Which N.American city has the best Asian Subculture? (bigger, quality, Boston)

[Lifeshadower]

I really don't think anyone in this thread has specifically subscribed to the answer choices, per se. I don't agree with the way the answer choices are laid out either, but I think everyone who voted are doing so by metro lines anyways, since that's how most threads on City-vs-City work out anyways.

Anyways, I wish that Honolulu got more votes. Its position outside of the continental US makes it forgotten that its even a US state.

Still though, the NYC area has an extremely LARGE South Asian population, but then again, so does the Bay Area. The Bay Area simply just has the history behind it. That's a fact. Even Southern California can't touch it.

Something interesting though; US immigration law has its origins with the exclusion of Chinese from immigrating to California because of the Chinese in San Francisco.

Our Documents - Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Immigration... Chinese: Exclusion (http://memory.loc.gov/learn//features/immig/chinese6.html - broken link)

The door to the Chinese American dream was finally slammed shut in 1882, when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act was the first significant restriction on free immigration in U.S. history, and it excluded Chinese laborers from the country under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. It also made Chinese immigrants permanent aliens by excluding them from U.S. citizenship. Chinese men in the U.S. now had little chance of ever reuniting with their wives, or of starting families in their new home.

For good and for worse, Asian American history in the US started in San Francisco.

If someone wants to start a new thread, do it. I don't really think it would make a difference in the end, IMO.

[polo89]

Originally Posted by eek

it was about best subculture, tho. like enclaves and stuff. you there is stuff in both areas that you can't find in either area.

But I think SF may have more Enclaves, well, more diverse Asian enclaves. I don't think there are any Asian enclaves NYC has, that SF doesn't have.

[DANNYY]

From my personal experience being an Asian American (I feel like I have said this 49047 times today), New York City has it, but Bay Area just integrates it more into its backbone.

The collection of Asian restaurants in New York City is impressive but its integrated with world nationalities, so it plays a smaller roll in the atmosphere.

In Bay Area, it plays a far larger role, its the largest quantity & best of quality of Asian food in all of the lower 48 states in America.
Asian culture is represented in both New York City & Bay Area, but its more of a "way of life" in Bay Area then New York City.

[Chicagoland60426]

I think Honolulu deserves more votes. Never been there, but I voted for it anyway. Its the only major city where Asians are over 50%. Someone said Honolulu Mcdonalds serves rice. I don't like Mcdonalds, but still. Everyone else voted for the Bay Area( a metro) and even Queens has more votes.

To AwesomeDanny:

How do you feel about these other cities I mentioned in my post having a lot of Asian subculture?

"
1. San Francisco bay area,California USA(I picked this on the poll)
2. Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
3. NYC, New York USA
4. Toronto, Ontario Canada
5. Seattle, Washington USA/Los Angeles, California USA/ Chicago Illinois USA tied
6. Washington D.C. area USA/Houston Texas USA/ Boston, Massachusetts USA/ Montreal Quebec Canada/ San Diego, California USA/Portland Oregon USA tied."
7. Honolulu, Hawaii

I agree New York City and San Francisco have a lot of great asian culture and asian restaurants, but there are plenty of other places in North America(USA and Canada) where someone can have a great asian cultural/restaurant experience for one example of Asian culture(since obviously Asian culture is much more than the great food), as well as other Asian cultural things.

Some examples:
In Seattle, I went to at at least 30 great asian restaurants(Thai, Indian, Chinese, Pan-Asian etc.). I think I went to 20 great asian restaurants in NYC. (But I have been eating out more in Seattle).

In a rural areas of Upstate NY there was a buddhist monastery in the Catskill mountains, and I went to some great asian restaurants in some of the small towns there, but that area is connected to NYC, but still technically outside NYC.

There is this great music group from the Washington D.C. area that seems to blend electronica/trance, and some Indian asian music in it for some of its songs.(Thievery Corporation music group name. )

I have a friend that lives in rural Pennsylvania and believes in a lot of Buddhist ideals and I know some Buddhists in Seattle.


