About this episode

Rachel Phan discusses her memoir 'Restaurant Kid', exploring family dynamics and the immigrant experience through the lens of restaurant life.

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…

People in this episode

Host: Hollay Ghadery

Guest: Rachel Phan

Topics covered

• memoir
• family
• immigrant experience
• restaurant life
• self-discovery

Keywords

• memoir
• family restaurant
• immigrant
• self-identity
• parent-child relationships
• cultural heritage
• Vietnam
• China

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Douglas & McIntyre

Books & works: Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family & Belonging

Places: China, Vietnam

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