Author: Jenny Banh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429938896
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
With case studies from the USA, Canada, Chile, and other countries in Latin America, American Chinese Restaurants examines the lived experiences of what it is like to work in a Chinese restaurant. The book provides ethnographic insights on small family businesses, struggling immigrant parents, and kids working, living, and growing up in an American Chinese restaurant. This is the first book based on personal histories to document and analyze the American Chinese restaurant world. New narratives by various international and American contributors have presented Chinese restaurants as dynamic agencies that raise questions on identity, ethnicity, transnationalism, industrialization, (post)modernity, assimilation, public and civic spheres, and socioeconomic differences. American Chinese Restaurants will be of interest to general readers, scholars, and college students from undergraduate to graduate level, who wish to know Chinese restaurant life and understand the relationship between food and society.
American Chinese Restaurants
Author: Jenny Banh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429938896
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
With case studies from the USA, Canada, Chile, and other countries in Latin America, American Chinese Restaurants examines the lived experiences of what it is like to work in a Chinese restaurant. The book provides ethnographic insights on small family businesses, struggling immigrant parents, and kids working, living, and growing up in an American Chinese restaurant. This is the first book based on personal histories to document and analyze the American Chinese restaurant world. New narratives by various international and American contributors have presented Chinese restaurants as dynamic agencies that raise questions on identity, ethnicity, transnationalism, industrialization, (post)modernity, assimilation, public and civic spheres, and socioeconomic differences. American Chinese Restaurants will be of interest to general readers, scholars, and college students from undergraduate to graduate level, who wish to know Chinese restaurant life and understand the relationship between food and society.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429938896
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
With case studies from the USA, Canada, Chile, and other countries in Latin America, American Chinese Restaurants examines the lived experiences of what it is like to work in a Chinese restaurant. The book provides ethnographic insights on small family businesses, struggling immigrant parents, and kids working, living, and growing up in an American Chinese restaurant. This is the first book based on personal histories to document and analyze the American Chinese restaurant world. New narratives by various international and American contributors have presented Chinese restaurants as dynamic agencies that raise questions on identity, ethnicity, transnationalism, industrialization, (post)modernity, assimilation, public and civic spheres, and socioeconomic differences. American Chinese Restaurants will be of interest to general readers, scholars, and college students from undergraduate to graduate level, who wish to know Chinese restaurant life and understand the relationship between food and society.
Chop Suey, USA
Author: Yong Chen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538162
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, it had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Chop Suey, USA offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the rise of Chinese food, revealing the forces that made it ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape and turned the country into an empire of consumption. Engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small, and economically exploited group, Chinese food's tour de America is an epic story of global cultural encounter. It reflects not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The rise of Chinese food is also a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance. Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community. Chinese American restaurant workers developed the concept of the open kitchen and popularized the practice of home delivery. They streamlined certain Chinese dishes, such as chop suey and egg foo young, turning them into nationally recognized brand names.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538162
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325
Book Description
American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, it had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Chop Suey, USA offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the rise of Chinese food, revealing the forces that made it ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape and turned the country into an empire of consumption. Engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small, and economically exploited group, Chinese food's tour de America is an epic story of global cultural encounter. It reflects not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The rise of Chinese food is also a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance. Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community. Chinese American restaurant workers developed the concept of the open kitchen and popularized the practice of home delivery. They streamlined certain Chinese dishes, such as chop suey and egg foo young, turning them into nationally recognized brand names.
Chop Suey
Author: Andrew Coe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199758514
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States--by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time. It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asian ingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York "Bohemians" discovered Chinese cuisine--and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing or Shanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences. Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199758514
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
Book Description
In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States--by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coe provides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time. It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asian ingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York "Bohemians" discovered Chinese cuisine--and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-American restaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing or Shanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences. Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.
