Asiatown (Chinatown)

What to call it. Visit Houston and the Chinese Community Center call it Asiatown. The Southwest Management District, which looks after the original core, calls it Chinatown and describes it as roughly six square miles from Gessner to Beltway 8 and from Westpark to Beechnut. The shopping centers carry on west along Bellaire Boulevard past the Beltway.

How it got here. Houston's first Chinatown was east of Downtown. The new one began in 1983, when developers opened Diho Plaza at Bellaire and Ranchester; it has since been renovated as D-Square and is anchored by Welcome Supermarket. In 1993 the city put up Chinese-character street signs along Bellaire from Fondren Road to Beltway 8. Visit Houston notes that the area has the second-largest Indochinese population in the United States, after Los Angeles.

Where to start. Dun Huang Plaza, at 9889 Bellaire Blvd by Beltway 8, is a two-story plaza of restaurants, dessert shops and bakeries. West of the Beltway, Hong Kong City Mall at 11205 Bellaire Blvd holds more than 20 restaurants and cafes around the Hong Kong Food Market supermarket, with dim sum at Ocean Palace in the west wing. For Sichuan food, Mala Sichuan Bistro at 9348 Bellaire Blvd opened its first location here in 2011 and is a Michelin Bib Gourmand pick. Our Asiatown food crawl strings several stops together.

Practical. Many businesses here are cash only, Visit Houston warns, so bring some. METRO's 2 Bellaire bus runs along Bellaire Boulevard between the Mission Bend Transit Center and the Texas Medical Center, every 15 minutes for most of the day. The Teo Chew Temple, a Buddhist temple, is open to the public daily; dress respectfully. For Lunar New Year, the Chinese Community Center's festival has been an Asiatown tradition since 2003.