Reviews and Comments

Freaking amazing. This is the queer realistic fiction I've been craving. Still a bit coming of age but in the way that people in their mid twenties get caught between youth and adulthood. Was wondering why it was set in 2008 but it makes sense I think.

It’s not a perfect story but I think it is pretty honest and probably the best he’s got right now. David is a man who is struggling. He tries to take ownership of his harms but maybe not in the way the public expects of him. It’s really hard to tell amid the eye of public judgement. I saw someone call his food gentrified. It’s amazing how he both acknowledges the ways diaspora needs to overcome their fear of appropriation of their own culture to the point of being frustrated with the legitimacy of appropriation completely and yet also says that every reference in your cooking needs to come with a citation. I think that is a real struggle among diaspora about “getting things right” and some people unfortunately (or sometimes, just as fortunately) fail many times before getting to a point they feel they can take accountability for. I had no idea about his relationship with Anthony Bourdain either.

There’s a lot I didn’t know about how momofuku came to be. It’s really interesting learning more about it and thinking about where I was in my life as it evolved. I share sentiments to David’s complicated relationship to his dad as a kid (though I don’t have the resolution he found) and with the Presbyterian church. I like what he says of giving credit to where things come from and it’s clear that he doesn’t think he has all the right answers. Asian rage is complex and not always something we can be proud of. It takes a lot of guts to lay it all out the way he has. There’s admittedly a lot of toxic stuff going on early on in his book even if you can get where he’s coming from (wasn’t sure what to think of his friendship with David Choe being mentioned so early). However knowing about some of his current work I’m curious to see how things will turn in the second half of the book especially as I know parenthood is on his horizon and the NYC we both knew isn’t what it was.