Reviewed
Read Time
9 min read
Our age bandAdult
Reader rating
4.7 · 899 Amazon ratings
reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks scoreShare This Review
Our review
168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes
168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes by Mandy Fu Review: A Visual, Wide-Ranging Debut Cookbook
by Mandy Fu
Mandy Fu's Souped Up Recipes debut collects 168 Chinese recipes — takeout staples like Mongolian Beef and Sesame Chicken alongside regional dishes such as Shaanxi Rou Jia Mo — each with step-by-step photos and a demo video. A broad, visual guide for home cooks, though its reliability rests on design rather than independent testing.
Tap to enlargeLuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Home cooks whose baseline for Chinese food is the takeout menu and who want to cook past it — visual learners especially, since every one of the 168 recipes carries step-by-step photos plus a linked demo video.
Worth it if
You want a single generous volume that covers the takeout classics and then branches into regional and fusion dishes, and you're happy to lean on photo-and-video teaching rather than text alone.
Skip if
You want depth in one regional cuisine, fully self-contained print recipes without a phone or tablet at the stove, or you already follow Souped Up Recipes closely and may find the material overlaps with what you've cooked free online.
What readers & critics say
Formal critical reception is thin; the retrieved record is mostly retailer and publisher copy, with books.google.com and library catalog wcls.bibliocommons.com echoing the publisher's description of step-by-step photos and demo videos for all 168 recipes. The one substantive reader note comes via amazon.co.uk, where a longtime channel viewer said the book was "far more comprehensive and detailed" than expected, consistent with the 4.7/5 aggregate from 899 Amazon ratings.
Sources: amazon.co.uk, books.google.com, wcls.bibliocommons.com4.7from 899 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
Preview the book
+4
Ask LuvemBooks
Was this helpful?
168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes is Mandy Fu's debut print collection from her Souped Up Recipes channel: 424 pages and 168 recipes covering the takeout canon — Mongolian Beef, Sesame Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork — alongside regional dishes like Shaanxi Rou Jia Mo and Yunnan Herb Braised Beef Soup, each with step-by-step photos and a linked demo video. LuvemBooks' verdict: the visual teaching support is its standout strength, making it an excellent pick for home cooks whose reference point is the takeout menu and who want to cook past it. The key caveat: no independent kitchen testing exists in the published record, so its reliability rests on design and Fu's large public audience rather than third-party verification.
- Is it worth reading?
- For its target reader, yes. If your reference point for Chinese food is the takeout menu and you want to cook past it — first reproducing the classics, then branching into regional dishes — the combination of 168 recipes, step-by-step photography, and video walkthroughs is genuinely strong value for the format. The two real caveats: no independent kitchen testing or third-party verification of recipe accuracy exists in the published record, so reliability rests on Fu's large teaching audience; and longtime Souped Up Recipes followers may find significant overlap with recipes already published free online.
- Similar books
- Readers who enjoy this book should look at The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family by Bill, Kaitlin, Judy, and Sarah Leung, another creator-built collection bridging takeout favorites and Chinese home cooking, and Chinese Takeout Cookbook by Kwoklyn Wan, which shares the 'better than the restaurant' premise. Fuchsia Dunlop's Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking offers a deeper, more traditional approach to everyday Chinese dishes. For the technique-driven, science-minded cooking style that complements Fu's visual teaching, LuvemBooks also recommends Joshua Weissman: An Unapologetic Cookbook and J. Kenji López-Alt's The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.
- Who should read this?
- The ideal reader is a home cook whose reference point for Chinese food is the takeout menu and who wants to cook past it — reproducing Sesame Chicken and Mongolian Beef first, then branching into regional dishes they may never have encountered. It suits visual learners particularly well, since every one of the 168 recipes pairs step-by-step photography with a video walkthrough. It is less suited to specialists seeking depth in one regional tradition — Sichuan, Cantonese, or Shaanxi cooking each gets only a sampling — or to collectors who already own comprehensive Chinese cookbooks.
- Is it good for beginners?
- Yes — this is arguably its core design feature. LuvemBooks notes that techniques which frustrate beginners in text-only cookbooks, like folding, velveting, and wok handling, are supported by detailed step-by-step photos plus a linked demo video for every single recipe. The takeout dishes Fu prioritizes are also chosen for being simple and affordable, making them natural fits for home kitchens.
- How do the video links work?
- Every one of the 168 recipes includes a linked demo video, extending the visual teaching style that built Fu's online audience into print — the book functions as a companion to the Souped Up Recipes channel as much as a standalone object. The practical catch, flagged by LuvemBooks, is that the videos require a phone or tablet at hand, a small friction point for cooks who prefer a fully self-contained print cookbook.
- I follow her channel — is this redundant?
- That's the book's main vulnerability. Because all 168 recipes were curated from Fu's social media output, longtime followers of Souped Up Recipes may find significant overlap with material they've already cooked from free online. The value for existing fans lies in the curation and print presentation — one organized volume with step-by-step photography — rather than in new material.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
Is it good for beginners?
How do the video links work?
I follow her channel — is this redundant?
Summarize this book
Published in October 2024, this is the debut print cookbook from Mandy Fu of the Souped Up Recipes channel — a 424-page hardcover collecting 168 recipes she selected from her social media archive. It runs on two tracks: the American-Chinese takeout canon (Chicken Fried Rice, Mongolian Beef, Pepper Steak, Chop Suey, Chicken Lo Mein) and a second tier of regional and fusion dishes like Shaanxi Beef Burger Rou Jia Mo, Hong Kong Beef Curry, and Shanghai Crispy Breaded Pork Chop. Every recipe carries step-by-step photos plus a linked demo video. Fu is candid that no single volume can cover Chinese cuisine's full spectrum, framing the book as a curated glimpse rather than an encyclopedia.
