In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Rachel Phan about her powerful memoir, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family & Belonging (Douglas & McIntyre, 2025).
A
warm and poignant narrative about finding one’s self amidst the grind
of restaurant life, the cross-generational immigrant experience, and a
daughter’s attempts to connect with parents who have always been just
out of reach.
When she was three years old, Rachel Phan met her replacement.
Instead of a new sibling, her mother and father’s time and attention
were suddenly devoted entirely to their new family restaurant. For her
parents—whose own families fled China during Japanese occupation and
then survived bombs and starvation during the war in Vietnam—it was a
dream come true. For Phan, it was something quite different. Overnight,
she became a restaurant kid, living on the periphery of her own family
and trying her best to stay out of the way.
As Phan grew up, the restaurant was the most stalwart and
suffocating member of her family. For decades, it’s been both their
crowning achievement and the origin of so much of their pain and
suffering: screaming matches complete with smashed dishes; bodies worn
down by long hours and repetitive strain; and tenuous relationships
where the family loved one another deeply without ever really knowing
each other.
In Restaurant Kid, Phan seeks to examine the way her life
has been shaped by the rigid boxes placed around her. She had to be a
“good daughter,” never asking questions, always being grateful. She had
to be a “real Canadian,” watching hockey and speaking English so
flawlessly that her tongue has since forgotten how to contort around
Cantonese tones. As the only Chinese girl at school, she had to
alternate between being the sidekick, geek, or Asian fetish, depending
on whose gaze was on her.
Now, three decades after their restaurant first opened, Phan’s
parents are cautiously talking about retirement. As an adult, Phan’s
“good daughter” role demands something new of her—and a chance to get to
know her parents away from the restaurant.
In Restaurant Kid, Phan deftly combines candour, wit and
insight to craft a vibrant and important narrative on the strength and
foibles of family, and how we come to understand ourselves.
Rachel Phan is a Chinese Canadian author. A graduate of Toronto
Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program, she and her work
have been featured on CBC, Huffpost, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Toronto Star, the National Post, Chatelaine, and Maclean’s. Her instant national bestselling book, Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging (2025), was named one of CBC Books’ Best Books of 2025 and longlisted for Canada Reads in 2026. She lives in Toronto, ON.
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