House Special

TELUS Originals · 5 × 22 min · 2022

Host / Writer

Jackie Kai Ellis

Director

Ryan Mah

Producers

Ryan Mah, Danny Berish, Priyanka Desai & Joanna Wong

Chef and author Jackie Kai Ellis explores the Chinese Canadian experience through small-town Chinese restaurants and the families who run them.

Jackie Kai Ellis making dumplings with a guest at a kitchen table

Jackie Kai Ellis cooking with a guest in a restaurant

Jackie Kai Ellis and a guest preparing food in a sunlit kitchen

Hands slicing an apple on a wooden cutting board

Jackie Kai Ellis sharing a plate of noodles with a chef

The story

For Jackie Kai Ellis, food has always been bound up with family, memory and belonging. In House Special, the chef and bestselling author steps outside her familiar world to explore roadside Chinese restaurants and the people whose lives unfold behind their counters.

From buffet tables to family kitchens, the five-part series traces how Chinese immigrants faced discrimination, adapted familiar dishes to unfamiliar surroundings, and built gathering places in small Canadian communities. What emerged was a cuisine with a history of its own, shaped by resourcefulness, sacrifice and the need to make a home.

As Jackie considers her own Chinese Canadian identity, meals become invitations to talk about love, culture and the ties between generations. Along the way, she finds kitchen-table wisdom and a different understanding of what makes a house special.