Where do most Angelenos go for Chinese restaurant tips? Yelp, maybe? But a local Chinese residents would probably say, nah, never, except for finding certain restaurant’s address. But what’s their source? And how do hundreds of Chinese restaurants in San Gabriel Valley get their name out?

Chihuo, founded in 2011, is a Mandarin-language website sharing food reviews, restaurant news, recipes, deals, and other recreational information like travel tips and upcoming events in Los Angeles. Within three years, the website along with its several social media accounts has attracted over 180,000 followers and become the biggest online food influencer for local Chinese community.

Chihuo stands for foodie in Chinese. Motivated by sharing food information with other foodie friends, the founder, Amy Duan, started to post food reviews on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. On June 15th, 2011, the first Weibo was sent out and it said: “ So for the very first post, let me introduce the ‘grand old man’ of Hong Kong style tea restaurant in Los Angeles—Tasty Garden. The one located in Atlantic Times Square opens until 4 a.m. Right next to AMC Theater, it’s a great place for late supper. Main dishes include Walnut Shrimp and Chicken Curry. Porridges and noodles are also highly recommended…”

To Duan’s surprise, credibility and popularity accumulated quickly. By late July 2011, barely six weeks after its launch, despite posting only around 50 reviews, Chihuo had already drawn a lot of attention and support. “Chihuo now has 1000 followers,” Duan posted. “I am so excited! SO EXCITED! EXCITED!”

As the fan base grows, Chihuo’s posts are also becoming more objective and formal. But what it’s doing keeps the same: sharing information.

Although Chihuo provides the similar service as Yelp does, its contents are mainly created by its own members rather than followers or fans. This feature hits home for many Chinese people. In general, Chinese people prefer to read reviews rather than generate them. That explains why many Chinese people have Yelp on their phones, but they still don’t trust it when finding a Chinese restaurant.

Chihuo’s success can partially owe to the rise of social media. Chihuo started from a Sina Weibo account and until now it still plays as a major platform to send new posts. Just like Twitter, followers can attach Chihuo in their own posts. As a result, there are a lot of interactions between Chihuo and followers and sometimes followers can contribute valuable food information.

Two year later, Chihuo had the website, Chihuo.org, where the food reviews are preserved permanently.

 Wechat, a free messaging and calling app like WhatsApp, also helps enhance Chihuo’s influence. In Wechat, Chihuo can send blog posts to every follower. As many Chinese people depend so heavily on Wechat to communication that they check the messages on Wechat every several minutes. So the posts sent via Wechat got circulated like virus.

 Within three years, Chihuo gets so influential that its food reviews can draw hundreds of customers to a restaurant, keeping them waiting in line for almost two hours only to try out the recommended dishes.

 Not only LA Chinese foodies take Chihuo as their go-to source, Jonathan Gold, the famous restaurant critic for Los Angels Times, also told Amy Duan that “I actually put your articles on Google translate.” And Gold once mentioned Chihuo and Amy Duan in one of his food reviews.

Businesses are also catching the trend. They provide sponsorship for publishing promotional food reviews on Chihuo. In 2013, Chihuo registered into a company and started to generate revenue by sharing information.

Recently, Chihuo launched another Northern California based website and started to cover food information in major cities like San Francisco.

Amy Duan, graduated from the communication management program in USC Annenberg, is now working full time as the CEO of Chihuo. Her goal is to spread the information sharing business and passion for food all over the U.S.