Hey all. Still in the planning phase of this trip, but I’m toying with the idea of visiting Yokohama’s Chinatown.
My dad’s Chinese, born in Hong Kong, raised in Seattle’s Chinatown, and very much *not* into Chinese food that’s not Cantonese. I’ve heard that Yokohama is famous for its Chinatown, but I’m also reading conflicting reports about the tastes of Yokohama-based Chinese food: mostly that even the most high-end Chinese restaurants, the ones that hire famous Hong Kong chefs, still tailor their dishes towards a Japanese palate—which seems to mean that the dishes don’t taste very familiar to those who regularly eat Cantonese food. Conversely, I’ve also heard that the street food is more authentic.
Can anyone shed some light on this? Is all Chinese food in Yokohama going to be “Japanicized”, much like how we have Americanized Chinese food in the States? Is Yokohama’s Chinatown more of a “ooh, doesn’t this look exotic?” kind of tourist trap? Or are there some bona-fide authentic Chinese restaurants to be found in Yokohama?
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It’s Japanese-style Chinese food:
• ebi chili
• individual dimsum selections served like a set sushi meal
• harumaki
• fried rice
• kani-tami
• buta-man
Just Google Yokohama Chinese food and you’ll see examples.
It’s usually oily, cornstarch-thickened sauce stirfry type fare.
Yokohama Chinatown is huge and has some pretty decent hunan, sichuan, and Cantonese restaurants. Most have traditional along some westernized and Japanese-style dishes you mentioned. The restaurants are all pretty similar though. I’ve also found a couple of pretty decent places outside Noge-cho.
We were there for a day last fall. It’s pretty touristy with lots of people trying to get you into their restaurant. Tough to tell which is a good one vs. a meh one, so do some homework before u go. It is mostly Chinese owned and run (as far as I could tell), and therefore I’m sure there are at least a few places with authentic options. BTW, if u like beer there is a great microbrew in Yokohama called Yokohama Bay brewing. Great beer in a little hole in the wall place. Highly recommend!
If you happen to get out to Osaka/Himeji area, I’d recommend checking out Kobe’s Chinatown as well. My partner gave it rave reviews when he went during our trip a few years ago, but he did note that it was a bit more “Japanese” than he was used to eating. Since we didn’t stop in Yokohama, it may be similar in terms of experience.
Hope everyone stays healthy during this pandemic!
From my experience Japanese style Chinese food In Yokohama and the rest of Japan has always been heavy on the corn starch slurry, and it can be kinda oily
I am from HK, and I highly recommend Heichinrou at Yokohama Chinatown. It’s a dimsum (so Cantonese) style redtaurant, I think it originated back in the times when immigrant Chinese workers arrive in Japan and they opened this restaurant. It then got a good reputation and actually expanded back to Hong Kong, Singapore etc.! I went there a couple of years ago and it’s quite upscale – you can order many dimsum dishes by individual pieces, which was unheard of for me!
Was there recently and most restaurants seem to have similar menus, IIRC the restaurants mainly had dishes like what Cantonese banquet seafood restaurants would serve. Still a variety of Taiwanese, Shanghai and HK restaurants. A lot of Xiao Long Bao on the street and those were really good, def recommend!!
I am from Toronto so we have amazing Chinese food here and I have been to China, HK and Taiwan and when I went to a few Chinese food places in Yokohama I was pretty disappointed. One was the famous restaurant that has a Santa outside? I don’t remember the name. Anyways I love Japan for its food…just not it’s Chinese food.
All every Chinese parent wants to do on vacation is see the city’s Chinatown.
I spent an afternoon in Yokohama’s Chinatown this past January during Japanese New Year. It was Jan 2nd or 3rd. So many Japanese restaurants elsewhere were still closed. This was our main reason for visiting Chinatown. It was extremely busy. We ate at a Sichuan restaurant. I would go again. The mapo tofu was excellent and authentic. The other food, while tasty, didn’t seem very authentic Sichuan. I’ve spent some time in the Chengdu and surrounding Sichuan province. So, I have some experience to compare. FWIW, it’s not the cantonese you’re asking about, though.
If you’re in the Tokyo area and looking to fill your itinerary, I think Yokohama is at least a good day trip.
