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The Biggest Empty Space, The Biggest Gap In What Should Be A Premier And Always Vibrant Food Scene In America Is That We Don't Have Hawker Centers Like They Do In Singapore, Basically Food Courts Where Mom And Pop Specialists Can Set Up Shop In Fairly Hygienic Little Stalls All Up To Health Code Making One Dish They've Been Doing Forever And Ever.

-Anthony Bourdain

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The Biggest Empty Space,

Anthony Bourdain

...

The Biggest Empty Space, The Biggest Gap In What Should Be A Premier And Always Vibrant Food Scene In America Is That We Don't Have Hawker Centers Like They Do In Singapore, Basically Food Courts Where Mom And Pop Specialists Can Set Up Shop In Fairly Hygienic Little Stalls All Up To Health Code Making One Dish They've Been Doing Forever And Ever.

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Good Food And Good Eating Are About Risk.

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The Kobe Craze Really Annoyed Me. Most Of The Practitioners Had No Real Understanding Of The Product And Were Abusing It And Exploiting It In Terrible And Ridiculous Ways. Kobe Beef Should Not Be Used In A Hamburger. It's Completely Pointless.

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There Are People With Otherwise Chaotic And Disorganized Lives, A Certain Type Of Person That's Always Found A Home In The Restaurant Business In Much The Same Way That A Lot Of People Find A Home In The Military.

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Never Try To Get Your Kid To Eat Anything She Doesn't Already Want To Eat. Just Eat Interesting Stuff In Front Of Her While Completely Ignoring Her. Never, Ever Suggest "try It." Never Say Those Dreaded Words "try It, It's Good." Or Worse, "it's Good For You." That'll Poison The Well.

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When You're Shooting That Fast End To End, You Wake Up In A Hotel And You Don't Know Where You Are. You're Dreaming Of Singapore, You Wake Up In Hong Kong. Or You Just Lose Track. It's One Of The Reasons I'm Staying In Hotels That I Know I've Stayed In Before, And They Don't Look Like Other Hotels.

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It's Not Normal, What I Do. Just Being On Television Isn't.

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Italy Is Hard To Beat. It's A Family-friendly Experience, They Like To See Kids In Restaurants, And At Dinner You See All The Adults At The Table And All The Kids At The Other End Of The Table. Maybe They Run Off And Go Play.

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I'm Not Afraid To Look Like An Idiot On Tv.

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Few Things Are More Beautiful To Me Than A Bunch Of Thuggish, Heavily Tattooed Line Cooks Moving Around Each Other Like Ballerinas On A Busy Saturday Night. Seeing Two Guys Who'd Just As Soon Cut Each Other's Throats In Their Off Hours Moving In Unison With Grace And Ease Can Be As Uplifting As Any Chemical Stimulant Or Organized Religion.

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What's The Opposite Of Suck? Un-suck?

I'd Like To Play Bass Like Bootsy Collins. I'm Serious. That Would Be My Dream.

It's That Show Friends. Ruined Coffee Forever.

We Now Have A Generation Of People Who In Many Cases Feel That If They Become Chefs, They'll Get A Tv Show. They Have A Signature Haircut, A Year Into The Business, Or A Branding Arrangement With A Shoe Company. I Don't Really Relate To That. I Guess This Is The World We Live In Now.

I'm Really Good At Sleeping On Planes. I Mean, I Smell Jet Fuel And I'm Out; I'm Asleep For Takeoff.

A Burger Is Something Anyone Can Do, Just Follow The Rules.

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For A Moment, Or A Second, The Pinched Expressions Of The Cynical, World-weary, Throat-cutting, Miserable Bastards We've All Had To Become Disappears, When We're Confronted With Something As Simple As A Plate Of Food.

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Very Few Restaurant Workers Could Even Dream Of Eating In The Restaurants They Work In. Many Do Not Make A Living Wage.

Learn How To Cook A (effing) Omelet. I Mean, What Nicer Thing Can You Do For Somebody Than Make Them Breakfast? You Look Good Doing It, And It's A Nice Thing To Do For Somebody You Just Had Sex With.

I Wouldn't Want To Compare Myself To David Byrne Whom I Consider A Genius, But What I Think What We Have In Common Is That He's Also A Guy Who Is Very Interested In The World And Who Has A Lot Of Passions Beyond Singing And Playing Guitar.

The Italians Seem To Have A Better Attitude With Kids And The Food Is Great!

I'm Sure One Of The Frustrations Of Being A Western Enthusiast Of Japanese Food And Culture Is You're Confronted Every Day With The Absolute Certainty That You Will Die Ignorant.

