The Best Chinese Food in Ann Arbor

This is the guide I kept putting off writing. Not because the restaurants are bad. Because the list is short, and I wanted it to be longer before committing it to print.

Ann Arbor is a city of 125,000 people, home to one of the largest universities in the country, with a significant Chinese and Chinese American population. The food scene supports five Korean restaurants, a dozen Mexican spots, and more ramen than any town this size has a right to claim. Chinese food should be a strength. Instead, it's a gap. The Cantonese restaurant that served generations of students is still here, but the next generation of Chinese cooking, the Sichuan restaurants and the regional noodle shops and the xiao long bao specialists that have transformed dining in bigger metros, has largely bypassed Ann Arbor.

What follows is an honest list. Three restaurants that serve Chinese food with care, with no pretense that the list is comprehensive or that Ann Arbor's Chinese dining compares to what you'd find in Chicago's Chinatown, the stretch of Dequindre Road in Troy, or even some of the options in Novi.

1. Chia Shiang (2016 Packard St, Ann Arbor)

Chia Shiang is the restaurant that comes up in every conversation about Chinese food in Ann Arbor, and for good reason. It has outlasted dozens of competitors on Packard Street, serving Cantonese and Mandarin dishes to a clientele that spans students, faculty, and families who have been coming for years.^{1Chia Shiang has operated on Packard Street for years. Menu details and pricing reflect current offerings as of this writing.}

The menu is long, which is both the appeal and the challenge. Ordering well requires some navigation. The walnut shrimp ($15) is a crowd-pleaser: lightly battered shrimp with a sweet mayo glaze and candied walnuts. The mapo tofu ($12) has more heat than you'd expect from a Cantonese-leaning kitchen, with a numbing quality from the Sichuan peppercorns that suggests someone in the back cares about getting it right. The lo mein is competent. The fried rice is above average.

Where Chia Shiang excels is in the dishes that don't make it onto most tables. The whole steamed fish, when available, is the best thing on the menu. Salt and pepper squid has a delicate batter and arrives hot. If you're ordering kung pao chicken and sweet and sour pork, you'll have a fine meal. If you're ordering from the specials or asking the server what the kitchen does best, you'll have a better one.

Portions are large. Prices are reasonable. Two people can eat well for $30-$35. The room is functional: round tables, a fish tank, the kind of restaurant that looks like it hasn't been redecorated since the Clinton administration, and that's part of the charm.

2. Evergreen (2771 Washtenaw Ave, Ypsilanti)

Evergreen sits on the Washtenaw Avenue corridor, technically in Ypsilanti but close enough to Ann Arbor's eastern edge that the distinction is academic. The menu is Cantonese with some Sichuan crossover, and the kitchen handles both traditions with quiet competence.^{2Evergreen's menu and dim sum offerings based on current restaurant operations.}

The dim sum selection, available at lunch, is the draw. Har gow (shrimp dumplings), siu mai, and char siu bao rotate through the offerings, and while this is not a cart-service dim sum operation with sixty options, what they produce is well-made. The har gow wrappers are translucent and thin. The char siu bao filling is sweet and savory in the right proportions. Dim sum items run $5-$8 per plate.

At dinner, the beef chow fun ($13) has the wok hei (breath of the wok) that separates a kitchen with real flame from one working with underpowered equipment. The slippery, wide rice noodles pick up char from the wok, and the beef is tender. The General Tso's chicken ($13) is the American-Chinese standard done well: crispy coating, balanced sauce, not drowning in sugar.

Evergreen doesn't have the name recognition of Chia Shiang, and the Washtenaw Avenue location means fewer spontaneous visits from the campus crowd. But the cooking is consistent, the dim sum is genuine, and the prices are some of the lowest for sit-down Chinese food in the area.

3. China Gate (1201 S University Ave, Ann Arbor)

China Gate is the campus Chinese restaurant, and I include it on this list with full transparency about what it is and what it isn't. It is a fast, inexpensive lunch spot that has fed students for years. It is not a destination. It is not producing food that will change your mind about Chinese cooking. What it does, it does reliably and cheaply, and in a city with a thin Chinese food scene, reliability and value count for something.

The lunch combo ($9-$11) is the move: pick an entree, get rice and an egg roll. Orange chicken, sesame chicken, beef with broccoli. The orange chicken has a crisp coating and enough citrus in the sauce to justify the name. The portions are calibrated for people who are actually hungry, which on South University means students between classes.

The egg drop soup ($4) is warm and adequate. The crab rangoon ($5) is filled with enough cream cheese and a suggestion of crab. These are not dishes that reward close analysis. They reward hunger and a limited budget.

China Gate's value is its consistency and its price. For under $12, you eat a hot meal with real portions. On a street dominated by options north of $15, that matters.

The honest assessment: Ann Arbor is underserved for Chinese food relative to its size, its demographics, and its broader dining ambitions. A city with five Korean restaurants and multiple serious Japanese options should have at least one restaurant doing regional Chinese cooking at a high level. The places on this list are good. Chia Shiang is genuinely worth a regular visit. Evergreen's dim sum punches above what you'd expect from a Washtenaw Avenue strip mall. But the absence of a Sichuan specialist, a hand-pulled noodle shop, or a Shanghainese kitchen is felt.

If you're willing to drive thirty minutes to Novi or forty-five to Troy, the options multiply. But that's not what a guide to Ann Arbor should have to say.