From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express
Author: Haiming Liu
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813574773
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
"The story of Chinese Americans through the lens of food. From Canton Restaurant in 1849 to Panda Express today, Chinese food history in America spans over 150 years. Chinese 'Forty-niners' were mostly merchants and restaurateurs who migrated here not to dig gold but to do trade. Racism against the Chinese slowed down the growth of the Chinese restaurant business in the late 19th century, but it made a rebound in the format of chop suey. From 1900 to the 1960s, chop suey as imagined authentic Chinese food attracted numerous American customers including Jewish Americans as its collective fan. Then the real Chinese food such as Hunan, Sichuan or Shanghai cuisine replaced chop suey houses in the 1970s following the arrival of new Chinese immigrants after immigration reform in 1965. Those regional-flavored Chinese restaurants were brought in and established by immigrants from Taiwan rather than mainland China. As Chinese restaurants in America turned Chinese in flavor, P.F. Chang's and Panda Express rose fast in the 1990s to meet the need of constantly changing and often multi-ethnically blended eating habits of American customers. Chinese food in America is a fascinating history about both Chinese and Americans. Embedded in this history is the story of human migration, culinary tradition, racial politics, ethnic identity, cultural negotiation, Chinese Diaspora and transnational life, and Chinese cuisine as a global food. Though a scholarly work, this book aims at all readers who are interested in food history and culture"--Provided by publisher
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813574773
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
"The story of Chinese Americans through the lens of food. From Canton Restaurant in 1849 to Panda Express today, Chinese food history in America spans over 150 years. Chinese 'Forty-niners' were mostly merchants and restaurateurs who migrated here not to dig gold but to do trade. Racism against the Chinese slowed down the growth of the Chinese restaurant business in the late 19th century, but it made a rebound in the format of chop suey. From 1900 to the 1960s, chop suey as imagined authentic Chinese food attracted numerous American customers including Jewish Americans as its collective fan. Then the real Chinese food such as Hunan, Sichuan or Shanghai cuisine replaced chop suey houses in the 1970s following the arrival of new Chinese immigrants after immigration reform in 1965. Those regional-flavored Chinese restaurants were brought in and established by immigrants from Taiwan rather than mainland China. As Chinese restaurants in America turned Chinese in flavor, P.F. Chang's and Panda Express rose fast in the 1990s to meet the need of constantly changing and often multi-ethnically blended eating habits of American customers. Chinese food in America is a fascinating history about both Chinese and Americans. Embedded in this history is the story of human migration, culinary tradition, racial politics, ethnic identity, cultural negotiation, Chinese Diaspora and transnational life, and Chinese cuisine as a global food. Though a scholarly work, this book aims at all readers who are interested in food history and culture"--Provided by publisher
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles
Author: Jennifer 8 Lee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780446592666
Category : COOKING
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
"A woman's search for the world's greatest Chinese restaurant proves that egg rolls are as American as apple pie"--Provided by publisher.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780446592666
Category : COOKING
Languages : en
Pages : 172
Book Description
"A woman's search for the world's greatest Chinese restaurant proves that egg rolls are as American as apple pie"--Provided by publisher.