There Are Very Sophisticated, Very Time-consuming Dishes To Prepare; Always From Scratch, And Always In Excess Of What You Could Possibly Need. You Tend To Kill Your Guests With Kindness Around Here.

[george] Orwell's Essays. It's Got It All. Great Writing, A Worldview That I Find Interesting And Useful, And Most Of It Timelessly True.

If You Get An Opportunity To Work With David Simon, Anybody With Good Taste Would.

Assume The Worst. About Everybody. But Don't Let This Poisoned Outlook Affect Your Job Performance. Let It All Roll Off Your Back. Ignore It. Be Amused By What You See And Suspect. Just Because Someone You Work With Is A Miserable, Treacherous, Self-serving, Capricious And Corrupt Asshole Shouldn't Prevent You From Enjoying Their Company, Working With Them Or Finding Them Entertaining.

Don't Dunk Your Nigiri In The Soy Sauce. Don't Mix Your Wasabi In The Soy Sauce. If The Rice Is Good, Complement Your Sushi Chef On The Rice.

You Can Call Me The Bad Boy Chef All You Want. I'm Not Going To Freak Out About It. I'm Not That Bad. I'm Certainly Not A Boy, And It's Been A While Since I've Been A Chef.

For A Dinner Date, I Eat Light All Day To Save Room, Then I Go All In: I Choose This Meal And This Order, And I Choose You, The Person Across From Me, To Share It With. There's A Beautiful Intimacy In A Meal Like That.

The Ingredients Of A Hamburger Seldom Vary. It's A Percentage Of Fat To Lean Meat, Add Salt And Prepare And That's It. It Shouldn't Need A Recipe.

Vegetarians, And Their Hezbollah-like Splinter Faction, The Vegans ... Are The Enemy Of Everything Good And Decent In The Human Spirit.

I'm Away 250 Days A Year. It's A Tough Situation.

Tough Situations

Anything That Improves People's Expectations Of A Meal Is Good For The World. Anything That Weans Even One Kid Or One Adult Away From Chili's Or T.g.i. Friday's Is Definitely A Win For The Good Guys.

Most Of The Time, I'm Fighting Guys Who Are 22 Years Old, Former College Wrestlers, Athletes, Kids Who Are In Much Better Shape Than Me. Often People Who Are Much Bigger And Wider Than Me. It Can Be Dispiriting At First.

I Admire Vegetarians Who Refuse To Eat Nothing But Vegetables In Their Homes, But I Also Admire Those Who Put Aside Those Principles Or Those Preferences When They Travel. Just To Be A Good Guest.

Everything Important I Learned, I Learned As A Dishwasher.

If Anything Is Good For Pounding Humility Into You Permanently, It's The Restaurant Business.

Restaurant Business

I Am Very Much Enjoying The Fatherhood Phase Of My Life.

Thinking Of Getting Into The Leg-breaking Business, So I Can Profitably Sell Crutches Later.

Tokyo Would Probably Be The Foreign City If I Had To Eat One City's Food For The Rest Of My Life, Every Day. It Would Have To Be Tokyo, And I Think The Majority Of Chefs You Ask That Question Would Answer The Same Way.

I’m Always Secretly The Most Pleased When A Show Just Really, Really Looks Good And When My Camera Guys Are Really Happy With The Images They Got.

If I Were Trapped In One City And Had To Eat One Nation's Cuisine For The Rest Of My Life, I Would Not Mind Eating Japanese. I Adore Japanese Food. I Love It.

I Could Eat Bloody Elvis - If You Put Enough Vinegar On Him.

Without New Ideas Success Can Become Stale

One Of The Things Is Challenging Yourself To Do A Rome Show When Everybody's Done A Rome Show. To Find Some Aspect Of Food Culture Or Chef Culture That People Can Look At In A New Way.

To The Extent I Am Known, I Think I Am Known As A Person Who Expresses His Opinion Freely About Things - And I Was Sensitive To The Possibility That If I Was Seen Taking Money For Saying Nice Things About A Product, My Comments And Choices And Opinions Would Become, Understandably, Suspect.

I Managed To Reach A Depth Of Self-loathing That Usually Takes A Night Of Drinking To Achieve.

Drink Heavily With Locals Whenever Possible.

Hong Kong Is A Wonderful, Mixed-up Town Where You've Got Great Food And Adventure. First And Foremost, It's A Great Place To Experience China In A Relatively Accessible Way.

