Customer Rating: 
Summary: Exotic foods from the orient
Comment: I enjoy oriental foods and wanted to learn to cook some of my favorite dishes. This cook book is excellent. It gives clear and concise instructions as well as a wide variety of dishes to choose from. Also, the cook book has beautiful photographs for most of the receips. Items are not hard to find in your local grocery store. This cook book was also made in conjunction with the Betty Cooker cook books. So if you love Betty Cooker cook books this cook book is a plus!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Too Salty
Comment: If you really like salty foods or lots of dark soy sause, then this might be for you.I'm not an expert chief, but I do cook quiet a bit of ethnic foods. I like my dishes to have a range of flavours that are pleasent to the palete and easy on the eyes.
I found that most of the recipes looked good but following the directions caused me to throw them out because I couldn't stand the taste.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good for the beginner
Comment: My first Chinese cookbook for my first foray into Chinese cooking. The recipes here are simple and classic, if rather plain. I like that the ingredients are all easy to find in my area, and that the recipes are very quick! Important for me as a working person who still likes to come home and cook something interesting for dinner. I don't like recipes with ingredient lists that are a foot long. These recipes are short and easy to follow, although a bit cryptic, which led me to make a mistake in one recipe. But I was able to start over on the mistake and the recipe came out well. I would have liked more photos - one per dish would be ideal. I recommend this for the beginning Chinese cook, but not for the beginning cook.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Restaurant quality food from your kitchen!
Comment: Every recipe I've tried tastes like it's from a quality Chinese restaurant. The recipes are easy to understand, I can find the ingredients in my local market, and the finished quality is consistently delicious.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent first Chinese cookbook
Comment: I came across this book recently and found it very useful for my initial experience at cooking Chinese. Although I'm a pretty proficient cook,, I've never had much success trying Chinese dishes before. The difficulty I'd had with some of the other well-known Chinese cookbooks is that they are too complicated if you've never cooked with some of the ingredients before -- too many variables for the novice. This book takes a somewhat simpler, yet satisfying approach. It doesn't lack interest. I think I'll learn a great deal from it.
