Q: What is the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA competition about?
A: The Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in USA award is a national event held annually for the Chinese restaurant industry to bestow recognition to the best Chinese restaurants and cuisine offerings in the U.S., while simultaneously promoting the $17.5 billion Chinese restaurant industry as a whole. The Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in USA award strives to recognize, cultivate and preserve the best in Chinese cuisine standards and excellence.

Q. Who are the participants?
A: Participants for The Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in USA Awards come from of Chinese restaurants all across the country – out of more than 43,000 restaurants in 50 states. The event has seen participation from newly established restaurants, seasoned restaurants, chain restaurants as well as past award-winners.

Q: What is different about this year’s competition?
A: This year’s event will award Top 100 winners in 10 categories to form the competition’s structure. In all, Top 100 2007 will recognize as many as 1,000 winners. In addition to cuisine and restaurant recognition, this year’s competition has also added a Mystery Diner program has been implemented (via AboutFaceCorp.com) to evaluate all candidate restaurants.

Q. How are the winning categories defined?
A: Top 100 Overall Excellence: Winners of the award will have the highest overall score of excellence, which includes for the following areas:
  • Cuisine: Consistency, quality, taste and variety are among the critical factors evaluated in this area.
  • Décor & Atmosphere: Candidates are evaluated according to restaurant categories: family-styled, high-end or upscale, buffet, take-outs, special-themed and chains.
  • Service: Consistency, customer satisfaction, friendliness and efficiency are among the evaluating factors.
  • Cleanliness & Sanitation: Overall cleanliness of the dining room, kitchen and restrooms are evaluated. Candidates are judged according to their level of compliance with the health department.

Note: All restaurants will be evaluated according to Top 100 Overall Excellence standards as well as by additional factors relevant to other winning categories.

Top 100 Regional Chinese Cuisines: For this category, restaurant winners are awarded for their distinct style of regional cooking. They are differentiated from their subtle use of sauces, ingredients and cooking methods. Regional favorites, authenticity and taste are considered the critical areas for this category.

Top 100 Take-Outs: Chinese take-out has become part of American diners’ everyday lives. Diners consider the following factors as critical for a successful take-out restaurant: packaging, menu offerings, convenience, promptness and ordering accuracy.

Top 100 Best Value: Competition is fierce in the restaurant business, and it is customary to find restaurants trying to out-perform one another by offering the best, in terms of quality, variety and value. For this category, restaurants will be recognized for outstanding offerings with optimum costs.

Top 100 Signature Dish: Signature dishes differentiate Chinese restaurants, and they attract new or existing diners to return to the restaurants. These dishes also consistently represent a certain percentage of sales and could be highlighted in the individual restaurant’s editorial feature. This category of recognition is given to the Top 100 restaurants that excel in their signature dish offering.

Top 100 Chinese Buffet: The modern buffet spread is larger and more wide-ranging than in the past. Chinese restaurants are offering more options to cover more customer bases – stir-fried, steamed, boiled, and roasted; vegetables, meats, poultry, seafood, sushi and desserts are filling up the buffet tables. This category of recognition considers variety, value and buffet maintenance among the critical evaluation factors for this category.

Top 100 Rising Stars: The winners for this category are chosen by diner votes, and must out-perform the other candidates in the following areas: innovation and creativity, menu offerings and sales volume.

* Note: The Top 100 Rising Stars category considers restaurants that are in business for less than two years.

Top 100 Nutrition-Friendly Menu: Whether it is calorie, fat, carbohydrate or sodium reduction, today’s diners are aggressively looking for restaurants that cater to their needs. This category recognizes those Chinese restaurants that take an extra step to better serve these health-conscious diners.

Top 100 Asian Fusion: This category is for those restaurants that concentrate on creating fusion recipes with a Chinese influence. These restaurants combine Asian ingredients, or Chinese recipes in particular, with other cuisines that result in a fusion creation.

Top 100 Metro Favorites in 10 Cities: The 10 best overall restaurants in 10 cities – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, Houston, Boston, Miami and Philadelphia – will be chosen by the highest number of customer votes.

Q. What are the selection criteria?
A. All restaurant candidates must meet the following guidelines to qualify for the competition:
  • 50% of the menu items must be related to Chinese cuisine
  • Must be in business for a minimum of 2 years (with the exception of Top 100 Rising Stars)
  • Must be the recipient of a minimum of one award, highlighted in the media ranking for dining excellence, or verified by more than 200 valid customer votes

Q. How are the votes or results tabulated?
A. The results will be processed from the following sources:
  •AboutFace’s Mystery Diner Program, which will anonymously evaluate each restaurant candidate.
  •Direct votes from the diners, online at http://top100chineserestaurants.com or at the candidate restaurant location. A vote is valid only when the voter’s email address or phone number is included for verification.