Number One Chinese Restaurant is a savory feast of a read about a new generation trying to break free of the old despite the golden chains that will forever bind them to the past. Lillian Li's skill at developing rich, delectable characters creates an immersive experience of clever and lyrical writing fused with intriguing plot turns. Number One Chinese Restaurant is a great next read for fans of Spoonbenders.

Loved the characters, setting and story. Looking forward to more by this author!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and give an honest review of this book.

Unfortunately, this book fell flat for me. It did not charm me and I just could not seem to care for the characters. I would give the author another chance as the writing was not bad.

I had really wanted to enjoy this book. My family has been eating at the same Chinese Restaurant every Sunday after church and often during the week for takeout. We have known 3 of the owners through the years. Sadly, I just couldn't get into this book. I think the reason is that I just didn't care for any of the characters and the story just wasn't enough to hook me in.

I liked the interwoven storylines, but the climax and conclusion were a real let down. I like a little bit of mystery and not every ending has to be happy, but what the heck happened to everyone? Given the intricacies and the attention to detail of the character descriptions, the conclusion was too inconclusive to be satisfactory. A detailed and character driven book such as this will usually stay with the reader for a time, but this feels like it a random thought that disappeared as soon as you turn the last page. Disappointing.

The author writes beautifully, and I really wanted to like this book. I was engaged and kept turning the page, but I just wasn't as invested as I wanted to be. I found the characters all to be unlikable, and unlike other fictional antiheros and antiheroines, I just wasn't rooting for anyone.

3.5 stars rounded to 4

Number One Chinese Restaurant is a truly original tale of the innermost secrets of a Chinese family-owned restaurant. Behind the accents and the shuffling of Asian flavors is a poignant look at the relationships that build a microcosm of love, loyalty, and interconnection. And the dark side of doing business.

Jimmy Han has his eye on opening a restaurant better than the one left by his father's legacy. Beyond the doors of the Duck House lies a dream of opening the best Chinese restaurant in Maryland. But inside the doors of the Duck House, there is love, control, power but most importantly history. Jimmy is one step closer to opening up Glory, but his loyal brother Johnny has other ideas for the original Beijing Duck House of Maryland famous for its Northern Chinese cuisine. That fateful night where fire engulfs the restaurant will be the twist of fate for many. And change does not fare ware for the characters of this story.

The narrative is told by multiple characters, Jimmy, Johnny, Ah-Jack, Nan, Pat, and Annie. The stories are told in the present tense but each waiter, manager, son, daughter and business owner have their own cards that fall on the floor. Jimmy is struggling to find his own path through the restaurant business but his family always tempers his full ability. Ah-Jack, a full-time waiter, is tired and suffering from his ailments and old habits. Nan, the manager is trying to raise a teenage child while hiding her affection for Ah-Jack. And then there is Johnny, the brother who comes back into the picture with his own interest in mind.

This story is an emotional journey from beginning to end. Its pace is fluid and shifts from present tense to past rememberances. It is not clear initially how the chapters will be set up but this is part of the uniqueness of the story. Several aspects of this story are confusing but the relationships between the characters are most poignant.

The interactions between waiter Ah-Jack and manager Nan is endearing. From their first meeting at her new job at the Mayflower, the slow courtship, to the reversal of roles at the Duck House, we see the love build slowly and confoundingly. But Ah-Jack has a picture of another in his wallet. His wife is at home being treated for cancer. But Ah-Jack can bearly pay for her treatment or keep his job. Time has ravaged his life, his marriage, and his dignity.

And the Han family has their own traditional Chinese dynamics. Feng Fei, the mother of Jimmy and Johnny is a caustic, matriarch who is self-absorbed and hard on her children. Jimmy always wanted to be a chef, but in his struggle to fit in he always found a way to be an outlier. His desire to be his own story with his own restaurant will resonate with anybody living in another's shadow. And Jimmy and Johnny who are always at odds have a co-dependent relationship as two brothers, one the rescuer of the other's calamity. However, with all the friction between the characters, loyalty and family reign most important.

The pulse of the Duck house is controlled chaos. Waiters parading dishes, catching their breaks, takings nips from the bar after a long shift. Each of these characters carries a past and a distinct personality and clearly longstanding relationships with other employees. The combination of all these aspects makes the narrative lively.

Lillian Li has composed a novel blending the right amount of humor and charm with tradition. There were at times where the novel felt unbalanced but the story and the characters provided enough entertainment to push through those parts. Overall, a good novel.

Thank you, NetGalley, Henry Holt and Company, and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company for the ARC

When I opened this book I almost read a few pages and put it down. I am so glad I didn’t quit on this book. The Duck House in Rockville, Maryland holds more than just a restaurant, it has friendships, love, and family secrets. The workers have all been employed there for most of their lives and have become what makes the restaurant so successful. The stories of all the characters suck you into this book and it becomes a page turner. Ah-Jack and Nan are two of the main characters and following their story and understanding their friendship is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. Trust me stick with this book and you won’t regret a page of reading!

