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Hunan Taste chinese restaurant food

Just how all-American is Chinese food?

We’ve been placing delivery orders since the 1920s, and there are now more than 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., nearly three times the number of McDonald’s, according to Chinese Restaurant News.

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With this expansion, Chinese kitchens have pushed well beyond General Tso’s chicken, introducing creations like Mission Chinese Food’s fiery kung pao pastrami as well as more regional dishes, from western-style cumin lamb with hand-ripped noodles to Sichuanese pepper frog legs. The result is a reinvigorated debate over what makes for authentic Chinese food, plus plenty of tantalizing, adventurous eating.

You’ll find restaurants setting the bar higher in immigrant enclaves like New York City’s Flushing neighborhood and California’s San Gabriel Valley, but also in Vermont, Chicago, and Salt Lake City. Some are family-owned, hole-in-the-wall joints, while others have spawned celebrity chefs like Peter Chang, originally from Hubei Province.

Hunan Taste in Maryland is on the stylish end of the spectrum, with traditional design elements (calligraphy, red walls) and dishes to satisfy all comers.

Choose from a Chinese menu that includes tea tree mushroom casserole and stir-fried leeks with dried bean curd, or go for the comfort of the American menu’s sweet-and-sour spareribs. It’s not unusual for Chinese restaurants to have differing menus or special unlisted preparations available on request.

“There are so many cool dishes that aren’t being put out front; experimenting can be intimidating, but it’s worth it,” says Scott Drewno, executive chef of The Source, Wolfgang Puck’s contemporary Asian restaurant in D.C. Drewno says he fell in love with Chinese food at age 21, while working with Puck in Vegas.

Now he has put his own spin on Chinese: sesame-miso cones filled with ahi tuna; pork belly dumplings with black vinegar and chili oil; and lacquered duck with sweet-and-sour huckleberries.

The Source hosts a great-value Saturday dim sum brunch and special events; you can learn to make the dumplings yourself as part of a class timed to Chinese New Year (typically late January or early February). Dumplings are considered symbols of luck, wealth, and prosperity—a key part of the holiday feasting.

Here’s a first bit of good fortune: our short list of the best Chinese restaurants across the U.S. See how many you’ve tried, and share your favorites in the comments below.

See the best Chinese restaurants >

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Lao Sze Chuan: Chicago

Awards continue to rack up for Lao Sze Chuan, one of the first area Chinese restaurants to earn three forks from the Chicago Tribune, and a designated “Bib Gourmand” in the 2012 and 2013 Michelin Guide.

Owner Tony Hu, dubbed the Mayor of Chinatown, has seven Chinese restaurants, with four more slated to open by the end of this year.

Yet people continue to wait in line for a table at this Sichuan spot, known for its extraordinary spiciness and fearless dishes like sour pickle and pork stomach soup and Peking-style duck tongue (milder options are also available). tonygourmetgroup.com

Chicago

Gourmet Dumpling House: Boston

Expect to be one of only a handful of English-speaking diners at this small, family-owned restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown.

Though the menu leans toward Taiwanese and coastal cuisines—the soup dumplings filled with pork, crabmeat and a delicate broth and the scallion pancakes are not to be missed—you’ll also find skillfully executed Sichuan dishes, like the sliced fish, revered for it’s perfect balance of heat and tenderness.

Gourmet Dumpling House, Boston

Peter Chang Café: Richmond, VA

A native of Hubei Province, Peter Chang got his start at a no-frills restaurant inside a strip mall in Fairfax, VA, in 2005.

Eight restaurants in nearly as many states, a cultlike following, and countless awards later, Chang opened his namesake restaurant in Richmond.

The bold, exotic flavors will leave your tongue numb, especially if you opt for the Hot & Numbing Hot Pot, a combo of seafood, chicken, beef, and veggies submerged in a fiery red sauce. The oversize portions are meant to be shared and arrive on an as-ready basis. peterchangrva.com

Richmond

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biking bike washington dc style man I recently had a conversation with a friend who was moving and said she preferred to live in Maryland than in D.C. because D.C. residents pay higher taxes. She wasn’t the first local to tell me that. But is this claim true?

It appears in this case, conventional wisdom is out of touch with the facts. The DC Fiscal Policy Institutecompared hypothetical families earning $50,000, $100,000, or $200,000 and found that, in most cases, D.C. residents have lower combined income and property taxes than Maryland or Virginia residents. The primary reasons cited are lower property tax rates and benefits such as the homestead deduction, which combine to limit homeowners’ taxable assessment.

However, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s study focuses on middle-class families, and notes that for low-income families, taxes are higher in DC than in Maryland and are similar to Virginia. The DC Chief Financial Officer’s most recent comparative tax study confirms that DC taxes are lower relative to neighboring jurisdictions for families earning $50,000, $75,000, $100,000, and $150,000. This does not hold true at the $25,000-income level, where DC taxes are middle-of-the-pack.

So, it would appear that whether it is preferable to live inside DC or just outside of it depends on your income level.

A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, comparing tax systems in all 50 states, finds that taxpayers in D.C. with incomes of $20,000 to $252,000 pay about 10 percent of their incomes in property, sales, and income taxes. Conversely, the top 5 percent pay about 8 percent of their income. On the upside, those earning below $20,000 pay the lowest rate, 6.2 percent.

The reason for this regressive taxation on moderate-income families is D.C.’s reliance on sales and excise taxes, which fall heaviest on low-income families. Low-income tax benefits, particularly D.C.’s earned income tax credit, offset this regressivity for the poorest families, but not for those of low to moderate income.

Conventional wisdom and the current US tax code suggest that Americans on both sides of the aisle favor a progressive tax system, even if they disagree on the extent. Regressivity creeps into the tax code through taxes other than the income tax. DC is not alone in this problem, or even an egregious example: the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report finds nearly all state and local tax systems take a greater share of income from middle- and low-income families than from the wealthy. In DC, the sales, excise, and property taxes are regressive enough to overbalance a progressive income tax.

Not only DC but other state and local jurisdictions could stand a comprehensive review of how taxes are collected and who pays. However, in neither quantity nor quality is DC remarkably different from its neighbors in taxation.

This post originally appeared on the Urban Institute's MetroTrends blog, an Atlantic partner site.