Chow Chop Suey
Author: Anne Mendelson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541295
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Chinese food first became popular in America under the shadow of violence against Chinese aliens, a despised racial minority ineligible for United States citizenship. The founding of late-nineteenth-century "chop suey" restaurants that pitched an altered version of Cantonese cuisine to white patrons despite a virulently anti-Chinese climate is one of several pivotal events in Anne Mendelson's thoughtful history of American Chinese food. Chow Chop Suey uses cooking to trace different stages of the Chinese community's footing in the larger white society. Mendelson begins with the arrival of men from the poorest district of Canton Province during the Gold Rush. She describes the formation of American Chinatowns and examines the curious racial dynamic underlying the purposeful invention of hybridized Chinese American food, historically prepared by Cantonese-descended cooks for whites incapable of grasping Chinese culinary principles. Mendelson then follows the eventual abolition of anti-Chinese immigration laws and the many demographic changes that transformed the face of Chinese cooking in America during and after the Cold War. Mendelson concludes with the post-1965 arrival of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and many regions of mainland China. As she shows, they have immeasurably enriched Chinese cooking in America but tend to form comparatively self-sufficient enclaves in which they, unlike their predecessors, are not dependent on cooking for a white clientele.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231541295
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
Chinese food first became popular in America under the shadow of violence against Chinese aliens, a despised racial minority ineligible for United States citizenship. The founding of late-nineteenth-century "chop suey" restaurants that pitched an altered version of Cantonese cuisine to white patrons despite a virulently anti-Chinese climate is one of several pivotal events in Anne Mendelson's thoughtful history of American Chinese food. Chow Chop Suey uses cooking to trace different stages of the Chinese community's footing in the larger white society. Mendelson begins with the arrival of men from the poorest district of Canton Province during the Gold Rush. She describes the formation of American Chinatowns and examines the curious racial dynamic underlying the purposeful invention of hybridized Chinese American food, historically prepared by Cantonese-descended cooks for whites incapable of grasping Chinese culinary principles. Mendelson then follows the eventual abolition of anti-Chinese immigration laws and the many demographic changes that transformed the face of Chinese cooking in America during and after the Cold War. Mendelson concludes with the post-1965 arrival of Chinese immigrants from Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and many regions of mainland China. As she shows, they have immeasurably enriched Chinese cooking in America but tend to form comparatively self-sufficient enclaves in which they, unlike their predecessors, are not dependent on cooking for a white clientele.
Mister Jiu's in Chinatown
Author: Brandon Jew
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 1984856510
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed chef behind the Michelin-starred Mister Jiu’s restaurant shares the past, present, and future of Chinese cooking in America through 90 mouthwatering recipes. ONE OF THE TEN BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle • ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Glamour • “Brandon Jew’s affection for San Francisco’s Chinatown and his own Chinese heritage is palpable in this cookbook, which is both a recipe collection and a portrait of a district rich in history.”—Fuchsia Dunlop, James Beard Award-winning author of The Food of Sichuan Brandon Jew trained in the kitchens of California cuisine pioneers and Michelin-starred Italian institutions before finding his way back to Chinatown and the food of his childhood. Through deeply personal recipes and stories about the neighborhood that often inspires them, this groundbreaking cookbook is an intimate account of how Chinese food became American food and the making of a Chinese American chef. Jew takes inspiration from classic Chinatown recipes to create innovative spins like Sizzling Rice Soup, Squid Ink Wontons, Orange Chicken Wings, Liberty Roast Duck, Mushroom Mu Shu, and Banana Black Sesame Pie. From the fundamentals of Chinese cooking to master class recipes, he interweaves recipes and techniques with stories about their origins in Chinatown and in his own family history. And he connects his classical training and American roots to Chinese traditions in chapters celebrating dim sum, dumplings, and banquet-style parties. With more than a hundred photographs of finished dishes as well as moving and evocative atmospheric shots of Chinatown, this book is also an intimate portrait—a look down the alleyways, above the tourist shops, and into the kitchens—of the neighborhood that changed the flavor of America.