Where Once They Used To Say, 'cocaine Is God's Way Of Saying You Have Too Much Money' - Now, Maybe Edm Is. Come Ye Lords And Princelings Of Douchedom.

As Americans, We Tend To Look At Mexican Food As Nachos, Which Is Not Mexican Food Really - They Don't Eat Them.

I'm In No Position To Try To Tell People How To Live Their Family Life.

Good Food Is Very Often, Even Most Often, Simple Food.

I Do Not Have A Merchandise Line. I Don't Sell Knives Or Apparel. Though I Have Been Approached To Endorse Various Products From Liquor To Airlines To Automobiles To Pharmaceuticals Dozens Of Times, I Have Managed To Resist The Temptation.

I'm Not Trying To Explain Other Cultures, Or To Give A Fair And Balanced Account Of A Country, Or The Top Ten Things You Need To Know. I'm Not Trying To Spread World Peace And Understanding. I'm Not An Advocate Or An Activist Or An Educator Or A Journalist. I'm Out There Trying To Tell Stories The Best I Can.

One Of Life's Terrible Truths Is That Women Like Guys Who Seem To Know What They're Doing.

New Orleans Is A Glorious Mutation

It Seems That The More Places I See And Experience, The Bigger I Realize The World To Be. The More I Become Aware Of, The More I Realize How Relatively Little I Know Of It, How Many Places I Have Still To Go, How Much More There Is To Learn. Maybe That's Enlightenment Enough - To Know That There Is No Final Resting Place Of The Mind, No Moment Of Smug Clarity. Perhaps Wisdom, At Least For Me, Means Realizing How Small I Am, And Unwise, And How Far I Have Yet To Go.

I'm Excited By Any Food That's Prepared By Someone Who's Proud Of What They're Doing, Who Puts A Personal Imprint On Food.

There Are Chefs Who Are Spectacular Technicians, And Often Their Food Is Worth Eating Once Or Twice, But If There's No Heart In It, If There's No Personality In It, It's Not Something You Want To Go Back For. But Heart Without Any Skill At All? All The Heart In The World Ain't Gonna Help You If You Can't Peel An Onion, Or If You Don't Understand How To Apply Heat Properly. A Well-done Steak Is A Well-done Steak.

Margarine? That's Not Food. I Can't Believe It's Not Butter? I Can. If You're Planning On Using Margarine In Anything, You Can Stop Reading Now, Because I Won't Be Able To Help You.

In Fairness, You Know, I'm A Big Believer In If Your Kid Makes Noise In The Restaurant You Should Remove The Child Immediately.

As Incisively Pointed Out In The Documentary Food Inc.," An Overwhelmingly Large Percentage Of "new," Healthy," And "organic" Alternative Food Products Are Actually Owned By The Same Parent Companies That Scared Us Into The Organic Aisle In The First Place. "they Got You Comin' And Goin'" Has Never Been Truer.

Skills Can Be Taught. Character You Either Have Or You Don't Have.

There's Always This Assumption That You're Going To Get Everything Right Immediately. And Any Professional Understands That That's Just Not So.

Turning Your Nose Up At A Genuine And Sincere Gesture Of Hospitality Is No Way To Travel Or To Make Friends Around The World.

It’s An Irritating Reality That Many Places And Events Defy Description. Angkor Wat And Machu Picchu, For Instance, Seem To Demand Silence, Like A Love Affair You Can Never Talk About. For A While After, You Fumble For Words, Trying Vainly To Assemble A Private Narrative, An Explanation, A Comfortable Way To Frame Where You’ve Been And Whats Happened. In The End, You’re Just Happy You Were There - With Your Eyes Open - And Lived To See It.

I Believe - To The Best Of My Recollection, Anyway - That I Soon Made The Classic Error Of Moving From Margaritas To Actual Shots Of Straight Tequila. It Does Make It Easier To Meet New People.

My Daughter Takes Pride In Showing Up With Stuff That Other Kids Envy Or Are Freaked Out By, So I Send Her To School With Grilled Octopus.

This Is The Dream Of All The World. The Dream Is To Live In Granada. You Know, Work In The Morning, Have A One-hour In The Afternoon, At Night Go Out And Have That Life. You Know. Go Out And See Your Friends And Eat Tapa And Drink Red Wine And Be In A Beautiful Place.

Cooking Breakfast And Brunch Professionally Really Kind Of Ruined Breakfast Service For Me For A Long Time.

When I Was Writing 'kitchen Confidential,' I Was In My 40s, I Had Never Paid Rent On Time, I Was 10 Years Behind On My Taxes, I Had Never Owned My Own Furniture Or A Car.

