My favorite Chinese proverb is 民以食为天, which essentially translates to, food is the utmost priority of the people. Considering this, out of the top 10 cities with the most Chinese population, nine of them are around the St. Louis county area, so there are a handful of good Chinese places around.
Here is a comprehensive list of Chinese restaurants around. Two rules of thumbs before you go:
1 – If you are unfamiliar with Chinese food, order something unfamiliar on the menu. Orange Chicken and other dishes you might’ve heard of are not authentic. Some of the amazing dishes have weird and untranslatable Chinese names (sometimes, Chinese people will name a dish after historic occurrences and the name does not describe the food at all). You have to trust that the dishes with weird names are good.
2 – Vegetable dishes are always good, sometimes better than meat dishes
Rating on a scale of 1 – 5
Click Here to view the interactive map that include all the restaurants.
⭐ Tai Ke Shabu Shabu
9626 Olive Blvd, Olivette, MO 63132, USA
Overall rating: 5
Environment: 5
Food: 4.5
Recommended dishes: Signature Three Cup Chicken, Sizzling Tofu, Taiwanese Sausage Platter
Taike mainly serves Taiwanese cuisines, which are not very spicy. Most of the dishes are decent. The host is friendly and the restaurant is clean.
⭐ Corner 17
6623 Delmar Blvd, University City, MO 63130, USA
Overall rating: 5
Environment: 4.5
Food: 5
Recommended dishes: cold chili flat noodle, Beef stir-fried noodle, Sweet and sour flounder fish
Always remember to order noodles and boba (usually restaurant boba are not good, but their boba is excellent). The thing to look out for is that it’s always very crowded on Friday and the weekends, so you might need to wait 45 minutes to an hour for seating. Plan ahead if you want to reach there. Seating is a little crowded.
Hibachi Grill Supreme Buffet
1282 Old Orch Ctr, Manchester, MO 63021, USA
Overall rating: 4
Environment: 3
Food: 4
I might be biased against this one but I don’t like buffet restaurants (for some reason, these places stress me out). The restaurant is very dark. The food is decent; vegetable, pork, beef and chicken are all pretty good. There is also seafood on the weekend if you are a seafood person. Desserts are not very good. Also, remember that rice is in a rice cooker on the side of the food.
Soup Dumplings STL
8106 Olive Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA
Overall rating: 4
Environment: 3
Food: 5
Recommended dishes: crab&pork soup dumplings, shrimp & pork wonton soup
The place is clean and the dumplings are very authentic. However, the restaurant is incredibly small and there is a good chance you have to wait for seating. Additionally, the portion is small and the pricing is slightly expensive. It is more like an afternoon snack place rather than a meal place.
Cate Zone
24 Four Seasons Shopping Center, Chesterfield, MO 63017
Overall rating: 4
Environment: 5
Food: 3
Recommended dishes: Chengdu Spicy Chicken, Dry Sauteed Green Bean, Triple Vegetable with Brown Sauce
There are two locations: one next to Parkway Central and one in China Town. The one next to Central is the superior location given that it’s a bigger restaurant with nicer seating. The vegetables dishes are very nice; however, most of the pork, beef, and seafood are not high quality. If you decide to go, order many vegetable dishes.
Additionally, the former Editor-in-Chief loves this place. So that’s another opinion for you to consider.
China Bistro
14246 Manchester Rd, Manchester, MO 63011 (inside Pan-Asia)
Overall rating: 4
Environment: 3
Food: 5
Recommended dishes: Taiwan-style stir fried noodle, white rice w/ roasted duck, Beef chow fun
I have an instinctive fear of this place since every time I go there I’d bump into someone I know (which is not statistically unlikely given the total number of Chinese in St. Louis with only one large Chinese supermarket). The seating is very cramped and loud since it’s inside a supermarket. However, the food is rather good. Don’t order anything with strong spices if you have low spice tolerance. Pro tip: there is a tiny bakery next to the Bistro area and they have excellent bread and 麻球 (sweet fried glutinous rice balls with red bean paste).
⭐ Cube Tea Studio
14246 Manchester Rd, Manchester, MO 63011 (inside Pan-Asia)
Overall rating: 5
Environment: 4
Food: 5
Recommended drink: Refreshing Orange Jasmine, Oreo Salted Cheese Brown Sugar Milk Tea
Boba place in Pan-Asia. Make sure you have a general idea of what you want before ordering since there is usually a long line and their menu is ten thousand pages long. The boba and fruit tea are both very good.
Chili Spot
7930 Olive Blvd, University City, MO 63130
Overall rating: 4
Environment: 5
Food: 4
Recommended dishes: Dry Pot Organic Cauliflower, Pan Fried Rice Cake W. Brown Sugar, Szechuan Style Sweet Ice Jelly
I am not a huge fan of spicy food, therefore I don’t like this place particularly much; meat dishes and vegetable dishes are equally spicy (even if they don’t like red in their menu pictures). Their food would be amazing if you like spicy dishes. However, their desserts are very good. Absolutely order sweet ice jelly.
Noodle Story
6315 Delmar Blvd, University City, MO 63130
Overall rating: 4
Environment: 5
Food: 3
Recommended dishes: Crispy Shrimp
This restaurant is well-decorated with a feel of a Chinese noodle house. The appetizers are decent, but the noodle soup is not as good. Most of the noodles are very spicy. The boba is also not good.
⭐ Afandi Kitchen
17409 Chesterfield Airport Rd Suite C, Chesterfield, MO 63005
Overall rating: 5
Environment: 5
Food: 5
Recommended dishes: Big plate chicken, dried chili pepper laghman, Crispy oyster mushroom, homemade yogurt
Their food is very authentic and very good. Most of the dishes are good-quality and they have great hand-pulled noodles. Remember to add noodles to any meat dishes that don’t already have noodles in them (i.e. big plate chicken). The yogurt drink is not worth ordering.
