A small historical observation: some of the best day-to-day Americanized Chinese food can be found in little town, family owned restaurants that were on the routes of some of the transcontinental railroads (some of which had huge numbers of Chinese folks, some of whom stayed after construction and ran below the radar of the various exclusionary acts and practices).

E.g., the route of the transcontinental railroad, the towns on the Santa Fe line between Santa Fe and Los Angeles, etc.