This is not a cookbook for the faint of heart, but that's what makes it great. There's a lot of information here and it starts off right away with complex recipes. You're going to learn how to cook some good food here, even if it takes a lot of ingredients and steps. There's also a lot of background information on Chinese American food and different contexts that the recipes might be eaten in, which is really nice. Not a beginner's cook book, but recommended.

Blog post to come.

Well the title alone had me grabbing this book! I happen to love dumplings so it was great to finally get a book with step by step ways to make dumplings, not to mention the soups that go with. Kudos to the author for breaking it down for us despite language barriers, and have definitely bookmarked more than a few recipes to try! Five stars! I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left this as my review.

It was damn good with easy to follow instructions and pictures and the food ,did I mention the food it was delicious.

This was a great cookbook and I really enjoyed reading through the recipes. I love Chinese food and I definitely found some that I will be making.

Loved this cookbook. I found some very good recipes and new ideals to try in the future. I do recommend this book.

Every time I picked up this book, I ended up feeling really ready for some good old Chinese comfort food. The recipes are well written, detailed and mostly if not all for classic and familiar foods you will find in any Chinese eatery. Great if you want to venture into this style of cooking. Some of them are easy and some more complicated or just more time consuming. For me, the best tip is the mushroom water which is not a traditional practice but which the author came up with personally. I have a bottle of it in my fridge right now!

I also enjoyed reading the author’s reminiscences and stories. The photos are not splashy but they are more than enough to show how the final product should look like and how they should be served.

Great book on Chinese food! I cannot wait to try out a lot of these recipes! Very informative! I love the way he describes all the places to find these items in Chinese market.

Thank you Netgalley for the review copy. So many tasty looking recipes in this cookbook. Both Chinese-American and more traditional dishes. Something for everyone, really. Each recipe has a small image--I only wish the pictures were a little bigger.

Nice cookbook showing how to cook some of the most loves Chinese restaurant recipes. My favorite one is beef and broccoli! They have recipes for dumplings, wonton noodle soup, egg drop soup, general tso chicken, egg rolls, chow mein and more. I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

During quarantine, I turned to Chinese food for comfort. I tried hard to follow recipes from Chinese cooks, but when I searched Pinterest I only got white creators. I was excited to see a cookbook written by someone who experiences that culture. The book is easy to follow and the recipes are DELICIOUS. I will definitely be recommending this one to everybody

Another great cookbook! Lots of really good stories and delicious recipes that went with it.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

I love cooking and this book doesn’t disappoint with the recipes. They have all the Chinese food you know and love plus a few you don’t. If you like trying new things then this book is for you.

Thank you to the author, Skyhorse Publishing and NetGalley, for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Looking at this book as an autobiography, I would rate it as highly as possible. I loved reading about the story of the author and his family, and his exploration of the influences that sparked his love of food, and curiosity for creating authentic dishes that were a staple in his Chinatown neighborhood. However, looking at this book as a cookbook - and I consider myself a fairly fearless cook eager to try new things - this was pretty much a total loss. I don't live in the US (interject short rant about US-centric measurements), nor do I have an Asian market nearby. Not to mention that most of these recipes are fairly complicated, so nothing that would be easy to embark on and try out. On the contrary, the more I read the hungrier I got and the more certain I became that I would never cook anything from this book.

Damn Good Chinese Food is a well written Chinese cookbook with recipes by Chris Cheung. Due out 23rd Nov 2021 from Skyhorse Publishing, it's 208 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a graphically appealing, well written, and accessible cookbook with an array of Chinese/American fusion recipes to appeal to most tastes. I really liked the layout and formatting. The introduction covers the basics, with a good overview of tools, ingredients, techniques, and supplies (which might not be familiar to many western cooks). The recipes which follow are arranged roughly thematically: dumplings (the author is a -virtuoso-), Chinese American, vegetables, fish & seafood, meat & poultry, small snacks, birthday dinner, and sweets.

