Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain, Narrated by Anthony Bourdain. (Read via Audible.com)

In the same tone as Waiter Rant by Steve Dublanica, this book is about working in the restaurant industry but on the kitchen side of the equation. I love that Bourdain was completely fired up as he wrote this book. You can just feel the grit in his voice of all the events he has lived through. The stories he has are just unbelievable.

What really made the book is his frankness of telling it how it is. He is right the restaurant business is a dirty business, and cooking is not a glamorous job. In fact it’s 6-7 days a week, 15 hour days. I also loved his complete bashing of the food network. Most of all I loved his stories about the NYC places he worked. I found the Rainbow Room stuff just classic. The Big Foot stories were even better. I get the impression the Big Foot is one of the most influential people in NYC on how restaurants are run because he’s so exacting. I give people like that credit especially that they are so on top of their business, to the point that they know what’s going on down to the cent.

More than anything else… This book is very humbling. Bourdain for all the partying that he did, is a straight shooter. He fully admits he did not make the best choices in the world in life, however he is glad that he has been very lucky. His google talk is a killer to watch as well.

9/10