Tucson was the first U.S. city to land a UNESCO City of Gastronomy designation. San Antonio was the second, and former Tucsonan Kevin Fink is playing a critical role.

An unassuming Chinese restaurant tucked into a Marana shopping plaza just got a major national spotlight.

Yelp, the crowd-sourced review platform that can make or break a restaurant, listed Asian Spice at 7850 N. Silverbell Road among the Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in America.

"We were very surprised," owner Joyce Tan said on Thursday. "My son sent me the news and I didn't even know."

Asian Spice landed at No. 53 on the list, released Wednesday. It was one of just three Arizona Chinese restaurants to make the cut, based on Yelp reviews.

This was the first time Asian Spice has gotten a national nod, although the restaurant has made a number of local media best-of lists in the decade since Tan and her chef-husband Phillip opened the restaurant in October 2014.

Phillip Tan trained as a chef in his native China before embarking on a 10-year run cooking for the five-star Nanhai Hotel in Shenzhen.

When the couple immigrated to the U.S., they spent their first 10 years in Tucson working in local Chinese restaurants before going out on their own, Joyce Tan said.

The Tans' scratch kitchen leans into Catonese and Szechuan cuisines. Popular dishes include the house orange chicken — deep-fried, crispy chicken dressed in a citrusy sweet-and-spicy sauce — and the Mongolian beef, tender sauteéd beef lathered with a spicy gravy.