Each recipe has its ingredients listed bullet style in a sidebar. Measurements are given in US standard only. (There's a metric conversion chart in the back of the book). Special tools and ingredients are also listed, along with yields and cooking directions. The ingredients are mostly easily sourced at any moderately well stocked grocery or international foods store. Nutritional information is not provided.
The recipes and tutorials are well photographed in color. The serving suggestions are very well styled and give visual cooks information about presentation and serving (especially important for cooks who are not familiar with all of these dishes). Essential info, alerts, facts, tips & answers are highlighted in text boxes. The book includes a cross-referenced, hyperlinked index.

Five stars. There are a large number of really tasty recipes here. We've tried a number of them at home and they've all been wonderful and error free.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I was expecting a little more from this book. I’m not really sure what I was expecting but this wasn’t quite it. It was enjoyable enough, but just wasn’t quite for me.

The author of this cookbook grew up in New York City’s Chinatown. I have eaten at many restaurants there, mostly small but very good ones. So, I was interested to see how the author’s growing up and his cooking came together in his recipes. The result is this book.

One aspect of this book that I found quite appealing was the way that Mr. Cheung immersed readers in the feel of Chinatown. For example, he describes what the markets are like and how ingredients are procured.

There are fifty recipes in categories including vegetables, fish & seafood, “Damn Good Snacks” and more. Make a Cucumber Salad or saute Bok Choy. Prepare a Bao Bun or Scallion Pancakes. Each section has some background information to set the tone.

This title also has a nice section on the cooking tools and equipment that work well in Chinese cooking. For example, rice cookers and woks are mentioned.

All in all, a book to be recommended for those who love Chinese food. And I do!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

While I enjoyed looking through this book, reading the stories, etc, one look at many of the recipes, with their long list of ingredients ( sometimes a bit “ exotic “ or in my case, where I live, hard to get), and many steps of preparation, I was scared off of ever trying any of them. I think I will just stick with my favorite Chinese restaurant and forego trying to recreate it my own kitchen.

This is a gorgeous cookbook with insights from the author and delicious looking recipes that I can't wait to try out. I currently have a freezer full of pork that I bought on sale and I'm tired of staring at it, so this cookbook is going to get some use out of me and soon. I love the way this book is organized first taking you through the equipment you'll need and how to navigate a Chinese market. I appreciated that a lot because one time I went in there looking for glutinous rice flour and it took awhile to find. You continues in this helpful manner throughout the book because after the completion of every recipe he puts in notes letting you know where you can find some of the more uncommon ingredients and any potential substitutes. Interestingly, he separates home cooking from Chinese American cuisine, a thoughtful way to flip quickly to your restaurant favorites. I think this is what of the best cookbooks you can buy to start your foray into Chinese cuisine.

I got this book through Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review. I will post my review to Goodreads and any retailer sites closer to the publication date.

Damn Good Chinese Food is a fountain of knowledge about the history of Chinese food and Chinatowns as a cultural phenomenon. If you want to know how your favorite Chinese dishes came to be, this book may teach you that. In fact, you will learn more about that than actual cooking. As a cookbook the recipes are sound, but it is disorganized and a bit chaotic. The book is split into chapters in a way that feels more like a literature book than the standard "chapter is a food category" cookbook format. It also reads more like a food blog than a cookbook. Or a high school essay. Whatever it is, it doesn't read like a cookbook. The recipes are buried in the middle of walls of text and there is no warning where they start. The pages are filled with exposition and niche pop-culture references that, in many instances, don't quite fit. It's an interesting read, but not a solid cookbook.

Chef Chris Cheung grew up in Chinatown in New York City. Now, he has written a cookbook that highlights the food he has always enjoyed. Damn Good Chinese Food includes fifty recipes that reflect the culinary diversity of his neighborhood and these recipes are mouth-watering, to say the least. Some are fairly simple, while others will take some practice to perfect. But they all reflect a neighborhood that Chef Cheung doesn’t want to be overlooked.

In addition to the appealing recipes, Chef Cheung has included a number of essays about the neighborhood, the history of Chinese cooking, and stories about his culinary creations. All in all, it is an informational and interesting book about Chinese cooking and traditions.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book for review.