My impression of Yokohama Chinatown, as someone who spends a decent amount of time in Hong Kong and lives in a Cantonese diaspora city in the US, is that it’s very “Japanicized”. The dim sum we ate there was weird, to say the least, and the menus of other places we saw seemed odd. A lot of places seem tourist trap-like, and most of the restaurants had staff that spoke Japanese and maybe some Mandarin—we didn’t use Cantonese at all there. A lot of the food definitely seemed more Northern Chinese in style, or very mixed regionally, and you’re certainly not finding anything like a homey little Hong Kong _cha chaan teng_.
Chinese food in general in Japan is often very odd compared to China, Hong Kong, and other Chinatown cities I’ve visited in the world. I’ve had some good Chinese food in Japan, but mostly at specialized places (like a restaurant dedicated to _siu lung baau_), not from many of the “mixed” places that serve a variety of regional styles.
Cantonese food is my favorite food style – have eaten it all over southern China, Hong Kong, Canada, and NYC/Boston/SF/Seattle. That said…I’ve been to Japan many times and did try some of the Chinese food a couple times when I ended up in Kobe and Yokohama. It was wholly weird and disappointing – the dim sum is probably the least removed in terms of taste/preparation from Chinese food, but everything still tasted just a little odd to me. The street food is going to be mostly non-Cantonese, think stuff like _xiaolongpao_.
I’d advise sticking to Japanese food in Japan. I also wouldn’t recommend seeing Yokohama if you’re just going for Chinatown – it’s a ‘tourist’ Chinatown.
Am Chinese here, from an Asian country where Chinese food is my staple, so I was disappointed by the Chinese food I ate when I visited Yokohama. I do believe all food in Japan is Japanicized to an extent.
Canadian with family from HK here. In my experience Japan’s Chinatowns are geared almost solely at domestic Japanese tourists, especially those who are very unfamiliar with authentic Chinese food.
Yes, a lot of the Chinese menu items here are either Japanized or reflective of the regional mainland cuisine of the restaurant owners. Growing up with HK style Cantonese cuisine, I personally haven’t found something I really liked here.
I agree with what you mentioned – HK chefs employed here mostly serve up a localized menu, some dishes that I’ve never seen before coming to Japan.
If you’re looking for decent Chinese food to keep your folks happy (a break from Japanese cuisine) then I would suggest going to a restaurant with a branch in HK, etc like Tim Ho Wan in Tokyo.
My parents visited last year and we walked through Kobe’s Chinatown where my dad was pretty put off by “fake Chinese food'”. We ended up eating at Ootoya.
It is as authentic Chinese you will get in Japan, the lady prepares your meal in her kitchen/living room/TV Room/Bedroom/Shop front. The wok she have been using for a month really gives an element I can’t really describe to the exposed pork meat chilling next to the cash register👌🏼
Isn’t the place called “Motomachichukagai”?
Japanese-style Chinese food. Wasn’t worth it as someone who is familiar with Chinese food
Yes. Go to Japan for chinese food. Ffs
Most of the Chinese food you find here is more mainland-centric, tweaked to fit Japanese tastes. Not dim sum.
Yokohama’s Chinatown is touristy as you would expect. The Chinese community in Tokyo love to go to Ikebukuro for more authentic Chinese food.
For dim sum, there are a few restaurants scattered around, the most famous being Tim Ho Wan which opened in Hibiya in 2018.
My family is from HK and my wife has half her family in Kanagawa. The food overall in Yokohama chinatown is pretty terrible as expected for a tourist trap, there is much better authentic mid to high end Cantonese/Chinese in Tokyo thats like Lung King Heen quality like Chugoku Hanten, even chains like Umenonhana, Chen Kenichi, Tim Ho Wan are leagues better.
In my opinion, the Japanese interpretation of Chinese food, using ingredients from Japan, tends to be better than what I’ve had at Chinese restaurants run by Chinese folk.
Keep in mind, ramen and gyoza used to be considered Chinese food in Japan, but have since evolved into something which is characteristically Japanese.
