Restaurant Books

I got this book because Magnolia Grill is a favorite restaurant. It's a gorgeous book with incredible photographs, but after seeing the authors of the Food Network the other night I am inspired to get it dirty in the kitchen. The recipes they cooked on the air were not terribly complicated and they looked yummy. I particularly like the Barkers' advice to break the rules and adapt the recipes to your own tastes and to what fresh ingredients are available.

I'm a recent transplant from New York and have been spoiled rotten by its hundreds of cutting-edge restaurants and innovative chefs. But I have to tell you, the Barkers and Magnolia Grill are right up there. As a rule, I find chef cookbooks beyond the capabilities of the average-- or even the advanced-- home cook. NOT AFRAID OF FLAVOR is the exception. Not only are its recipes inviting, they're approachable. Moreover the story of the Barkers and their Durham, NC restaurant is warm and appealing. Thanks to the Barkers (not to mention several other local chefs they've mentored), this red-clay country is no gastromic wasteland. Even my New York City friends are impressed. I've given NOT AFRAID OF FLAVOR to half a dozen of them and they're as impressed by the cookbook as they are by the cooking they sampled at Magnolia Grill. From a huge Barker fan.

The author run the Magnolia Grill restaurant in North Carolina and here provides a cookbook of their dishes and Southern culinary traditions. The restaurant's favorites have been adjusted for the home cook and include fine innovations ranging form Salmon Choucroute in Creamy Mustard Sauce to Roasted Duck Breast with Sun-Dried Cherry Conserve. Color photos pepper and finish the presentation.

Having desired this cookbook for awhile, not disappointed in the least now that its in my collection.

This is rich book, with a rectangular format with big print and nice photos accompanying each recipe, which is given in adequate instructions and comments.

Knocked out by the variety and creativity of this recipe collection. They combine so many tastes and styles here --- Moraccan, Asian, Mexican, etc. Try these and you'll go bonkers as I--- Spicy Green Tomato Soup with Crab & Country Ham, Moraccan Roasted Eggplant Bisque with Grilled Chicken and Minted Yogurt, Roast Squab with Blackberry Essence & Carrot-Thyme Spaetzle, Pan Fried Mountain Rainbow Trout with Green Tomato and Lime Brown Butter Salsa on Sweet Potato, Artichoke and Crawfish Hash, or Grilled Sturgeon on Wild Rice Risotto with Butternuts, Grilled Leeks, and Cider Reduction.

Desserts are exceptional here, especially: Brown Sugar Pear Poundcake, and the Banana Pecan Crostata with Jack Daniels vanilla ice cream.

Super creative food, that takes some time and attention to prepare, but the results are worth it.

Recommended for the serious cook who likes this food which ventures to truly zap the diner with flavor, flavor, flavor. Excellent!

Not Afraid Of Flavor: Recipes From Magnolia Grill showcases more than one hundred Southern dishes that are simply delicious and ingredient-driven. From Spicy Grilled Shrimp with Grits Cake, Country Ham & Redeye Vinaigrette, Gabriel's Favorite Crispy Parmesan Chicken with Lemon & Capers, and Molasses Mashed Sweet Potatoes, to Pickled Pepper Relish, Deep-Dish Apple Cinnamon Crisp with Brandied Vanilla Ice Cream, and Watermelon Ganita, Not Afraid Of Flavor is a beautifully illustrated, aptly elegant, and very welcome addition to any kitchen cookbook collection.

among our cook club members where we gather together once a week to learn a new dish, whether is a main course or dessert,
after experiecing many other cook books, we find his is always the most clearly written, easy to understand and to follow.
i wish he writes a few more cook book.
i buy it for friends to like desserts during the holidays ,and it is always so much appreciated :)

Desserts that come from one of the best restraunteers around. Unbelieveably delicious and satisfying.

Great pictures and recipes that can be used in many different ways. It is a real book for real cooks

I bought this book last year,at first I did not want to try any yet because i don't see the pic how it should come out! Until couple months later, I try with the banana cake recipe which I saw the picture. And that's it, it is simple to follow the explaination and after finish---taste great. I have to try another even I don't see picture but I believe now that it will come out fine.

This is my FAVORITE dessert cookbook. Every single thing I have made from this cookbook has turned out amazing. I love that all the recipes have multiple parts to them so I can choose just to make Banana Bread for Breakfast or I can make White Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding with Caramel Semi Fredo and Boozy Caramel Sauce (my favorite recipie so far) for a dinner party. The cookbook also gives beautiful pictures and lots of details to make sure that you do it right. Be careful though- I am now the required to make the dessert every Thanksgiving!

This cookbook is absolutely gorgeous. It is a wonderful guide to the Pacific Northwest for both locals and visitors. The recipes are fabulous (try the Chipotle Chocolate Cake) and very easy to do at home, while still elegant. And the wine pairing suggestions are spot on. Outstanding book that would make a great addition to anyone's cookbook collection - and one that you will actually use.

This book offers many exceptional recipes however there are two from Chef Maury Bennett in Idaho that are amazing his passion for local fares radiates through his ideas. I would like to see an entire cook book done by him!!

For the wine and food nut, this book is of epic proportion. Vivid and lively pictures combined with the real people and real stories of the Pac NW illustrates the connection between Braiden Rex-Johnson and her subject. The
wine country traveler's guide to the good life in the Pac NW. Bravo!

