One month ago, things were looking pretty bleak for the city’s multitudinous Chinese restaurants. Informal surveys suggested that as many as 95 percent were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, many with little hope of opening anytime soon. The city’s nine Chinatowns were hardest hit, including Manhattan’s, where at one time we counted only a few restaurants open for carryout and delivery out of 200 or so in better days. The reasons for this extreme phenomenon were many: supply chain problems, staffing shortages, and prejudice against Chinese restaurants in the erroneous and racist belief that they had some vague connection with the origins of the virus in remote China.
Anyway, things have improved markedly since then, and just in the last two weeks, many of the restaurants have reopened, so that nearly every neighborhood — and not just Chinatowns — have a larger number of choices, including old-fashioned Cantonese, dumpling and noodle shops, bubble tea parlors, Sichuan, Hunan, Henan, Yunnan, Taiwanese, and Uyghur, with more spots popping up every day. Here is a list of some of our favorites, but note there are now many, many more.
Note: Links in entries in most cases connect directly to the restaurant, where takeout and local delivery are usually offered. It’s up to you to seek out the mosaic of delivery services that cover wider areas.
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