Number One Chinese Restaurant follows the lives of the family and long-time employees of the Beijing Duck House - a popular Chinese restaurant in Maryland. Jimmy, the youngest son, is eager to break from his father's shadow and open his own restaurant while employees Nan and Ah-Jack finally pass through an invisible barrier of their relationship they've been yearning for for years. A disaster tears all the characters apart and brings them together simultaneously, and they have to really figure out what they want out.

This book just didn't do it for me at all. I didn't gel with any of the characters - none of them are likeable at all, and not even in a 'love to hate' way. I was intrigued to try and find out the family dynamic in this book and honestly, it didn't do much for me. I would have loved to find out more of Jimmy and Johnny's mother who seemed like a really interesting woman with a hint of a lot of deeper layers to her, and a hidden cunning and not so hidden cruelty but we didn't get enough of this at all. Johnny and Jimmy hated each other for seemingly no reason.

The only nice character in this was Nan - and she's basically treated like dirt by every single person in this book, especially her son Pat who is just horrible. And Nan's ending was just so...unsatisfactory.

Nothing actually really happened in this book, and I'm not sure what the author was really trying to say or do with the story. I think some of the makings of a good story were there but nothing was done with it.

For a story that revolves around a restaurant, there was very little food descriptions which made me sad. I was hoping for some tasty food descriptions to make me hungry.

Side note: There's a scene in this book where Nan clips Ah-Jack's toenails and it's suppose to be this tender, loving scene between them but it really grossed me out. Yuck and no thank you.