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Szechuan Bistro joins the ranks of Grand House, Golden Phoenix, Chow's and Dot Wo at the top of the heap of Asian cuisine.

I think this is a very good and concise list of Oklahoma City's top Chinese restaurants. These restaurants are not good because they make the best sweet and sour chicken or broccoli beef, but because they serve authentic Chinese cuisine (or what I like to call "traditional" food). I also think, though, that these are some of the best restaurants in the city for what I would call "Americanized" Chinese food.

I should first note that Szechuan Bistro is a Sichuanese restaurant while the others serve Cantonese style dishes on their Chinese menus. There is some crossover at all of these restaurants, and I personally have had a better version of a particular Sichuanese dish at Chow's than at Szechuan Bistro (but in general it is best to go to Szechuan Bistro for this type of food).

There are at least two other restaurants that I would suggest adding to the list. Fung's Kitchen is owned by the same extended family who own the several Dot Wo restaurants throughout the metro, and I consider Fung's to be a better place to go for food from the Chinese menu. In fact, Fung's is the only place in the city besides Grand House which serves dim sum.

A second suggestion is Grand Village, which is actually a reversal of the other restaurants. The other places mentioned have Chinese menus, but at Grand Village the main menu has the traditional Chinese food while the special menus (mainly the lunch menu) have the American style dishes. Like most of the other restaurants this is Cantonese or Hong Kong style (but they do have a few spicy dishes).

Another restaurant has what I consider to be a legitimate Chinese menu, but it does not seem to be as popular as the American menu. I thought it was very good, though, and if you are in Edmond you might want to check out House of Hunan.

Some other restaurants will prepare traditional Chinese food if you order it ahead of time, but it is not on the menu and is not available if you just walk in and try to order it. For a while I was able to order Shanghai style cuisine from Golden Dragon using this approach, but the restaurant is now closed.

The main point is that Oklahoma City may not have the same level of authentic Chinese food as would be found in comparably sized cities on the west coast, but it has certainly evolved to a far higher level than in the past.

Having Szechuan Bistro open in the north suburbs and attract large numbers of customers may lead to similar new restaurants locating away from the Asian District. This does not even cover Vietnamese, Thai, or other Asian food which is also popping up throughout the suburban areas. I would not mind if there were so many Asian restaurants that one blogger would not be able to keep up with all of them (and I think we are close to that point already).