08/28/2026
China One is a truly family owned and operated American-Chinese restaurant started in 2014. They started the restaurant in order to keep the family together, it’s easier to take care of the young ones on your own when you have a business instead of working for someone else.
While there are many American-Chinese restaurants around Rochester, China One stood out to me for the freshness of their vegetables and ingredients and their techniques. “We pick quality ingredients and would never serve anything we won’t eat ourselves. We think of our customers as part of our family, we don’t want to feed our family low quality ingredients.” says Jessy, the owner.
Well, technically, our conversation were completely in Mandarin, what she really said was “將心比心”- comparing one’s heart to another, meaning putting oneself in another’s shoes, no one wants to eat bad food.
All the vegetables and ingredients are prepped from scratch in the restaurant, they blend their own sauces and you can taste the difference. They also offer some customization knowing the Americans and Asians have different palettes- Americans tend to enjoy sweeter foods and less spice, while Asians enjoy more savory and can sometimes tolerate more spice.
Dish like Mapo tofu is listed as vegan on the menu, but traditionally mapo tofu actually contains minced meat, China One offers that customization. (SECRET MENU UNLOCKED)
In a world where ordering frozen, pre-made food directly from the supplier to reheat has become the norm, China One still makes their carb rangoon from scratch and offers unique items like “teriyaki chicken”. The teriyaki chicken comes in giant skewers and honestly tastes more like char-siu, or even more specifically– 紅糟肉 in Taiwan. but I get why they named it teriyaki- it’s easier for people to understand. It’s crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside and I honestly didn’t expect how big they were going to be when Jessy told me she was going to add “skewers” to my order.
Another dish that stood out to me was the pepper chicken. Honestly it’s not a dish I would normally order, but Jessy insisted that we try it and I’m so glad she did.
It’s a rice killer.
Savory, garlicky, peppery and smoky from the perfect wok hei(high heat in the wok), accompanied by the grassiness of the green peppers and sweet onion, it reminded me of the stir-fry places we’d frequent in Taiwan. I didn’t think I would ever find that flavor at an American-Chinese restaurant. It also turns out that the chef behind the curtains is a classically trained Chinese chef, which explains a lot.
Here’s my usual order:
Szechuan Beef with less meat and extra vegetables. While I’m not fully vegetarian, I do prefer to eat a lot more vegetables than meat. Szechuan beef comes with crisp cabbages, baby corn, pepper, mushrooms and carrots. While the beef is silkened (softened with baking soda), the texture and flavor are still intact unlike a lot of other restaurants, it is often overdone in my opinion.
Last thing I’ll mention is that I was also shocked that the tofu actually has the soy flavor that I love! I’m so used to bland tofu in the US, I didn’t expect it at all. I also love that they used silky extra soft tofu for their mapo tofu, the texture is just so cozy to me.
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While the reel was sponsored by Waiter Express and Rochester Local, this post is not.
I'm writing because I love learning about the stories behind small mom and pop businesses and it's been a while since I REALLY wrote about them because I've been so burnt out.
With all the things that's going on in the world and in Rochester, I feel terrible for the tiny businesses trying to navigate and make a living to feed their family, it's truly not easy. The city isn't doing enough to highlight our diverse BIPOC businesses, so I'm doing it. That's it.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate you. :)