I really wanted to enjoy this book. I love food and anything that combines food and reading I will try. This one fell short.

I received this book as an advanced copy through NetGalley, and while I thought there were really well-written passages, much of the book feel short for me.

I enjoyed the idea of a book set in a Chinese restaurant and was sucked in immediately by the conceit of the restaurant founder's youngest son hoping to branch out on his own, and his struggle against his own limitations, loyalties and those around him. I also enjoyed the story of Nan and her son, a struggling teen, very interesting, but often Nan's behavior was confounding to me.

I just felt the book drug in places, and I found some of the point of view switches very confusing.

This just was not the book for me.

My thoughts:
With the high praise and "Most Anticipated Book of 2018" label, I was hoping for a more entertaining novel. I really was craving for either the humor, angst and melodrama of a Joy Luck Club or a foodie book like The Last Chinese Chef. The issue was that I could not find any character that I wanted to root for. I could not find a character with enough redeeming qualities to care about.

I know it is supposed to be darkly funny, I just don't get the humor. I think what I wanted to do was read this book to be entertained, but bitterness is a hard pill to swallow, even in fiction.



Publication date: June 19, 2018



Advanced digital copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.

This book was just not that interesting to me. The characters were well-developed and intricately interwoven into the plot of the story. I just did not find myself connecting with, respecting, or caring for any of the characters. I pushed through the book because I really did want to find out the ending of the story. The author is truly a terrific writer. This book just didn't do it for me. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy.

This is a wonderful book. It really has all the ingredients of a smash hit. Lovely lovely story line with great characters who live their lives! Really a fun book.

I picked this up because I thought it would be interesting take on the Asian American immigrant experience and liked the fact that it was centered around a restaurant. This book was not what I thought and I almost put aside for other things but I'm glad I stuck with it. The book was well written and the characters and their world are interwoven together quite well. I didn't find any of them particularly likable (this seems to be a theme in books I've read recently) and that made the book less enjoyable for me. I also felt as though the characters lacked depth and development. Without giving spoilers, I will say that this book left me feeling unsatisfied and a little unsettled at the end. I'm on the fence if I would recommend this or reread it but there is something about it that has stuck with me. For that, I'll give it 3 stars.

Enjoyable read; engaging, flawed characters and well-written.

'Uncle Pang was always picking something apart.'

Uncle Pang is more than picking everything apart, he is the master controlling his puppets. Between the workers and the owners, the real action takes place behind the scenes, not with the patrons. Jimmy Han doesn’t want to work under his deceased father’s shadow anymore, he longs for an edgier more modern restaurant and no one is going to stop him. Certainly not his overbearing old mother, nor his do-gooder older brother Johnny. When he isn’t ordering his workers around, he is making plans, big plans for his future restaurant. Nan and Ah-Jack (my favorite characters) are both buckling under the demands of their loved ones. For Nan, it’s her wayward son Pat, “Nan wanted to believe that at Pat’s core, all his gentle selves were curled up, waiting to be awoken.” It’s too hard for her to admit just how much he has soured. Ah-Jack’s wife Michelle is sick with cancer, and he’s getting too old to be as strong for her as he once was. There is something that has always been special, that’s simmered between he and the much younger Nan. She brings out the poetry of his tongue, the youth of his old heart. The love Nan has for Ah-Jack ‘came slowly, as weaknesses in the body often do.” But how does he feel, anchored to his dying wife, whom he’s been tied to since his childhood? Annie is the privileged niece, working in the family business, enticed by bad boy Pat- but just how far will she go for a little excitement?

Uncle Pang is like a dark cloud that descends on them all, picking and chosing who to ‘use’ and who to ‘discard’. Pat and Annie get caught up in a game too big for themselves, and it will cost more than young love. It’s a story not just about the successful Chinese immigrants, but those who struggle to make their way to a better life for themselves and their children. It’s the complications of family, brothers locked in their roles one as ‘trouble’ the other, as reluctant ‘savior.’ It’s a matriarch that refuses to give up control to her foolish sons, and love that is never too late. It’s thinking that what you dream of is better for you than what you have and that sometimes we idealize something so much that once we attain it, we find we may not want it at all.

I enjoyed the humor, even the selfishness and greed but most of all I adored the relationship between Nan and Ah-Jack (the old fool by far the best character). Everyone seems to be either manipulating each other, fooling themselves, or saving one another. A story of beginnings and endings, of many relationships that simmer beneath the roof of a Chinese Restaurant, that is for some a home and for others a weight around their neck.