Every Chef I Know, Their Cholesterol Is Through The Roof. And Mine's Not So Great.

Jiro Ono Serves Edo-style Traditional Sushi, The Same 20 Or 30 Pieces He's Been Making His Whole Life, And He's Still Unsatisfied With The Quality And Every Day Wakes Up And Trains To Make The Best. And That Is As Close To A Religious Experience In Food As One Is Likely To Get.

I'm Not Going To Get Off The Pony As Long As They Let Me Ride It.

I Can Unload My Opinion On Anybody At Anytime.

People Are Generally Proud Of Their Food. A Willingness To Eat And Drink With People Without Fear And Prejudice... They Open Up To You In Ways That Somebody Visiting Who Is Driven By A Story May Not Get.

I, A Product Of The New Frontier And Great Society, Honestly Believed That The World Pretty Much Owed Me A Living--all I Had To Do Was Wait Around In Order To Live Better Than My Parents.

We Learn As Professionals By Repetition, By Getting It Wrong, Getting Yelled At And Doing It Again.

I Think Of [street Food] As The Antidote To Fast Food; It's The Clear Alternative To The King, The Clown And The Colonel.

There Is No Other Place On Earth Even Remotely Like New Orleans. Don't Even Try To Compare It To Anywhere Else.

I'd Like To Make A Show With Keith Richards.

If People Are Eating Mostly Pickles After Many Generations, Where Did That Come From? It's Reflective Of History, Often A Painful History. It's Central To A Culture, To A History, To A Personal Story. It's Communication At Its Most Fundamental.

I Lurched Away From The Table After A Few Hours Feeling Like Elvis In Vegas - Fat, Drugged, And Completely Out Of It.

I'd Learned Something... Food Had Power. It Could Inspire, Astonish, Shock, Excite, Delight And Impress. It Had The Power To Please Me... And Others. This Was Valuable Information.

For Their Own Good, Vegetarians Should Never Be Allowed Near Fine Beers And Ales. It Will Only Make Them Loud And Belligerent, And They Lack The Physical Strength And Aggressive Nature To Back Up Any Drunken Assertions.

There's Something Wonderful About Drinking In The Afternoon. A Not-too-cold Pint, Absolutely Alone At The Bar - Even In This Fake-ass Irish Pub.

In My House, Neither My Wife Nor My Daughter Are Impressed That I'm On Television, And They Remind Me Of That Frequently.

I Don't Have Much Patience For People Who Are Self-conscious About The Act Of Eating, And It Irritates Me When Someone Denies Themselves The Pleasure Of A Bloody Hunk Of Steak Or A Pungent French Cheese Because Of Some Outdated Nonsense About What's Appropriate Or Attractive.

You'd Have A Hard Time Finding Anything Better Than Barcelona For Food, As Far As Being A Hub. Given A Choice Between Barcelona And San Sebastian To Die In, I'd Probably Want To Die In San Sebastian.

Look, Getting Bullied In School And Coming Home Crying In The Rain And My Mom Making Me A Can Of Campbell's Tomato Soup With Some Oysterettes. It Was Comfort Food; That Is What Food Should Be.

When Your Signature Dish Is Hamburger In Between A Doughnut, And You've Been Cheerfully Selling This Stuff Knowing All Along That You've Got Type 2 Diabetes... It's In Bad Taste If Nothing Else.

Type 2 Diabetes

I'm Not Looking To Freak People Out - Eating Rodents Or Bugs. I Don't Do That Anymore.

No One Understands And Appreciates The American Dream Of Hard Work Leading To Material Rewards Better Than A Non-american.

Do You Really Want To Make Risotto To Order When You Have Eight Guests Sitting There? No. It Won't Work. Most Cookbooks Won't Tell You That. They Will Say Make It And It Will Come Out Perfectly. They Should Tell You You're Probably Going To Screw It Up The First 10 Times You Make It.

I Did Go Into The Amazonian Region Of Brazil. They Have Prehistoric River Fish That Weigh In At Around 600 Pounds, Which You Don’t See Anywhere Else. And Foods That Cannot Be Exported Or Even Found In Other Parts Of Brazil.

I Don't Have To Agree With You To Like You Or Respect You.

Admiration And Respect

Kitchen Confidential

Anyone Who Doesn't Have A Great Time In San Francisco Is Pretty Much Dead To Me.

You Have To Be A Romantic To Invest Yourself, Your Money, And Your Time In Cheese.

Kitchen Confidential

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Virginia C. Andrews

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