp. Given 24-hour advance notice, Mr. Chopsticks whips up its famous seafood winter melon soup that’s made from scratch using ingredients from the restaurant’s garden; the soup serves up to 15 people. 

19 Town is a new fine-dining restaurant and bar from Sichuan Impression co-founder and chef Lynn Liu. The design is minimalist yet lavish. The name of the restaurant is a play on words in Mandarin, meaning “food” and “drink.”

Although Liu is known for her Sichuan cuisine, 19 Town focuses on contemporary Chinese cuisine. There’s a fun fusion dish called gnocchi con le cozze, which blends Chinese pickled-pepper sour and spicy sauce with mussels and pasta. The mapo tofu comes covered in cheese in a fondue dip where pieces of bread are pulled through a mozzarella and tofu mixture. Their rendition of orange chicken is made their own with Sichuan touches. The flaming pork jowl is a popular dish that servers set on fire at the table with potent 151-proof rum, and cocktails are also extremely innovative.

Ma Lu Bian Bian is a Sichuan restaurant from China with well over a thousand outlets globally. The restaurant specializes in chuan chuan huo or skewer-style hotpot. Diners first choose a broth: vegetarian, mild (classic), or traditional (spicy); the restaurant’s traditional broth contains 19 different herbs. From there, it’s a self-service experience — diners grab a basket and select meat and vegetable skewers from the refrigerator. On hand are standards like lamb, beef, corn, tofu, mushrooms, and beef-wrapped okra, along with more adventurous items like offal and pig’s brain. Ma Lu Bian Bian prepares a traditional Sichuan-style dipping sauce using a dried powder with minced chile and chopped peanuts. The servers add a spoonful of broth to the powder to create the sauce.

Tai Ping Sa Choi Kee, which is located in an abandoned plaza, is the very definition of barebones with food arriving on paper plates and bowls. Those willing to look beyond the surface will be rewarded with a great meal. Must-order dishes include the hand-shredded chicken and the salt and pepper wings lightly fried with garlic, chopped onion, and peppers. Drizzle the house-made spicy chile crisp over everything.

Everything screams opulence at the X Pot, a collaboration between Xiang Tian Xia and Chubby Cattle restaurant groups. Expect fine dining plus a show, as diners are treated to a traditional Beijing opera performance. Hot pots feature premium ingredients like imported fresh seafood and A5 wagyu. X Pot sources wagyu from its own cattle farm in Japan and ships a whole cow to the restaurant daily to ensure the freshest sashimi, meatballs, and more. The house-special wagyu dripping pot and wagyu tomato oxtail soup are fan favorites. Teddy bear-shaped spice can be added to any hotpot. At the end of the meal, walk through a special machine that sprays citrus perfume to help diners avoid smelling of hot pot.

Eat Joy Food is part mini-mart and part Taiwanese restaurant. It uses quality seasonal ingredients, many of which are seafood, and offers a plentiful vegetarian menu. The menu is large and filled with seasonal specialties that rotate regularly. The restaurant is known for not using MSG and avoiding oily food. During lunch, it offers a la carte items and bento specials that come with complimentary soup. For dinner, it offers exquisite banquet-style meals that are made to share, such as lobster salad, which is a showstopper. Fresh chunks of lobster meat are sliced and placed on top of a fruit bed. The regular menu features many Taiwanese specialties such as grilled monkfish, steamed black cod with pickled cordia seeds, stinky tofu, stir-fried chayote leaves, pork kidney soup with noodles and ginger, stir-fried bitter melons with salty egg yolks, and oyster pancakes.