YeinJee's Asian Journal

Anthony Bourdain is the executive chef of Brasserie Les Halles, bestselling author and also host of the Discovery Travel Channel’s culinary and cultural adventure program, “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations”.

I started watching Tony’s show “A Cook’s Tour” probably in 2003, and love the stuff he showed; I don’t follow his latest shows fanatically these days though.

Picture of Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain Profile

Name: Anthony Michael “Tony” Bourdain
DOB: June 25, 1956
Birth place: New York City, USA
Profession: Author, cook and TV host

Anthony Bourdain Biography

Anthony Bourdain was born in New York City in 1956. He studied at Vassar College and graduated from the Culinary Institute of America before running kitchens at New York City’s Supper Club, One Fifth Avenue and Sullivan’s.

His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Times, the Observer, Scotland on Sunday, the Face, Limb by Limb, Black Book and the Independent, and he is a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine. He is currently the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles and lives in Manhattan.

Bourdain had written two crime novels, “Bone in the Throat” (1995) and “Gone Bamboo” (1997) before his article of New York restaurants “Don’t Eat Before Reading This” was published in The New Yorker in 1999. The article attracted huge attention in America and the UK and formed the basis of his memoir “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.”

In 2002, Food Network broadcast a 22-part series in which Bourdain travelled the world in search of ‘extreme cuisine’. The resulting book, “A Cook’s Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal” became a bestseller in the US and the UK, and won the 2002 Guild of Food Writers Award for Food Book of the Year.

Published in October 2004, the “Les Halles Cookbook” is Anthony Bourdain’s guide to the strategies and techniques of classic bistro cooking. The book contains more than a hundred recipes from Brasserie Les Halles, all delivered in the ribald style of Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour.

Bourdain’s latest project is a travel and food series called “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations”, airs on the Discovery Travel Channel (3rd season at the time of writing).

Anthony Bourdain related Websites

Official Website ll No Reservation ll Buy Anthony Bourdain’s products

The 50 most expensive cities for expatriates in 2007 according to Mercer’s annual Cost of Living Survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting…

1. Moscow, Russia
2. London, United Kingdom
3. Seoul, South Korea
4. Tokyo, Japan
5. Hong Kong, China
6. Copenhagen, Denmark
7. Geneva, Switzerland
8. Osaka, Japan
9. Zurich, Switzerland
10. Oslo, Norway
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According to a recent WHO report, Japanese women have a life expectancy of 86 years, the longest female life expectancy in the world. San Marino men, who tied with Japanese men last year at 79, added a year to get ahead.

Following San Marino on the male side were Australia, Iceland, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland at 79 years and then Canada, Israel, Italy, Monaco and Singapore at 78.

Countries with long-living women include Monaco, 85 years, and Andorra, Australia, France, Italy, San Marino, Spain and Switzerland at 84.

Want a longer life? Time to move…

15 contestants took part in WE TV’s “Bridezilla-Ultimate Cake Eating Contest” in Times Square, New York on June 12, 2007. The winner of the contest won USD25,000.

Piece of cake… (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

The event kicked off the 4th season of Bridezillas, a reality television show on US cable television channel “WE: Women’s Entertainment.”

Yes, this is a (soon to be) personal computer…

Pixello-Dynamotronic Computational Engine (Image courtesy of Datamancer)
[Hat tip to Boingboing]

According to the designer of this steampunk like custom-built PC, he would like to return a ‘novelty period’ for the PC like the television and radio that were “appropriately gifted with the most lavish of hand tooled, wooden scrolled cabinetry, and housings which borrowed architectural details from the grandest schools, churches and banks.”

The making of the PC is still in progress; you can check the development here.

I wonder if his idea would bring in some commercial value… sought of like a hand-made sport car that valued in millions; his hand-made PC could sold for a few extra grand perhaps.

Loch Ness Monster, nickname Nessie, is one of the most famous mysteries in the world.

The Surgeon’s Photo

The first recorded sighting of this monster at the Scotland’s freshwater lake date back to 565AD… but the Nessie-fever probably started in 1934 when the famous ‘Surgeon’s Photo’ was published and shocked the world. (The photo was however discovered to be a hoax in the 1993, more details at the end of the article)

Since then, numerous sightings have been reported; some with pictures or videos but none of the images captured has shown a clear evidence of the existence of Nessie. Some of the images are hoax, while some could only show that there are some objects on the surface of the water.

Critics believe that lots of the genuine and unclear images are actually showing objects like flock of water-birds, wood logs, boats and natural phenomena. Still, there are large group of believers that are certain about the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.
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I first learnt about Sudoku when I visited my sister in London in October 2005. Londoners were crazed about Sudoku that time; I could always see people (lots of people) playing Sudoku when they were on the train.

Not too long after I was back from UK, the Sudoku fever hit Malaysia as well. Everybody seemed addicted to game, and newspapers and magazines were publishing daily dose of Sudoku for their readers… even my 67-year-old mum joined in the fun as well.

The Sudoku fever in Malaysia came fast, and disappeared pretty fast too. There are probably still a group of people addicted to Sudoku in Malaysia, like my sister for example… but not as crazy as of becoming a nationwide sport. Not sure if the Londoners and other international players are still as addictive though.

History of Sudoku

Although the name Sudoku is derived from Japanese words (数独); the game was actually invented by an American, Howard Garnes, a freelance puzzle constructor, in 1979. The game was first published in New York by the specialist puzzle publisher Dell Magazines in its magazine Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games, under the title Number Place. [Reference]

The game became popular in Japan in 1986, after it was published by Nikoli and given the name Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru, which could be translated as ‘the digits must be single’. It was later shorten to Sudoku as an abbreviation (Suuji wa dokushin ni kagiru) from its original name, meaning single number.

In 2004, Wayne Gould, a retired Hong Kong judge and New Zealander managed to developed a computer program known as Pappocom Sudoku that could mass produce puzzles. He managed to promote his program to The Times in UK, which launched the puzzle in November 2004 as Su Doku.

Sudoku gained rapid popularity as British newspapers and magazines began to publish daily games; the TV stations later joined in the fun and produced some Sudoku related game show.

It didn’t take long for Sudoku fever to spread across the globe, thanks to the power of internet. Wayne Gould’s Sudoku.com and other free online Sudoku resources have managed to introduce the game to the world.

Nowadays we can see lots of books, PC and video games published just for Sudoku; and the game itself has evolved into other form like Killer Sudoku, Samurai Sudoku etc.

Hippocamp (or Hippocampus; Hippokampoi) is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician and Greek mythology; which assembled the head and fore-parts of a horse and the serpentine tail of a fish.

Hippocamp mosaic in Roman Baths

In Greek mythology, Hippocamps were the mounts for Poseidon (the god of horses and god of the sea). In ancient folklore, they were believed to be an adult-form of the seahorse we seen today. In fact, Hippocampus is used as the genus (scientific term to categorize various species) for seahorses.

The Romans also believed in the existence of Hippocampus, with Neptune (Roman version of Poseidon) often driving a sea-chariot pulled by hippocamps.

Hippocamps were often used in the artworks and sculptures in Roman’s fountains and public baths; some of these ancient arts can still be seen in famous tourist sites like the Roman Baths in England and the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy.