Chaotic Apéritifs (Hidden Dishes #2)
by Tao Wong
narrated by Emily Woo Zeller
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Fantasy
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: no romance
Blurb:
The Only Constant with Magic is Change.Mo Meng is reminded of that fact once again, as the Nameless Restaurant faces a new challenge. Magic and its old wielders are returning to the world. For the restaurant, wards of anonymity and camouflage are fading, leading to the arrival of new customers. And some older friends.
What started as a way to pass the decades and feed a few customers has become actual work.
The world is changing, and to face it, the Nameless Restaurant, along with its proprietor and patrons, will need to embrace the change with a good meal and new friends.
Chaotic Apéritifs is second standalone novella in the Hidden Dishes series, a cozy cooking fantasy perfect for fans of Travis Baldree’s Legends & Lattes and Junpei Inuzuka’s Restaurant to Another World. Written by bestselling author Tao Wong, his other series include the System Apocalypse, A Thousand Li, Climbing the Ranks, Hidden Wishes and Adventures on Brad series.
My Review
After listening to the first book in this series I decided to get books 2 and 3 in audio as well. And not long after that I started listening to book 2. I enjoyed this one a bit less than the first book, but it was still a great read. I like the cozy vibes and the focus on food. And there are also some interesting plot lines about the restaurant and the patrons that visit it.
The book takes place in only one day, but a lot happens and a variety of dishes are made. The restaurant has gotten more popular and I felt that while this was realistic it did detract a bit from the cozy vibes as it felt more hectic and chaotic. The dishes Mo Meng makes in this book are more meat focused and I enjoyed the food descriptions in the first book a bit more, but the pineapple upside down cake sounded delicious!
Some events from the first book have had consequences and we see some of that play out. A djinn from book 1 has woken up someone who now visits the restaurant. And the restaurant has a social media presence now which caused the increase in customers in this book. I liked the way this created a sense of continuity in the series. While also leaving room for the same episodic vibes as book 1 with how this book has it’s own plot lines and dishes that get resolved and finished by the end of the book.
I really like the narrator for this series and have enjoyed other books by the same narrator. The narrator fits the style of the book and I like the variety of voices the narrator does.
To summarize: This was a great sequel and I enjoyed returning to the Nameless Restaurant for more food and story. The cozy fantasy vibes are well done and I like reading about the food, the pineapple upside down cake sounded especially delicious. I did enjoy this book a bit less than the first one due to the more busy and chaotic vibes with the restaurant doing better as well as the multitude of meat dishes that were a bit less interesting for me to read about. I like the episodic nature of this book as well as the continuity added by showing some results of plot lines in the first book. The narrator is a good for this series and I enjoyed listening to the audio. I hope to get around to listening the third book soon.
The focus on food would make me hungry while listening. 🙂 Interesting about the djinn’s part and the growing popularity of the restaurant.
It sure made me hungry and it was so fun to listen to all the descriptions of the food. I hope to get to book 3 soon.
This sounds like a good read to me.
It was a good one for me for sure 🙂
I love stories with food! Some day I may have to give this series a try, maybe if I can get them from the library to listen to. Great review!
The food aspect is really well done, all the food descriptions and food preparation scenes are so fun tor ea.d I hope you can get them from your library.