Review of the Day: Livonia Chow Mein by Abigail Savitch-Lew

Livonia Chow Mein tells the story of one street in Brooklyn and of at least two generations of one Chinese American family in that city and of a Chinese restaurant that burned down in 1978. The restaurant was called Canton Kitchen:

On the corner of Saratoga and Livonia, under the elevated rail in Brownsville, Brooklyn, there was once a Chinese sit-down restaurant called Canton Kitchen. Beef chow mein sold for seventy-five cents, sweet and sour shrimp for fifty cents, chicken egg soup for four dimes. Customers patted their mouths with baby-soft yellow napkins and sometimes gazed at the altar with that little red-faced, bearded warrior statue clutching a golden staff (loc 360).

The story takes place in two time periods. One part of the story is told in present day Brooklyn by Sadie Chin, a young journalist, recently graduated from Yale living in the upscale neighborhood of Park Slope. The other part of the story flashes back to earlier parts of the twentieth century including both world wars and the difficulties of recent Chinese immigrants living in a neighborhood where they are definitely a small minority. Here is one example:

“He called me Jap!” the worker exclaimed. “And I told him in English––‘No, I not Jap. I Chinese, I not Jap.’” 

“They can’t tell the difference.” 

“I’ll make you a T-shirt,” Richard declared. “On the front, Chinese—not Japanese, on the back, Believe me, I hate those nips way more than you do!” (loc 1224).

I found the story to be quite compelling and I turned the pages on my kindle quite quickly learning about the changing neighborhood and the Jewish and Black residents over the decades. 

Occasionally, I found the language well done:

 Dry summer morning, 1978. Smell of squirrel piss. Swallows chirping from a newspaper nest above a doorway. A long day ahead, on streets made into lapping rivers from the flow of unscrewed fire hydrants, below a blue sky with clouds like soapsuds. A day of chin-ups on the Don’t Walk signs (loc 99).

However, I rarely found myself stopping to pause and admire a sentence because it was so well crafted.

Overall, I enjoyed Livonia Chow Mein and recommend it.

Thanks to Net Galley for providing a copy; all opinions are my own.

epub. 368 pgs. 30 April 2026