Publication Date: June 19, 2018

Henry Holt & Company

Thanks to Henry Holt & Co and Net Galley for a digital copy of Number One Chinese Restaurant by Lillian Li.
#NumberOneChineseRestaurant #NetGalley

Number One Chinese Restaurant revolves around the Beijing Duck House, which has been a Rockville MD hot spot for decades. Jimmy and Johnny are struggling to keep the restaurant and their personal lives up to the standards of their late father. Add in a domineering mother, backstabbing staff and a mysteriously criminal 'uncle', and it's a recipe for dysfunction.

From beginning to end, this book was confusing to me, full of unappealing characters and unexplained conflicts. They treated each other so poorly I couldn't believe they would remain in each other's lives. The dialogue was interrupted by unclear ramblings and flashbacks which left me even more confused. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this novel, but it did make me hungry for Chinese food.

Author Lillian Li didn’t give me what I wanted in her book, “Number One Chinese Restaurant.” I expected to walk in the narrow streets of Chinatown with the bumping and shuffling crowd peering curiously into crowded windows, the smell of frying pork and boiling noodles stirring unseen hungers, groups of young boys in oversized T-shirts and faded jeans, smoking and eyeballing the girls, long strings of brown smoked ducks hanging over teeming produce stands, mysterious narrow doorways leading to stairways that looked dark and intriguing. But missing for me was an authentic atmosphere that said you are here inside the number one Chinese restaurant and this is how it really feels.

There was Chinese food, of course, mostly duck. There was an inside look at the complexity of Chinese families. There were descriptions of Chinese restaurants with the bustle of employees carrying trays of steaming dishes. There were smokers huddled and taking a break in alleys. There were fires that changed the face and operations of the restaurants. There was envy and jealousy between management, the front-end workers, and the kitchen help. As real as Li presented it, at a deeper level I still felt excluded

I’m not blaming the author for my lack of perception. Every critic I read with what appeared to be a Chinese name gave high praise to Li’s authentic depiction. So I can’t fault the writer. I blame my lack of understanding of what a real Chinese restaurant is because I based my perception on the one Chinese restaurant I know anything about; the one in my hometown that I have patronized all my life. The atmosphere and the family that have run it for over 100 years do not resemble the circumstances in this book.

Based on what I know and have experienced doesn’t square with my reading of the novel. I don’t know why, because the author had skill and good intentions. I’ve often complained about books that don’t give me a physical sense of what’s happening. I think that’s the case here.

Regardless of whether it’s true, they say the sidewalks of America are paved with gold. It’s the best story and as Lillian Li writes, “In a world without fairness, the best stories rose to the top.”

Li’s debut novel “Number One Chinese Restaurant” is about the best story: the American dream — a hard-working Chinese family who opens a successful D.C.-based Chinese restaurant, makes The Washington Post, buys a mansion.

The Han family’s American dream is paved with gold, but beneath those gilded surfaces are fathers who died from cancer without his children by his side because they were instructed to keep the restaurant open during the holidays. It’s about parents who took their children to movies at theaters and slept through them because they were so tired from working all the time. It’s about the abandoned mansions that never felt like home because the family spent all their waking hours working at the restaurant. It’s about mothers who fished dumplings out of the trash and ate them to show their children to never waste food. It’s about children begrudgingly working in their family’s restaurant while growing up (“Every day at a Chinese restaurant was bring – your – kid – to -work day,” jokes one of the characters), embarrassed by their relatives’ poor English, mannerisms or jobs.

In that way, the family’s restaurant becomes both a dream and a curse — the thing that prevented them from becoming a “normal” American family who went on scheduled family vacations, sat for family dinners at dinner hours and talked about anything other than work.

Chinese parents toiled at the restaurant for the sake of their ungrateful children, who saw the restaurant as the “monument to his father’s greed” and wished their family had a “job with a larger purpose than filling a bank account.” Parents worked to build their children’s futures, telling Chinese parables their children didn’t understand.

Li tells her own parable with “Number One Chinese Restaurant” — that of Han brothers Johnny and Jimmy years after their father, Duck House’s founder Bobby Han, died from stomach cancer. The Han siblings keep the Duck House running between the two of them, but Jimmy’s ambition is to start his own restaurant — a Chinese fusion place separate from the one his father started.

This is costly, Jimmy learns, and to build his own Chinese American dream, he has to set his father’s on fire.

“Number One Chinese Restaurant” isn’t the best place you’ve ever eaten. The food is cooked with too much oil and MSG. But Li cooks with a lot of heart, using ingredients you don’t always see. Your stomach feels full after this meal even as your heart yearns more more.

Disclaimer: I received a free ebook of “Number One Chinese Restaurant” by Lillian Li from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.