Rating: 
Summary: Hard Truth
Review: This is a true to life book. As a Culinary professional for the past ten years finally achieving rank as chef recently, I can honestly say I have either witnessed or lived the same kind of lifestyle. i recommend this book for anyone considering entering this great field, especially these over zealous career changers who want to be in it for the "GLORY". 99% of the time, it does not exist. The best book I have ever read. Finally, the REAL truth about our lifestyles. Thanks Chef Bourdain.
Rating:
Summary: An insider's look at the culinary arts
Review: Even if you don't like to cook, I think you'll enjoy this book. I laughed out loud sometimes reading about Bourdain's adventures while learning his craft. I don't know how good a chef he really is, but he is an excellent writer, taking the reader on a wild and often hilarious ride. He makes the kitchen staff at a typical restaurant sound like a bunch of gypsies, and maybe that's not far from the truth. And you'll roll on the floor when you read about the moment he decided to become a chef! His descriptions of some of the people he's worked with over his 25 year career are dead-on, such as Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown, baker extraordinaire. Bourdain also presents some practical advice on the utensils and equipment you really need in your kitchen, and on what not to order the next time you dine out. I thoroughly enjoyed this book!
Rating:
Summary: Engaging and true.
Review: This is not all gritty expose, not all personal memoir, not all culinary manual. It has elements of all three, though. It's highly readable, very engaging, and fun. Bourdain brags. Of course he does! He's self-congratulatory, arbitrary, and absolutely convinced that he is right. That, in my experience, is what chefs are.As a former line cook, I appreciate the credit that Bourdain gives to the people in the trenches. To give you an idea of how closely his experiences on the line match with mine, after reading this book, I started to get nostalgic for my cooking days. This means something, because, for the most part, my cooking career consisted of low pay, blood, burns, sore feet, unbearable heat, and unending stress. In any case, this book made me nostalgic enough to go out and find a place to volunteer my cooking skills, just so I could be back in a "real" kitchen. If this book is true enough to make me consider (even for a second) giving up computer programming to go back to cooking, it's true enough for anyone.
Rating:
Summary: As True as it Gets
Review: I am a culinary professional and I can tell you, this book is the God's honest truth! At one time in my career or another I have witnessed all the same activites. As well as participated in more than I like to admit. I can also add to the list of atrosities in the book but this is not the time or place. Mr. Bourdain has carved himself a place in the history of the art along with the likes of Beard and Escoffier! Some of my contempories label him a trator to the proffesion like a turn-coat from the American revoultion. I disagree, these critics should thank Chef Bourdain for revealing this unseen side of our world!
Rating: 
Summary: Read this before you go to culinary school
Review: This clever, well written book deserves the attention of the masses of people heading off to culinary school. It also deserves the attention of their parents. Read this book. It is an honest glimpse into what cooking is really about and it reveals what really goes on in kitchens across the country.