So yeah, great examples of Asian subculture can be found outside NYC and San Francisco in the USA, but they are high up there, and do have a lot of it in quantity and where Asian subculture seemed to start in the USA.(And for Canada I assumed it began in Toronto).

[eek]

Originally Posted by Awesome Danny

From my personal experience being an Asian American (I feel like I have said this 49047 times today), New York City has it, but Bay Area just integrates it more into its backbone.

The collection of Asian restaurants in New York City is impressive but its integrated with world nationalities, so it plays a smaller roll in the atmosphere.

In Bay Area, it plays a far larger role, its the largest quantity & best of quality of Asian food in all of the lower 48 states in America.
Asian culture is represented in both New York City & Bay Area, but its more of a "way of life" in Bay Area then New York City.

i can agree with that.

and for the record i do think that honolulu should have more votes. it should probably be winning this thread if not at least tied with the sf it it was just the city of sf and not the entire bay area and ny if it it wasn't just queens. i do not think that ppl should underestimate queens tho. consider the extremely large east indian/pakistani population which i'm sure isn't being immediately thought of when it comes to asian subcultures.

I dont know why when 3 people mentioned Honolulu, Hawaii having a lot of Asian subculture they mention that someone can get rice at Mcdonalds...

That is definitely one example that Honolulu probably doesnt have the most substansive, high quality, "best" Asian subculture that can be found in places like San Francisco bay area, NYC tri state area, Vancouer Canada area, Toronto Canada area, Seattle/Los Angeles/Chicago USA areas, even though there is a higher percentage of Asians in Honolulu.

And that is also most likely why Honolulu is 4th on the poll.

[eek]

to be fair tho, a lot of ppl posting probably haven't been to hawaii at all. its pretty expensive to fly there. its too bad we don't have any native hawaiians posting in this thread to school us lol.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by

I dont know why when 3 people mentioned Honolulu, Hawaii having a lot of Asian subculture they mention that someone can get rice at Mcdonalds...

That is definitely one example that Honolulu probably doesnt have the most substansive, high quality, "best" Asian subculture that can be found in places like San Francisco bay area, NYC tri state area, Vancouer Canada area, Toronto Canada area, Seattle/Los Angeles/Chicago USA areas, even though there is a higher percentage of Asians in Honolulu.

And that is also most likely why Honolulu is 4th on the poll.

No, that is an example of how widespread and ingrained Asian culture is into Honolulu and says nothing about the quality of the Asian culture/food. There are tons of high quality places to eat in Honolulu.

Honolulu is one of the most overlooked cities on this forum, especially considering how much people talk about skylines, density, and diversity.

Have you actually ever been to Honolulu? It's by far the most heavily Asian influenced metro in the entire country, way more so than the Bay Area. It's not even really a 'subculture" there but more like the main, prominent culture there.

I grew up in the Bay Area and pretty much went to Hawaii every year of my life because all of my mom's family is from there. No city comes close to the Honolulu metro area in terms of how widespread and ingrained Asian culture is.

[DANNYY]

Originally Posted by

To AwesomeDanny:

How do you feel about these other cities I mentioned in my post having a lot of Asian subculture?

"
1. San Francisco bay area,California USA(I picked this on the poll)
2. Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
3. NYC, New York USA
4. Toronto, Ontario Canada
5. Honolulu, Hawaii USA(But technically its not on the North American contienent)
6. Seattle, Washington USA/Los Angeles, California USA/ Chicago Illinois USA tied
7. Washington D.C. area USA/Houston Texas USA/ Boston, Massachusetts USA/ Montreal Quebec Canada/ San Diego, California USA/Portland Oregon USA tied."

I agree New York City and San Francisco have a lot of great asian culture and asian restaurants, but there are plenty of other places in North America(USA and Canada) where someone can have a great asian cultural/restaurant experience for one example of Asian culture(since obviously Asian culture is much more than the great food), as well as other Asian cultural things.

