GrubHub, the online and mobile food ordering service, analyzed a year’s worth of ordering data from its 30,000 participating restaurants in more than 800 cities serving 172,000 take-out orders a day to their 4.57 million active diners, and determined the ten most popular Chinese dishes in America:
- General Tso's Chicken (also the 4th most popular dish in general on GrubHub)
- Crab Rangoon
- Egg Roll
- Sesame Chicken
- Wonton Soup
- Fried Rice
- Sweet and Sour Chicken
- Orange Chicken
- Hot and Sour Soup
- Pot Sticker
“GrubHub order data proves that General Tso's Chicken is, indeed, the most popular Chinese dish in the country," said Allie Mack, a GrubHub spokesperson. "In fact, it's among the top five most popular dishes on GrubHub, period. This dish has transcended ethnic food categories to become a staple of the American diet.”
“Are you sure the name of this list isn't ‘Quasi-Chinese foods least scary to the masses?’” asked Jocelyn "Joz" Wang, Editor-in-Chief and CEO of 8Asians.com. “The funny thing is that some of the dishes on this list (like General Tso's Chicken and Crab Rangoon) would rarely, if ever, be seen on a menu in China; they're American inventions.”
Mack, on the other hand, did not find the results surprising, and found the predominance of Chinese-American favorites indicative of “the preference for Americanized ethnic cuisine in our country.”
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