A must-read book, by Anthony Bourdain. Full of great, obscene, funny as hell stories, and loaded with useful information, like:
"Never eat mussels in a restaurant where you don't personally know the owner."
"People who order their steaks well-done get the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel: how's a person gonna know?"
"Never order fish on Monday."
You will never approach dining out the same way after reading this book!
Bourdain was asked by the New Yorker's editor (Robert Gottlieb, I think) to write a piece for the magazine about the restaurant business; it was so talked about and controversial, a publisher gave him a fat advance to expand the piece into a book, and now he's a culinary superstar with a show on the Food Network, etc.
His newest book, "A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisine," pushes the envelope as only this semi-manic cook/restaurateur/author can do. He travels all over the world with a TV crew in tow, creating 22 episodes of his now-playing-on-the-Food Channel television series. Among the highlights are dining on "crispy, veiny lamb testicles," and eating a still-beating cobra heart in Saigon.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
i love Bourdain. his love of food is so evident in both his writing and on the tube (though i could do without his new york snottiness and his hatred (i think jealousy) of emeril).
the live cobra heart tv segment was too much.
it's a big 'ole world out there.