Some examples:
In Seattle, I went to at at least 30 great asian restaurants(Thai, Indian, Chinese, Pan-Asian etc.). I think I went to 20 great asian restaurants in NYC. (But I have been eating out more in Seattle).

In a rural areas of Upstate NY there was a buddhist monastery in the Catskill mountains, and I went to some great asian restaurants in some of the small towns there, but that area is connected to NYC, but still technically outside NYC.

There is this great music group from the Washington D.C. area that seems to blend electronica/trance, and some Indian asian music in it for some of its songs.

I have a friend that live in rural Pennsylvania and believes in a lot of Buddhist ideals.


So yeah, great examples of Asian subculture can be found outside NYC and San Francisco in the USA, but they are high up there, and do have a lot of it in quantity and where Asian subculture seem to start in the USA.

Definitely, there are plenty of places outside of these two that have Asian culture exemplified.

Everyone here probably knows how much I love Asian food by now, particularly Thai food. Well I go to every city, and I literally love food and good Thai food makes it the best experience for me. I go to every city also comparing Biryani (an Indian food item) and I kid you not, I am not even joking around but the best Biryani I've had outside of India was in Houston, Texas. (Kings Chicken was the name of the restaurant) When I go home for the weekends this school year, I am bringing a lot of it back with me. Stock pile on that cause its baller.

Best Thai food I've ever had was in Chicago to be honest, Bay Area was great too, but for some reason this place in downtown Chicago just did it.

Best Chinese food I've ever had was in I kid you not the most random place you can ever think of, Flagstaff, Arizona. I had a great Indian-Chinese fusion restaurant in Chicago called Hot Wok. It was baller, its definitely worth paying a visit too. Like I haven't ever had such a great combination of Indo-Chinese food before in my life. Their Chili Chicken was fantastic.

New York City I experienced the best in Italian food, the best Russian food I've ever had in my life, the best French food as well! Houston surprisingly has this great French Restaurant as well called La Madaline, but it didn't compare to that French restaurant in New York City.

The best Mexican food or in this case Tex-Mex (different than authentic Mexican food) I have had was in San Antonio, at a place called Rita's on the River at the Riverwalk. San Antonio also had the best Mongolian Food I have ever had too called Hu Hot, that place was simply fantastic.

Theres great Asian food everywhere, and I'm glad its spread out throughout the country, like the Mahatma Gandhi District in Houston is an Indian Enclave a large one too and it excels at Indian food, but Devon Street in Chicago takes it up to the real notch where you feel literally like you are in India. The alleys reminded me of Mumbai, the paan stains, just everything about it. I just checked out 74th Street in Queens, large South Asian area there, and although the Biryani wasn't comparable to the one I had in Houston, but the Paneer and Lentils with Rice were the best I have experienced.

In San Jose, I remember this great Indian restaurant called Amber, and it has the best North Indian food I've probably ever had with the Nan combination with the spiced out chicken platters.

Chinese food, just purely Chinese food, I actually liked it best in Los Angeles quite a bit. I would say they have one of the best Chinese foods in the country.

DFW, (Dallas-Fort Worth) has some off the hook Thai food for real, and some off the hook Korean food, I don't think many places can touch DFW in that regard.

There are definitely other areas that have great food options, especially Asian food options, I'm big on great Asian food, its something I have everyday. I check reviews and go to the best rated places in the cities I visit, and most times they deliver what they promise. I haven't been disappointed in any city food wise yet, but I can definitely say, they all bring something so different to the table.

1. San Francisco bay area,California USA(I picked this on the poll)
2. Vancouver, British Columbia Canada
3. NYC, New York USA
4. Toronto, Ontario Canada
5. Honolulu, Hawaii USA(But technically its not on the North American contienent)
6. Seattle, Washington USA/Los Angeles, California USA/ Chicago Illinois USA tied
7. Washington D.C. area USA/Houston Texas USA/ Boston, Massachusetts USA/ Montreal Quebec Canada/ San Diego, California USA/Portland Oregon USA tied."

