Seattle Chinatown >> Seattle Community News >> Q and A About Great Chinese Food in Seattle

7/22/2007 Seattle-  Question: Can people recommend some good to great Chinese restaurants in Seattle and the surrounding region? We like all types of Chinese food [dim sum, Islamic, hot pot, Hunan, etc] except the type that's been modified for American tastes. Presently, we spend a lot of time in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles. We're coming to Seattle for a week and we aren't sure if we can go that long without a bean paste fix.

Also, can anyone recommend a good Asian grocery store where we can find all those essentials like fish sauce, ground bean paste and preserved duck eggs so we can whip up some congee for our friends or should we bring some with us? By the way, does Seattle have a "Chinatown" or area which is more heavily populated by Chinese people?

Answer: We travel to Seattle on a regular basis (about once a year) and always visit the Seattle International District. This is much like most old-style Chinatowns (reminded me of Boston's Chinatown for some reason I haven't been to pinpoint) except a bit more diverse, Pho' places abound. Unless there's been some change most of the food is Cantonese. Uwajimaya is the market that pretty much anchors this neighborhood, though Japanese in heritage, you'll be able to find most of what you need there, including duck eggs, fish sauce, shrimp sauce, etc....the seafood (esp geoduck) always looked good. If you're staying downtown the best way to get there is via the bus tunnel...parking in downtown Seattle is a challenge, but we've found that bus fare is free within downtown.

We usually go to Top Gun for Chinese when we're in Seattle, if not for the food, for the service, which is much like Seattle itself, friendly and kind, but not so friendly as to be obtrusive, and April/May is usually always beautiful in Seattle.
Have Fun - enjoy a few (or more than a few) oysters....
On a different note, we used to live in Rowland Heights, and have eaten in many places in Alhambra/Monterey Park (my wife is from PR China), you mentioned Hunan, I'm wondering if you've eaten at a good Hunan place if you could Email me that info - we travel back to LA monthly for shopping (Marukai), etc....

Good Eating

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