The Takeout by Tracy Badua

“The Takeout” by Tracy Badua is a remarkable novel about cooking with a little drop of magic mixed in. A new restaurant down the road has just been opened by the celebrity cooking brothers, the Darlington’s, and everyone in the town of Coral Beach hopes that this shop might be able to revive their dying town. However, when Mila first goes there for the grand opening, she knows something isn’t right. The food there tastes exactly the same as at her family’s Filipino Indian food truck, the Banana Leaf. This restaurant was going to do the opposite of what Mila and her father had first hoped it would. Instead of bringing customers to the Banana Leaf, the Darlingtons were stealing them away. Mila then knows that she has to take down the Fab Foodie Brothers, but it might be at the cost of her only friends in Coral Beach. So Mila is now faced with a choice. Does her yearning to fit in or her family’s beloved food truck matter more?

Mila employs the help of one of her old friends, Ajay, as well as her older sister, Catalina. While Mila and Ajay attempt to find proof that the Darlingtons copied the Banana Leaf’s recipes, Catalina uses her knowledge of Filipino folk magic to try to brew up a potion that would be able to make the Darlingtons admit that they had stolen the recipes. Mila and Ajay don’t come up with anything, but Catalina doesn’t fail. She and another more talented albularyo, someone who does Filipino folk magic, end up making a potion that works! But now Mila just has to figure out how to get it to the Darlingtons and this ends up being much, much, more complex than Mila could have ever anticipated.

I really enjoyed this touching and inspiring story. Probably because it’s mostly about someone trying to fit in and have friends, and that seems like something everyone does. This just makes the book feel more relatable, and in turn, it makes the novel feel more realistic and more like you’re there with Mila. The book also really seamlessly ties the magic and real aspects together and instead of having the magic be another section of the novel, it’s more like it’s just a little part added on to the main story.