I must admit that I've never eaten in San Francisco's or New York's "Chinatown"...the two places in the US where, I'd wager,one can get the best and most authentic Chinese food in the US but I assure you that I don't go to the cheap places.If you're familiar with the Boston area...I've hit one or two places in Chinatown as well as The Golden Temple in Brookline.Very good and not at all cheap.
Of course the real punchline is there’s no such thing as “Chinese” food, much like there’s no such thing as “American” food. China is a huge country with readily identifiable subcultures that all come with their own cuisine tradition. Most of the “Chinese” food in America is based on Szechuan but is pretty far removed from it’s original structure. We are slowly moving closer to the real thing in many places, largely as part of the overall shift in the American palate over the last couple of decades, assisted by the freer travel to China and the increasing number of people that have actually eaten the real deal.
We’ve gone through similar shifts in other “foreign” food. What we generally call Mexican food in America is really a bastardization of Northern non-coastal Mexican food, which is distinctly different than coastal or central Mexican cuisine. And the number of people that now readily admit Taco Bell isn’t Mexican food again reflects the changes in the American palate, our Mexican food still tends to be very different from the real thing largely because certain American psuedo-Mexican dishes have taken root. But the real thing can be found in some town, and at least our modern fake Mexican food generally tastes better than Taco Bell.