"In the Diamond, at the end of a long green vinyl aisle between booths of chrome, Naugahyde, and Formica, are two large swinging wooden doors, each with a round hatch of face-sized window. Those kitchen doors can be kicked with such a slap they're heard all the way up to the soda fountain."

Thus we enter the perfectly remembered Diamond Grill, in 1951 the newest and most modern Chinese cafe in Nelson, where Fred Wah serves up the story of his hyphenated identity, the sweet and the sour in tasty, mouth-watering slices. Fred Wah's father was a Canadian-born Chinese-Scots-Irishman raised in China; his mother is a Swedish-born Canadian from Swift Current. Wah senior ran the Diamond Grill, where Fred, the future writer and poet, grew up, white enough to "pass," yet marked for life by a foreign name and a taste for foong cheng and lo bok.

Diamond Grill is a rich banquet where Salisbury Steak shares a menu with chicken fried rice, bird's nest soup sets the stage for Christmas plum pudding; where racism from whites for being Chinese and from Chinese for being white simmers behind the stainless surface of the action in the cafe.

". . . a sumptuous prose platter . . . a brilliant gem of a book . . ."
-The Globe and Mail

"Diamond Grill combines memories, recipes, history and narrative into a mix as savoury and heartwarming as the best bowl of hot and sour soup money can buy and love can cook. . . . Diamond Grill sparkles."
-See Magazine

Winner of the 1997 Howard O'Hagan Award for the Best Collection of Short Fiction

-- NeWest Press.