This book begins with tips for navigating the Chinese market, an explanation of ingredients, and cooking tools and equipment. I found the recipes for String Beans with Fermented Tofu, Damn Good Dipping Sauce, Chili Oil, Egg Drop Soup, Cucumber Salad, Sauteed Bok Choi, Stir-Fried Eggplant, Old School Chinatown Vegetables, Three Cups Cauliflower, Sichuan Vegetables, Scallion Pancakes, Cold Sesame Noodles, Tea Eggs, and Sesame Cookies to be the best recipes. I can't wait to make them!

For me this book read more like an autobiography with some recipes tossed in. Note: if you do not live in a major city/have an asian market nearly every recipe is just not going to work for you which sadly is my case. I am obsessed with chinese food ( the food in China and even the Americanized versions) so I was hoping it would be more attainable. For now I will keep ordering my Cheeky Chinese when I do not feel like cooking.

What’s better than some great recipes for the Chinese Food you love? Learning the background and history behind the dishes! I have always loved learning interesting facts and this cookbooks combines that love with my love of cooking. I’m ready to make some dumplings and a few dishes and have my friends come over and catch up while sharing some background on each dish. Heck, I’m even going to make some personalized fortune cookies for everyone too. This book has inspired me to get the gang together and have a dinner party!

Author Chris Cheung tells his story, the influences that sparked his love and curiosity for creating authentic dishes that were a staple in his Chinatown neighborhood. The Chinese culture, adapted for the US but unique just same, has been alive and well in Chinatown for many years from the Marketplaces to the Theatres. The author has great tip boxes scattered throughout the cookbook, with one of my favorite parts being a primer on what to buy at a Chinese market. Although the market that I frequent is more international, including staples from Japan, India, Vietnam, Thailand and China, this informative section would be great for beginners. There is also ample information about cooking tools and equipment.

The recipe sections include the simple: how to make rice, to the complicated: BBQed Roast Duck. There are recipes for dumplings, dipping sauces, potstickers, wonton noodle soup, and General Tso's Chicken. The author goes through basic techniques, as well as how to make the dishes most ordered from a Chinese restaurant in the United States, like Egg Rolls or Beef and Broccoli. From straight vegetable dishes like Old-School Chinatown Vegetables, to Salt and Pepper Shrimp, the finished dishes are inspiring. With excellent photographs, the Damn Good Chinese Food Cookbook will allow readers to visualize and then make the dishes on their own. I highly recommend this cookbook and will definitely keep this author in mind in the future.

Disclaimer: I was given an Advanced Reader's Copy of Damn Good Chinese Food: Dumplings, Egg Rolls, Bao Buns, Sesame Noodles, Roast Duck, Fried Rice, and More―50 Recipes Inspired by Life in Chinatown by NetGalley and the publisher, Skyhorse. The decision to read and review this cookbook was entirely my own.

Fuiyoh! A recipe book that appreciates MSG (and agrees that it is the race card that makes people dislike the idea of it, even when they will have it under a different name)? The first bit of kit needed is a rice cooker? Uncle Roger will approve of this no end. I don't have any passing Chinese to see if they concur with its ideas, recipes and techniques, but this is not just a guide to making fakeaways. So things you will see copious people on youtube doing – like an egg drop soup – are here, but after guides to multiple kinds of dumplings, blue crabs (bought live) and sea bass with black beans.

In balance what you are not getting is a replica of your local's menu, and nothing here will come with free delivery within three miles and a bag of prawn crackers for every £20 spent. This is supposed to open eyes to Chinese as Chinese-Americans have it, whether it be based on Szechuan or Cantonese. In being a showcase for a good few recipes there are many it has had to leave out, and any critique of the book could be based on the fact it stretches itself too thin. So yes we have a section on meat, and on dumplings, and on seafood, and on street snacks, but only a handful of recipes in every category. I saw a digital form of the book to review, where the images were rather small, but it's nice to see just the discussion of the cuisine and the recipes themselves in the text, and not any spurious waffle about the cook's family and what their children ordered them to include. Yeuch. No, what we have is a very serviceable book, I think – nobody will be putting their knee down in response to this one.

This is a great collection of chinese cuisine recipe.
The style isn’t the best, but I would compare the book to one of those suspicious chinese restaurants that turn out to be the best!

Really loved the anecdotes from the author's personal life and especially about Chinese cuisine. I grew up enjoying several of the foods that Cheung details, and until reading this, I had no idea of their backstories! Cheung is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to cooking methods, tools, etc., and his passion for the cuisine radiates right off the page. Additionally, the recipes included are straightforward and clear, and I'm excited to try them out soon!

This was a bit of a downer as far as cookbooks go. The recipes themselves weren’t bad or anything, but surprisingly the layout was very plain and uninspired. It looked like something a middle schooler might put together for a school project.

I also disliked this one because it required a lot of specific ingredients I didn’t find easy to locate which seriously lessened the ease of use.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This cookbook is amazing! It is filled with recipes that I can't wait to try and the ones I have already tried were wonderful!