A lot of people here are trashing Chinatown because the food is “Japanified” – I worry they are missing the point. ALL food in Japan is made for the Japanese palate – this is… Japan. The VAST majority of the customers anywhere will be Japanese, and food is designed to taste good to them. If they didn’t do that, the place would go out of business. So, yeah – you’re not going to get absolutely authentic Chinese food here as easily as you would in Hong Kong.
But… that’s kinda the whole POINT. Why would you come to Japan to eat Chinese food… iof it wasn’t Japan-ified? Everyone always goes on and on about how amazing Japanese Ramen is… that’s CHINESE FOOD that hass, over the decades, been completely Japan-ified beyond recognition. People love Japanese curry. Again – INDIAN food, passed through the filter of British people (who brought it here) and made into what it is for Japanese tastes. Tempura has damn near nothing to do with anything you can find in Portugal… but it started its life as Portuguese food. You get the idea. If you’re eating in Japan… expect people to be making food for the 98+% of the population who is Japanese, and largely has limited foreign exposure.
If you take it in that frame of mind, Japanese Chinese food is actually a lot of fun. It tends to be sweeter, and use less intense spices. But a lot of it is quite good. It’s just… different. Shumai are particularly famous here, and some of it is amazingly good. Better than I have had in a lot of places in HK. If you look hard, you can find more authentic places – but they tend to not have as many touts out front trying to grab tourists for their cheap all-you-can-eat deals.
That being said, I travel to China regularly (HK at least 2x a year) and lived for a long time in Seattle… so I have eaten a LOT of Chinese food in both places… And I’ve lived here in Yokohama over 12 years… And I’d put Yokohama as a better place to get good Chinese food than Seattle. Any day of the week.
Can’t speak for yokohama, but when i was in osaka, i had chinese food. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t the chonese food i grew up with, (I’m Singaporean Chinese)
The one restaurant buffet place I went to in Yokohama Chinatown was pretty dogshit, to be honest. Though, the street vendor buns, etc. were quite good.
This is coming from a Chinese Australian.
The Chinese food in Yokohama is really good but tailored to Japanese style dining and to their taste. It might be considered a bit lighter in taste, like not as spicy, juicier meat fillings, more delicate, not as sweet. I will say that every dumpling and meat bun I’ve had was stellar. A Taiwanese bubble tea cafe I went to had great tea and tea time dishes. Literally was jealous I can’t mukbang because I’d eat everything there.
Side note: there was a restaurant in my college town called Yokohama Station that served Chinese food!
It’s awesome! Highly recommended! If you can afford to go to an upscale Chinese restaurant then do it.
It’s Japanized Shao Long Baos everywhere lol
I tried a few restaurants in Yokohama because parents have Chinese palate. It is okay, a few good ones. The xiaolongbao were not as good as Ding Tai Fung that are in Japan. I would agree it has changed to cater to local taste.
Not bad, especially with a Corona.
The most authentic Chinese food you’re going to get in Tokyo is in the north area of Ikebukuro. This is the true Chinatown of Tokyo. You’ll be able to find all different types of Chinese food, Cantonese, Szechwan, Yunnan, Uyghur etc. My Chinese wife, friends and I never eat in Yokohama. They scorn it as being fake tourist/Japanese food lol
…is it bad this discussion makes me want to visit that 12-seat in-alley place that I remember being called “Beijing” on the West end of the district?
おいしい
FYI in Yokohama’s Chinatown all the shop keepers speak Japanese and Mandarin. I visited Yokohama in Feb.2019 and didn’t hear anyone speaking Cantonese. So don’t know how authentically Cantonese food you will get.
Hey, Vancouver guy here, raised a few blocks from our Chinatown. Most anywhere anywhere in Japan will be tailored to suit Japanese tastes. Their only customer base is Japanese, after all. So, yes, it is basically White People Chinese like in Vancouver or Seattle, but for Japanese tastes. It is very sticky and gloopy, sweet with little sour, and very underspiced to my tongue. If you want to get your Google on look for Cantonese Cuisine 広東料理 / Hong Kong Cuisine 香港料理 and you can add Authentic 本格的 You could also go to the Yokohama sub and ask The Locals. And if all that sounds a bit depressing, you should see the horrors they inflict on Mexican food 😉
I would say, offhand, that the Yokohama Chinatown is worth a visit. I like it. It has a definite Chinatown vibe. Good luck.