The Kitch Lit Series: From Wizards to Ducks

After a Hogwarts-length break from the Kitch Lit genre, I was more than ready to get back in the kitchen. Harry Potter and his hijinks are to be applauded. JK Rowling tapped into something that is in many ways a classic tale, felt like something we had never read before. But there is no witchcraft in the kitchen, just good, old fashioned hard work. So while I readily jumped back into the kitchen, I wasn’t ready for was the emotional roller coaster that is Lillian Li’s Number One Chinese Restaurant. Li's novel centers around the Han family’s Beijing Duck House restaurant. In this tale, the restaurant is the sun around which the Duck House owners, employees and investors find themselves orbiting, some willingly, others, not as much. And that orbit is maintained by a gravitational pull so strong that it is nearly impossible to break the bond.

And this is where it gets tricky. To reveal too much about the plot is to take away the enjoyment of letting the story unfold before you. Life in and around a restaurant is all consuming. While life is different for front of house employees such as Nan and Ah-Jack, whose years at the Duck House have given them an uncommon bond, and manager Jimmy, who dreams of walking out from under the shadow of his father, they share one commonality: the consuming nature of the industry affects them whether they realize it or not.

Li shifts perspective seamlessly, writing in one chapter in the voice of a teenager and in another as the matriarch of the Han family who, since her husband’s death, is a shell of her former self. What we learn about each character expands in surprising ways when we step into their psyche. 

Number One Chinese Restaurant surprised me in all the best ways. Li’s prose is unbelievably smart and the story is as consuming as the restaurant industry itself. Who is really in charge of the Duck House? What motivates each character? Why do they act as they do? All will be revealed by the end, but Li leaves us wondering if there are even more sides to the story and, if it were to continue, what would happen with the characters we've come to know. A desire to read more is indicative of a well-crafted story. Li has accomplished just that.