Love food? Love Vancouver? Love gentle-to-moderate satire? Read this book. The main character's split of the food world into Crips (fusion-fancy-tower of exotic ingredients) vs. Bloods (local-rustic) is alone worth it.

After the first few chapters I thought for sure that this book was going to be a struggle to finish. It was bizarre and crazy. But somehow those weird characters, strange ideas and curious happenings turned into an enthralling read.
The author really knows Vancouver. He caught the attitudes of the hippie vs. hipster vs. corporate vs. homeless that made it obvious he's lived and been a part of this city.
The entire story revolves around the son and his cooking. Which kind of makes it sound like a foodie story but I found it good even though I am not usually a fan of food descriptions (I don't cook and don't care to learn, thus not making me very interested). The characters include the homeless (maybe crazy), a corporate bigwig, chefs, a librarian and lots of credit (trust me it's almost a character).
The nemesis Dante, his business and his attitude were a favorite part for me. He's a successful creep and I wonder who he's based on because he kinda reminds me of Chip Wilson (lululemon founder).
Somehow a jumble of people and stories managed to be cohesive and engaging.

Couldn't care less about any of the characters. They were all boring and flat. None of them had any depth or likeability to them. The stories all felt thrown together, none of them really took off or held my interest and yet I could see how there was a lot of potential it just never got there. Every story just kind of fizzled out.
And Jeremy hires a bunch of new kids to work the kitchen, tells them, at some point, that they are going to feed everyone at the restaurant opening poached animals from Stanley park including squirrels, raccoons, starlings and pond fish and yet the author doesn't include this conversation in the book?? Come on, that probably would have been the most interesting conversation to take place in the entire book and he just didn't even mention it.

I gave it two stars because I think all the subplots could actually be interesting if any of them were actually developed. Or any of the characters were enjoyable.