Best: Toronto & San Fran
Worst: NYC & Lima, Peru
NYC - Solely because my sister once pulled the lid off a barrel in front of a store in Chinatown and half a dozen live frogs jumped out and started hopping down the street.
If we can include “Little Saigon” areas, then you might be surprised at Sydney’s vibrant Cabramatta district. It’s a bit different because it’s only about twenty years old as an Asian area, and before that, it was a traditional working class whitebread suburb. This means that all the buildings there are traditional Australian shop buildings. Not a pagoda to be seen. When you superimpose this full-on Vietnamese environment onto such a base, complete with live chickens in cages, tropical fruit spilling out onto the streets, pho restaurants, women in straw hats, and of course the wonderful clatter of the Vietnamese language everywhere, then you get a great effect.
Anyway, a few years ago, a local (Western) developer wanted to build a shopping mall in the fake “touristy”, red and green, terraced pagoda roof style. The local Asian businessfolk were the ones who lobbied the local council to have the development application for such a monstrosity turned down. And it was.
Sydney’s old Chinatown in Haymarket is wonderful. It’s nearly as old as the city itself, and it has all the crusty, dirty old alleyways and wonderful smells that you’d expect in a Chinatown in any big city. By the 70s or 80s though, it had started to decay, and look a bit down at heel, especially as the Australian Chinese one by one succumbed to the great suburban dream, and left. Anyway, fast forward to the mid 90s, and new migrants from Hong Kong started pouring in. These people tend to be young, educated, into high tech gadgetry and nightclubbing, and they brought Chinatown back to life. HK-style highrise apartment blocks sprang up, and now Chinese folk ar living in Chinatown once again, rather than just shopping there, so it’s become a neighbourhood again. Underneath that, the old Chinatown is still there. It’s a bit touristy, but overall, the effect is a good one. It’s one of my favourite parts of town.
I also like going to Chinatown in an Asian country. Saigon’s one (Cho Lon is great, as it just kinda creeps up on you, and you’re there before you realise.
D’ya remember the name?
We went to Vancouver’s Chinatown about 9 years ago, and it was a nasty, dirty place with lots of junkies. Maybe it’s gotten better or maybe we missed “the good parts”. San Francisco’s Chinatown I like a lot because it’s very familiar and I know where to get food, etc. NYC is an interesting place, and I’ve had dim sum in a cool place there a few times, even with TellMeI’mNotCrazy and her mom. So that one’s kind of special for me. I’ve also had dim sum in Chicago’s Chinatown with MikeG, Gaudere and MEBuckner, IIRC. But it was cold and windy that day, so not much chance to evaluate the area (food was good). DC’s Chinatown is to laugh. Bangkok’s Chinatown is a bit overwhelming and difficult to navigate. Good place for foot massage, but it seems (relatively) expensive to eat Chinese in Thailand.
Wow, we’ve got a lot of Toronto people here.
The only non-Toronto Chinatown I’ve been to was in Philadelphia, and maybe we missed the good parts, but I wasn’t too impressed.
I love Tap Phong trading company, Pho Hung, any of the supermarkets, any of the weird knockoff clothing stores, Goldstone Restaurant, those people who make the waffley things in the mall courtyard- and Kensington Market, especially the new organic ice cream place.
I’d have to say that of all the Chinatown’s I’ve been to, the Chinatown in NYC is my favorite. A close 2nd is San Francisco. Maybe I’m jaded, because I work very near the Chinatown in San Francisco and often stop by for lunch.
I’ll go against the grain and say that Toronto’s Chinatown didn’t impress me…
Here’s an old thread on Chinatowns. Note the link in the second post. It’s a list of many of the Chinatowns around the world.
Here’s the link I meant to put in:
Chinatowns I’ve visited:
San Francisco - the definitive Chinatown
NYC - ok, but kind of underwhelming
Chicago - a bit grimy for me
Seattle - decent, not great
Vancouver - not bad (talking about the old one)
Los Angeles - embarassingly bad
Washington DC - nah (but eats aren’t bad)
Philadelphia - been there, but can’t remember anything
All IMHO.
Won More. Great grub, awful name.
When in SF’s Chinatown, check out Stockton Street which runs parallel to Grant Avenue one block to the west. I think it’s the true working part of Chinatown and not as over run by tourist like Grant Avenue.
Singapore 
Oh, yeah. But then all of Singapore is like Disneyland for adults who like to eat and shop.
Bangkok’s is excellent, as is the wet market, and I’ve been in SF’s Chinatown more often than I can count.
Haven’t been through Lima’s yet, but I think I’ve talked to almost all of the employees of the bigger Chinese restaurants down here. I’m sure they have a hidden chinatown that they keep for themselves, since there’s so blessed many of them around.
I was last there 3 years ago and didn’t see a lot of junkies or nastiness, but it was pretty seedy in a bustling, old-growth-ethnic-neighborhood way. Not touristy at all, really.
Montreal’s Chinatown is nice because it’s a vest-pocket Chinatown. You can walk it in 5 minutes and be back in the Old Town, where I usually stay.
Yokohama has a very nice Chinatown. Plenty of really good restaurants there.
And the governor’s tendency to refer to the residents as “rats” notwithstanding, it’s just as safe as any other Japanese city.
Thanks, man. My recommendation for Vancouver’s chinatown is Foo’s Ho Ho on East Pender just for the chicken stuffed with sticky rice. A crispy, starchy, slightly sweet yummy greasefest.
I’ll second this. Philly’s is great.
I’m not sure why so many people are dissing New York’s Chinatown. I think it’s great, although perhaps my opinion is colored by the fact that it has a few awesome vegetarian dim sum places, which makes me very happy.
Anyway, i lived in Vancouver for a couple of years, and i love the Chinatown there, even though it’s not especially large. I like the east-end part of town where it is, and the fresh fruit and vegetables are great.
I’ve been to Toronto’s Chinatown once, about 12 years ago, and remember liking it a lot.
Chicago’s i was not especially impressed with, but again, i’ve only been there once.
I’ll second The Loaded Dog’s recommendation of Sydney’s Chinatown, for all the reasons he gives.
But, as with most other people, i think i have to put San Francisco at the top of the list. My wife’s from San Francisco, and whenever we make a visit there a trip to Chinatown is always high on the list of things to do. Funnily enough, though, our favorite Chinese restaurant is not actually in Chinatown, but out on Clement Street at 6th Avenue, right near Green Apple Books.
I grew up on my Dad’s coat-tails 30 years ago going to Chinatown in San Francisco and New York, so wonderful to experience that as a kid! Since then, been back there, but also to Chicago— it seemed oddly apart from the rest of the city, not in the thriving hub like San Francisco.
Living in the South, Asian communities are not esconced intown like the aforementioned. The Mississippi Delta has a long history of Chinese immigrants, who ran the community stores, so you can find tatsoi, ginseng, and chopsticks in some unlikely places, but there’s not a large community.
The strangest Asian community I’ve been to is Doraville,GA, a suburb of Atlanta. It’s a mix of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Mexican/Central American. Since it’s a 60’s designed suburb, there aren’t the nice city streets of San Fran; more businesses in older shopping plazas. It’s very vibrant, though, good restaurants and groceries. I’ve seen the same around the DC area. Same tactic as in cities past: opportunity in the space not as valuable to the dominate society.