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 1984856510
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed chef behind the Michelin-starred Mister Jiu’s restaurant shares the past, present, and future of Chinese cooking in America through 90 mouthwatering recipes. ONE OF THE TEN BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle • ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Glamour • “Brandon Jew’s affection for San Francisco’s Chinatown and his own Chinese heritage is palpable in this cookbook, which is both a recipe collection and a portrait of a district rich in history.”—Fuchsia Dunlop, James Beard Award-winning author of The Food of Sichuan Brandon Jew trained in the kitchens of California cuisine pioneers and Michelin-starred Italian institutions before finding his way back to Chinatown and the food of his childhood. Through deeply personal recipes and stories about the neighborhood that often inspires them, this groundbreaking cookbook is an intimate account of how Chinese food became American food and the making of a Chinese American chef. Jew takes inspiration from classic Chinatown recipes to create innovative spins like Sizzling Rice Soup, Squid Ink Wontons, Orange Chicken Wings, Liberty Roast Duck, Mushroom Mu Shu, and Banana Black Sesame Pie. From the fundamentals of Chinese cooking to master class recipes, he interweaves recipes and techniques with stories about their origins in Chinatown and in his own family history. And he connects his classical training and American roots to Chinese traditions in chapters celebrating dim sum, dumplings, and banquet-style parties. With more than a hundred photographs of finished dishes as well as moving and evocative atmospheric shots of Chinatown, this book is also an intimate portrait—a look down the alleyways, above the tourist shops, and into the kitchens—of the neighborhood that changed the flavor of America.
Chinese Takeaway Cookbook
Author: Kwoklyn Wan
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1787133680
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Chinese is the UK's favourite takeout food, and it's beloved all over the world – as with much Indian food, it's the nostalgic, comforting creations for western palates that really get people salivating. Now you can make your favourite Chinese restaurant classics at home with Kwoklyn Wan's fabulous Chinese Takeaway Cookbook. Kwoklyn is a third-generation Chinese chef: BBC (British-Born Chinese). He’s also the brother of TV celebrity Gok Wan and both boys grew up working in their family's Cantonese Restaurant in Leicester in the 1970s. He has spent years perfecting recipes for Chinese dishes that taste like the ones from your local takeaway kitchen or restaurant. The book features 70 classic dishes, everything from sweet and sour chicken to char siu, prawn toast to chop suey, egg-fried rice to crispy seaweed – and most of them can be on the table in 20 minutes or less. Cook up a storm at home with Kwoklyn's fabulous take on food from the takeaway.
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN: 1787133680
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 390
Book Description
Chinese is the UK's favourite takeout food, and it's beloved all over the world – as with much Indian food, it's the nostalgic, comforting creations for western palates that really get people salivating. Now you can make your favourite Chinese restaurant classics at home with Kwoklyn Wan's fabulous Chinese Takeaway Cookbook. Kwoklyn is a third-generation Chinese chef: BBC (British-Born Chinese). He’s also the brother of TV celebrity Gok Wan and both boys grew up working in their family's Cantonese Restaurant in Leicester in the 1970s. He has spent years perfecting recipes for Chinese dishes that taste like the ones from your local takeaway kitchen or restaurant. The book features 70 classic dishes, everything from sweet and sour chicken to char siu, prawn toast to chop suey, egg-fried rice to crispy seaweed – and most of them can be on the table in 20 minutes or less. Cook up a storm at home with Kwoklyn's fabulous take on food from the takeaway.
Chop Suey and Sushi from Sea to Shining Sea
Author: Bruce Makoto Arnold
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1682260607
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
The essays in Chop Suey and Sushi from Sea to Shining Sea fill gaps in the existing food studies by revealing and contextualizing the hidden, local histories of Chinese and Japanese restaurants in the United States. The writer of these essays show how the taste and presentation of Chinese and Japanese dishes have evolved in sweat and hardship over generations of immigrants who became restaurant owners, chefs, and laborers in the small towns and large cities of America. These vivid, detailed, and sometimes emotional portrayals reveal the survival strategies deployed in Asian restaurant kitchens over the past 150 years and the impact these restaurants have had on the culture, politics, and foodways of the United States. Some of these authors are family members of restaurant owners or chefs, writing with a passion and richness that can only come from personal investment, while others are academic writers who have painstakingly mined decades of archival data to reconstruct the past. Still others offer a fresh look at the amazing continuity and domination of the “evil Chinaman” stereotype in the “foreign” world of American Chinatown restaurants. The essays include insights from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, economics, phenomenology, journalism, food studies, and film and literary criticism. Chop Suey and Sushi from Sea to Shining Sea not only complements the existing scholarship and exposes the work that still needs to be done in this field, but also underscores the unique and innovative approaches that can be taken in the field of American food studies.
