Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Rating: 9/10

Stayed up until 3AM to finish this book last night. The final judgment? Absolutely delicious. The book is an absolute riot to read through. If you have any appreciation for food at all, some chapters in there will make you grin. If you have a sense of humor that can accept a bit of sadism, perversion, and criminality, then you will laugh out loud. If you're an aspiring chef, watch out. Bourdain's book is a personal memoir, a skewed view of the culinary industry from his own personal experiences. Though not every Kitchen is as gruesome, machismo-driven, and hectic as they are in Bourdain's experience, a whole heck of a lot of them must be.

The book is well balanced in every aspect. The fast and often paradoxically witty is balanced with slower more introspective and informative chapters (as one reviewer said, Bourdain does build a wall of four-lettered words[1], but he frames that wall in longer words, good words even, that are comedic by comparison; alternately, you knew that anybody who orders a well-done steak causes chef to "murder it!" right?). His entire account of the "culinary underbelly" is balanced near the end by an account of a restaurant that flouts almost every rule he has seen.

It's a fast read. It's a fun read. It's a book that you can finish in a couple of days, if not one sitting, grinning like a fool while reading it, and never ordering fish on the weekends or Monday ever again after finishing it. Bourdain might be self-deprecating about his cooking but his book is quite well done, and I don't mean murdered.

[1] By four-lettered words, I don't mean "kite" or "dogs". Think "shit", "fuck", "cock", and their longer and often more abusive brethren.