Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Number One Chinese Restaurant
Lillian Li
Review by Priscilla Comen
Number One Chinese Restaurant
Lillian Li
Review by Priscilla Comen
Number One Chinese Restaurant, by Lillian Li, is so descriptive you can smell the roasted duck at the Duck House and see the velvet curtains that hang over the windows. Photos of the owners’ family hang on the walls in rows like wanted posters. A family tree at the beginning of the book helps keep track of the characters.
There is Nan who is the manager, former excellent waitress, and her son, Pat, who hates working there, but must. He’s always in trouble, and Nan thought if he worked at the Duck House, she could keep an eye on him. Nan and Ah Jack are close friends, having worked together for thirty years. With humor and pathos, Author Li takes us behind the scenes to the inner workings of the minds and ambitions of this Chinese family,.
Uncle Pang gives Pat a backpack and thousands of dollars to burn a dumpster at the restaurant. Uncle Pang is like the Godfather to the House. But Janine Li, the real estate agent, would get rid of him. So would Jimmy Han, the current owner who wants a fancier restaurant. When Jimmy arrives at the burning place, the insurance investigator is making notes and a bulldozer is removing the ruins. Jimmy calls his brother, Johnny, in Hong Kong. He says they’ll build a better place, but Jimmy is heartbroken. It was his father’s dream, the Duck House.
Jimmy plans to sell his mother’s house. It is too big for her now that she’s older.. When Johnny comes home, his daughter Annie tells him that she and Pat had been caught making out in the closet of the restaurant. Their mother calls Uncle Pang to help her. Jimmy opens a new restaurant, the Glory, and re-hires Nan and Ah Jack. Nan calls her ex-husband, Roy, in California, and begs him to take their son, Pat, to live with him. Nan says she’ll come to California too. But Ah Jack, an old and ill man, needs Nan more than ever. Ah Jack’s wife has a new lover, Gary, and has left their home. She is a sweet woman, but has cancer, and knows she is dying. She and Nan talk.
At the opening night of The Glory, the food is terrible. Jimmy hadn’t included any of the old restaurant’s menu items. Customers complained and didn’t finish their meals. Jimmy realizes his father had been smarter than he. He knew how to hire cooks who knew how to make excellent Tasty rice and Mongolian beef and Kung Pao shrimp..
What will happen to The Glory restaurant and to Jimmy? What about Nan and Ah Jack and her son Pat? Author Li makes us care about these characters and their problems. Will the ones who set the fire be discovered? Find this out on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
There is Nan who is the manager, former excellent waitress, and her son, Pat, who hates working there, but must. He’s always in trouble, and Nan thought if he worked at the Duck House, she could keep an eye on him. Nan and Ah Jack are close friends, having worked together for thirty years. With humor and pathos, Author Li takes us behind the scenes to the inner workings of the minds and ambitions of this Chinese family,.
Uncle Pang gives Pat a backpack and thousands of dollars to burn a dumpster at the restaurant. Uncle Pang is like the Godfather to the House. But Janine Li, the real estate agent, would get rid of him. So would Jimmy Han, the current owner who wants a fancier restaurant. When Jimmy arrives at the burning place, the insurance investigator is making notes and a bulldozer is removing the ruins. Jimmy calls his brother, Johnny, in Hong Kong. He says they’ll build a better place, but Jimmy is heartbroken. It was his father’s dream, the Duck House.
Jimmy plans to sell his mother’s house. It is too big for her now that she’s older.. When Johnny comes home, his daughter Annie tells him that she and Pat had been caught making out in the closet of the restaurant. Their mother calls Uncle Pang to help her. Jimmy opens a new restaurant, the Glory, and re-hires Nan and Ah Jack. Nan calls her ex-husband, Roy, in California, and begs him to take their son, Pat, to live with him. Nan says she’ll come to California too. But Ah Jack, an old and ill man, needs Nan more than ever. Ah Jack’s wife has a new lover, Gary, and has left their home. She is a sweet woman, but has cancer, and knows she is dying. She and Nan talk.
At the opening night of The Glory, the food is terrible. Jimmy hadn’t included any of the old restaurant’s menu items. Customers complained and didn’t finish their meals. Jimmy realizes his father had been smarter than he. He knew how to hire cooks who knew how to make excellent Tasty rice and Mongolian beef and Kung Pao shrimp..
What will happen to The Glory restaurant and to Jimmy? What about Nan and Ah Jack and her son Pat? Author Li makes us care about these characters and their problems. Will the ones who set the fire be discovered? Find this out on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.