Pittsburgh has a lot of great restaurants, so much so that every student most likely has gone to more than five. Among the restaurants, people of color or immigrants own many, and these restaurants often couldn’t profit as much as large food chains like Chipotle or McDonald’s. As a Chinese-American student, I find comfort in eating authentic Chinese food to feel connected to my culture. As a result, I have been to and heard of a couple of Chinese restaurants in Oakland. Here are a few of my favorites!
One of my favorite places to go for an appetizer or meal is Bao, a restaurant that some of my friends also love. Besides food, Bao also sells bubble tea and other sweet drinks. I personally recommend the dumplings and buns! Another place that has similar options, except smaller and doesn’t sell bubble tea, is Szechuan Express. The food there is not as diverse as Bao, as this restaurant mostly specializes in food associated with the Szechuan (or Sichuan) province of China, a province known for its spicy dishes. Nevertheless, Szechuan Express has very good appetizers and meals, and my personal recommendations include mapo tofu and lo mein.
There is also one small restaurant that mainly serves malatang, a Chinese dish typically consisting of varieties of meat, vegetables, and/or carbs with any kind of savory broth. Mala Hotpot is the perfect place if you want to find somewhere relaxing to eat but also a great place for customizing a meal. There is also another side of the menu outside of customization; you can pick a specific kind of noodle soup if you don’t feel like you’re familiar enough with customizing a dish. Malatang is typically a spicy dish, but there are non-spicy options in case anybody doesn’t like or can’t handle spicy food.
These are the three Chinese restaurants that are my personal favorites. At the same time, there are also other Chinese restaurants in Oakland (or outside of Oakland) I didn’t name that are also great and worth visiting. Chinese food in America has a long history from when Chinese immigrants first settled in the United States. Most of them didn’t know how to cook meals, but they adapted certain cooking styles in the US that resulted in what are called American-Chinese dishes. Eventually, Chinese restaurants opened in the US, whether in Chinatowns or other restaurants outside of Chinatown. Today, there are still a lot of Chinese restaurants, but most struggle to profit big amidst cases where parts of Chinatown were forcefully taken down by higher authorities to be replaced by other buildings/recreations, which is why Chinese restaurants deserve support and recognition.