There is something about learning the background and history of a cuisine before diving into the recipes that makes the experience even better. This is such a thorough labor of love from a Chef who knows and understands Chinese cuisine inside and out. The little asides and anecdotes were charming and several tips for each recipe is incredibly helpful. I highly recommend this to anyone with not only a love for Chinese cuisine but cuisine in general.

This is a great cookbook. Once I’d shopped for the staples the rest flowed easily. We enjoyed many delicious and nutritious meals from this book. I highly recommend it.

I absolutely love Chinese food, so when I saw the title of this book, I knew I needed to read it! Not only is this recipe book full of my favourite Chinese food, it's packed with tons of recipes I hadn't heard of, but that sound totally delicious. You can tell this book has been written with a true passion and love; not only for food, but culture, tradition and family as well. Not only was my mouth watering from the delicious recipe ideas, I loved reading about the history and inspiration behind each scrumptious dish. Each recipe has clear, concise step by step instructions with accompanying photographs to guide you through. There are helpful tips throughout the whole book, making you feel like you've got your own sous chef by your side.

Thank you to Skyhorse Publishing and Netgalley for an eARC of this book to read and review

This is one of the best cookbooks I’ve read! Damn Good Chinese Food reads more like a memoir, love how the chef/author shared his Chinatown memories and how eating/cooking Chinese food ties into an experience. The recipes sounds so good and I cannot wait to try them at home. Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for a gifted copy. This is my honest review.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the chance to read through this cook guide/book for honest feedback. First, I love the cover/title. The font choices are great. The cover and title appeal to me immediately. The contents of this guide are fantastic. I love the array of choices shown throughout this cuisine. The photography is top notch, and the information provided is interesting, useful, and modern. I was left thinking about yummy Chinese food for sure! Highly recommended.

Very well written book giving great factual background to the subject. Interestingly written from a male Chef position in an Chinese-American feel. Enjoyed the story theme of ancestors running through the food book.

Damn Good Chinese Food by Chris Cheung is a wonderful book full of authentic cuisine. I would recommend this cookbook for someone who has the time and patience to put into cooking authentic Chinese food. The stories and tips throughout are a nice added bonus to a book filled with amazing recipes.

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.

What an awesome cookbook!

Damn Good Chinese Food is an ode to, not only damn good Chinese food, but to the immigrants that pass recipes down through the generations, the history of Chinese food; what makes good food good, and how good food binds us all, regardless of nationality, gender and ethnicity.

The author weaves personal, heartfelt tales of growing up in a hard working immigrant family whose love and passion for cooking became instilled in him at a young age.

As an adult, he truly understood how lucky he was to have grown up in a household where good food could always be found, and in a neighborhood where good food was inexpensive and plentiful.

As his culinary career progressed, he cooked his way through a series of establishments, from fancy schmancy restaurants to humble homes and kitchens, Mr. Cheung learned and developed his skills by watching and learning from his family, his teachers and his mentors.

I've eaten all of the dishes in this amazing collection of recipes since I was a child; the titles themselves conjure memories from childhood and when I was a teenager; my favorite dishes, in particular, hit me in the gut but in a good way.

Sometimes, I've wondered how a specific dish is created, and Mr. Cheung lays it all out in minute detail, complete with helpful step by step photos and instructions.

Some of the recipes are very labor intensive, no surprise there, but they're worth a try if you're up for a challenge or want to create a dish you've been hankering for and want to make with your own two hands.

Sadly, I'm a better eater than a chef but Damn Good Chinese Food and the author's easygoing writing style has inspired me.

I may try a couple of recipes and perhaps surprise myself with my efforts.

This cookbook is a must have on any chef's or inspiring chef's kitchen shelf. I'll be purchasing copies for myself, friends and family.

Damn Good Chinese Food is a damn good book and a great introduction to cooking Chinese cuisine. The book starts with tips on shopping at your local Chinese market (or Chinatown if your city is lucky enough to have one) and goes on to information on what kind of cooking utensils you will need.

This book is informative, but personal at the same time. I enjoyed the little bits of humor sprinkled throughout and I feel like that really showed the author’s personality. We also get stories of the author’s childhood and family relationship to food, which I appreciated. Cooking books can be dry at times, but this one is definitely not.

The range of recipes here is also nice. There is everything from dumplings to main dishes (meat & vegetarian options) to even quick snacks/sweets. There is even a special “Birthday Dinner” section for special occasion meals. The author has provided a nice range of difficulty as well. Truly a dish for everyone to try.

Making dumplings from scratch is a task that seems pretty daunting, but the recipes in Damn Good Chinese Food seem very approachable. There are helpful illustrations for things like folding your dumplings. Maybe I can do it after all! Some of the recipes are noted to take more time to prepare (such as the BBQ Duck) and I appreciate that the author notes that for you ahead of time. I can’t wait to try making some of the recipes in this book and sharing with friends.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for the eARC.

The recipes in this book were delicious!! The dumplings in particular are a new family favourite and i can see us coming back to these recipes again and again for years to come!! They were easy to follow and everything was explained so well that even not great cooks like me were able to make something incredible!! Highly recommend to anyone who enjoys cooking or Chinese cuisine!