For more than a century, Cantonese was the Chinese food New Yorkers ate, first in the four streets of Manhattan's original Chinatown, but gradually spreading to every corner of the city. In the past two decades, restaurants from other parts of China have muscled in—featuring recipes from Shanghai, Fujian, Xi'an, Chaozhou, Taiwan, Dongbei, and Sichuan. Often flaunting more complex and pungent flavors, the fare of these other regions came to squeeze out plainer Cantonese in the city's Chinatowns, while neighborhood carry-outs experienced a similar decline as Thai and pan-Asian cooking styles... More >>>