Long Gong may look like a generic strip mall restaurant, but it’s unique in that it specializes in dishes from Guanxi, unlike most of the restaurants on this guide, which serve food from Guangdong (a.k.a Cantonese food). So there are things on the menu at this casual University Park spot you literally won’t see in any other Chinese restaurant in Miami. A meal here can include a clay pot of hearty braised pork belly and crispy fried taro wedges and delicate scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

On any given night at 163rd Street's King Palace, you’re bound to find large round tables of people gathered around a lazy susan full of Chinese-style barbecue. This is definitely the place to get great char siu and Peking duck, along with crispy pork belly and soy sauce chicken. However, if you’re looking for more than an endless supply of roast meats, the drunken chicken or jellyfish (both served cold) are ideal ways to start the meal.

This Bird Road spot has a huge menu of Chinese classics, but the reason we come here is for the dim sum, which they’ve been doing since 1984. This fantastic buffet on wheels consists of over 50 dishes, so pace yourself. Dim sum plates range from chicken feet to egg custard tarts and all kinds of dumplings and buns that we don’t have the space to name here. But there are a few standouts, like the plump pork-and-shrimp siu mai.

The food at Sang’s is a mixture of traditional Chinese and Chinese-American food, and they do both equally well. They make an excellent General Tso’s chicken, which they call General Cheng’s. Please order that—but there are also solid Cantonese stir-fried noodle dishes like chow fun, with wide rice noodles seared in a wok with slices of beef. They do dim sum service from 11am-4pm during the week and 10:30am-4pm on the weekends.

Kon Chau is a great restaurant just off Bird Road, right near Tropical Park. They have American dishes like chow mein and chop suey, as well as more traditional dishes like clay pot casseroles, Cantonese vegetable dishes, and one of our favorite versions of west lake soup in Miami—featuring ground beef, egg whites, and a pile of fresh cilantro. They also serve some of Miami's best dim sum all day, with a handful of dumpling options like shrimp and pork shumai and green tea mushroom dumplings.

This casual yet lively spot is the only Taiwanese restaurant we’ve found in Miami. The University Park restaurant specializes in hot pots—but not the d.i.y. kind. Instead, you select one of Hi Pot’s cauldrons filled with all sorts of texturally interesting things that cook at the table over portable gas burners. The Taiwanese supreme spicy hot pot—our favorite—includes over 20 ingredients like instant ramen and tofu puffs. If that sounds too busy, they also have simpler pots.

The name of this tiny North Miami Beach vendor inside iFresh is a tad misleading. It’s not the seafood that brings us here—it’s one of Miami’s absolute best Peking duck and soy sauce chicken. Both birds are juicy and flavorful right down to the bone. They also prepare deliciously sticky spare ribs and rotate a few other roasted meats on the menu. You can also browse through iFresh or grab a drink at Mi Tea right across the hall while you wait for your order.

Dumpling King in North Miami is one of the best spots for Chinese dumplings in town. The main attraction is the xiao long bao, steamed soup dumplings that burst in your mouth like mini water balloons filled with lava-hot deliciousness. Besides xiao long bao, Dumpling King also makes great pan-fried dumplings with a crisp layer of lacey crust. You won’t have to worry about still being hungry afterward—the pan-fried dumplings are huge, and the soup dumplings are just as filling.

This is one of the best restaurants for solid Cantonese dishes around FIU South Campus. It has two airy dining rooms and plenty of big round tables with lazy susans perfect for sharing all the dishes you’ll want to order here. Start with a big bowl of slivered pork and pickled mustard green soup, then follow it up with chewy e fu noodles in a savory brown sauce, a beef and daikon clay pot, and some of Miami’s best traditional Cantonese sweet and sour pork—with perfectly thin and crispy slices.

This Fontainebleau spot (the neighborhood, not the hotel) does some really good Cantonese barbecue. With the exception of one small high-top table on the sidewalk, they’re strictly a takeout operation. The pipa duck—a spatchcocked version of Peking duck with a much crunchier exterior—is a dish we’ve only seen at Hakkasan (for several times the price) and is worth ordering. King Duck’s crispy pork tastes like chicharrón that got a makeover.

This North Miami Beach spot is one of the best places to get mapo tofu in Miami: tender cubes of soft tofu in a spicy, garlicky sauce jam-packed with the aroma of pixian doubanjiang, a fermented broad bean and chili paste from Szechuan. It also gives you that nice, tingly sensation in your mouth from the addition of Szechuan peppercorns. The dan dan noodles are another regional specialty that CY does well: bouncy wheat noodles in a spicy sauce with ground meat and pickled mustard greens.

This Kendall Cantonese restaurant serves dim sum every day from 11am to 3pm, but Sunday is the best day to come for the full push cart experience. The big dining room has a 3D wall installation of two phoenixes looking over the lacquered dark wooden tables, where you’ll see a mix of abuelitas who lunch and aunties meeting for a cup of tea, a few bao, and some gossip. South Garden serves great baked roast pork buns with a generous amount of char siu filling, along with solid fun gor.