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1682260607
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
The essays in Chop Suey and Sushi from Sea to Shining Sea fill gaps in the existing food studies by revealing and contextualizing the hidden, local histories of Chinese and Japanese restaurants in the United States. The writer of these essays show how the taste and presentation of Chinese and Japanese dishes have evolved in sweat and hardship over generations of immigrants who became restaurant owners, chefs, and laborers in the small towns and large cities of America. These vivid, detailed, and sometimes emotional portrayals reveal the survival strategies deployed in Asian restaurant kitchens over the past 150 years and the impact these restaurants have had on the culture, politics, and foodways of the United States. Some of these authors are family members of restaurant owners or chefs, writing with a passion and richness that can only come from personal investment, while others are academic writers who have painstakingly mined decades of archival data to reconstruct the past. Still others offer a fresh look at the amazing continuity and domination of the “evil Chinaman” stereotype in the “foreign” world of American Chinatown restaurants. The essays include insights from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, economics, phenomenology, journalism, food studies, and film and literary criticism. Chop Suey and Sushi from Sea to Shining Sea not only complements the existing scholarship and exposes the work that still needs to be done in this field, but also underscores the unique and innovative approaches that can be taken in the field of American food studies.
Number One Chinese Restaurant
Author: Lillian Li
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250141303
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Named a Must-Read by TIME, Buzzfeed, The Wall Street Journal, Star Tribune, Fast Company, The Village Voice, Toronto Star, Fortune Magazine, InStyle, and O, The Oprah Magazine "A joy to read—I couldn't get enough." —Buzzfeed "This novel practically thumps with heartache and sharp humor." —Chang-rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Native Speaker An exuberant and wise multigenerational debut novel about the complicated lives and loves of people working in everyone’s favorite Chinese restaurant. The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for hunger pangs and celebrations; it is its own world, inhabited by waiters and kitchen staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. When disaster strikes, this working family’s controlled chaos is set loose, forcing each character to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay. Owner Jimmy Han hopes to leave his late father’s homespun establishment for a fancier one. Jimmy’s older brother, Johnny, and Johnny’s daughter, Annie, ache to return to a time before a father’s absence and a teenager’s silence pushed them apart. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, are tempted to turn their thirty-year friendship into something else, even as Nan’s son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. And when Pat and Annie, caught in a mix of youthful lust and boredom, find themselves in a dangerous game that implicates them in the Duck House tragedy, their families must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to help their children. Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multi-voiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant looks beyond red tablecloths and silkscreen murals to share an unforgettable story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive.
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250141303
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Book Description
Named a Must-Read by TIME, Buzzfeed, The Wall Street Journal, Star Tribune, Fast Company, The Village Voice, Toronto Star, Fortune Magazine, InStyle, and O, The Oprah Magazine "A joy to read—I couldn't get enough." —Buzzfeed "This novel practically thumps with heartache and sharp humor." —Chang-rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Native Speaker An exuberant and wise multigenerational debut novel about the complicated lives and loves of people working in everyone’s favorite Chinese restaurant. The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for hunger pangs and celebrations; it is its own world, inhabited by waiters and kitchen staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. When disaster strikes, this working family’s controlled chaos is set loose, forcing each character to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay. Owner Jimmy Han hopes to leave his late father’s homespun establishment for a fancier one. Jimmy’s older brother, Johnny, and Johnny’s daughter, Annie, ache to return to a time before a father’s absence and a teenager’s silence pushed them apart. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, are tempted to turn their thirty-year friendship into something else, even as Nan’s son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. And when Pat and Annie, caught in a mix of youthful lust and boredom, find themselves in a dangerous game that implicates them in the Duck House tragedy, their families must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to help their children. Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multi-voiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant looks beyond red tablecloths and silkscreen murals to share an unforgettable story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive.