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| Kitchen Confidential Updated Ed: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | Author: Anthony Bourdain
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $6.70
You Save: $9.25 (58%)
New (36) Used (46) Collectible (1) from $6.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  584 reviews
Sales Rank: 596
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060899220
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092
EAN: 9780060899226
ASIN: 0060899220
Publication Date: January 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Scattered, Hard to Follow, and .... boring May 19, 2008
0 out of 9 found this review helpful
I was really looking forward to reading this book because I enjoy Chef Bourdain on the Travel Channel. However, the book is very hard to follow - I could not keep track of where he was in his career or what was really happening.
I think an editor would be an excellent addition to this book.
 The Hunter S Thompson of the Foodie World May 13, 2008
This book is a wonderfully entertaining story of how one particular chef came to be a Celebrity Chef. What really keeps things moving, from start to finish, is Bourdain's writing style; simultaneously cynical, amusing and reflective. He is not afraid to show the reader all the details, as he knows them. He's led a hard life and has developed a truly unique philosophy based on his experiences. Most importantly he learned from his experiences and wishes to pass his wisdom on to anyone interested in joining the crazy world of professional cooking.
Yes, things have changed in the restaurant industry since Bourdain wrote this book. However the reader should take many of his recommendations seriously and should learn to recognize exactly what they are paying for when they eat at any restaurant. And Bourdain's recommendations to the home cook are absolutely spot-on, invaluable advise to anyone who loves food.
Please, if you have any interest in becoming a cook or starting up your own restaurant, read this book. Even if you don't agree with him, he brings up many good points about the highs and lows of the industry.
Great book May 7, 2008
A very truthful and witty account how how a chef came to be. It's very honest. I love his recommendations too.
Something Completely Different May 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Kitchen Confidential is a brash, entertaining, and funny look at life behind the scenes in restaurants. The book is a combination of expose, biography, and blunt advice for those interested in working in the restaurant industry.
Bourdain is a talented raconteur and a gifted writer. Some of his prose is hard to resist. For instance (on page 197), he describes the dinner tasting, where waiters at his restaurant sample the evening's food; the waiters "...fall on the family gruel and tasting plates like rabid jackals... They tear at the four plates of food, ripping apart the pheasant with their hands, nearly spearing each other with forks as they gouge at the tuna, drag cockles to their greasy maws with bare hands and quickly turn Janine's lovely tarte into a dark smear." It is difficult not to like a book that has a talented writer telling a good story.
Kitchen Confidential also features dozens of great characters. There is the Manhattan restaurateur Bourdain calls Bigfoot; a hulking former college basketball player with a talent for squeezing every nickel out of his restaurant. There is Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown, a dysfunctional man who loses every job he takes. After each firing, Adam promptly gets another job because of his special talent for making delicious bread. There is also Bourdain: witty, profane, cocky, knowledgeable, and opinionated.
If there is a downside to Kitchen Confidential it is the fact that Bourdain's world is very seedy, profane, and, in many ways, deeply repellent; the reader becomes weary after a while. Bourdain's boastful descriptions of his profane tirades and drug addiction are particularly unappealing. The locker room atmosphere in which Bourdain chooses to work (no profanity is too vile or too explicit) is sophomoric. At its worst, Bourdain's world makes you feel as though you need a long, cleansing bath.
In spite of its problems, Kitchen Confidential allows the reader to journey to a world that he or she probably knows nothing about. It is a very entertaining book.
Wow! April 28, 2008
I've been a fan of Mr. Bourdain for a while. I had no idea that his early career was so much like my own foray into the culinary arts. Great book, down to earth and brutally honest look at the dark underbelly of working in a kitchen. Very funny and embarassing parts engage the reader so much so that you don't want to put the book down. I liked it so much I read it in two days, then read it again. Almost makes me want to be a professional cook again...Almost!
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