Ah now for these:

1. San Francisco, I feel Asian culture here is integrated into a a style and vibe solely unique to San Francisco in certain parts of the city. Its by far one of the best examples of Asian cosmopolitan experience there is outside of Asia.

2. Vancouver, when I visited I wasn't expecting there to be Asians believe it or not. What a pleasant surprise, and the food was great. I would say they are like San Francisco in this regard.

3. New York City, definitely has it going on, the only thing that keeps it behind San Francisco on overall Asian culture and influence in my opinion is that because its also blessed with a large proportion of other immigrants too, that keeps things very leveled. Where no one comes out on top of the other, but in areas like Flushing Line area you do get a great grasp of the culture.

4. Toronto is possibly one of the greatest most cosmopolitan cities in the world, theres just so much represented there. Punjabi Indians are all over the place there and Asian culture is represented quite well, they have soem great food options too, and it stays in the way where its very integrated vibe within the city.

5. I haven't ever been to Honolulu so I cannot relate to it. Or anywhere in Hawaii at all to be able to relate to the culture there.

6. I haven't been to Seattle yet, so I can't comment on it. Ah Los Angeles, I love Los Angeles when it comes to this, it functions really well for integration of Asian culture but it goes underrated when compared to Bay Area, as Bay Area it makes up a larger chuck of the total population. Los Angeles has some nifty areas that are tight, and their food when it comes to Chinese is rather good. Their Indian food is good but I think Bay Area tops them in this regard from my experience, but its still rather good. Japanese seafood is great in Los Angeles though.
Chicago, when it comes to Asian Indian its a baller city in terms of food and culture, for Chinese its kind of hit and miss in which you'll have some great Chinese food and options and also some that aren't the greatest. Its surprisingly really good Vietnamese food, the Pho places are nice in Chicago. Chicago also has great option for Pakistani halal food. Living in Chicago and getting great food has to be one of the least of your worries. I love their Thai food too.

7. Houston is baller in this regard, its one of the reasons why I feel so accepted and great living in Houston, I never feel like I am "the only one of my kind" there. Most times it annoys me seeing as many Indians as I do in Houston to be honest. But they have two Chinatowns, the one in Bellaire is really good, if you ever visit, check out a place called Cafe 101, it will be a great Chinese restaurant to eat at. There are some good Mexican-Japanese Fusion restaurants also like Japaneros in Sugar Land. Houston has an abundance of Asian food in general. Their Indian food is great, best Biryani I've had outside of India. Their Vietnamese food is great too. Their overall Chinese food could use some work, but its pretty good for what it has. They also have a decent Koreatown and the food is good but it could be better.
The suburb I live in is 34% Asian, and the county I live in is the most diverse county in Texas. But in general both Houston & DFW are very Asian friendly places, a lot of Asian immigrants from various Asian countries have been coming in as well as a lot of migration to these two areas from Southern California. Houston can thank Los Angeles a lot for the good Vietnamese, Chinese, & Indian restaurants here, so many from Los Angeles area.

Washington DC, nearly the same experience as Houston actually. Besides the Biryani part but including some good Korean food there, and surprisingly they have good Mongolian food!

I haven't really had any experience in this at Montreal actually, so I can't relate to that.

San Diego is underrated, they have good Indian restaurants some of them right in Downtown. They have good Chinese food too, but very few cities can top their Mexican foods. San Diego also has good Thai food. I give San Diego a good edge over Boston in this, which I felt was a very white city honestly, but they did have some good Indian restaurants and Chinese restaurants too but overall it was decent but their Italian food is better than Asian food. Boston is decent, but all those other cities with the inclusion of Dallas-Fort Worth in my opinion top it, they do have a good Chinese food scene though which goes underrated.

I'm Hindu, theres a lot of similarities to Buddhism there, religiously, our religion is a way of life more so than an religion. It teaches us to live in harmony with nature, animals, and others. To accept faiths of others, and to help make this world more beneficial to all inhabitants not just humans. Which is why you'll see most Hindu's are Vegetarians and some are Vegans. I am leaning more to atheist, but I used to be a vegetarian and volunteer at an animal shelter.