Chinese Restaurants in Philadelphia

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Wok Chinese Seafood Restaurant fills its vast menu with an atlas of eats, drawing inspiration from China’s Hunan and Szechuan provinces as well as the capital city of Beijing. The kitchen prepares traditional favorites, whipping together hot and spicy shrimp and steamed sea bass in a scallion-ginger sauce alongside beef with broccoli and chicken lo mein. The menu also includes house specialties such as the Dragon and Phoenix, whose chicken breasts, lobster meat, and snow peas are not formally recognized by zoologists as either dragon or phoenix. Red lanterns hang above the dining room, where a mural of a woman flying through swirling clouds is complemented by the whimsy of each table’s pink-cloth napkins.

In 2003, chef Shing Chung and his wife Doris became grandparents, and they decided that it was time to pass the torch. So after 20 years of running Lee How Fook, they handed over the keys to their daughter Sieu and her husband. With the help of the eatery’s chefs, the duo still works to live up to the eatery’s name, which translates roughly to “good food for the mouth.” Busy members of the family cruise beneath almond-hued walls, which are lined with colorful illustrations of bud-strewn trees. Their limbs bend as if reaching for steaming chicken and beef morsels in sweet and spicy sauces or platters of peking duck or lobster. A BYOB policy allows for pairing with the diverse Cantonese menu and fuels chatter about the fact that nobody has ever seen the waiter in the same place as Superman.

Many things have changed since Snockey’s Oyster and Crab House first opened in 1912—the menu now serves scallops, mussels, and Maine lobster thanks to third-generation owners Ken and Skip Snock. However, the restaurant’s insistence on using fresh, local seafood and some of its original recipes, including Mrs. Snockey’s original oyster stew, have remained unchanged, like a stubborn Precambrian fossil.

In the wake of Snockey’s 100th anniversary, Phillyburbs.com called the restaurant a “seafood staple for locals and visitors alike,” lavishing particular praise on the variety of oysters available at the raw bar. Oysters come from as far away as the west coast, but most originate in nearby waterways such as Delaware Bay and Cape Cod. There’s also a large selection of cooked seafood including fried shrimp, broiled Atlantic flounder, and steamed littleneck clams.

Noodles steal the spotlight on the menu at SangKee Noodle House, where chefs churn out popular noodle-based entrees from China, Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand. Diners can customize their own soups by selecting from various meats and six types of noodles, or they can choose from a number of tried-and-true dishes, such as lo mein, chow fun, or pad thai. Chefs also whip up peking duck, dim-sum-style dumplings, and smoothies blended from fruit, tapioca, and condensed milk, which comes from cows that have only read the CliffsNotes recipe for regular milk.

The tantalizing smells of chicken simmering in a savory sauce or buttery lobster hit the nose before guests can fully discern where the aromas originate. They might be coming from a plate of chicken slathered with black-bean or garlic sauce or lobster buried in lo mein or fried rice. These are just some of the dishes New China Restaurant’s chefs whip up alongside classic favorites such as general tso’s chicken and mongolian beef, as well as shrimp prepared eight different ways.