Follow up
When was it published?
What regional dishes stand out?
Is it a hardcover?
Synthesized from verified book data & published reviews · How we review
Ask LuvemBooks
What would you like to know about 168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes?
Answers come from our editorial notes on this book. If we haven't covered something, we'll say so.
Readers often ask
Our Review
We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.
A big, generous first cookbook from a creator with a proven teaching audience — strong on range and visual support, though its claims of reliability rest on design, not independent testing.
What the Book Is
168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes is the debut cookbook from Mandy Fu, the creator behind the Souped Up Recipes channel, published by Souped Up Recipes in October 2024. It is a substantial hardcover — 424 pages collecting 168 recipes — and it is unapologetically a creator cookbook: Fu describes sifting through the recipes she had published on her social media pages and selecting the ones that belonged in a single volume.
The framing promise is right in the title: these are dishes positioned as achievable at home and better than their takeout equivalents, aimed at cooks who want to reproduce familiar Chinese restaurant food in their own kitchens.
Fu is candid about the book's ambition and its limits. The term "Chinese food," she notes in her introduction, encompasses an effectively infinite spectrum of flavors and traditions, and no single volume can do justice to all of it.
The book is presented as a curated glimpse rather than an encyclopedia — a reasonable and honest posture for a 168-recipe survey of one of the world's largest cuisines.
Recipe spread with plated noodle dish, ingredient photos, step-by-step instructions, and fresh garnishes displayed alongside.
Range: Takeout Classics and Regional Dishes
The recipe list deliberately runs on two tracks. The first is the popular takeout canon Fu knew she had to cover: Chicken Fried Rice, Mongolian Beef, Pepper Steak, Sesame Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork, Chop Suey, and Chicken Lo Mein all make the cut.
Her argument for including them is that these dishes have earned their status with audiences worldwide and that their simplicity and affordability make them natural fits for home cooking — the core "better than takeout" pitch.
The second track reaches well beyond the American-Chinese menu. The book includes Shaanxi Beef Burger Rou Jia Mo and Yunnan Herb Braised Beef Soup, pointing to a genuine interest in regional breadth, alongside fusion dishes such as Hong Kong Beef Curry and Shanghai Crispy Breaded Pork Chop — recipes shaped by colonial history and local tradition.
That spread is the book's most distinctive quality: it does not stop at the takeout standards its title advertises, and readers who buy it for Sesame Chicken will also find street food and regional braises they may never have encountered.
Recipe spread with plated pork dish, ingredient list, instructions, and step-by-step cooking photos.
Visual and Video Support
The book's clearest structural strength is how each recipe is presented. Every one of the 168 recipes is accompanied by detailed step-by-step photos and a linked demo video, extending the visual teaching style that built Fu's online audience into print.
For techniques that frustrate beginners in text-only cookbooks — folding, velveting, wok handling — the combination of still photography and video demonstration is a sensible design choice, and it makes the volume function as a companion to her channel as much as a standalone object.
A scope note is in order here: this review assesses the book's content, organisation, and stated approach from published sources. It is not a kitchen test, and no independent verification of the recipes' accuracy or reproducibility is available in the record.
Buyers weighing that question should know that the case for reliability rests on the book's structure — step-by-step photography, video back-up, and recipes drawn from a large, long-running public audience — rather than on third-party testing.
A recipe spread with a plated beef dish, ingredient list, cooking instructions, and step-by-step preparation photos.
Where It's Less Strong
The same breadth that distinguishes the book also caps its depth. One hundred sixty-eight recipes spread across takeout standards, street food, regional specialties, and fusion dishes means that any single regional tradition receives a handful of entries at most.
Cooks looking for a deep treatment of Sichuan, Cantonese, or Shaanxi cooking specifically will be better served by a dedicated regional volume; this is a survey, and it reads as one by design.
The physical format is worth flagging practically. At 3.5 pounds with large-format dimensions, this is a substantial kitchen-counter book rather than something to prop casually beside a wok, and the demo videos, however useful, require a phone or tablet at hand — a small friction point for cooks who prefer a fully self-contained print experience.
Finally, because the recipes originate from social media output, longtime followers of the channel may find overlap with material they have already cooked from free online.
A recipe spread with a plated chicken dish, ingredient list, instructions, and step-by-step cooking photos.
Who It's For
This is a book for the home cook whose reference point for Chinese food is the takeout menu and who wants to cook past it — first reproducing the classics, then branching into the regional and fusion dishes that fill out the collection. It suits visual learners particularly well, given that every recipe carries step-by-step photography and a video walkthrough.
It is less suited to specialists seeking depth in one region, or to collectors who already own comprehensive Chinese cookbooks and want something this volume does not try to be. As a first print collection from a creator with an established teaching audience, it delivers exactly what it promises: breadth, familiarity, and heavy visual support.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
- 2
wcls.bibliocommons.com
- 3
- Further reading
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
amazon.co.uk
Age & Reading Level
Our age band
Adult
Our age band groups books for browsing; it isn't an age a review gave.
From our readers
Reader reviews
Be one of the first readers to answer.
Read it? Was it right for you?
Books like 168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes
Curated picks for readers who enjoyed 168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes, with our reasoning for each match.
If you liked 168 Better Than Takeout Chinese Recipes
Discussion