Rating:
Summary: Telling It Like It Is
Review: In this book, Anthony Bourdain, executive chef at New York's Brasserie Les Halles, takes us on a wild ride through that city's food supply industry that includes surprises such as heavy drinking, drugs, debauchery, Mafiosi and assorted seedy personalities. It is clear that Bourdain enjoys a true passion for both food and cooking, a passion he inherited from the French side of his family. He tells us he decided to become a chef during a trip to southwestern France when he was only ten years of age and it is a decision he stuck to, graduating from the Culinary Institute of America. Kitchen Confidential is a surprisingly well-written account of what life is really like in the commercial kitchens of the United States; "the dark recesses of the restaurant underbelly." In describing these dark recesses, Bourdain refreshingly casts as many stones at himself as he does at others. In fact, he is brutally honest. There is nothing as tiresome as a "tell-all" book in which the author relentlessly paints himself as the unwitting victim. Bourdain, to his enormous credit, avoids this trap. Maybe he writes so convincingly about drugs and alcohol because drugs and alcohol have run their course through his veins as well as those of others. The rather raunchy "pirate ship" stories contained in this fascinating but testosterone-rich book help to bring it vividly to life and add tremendous credibility. The book does tend to discourage any would-be female chefs who might read it, but that's not Bourdain's fault; he is simply telling it like it is and telling it hilariously as well. In an entire chapter devoted to one of the lively and crude characters that populate this book, Bourdain describes a man named Adam: "Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown, the psychotic bread-baker, alone in his small, filthy Upper West Side apartment, his eyes two different sizes after a 36-hour coke and liquor jag, white crust accumulated at the corners of his mouth, a two-day growh of whiskers--standing there in a shirt and no pants among the porno mags, the empty Chinese takeout containers, as the Spice channel flickers silently on the TV, throwing blue light on a can of Dinty Moore beef stew by an unmade bed." Apparently Bourdain made just as many mistakes at the beginning of his career as did Adam, but the book however, doesn't always paint and bleak picture. Another chapter entitled "The Life of Bryan," talks about renowned chef Scott Bryan, a man, who, according to Bourdain, made all the right decisions. Bourdain describes Bryan's shining, immaculate kitchen, his well-organized and efficient staff. It's respectful homage, but somehow, we feel that Bourdain, himself, will never be quite as organized as is Bryan, for Bourdain is just too much of the rebel, the original, the maverick. Kitchen Confidential can be informative as well as wickedly funny. Bourdain is hilarious as he tells us what to order in restaurants and when. For instance, we learn never to eat fish on Mondays, to avoid Sunday brunches and never to order any sort of meat well-done. And, if we ever see a sign that says, "Discount Sushi," we will, if we are smart, run the other way as fast as we possibly can. Kitchen Confidential isn't undying literature but it's so funny and so well-written that no one should care. It made me hungry for Bourdain's black sea bass crusted in sel de Bretagne with frites. It also made me order his novel, Bone in the Throat. If it is only half as funny and wickedly well-written as is Kitchen Confidential it will certainly be a treat.
Rating:
Summary: The Sexs, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll of the Cuisine Industry
Review: I rarely read non-fiction...how glad I am that I made an exception in this case! Kitchen Confidential is a must for anyone who likes to eat, and don't we all? It is riveting. After I read it I was in New York City and made it a point to eat at Les Halles (where Anthony Bourdain is the chef). It was wonderful! Also the bathroom was sparkling (read the book) and I peeked in to the kitchen and got a total thrill after having read the "scoop". So I highly recommend the book and I also recommend a trip to Les Halles when next you find yourself in the Big Apple.
Rating:
Summary: So, you're thinking of becoming a chef.
Review: With a slant toward rakish fun and large scale healthcode violations, this book opens the kitchen doors wide and exposes the crew that prepares the lovely meals you love so much. I'll never be able to order swordfish again :) Well written and brimming with amazing anacdotes that you'll want to share with your loved ones across the dinner table, this is a must have for anyone even remotely interrested in the prepartion of food or the consumption of the finished product.
Rating: 
Summary: Self glorifying portray of sensory decadence
Review: A star wants to be born, amidst the puddles of animal fat, screams and blood. A star who finds sensual pleasure in frying animal fat and who openly hates vegetarians, compassion and anyone who's not as twisted as he is. An individual who longs for the exquisite taste of monkey brains (were the monkey's craneum top is removed while still alive, to die only with the trust of the metal spoon). This person embodies the worst of the qualities that have made the French so famous: a decadent sensory obsession and experimentation where anything and everything goes (and has), coupled with the arrogance and disdain of a people who long for appreciation they've never gotten. My veredict: This book is just another brick of the wall that separates France from civilization.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious Dirt!
Review: I found this book to be an entertaining read, quick and a tad bit sleazy - the perfect book for a plane or the beach. As a devote foodie, I laughed, was disgusted by some scenes and salivated over others! Not literary genius but certainly fun!
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