The best Chinese restaurant in America: Yangming in Bryn Mawr, PA

[greygarious]

According to a competition run by a nationwide association of Chinese restaurant owners, highlighted on today's CBS Sunday Morning. Neither criteria nor method of selection were described, but it was an awards event, not an on-site competition.

[jessicheese]

I have eaten at Yangming a few times and it's always been nothing short of fantastic. Delicious food and atmosphere. The type of special restaurant where a Mr. Jessicheese would propose to his girlfriend during dinner one evening....
I don't know if it's the best in the country, but it holds a very special place in my heart.

[bulavinaka]

Never been to this Chinese restaurant, but I'm still shaking my head wondering how none of the very respected Chinese eateries in California could even break into the top 10. I thiink poster scoopG might be too kind in referencing why... I've created a similar post on this board:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/759899

I've also posted on the LA board so LA Hounds can throw in their two pennies - and throw them hard - at the (IMHO) questionable list:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/759904

Bryn Mawr is now the center point of Chinese cuisine? Still shaking my head...

[scoopG]

Too bad, that thread was locked right away.

Looks like a road trip to Bryn Mawr is in order! It's a Philadelphia exoburb - on the Main Line.

[Delucacheesemonger]

Make the trip at your own peril. Please report back on your findings. As we discussed on another thread, more of a diffusion style of Chinese. Some years back this top 100 recommended at number 5 another restaurant in a very non-Chinese area of Philadelphia, the far Northeast, l went. It was a Chinese takeout indistinguishable from zillions of other Chinese takeout all over the country.

[scoopG]

I think calling it a "competition" is stretching it. This is run by Chinese Restaurant News - a trade publication, not restaurant owners. I believe it is open to any Chinese restaurant willing to fork over $1,000 and then send their chef to San Francisco. They have many categories, including the top 100 Chinese Restaurants (USA, Canada and Australia) as well as, dare I write it: Buffets!

[celfie]

crazy
the menu is weird and kind of boring

[AdamD]

The dinner menu strikes me as fusion. Portebellas, jalepenos or veal at a Chinese restaurant?
Ugh.

[fourunder]

I would agree with your first comment....the menu strikes me a fusion. The second part though, I see quite frequently offered....especially the veal, for places that are accommodating the Kosher Chinese community.

[scoopG]

Who can say no to an opulent Imperial Palace presentation of boiled veal?

Why Tang poet Wei Yingwu (韋應物 - 737-792) could! He complained that the boiled veal and baked lamb dishes served up at palace banquets was a sign of “extravagant wastefulness.”

Some 500 years later, Marco Polo claimed that the flesh of freshly slaughtered calves were eaten by wealthy Chinese and Chinese nobles – as recounted in A. C. Moule’s 1938 book “Marco Polo: The Description of the World.”

Two Chinese Veal Dishes:
http://www.nipic.com/show/1/77/4139659ka31233cb.html

http://huadian.114chn.com/TradeWeb/We...

[chowser]

Ah, but was it spicy veal ravioli with jalapeno peppers, ginger and garlic vinaigrette? That's a dish you could serve anywhere, ask what type of restaurant it came from and not get Chinese as an answer.

[chowser]

Or jalapeno and blue cheese in lettuce wraps? Caesar salad w/ asian pear? Thai basil and Thai basil vinaigrette?

[buttertart]

The concept of the "best" anything restaurant is a bit difficult and much more so when dealing with a cuisine that's as varied as all of Europe's.
http://www.yangmingrestaurant.com/menus/dinnerselect.htm
Would be interesting to see the criteria, but this menu strikes me as very deracinated, much like those of the "luxury" Chinese restaurants in NYC such as Tse Yang and the Shun Lees.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/750138
Hmm...

[fourunder]

Regardless of how the menu reads, the pictures provided in their gallery shows me there is only a marginal resemblance to the Chinese food I am accustomed to seeing in the various Chinatowns and Chinese restaurants over the years.