To counter the damp and dreary days of winter I surround myself with distractions that promise better days to come. At the top of my pile is Braiden Rex-Johnson's Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining. Just looking at the cover of this love letter to NW cuisine warms me. I imagine myself dining al fresco on the patio of this restaurant or a myriad of others. Then I pour over the interior pages, like a gardener pouring over a seed catalogue in winter. I indulge in the descriptions of familiar restaurants and wineries as well as intriguing new ones. I plan our next excursion into Eastern Washington or the Willamette Valley or the always promising Vancouver area, while noting the recipes from these areas that we want to make today and the wines we will want to serve with them. I smile at the quotes from favorite and unfamiliar chefs and feel as though I now know something of what makes them who they are. And then I remember another friend who I want to share this book with and I'm back online to order it. What a perfectly luscious way to wile away the winter days.

I was given this book as a gift and after sitting down with a cuppa joe and browsing through it, I feel like I've had an eye-opening close encounter with the Northwest--and I live here! With our busy lives, who has time to track down the crème de la crème of cozy inns, tucked away vineyards and to-die-for bistros? Rex-Johnson has done the work for us, with a literary roadmap of the best of the best. She entertains with quick little snippets about the lives of chefs and growers, then helps us bring the experience home with their best recipes. I've just ordered another copy to give a chef-friend, and I'm going to keep one on hand for visitors coming to the area. Whether they like to cook or not, there's gorgeous photography, a travel guide, a bit of history, and inspiration for anyone whose pulse quickens in the face of beauty, bounty and harvest.

Gave as stocking stuffer at Christmas. We frequently visit the North End for dinner and this works perfect to keep track of the places we like and to check out new places to eat!

My parents and I just got home from a trip to Boston and Cape Cod. My big sister had a copy of Rosalie's Guide and we walked around the North End. We found the best lasagna place ever using Rosalie's Guide. I loved Boston and I loved this book. It made our vacation even greater! My pparents said the book was really cool too.

"Rosalie's Guide" is a terrific resource. I bought the 1999 edition last year during a business trip to Boston and found it extremely helpful. The 2000 edition is even more inciteful, and is packed with suggestions for everything ranging from a casual lunch to a formal meal with clients. I strongly recommend this guide to anyone planning a trip to Boston.

"Restaurants in the North End of Boston" is an excellent guide to those out-of-the way places we love to find all by ourselves, but usually don't have the time. Perhaps we can talk her into compiling a similar guide for North Beach in San Francisco. What a treasure this book will be for our next trip to Boston. The restaurants are organized by street and the guide also includes parking information, price ranges, and a map of the area. This guide is a must for anyone who loves to explore new and out of the way places.

A well-written, concise and descriptive pocket guide, Rosalie's Guide is a must for the business traveler and occasional tourist who finds him/herself in the Boston area. Capturing the essence of the very best the North End has to offer - from bakeries to cafes to trattorias - Rosalie's Guide will ensure the very best dining experience! Bon Appetit!

This is a must have for any manager or owner who wants to drive sells in there restaurant. you need this book if you care about what you do for a living.

This is by far the best book out there on service, buy it you wont be disappointed!

I bought this book for my management teams and went through it chapter by chapter every week and created action plans for implementation. It is an easy read and gets everyone on the same page very quickly. Strongly recommended for casual dining environments.

This book it is exactly what it says it is. Easy tips that can help you to run your restaurant and improve the service you offer to your customers. It is more for the owner or the manager but it can be usefull to everybody who is working there even the barmen. I recomend it because of the easy language it uses and because it offers practical solutions to everyday problems.

My manager recommended this book to me. I started using the tips inside before I even finished the book. I saw a difference in my wallet immediately! This book makes your job as a waiter/waitress easier and more profitable. It pays for itself in the first night. I recommend it to all our new hires.

I really enjoyed this book! I have not read very many of Ms.Thomas contemporary novels; I prefer her historical novels, but this one caught me from the start. Her characters a lovable and her heroine/hero are ones you can root for! A great summer read!

In this story you read about two generations and how love for a grandmother the affection that never really died between a grandmother and her affection for a man that she never forgotten and a new love between the grandauther and the man she met. And the emotion of the gradauther when she is confronted with when grandma starts loosing all memory of life.

Allie Daniels was not only poor, but unlucky to boot. Her mother had left her on her grandmother's doorstep and seemed to forget she had a child. For years, Allie and Nana tried to stay one step ahead of poverty but it seemed to be closing in on them.

When Allie gets a letter from a lawyer in Texas she is surprised to find a cashier's check for enough to pay off her bills and travel to Texas to look into the piece of lake property on Twisted Creek that was left to her by her Uncle Jefferson.

But one problem made her believe that her luck hadn't changed ... she nor Nana knew of an Uncle Jefferson!

Allie and Nana make a pledge to make a go of the little store and cafe, at least until the lawyer discovers he made a mistake and contacted the wrong Allie Daniels. Nana is proud commander of the kitchen where she hangs her most cherished possession, a wind chime. Their store is revived and soon becomes the gathering place for both good times and trouble.

You'll laugh. You'll cry. But most of all, you'll remember, as you share the stories of a motley crew of folks who bind together in a time of crisis ... one that will change their lives forever.

I'm a huge fan of Jodi's historical romances but I liked how this one started out and thought I'd give it a read. I'm glad I did.

Jodi Thomas writes the best romances, and they're just that "romances" not bits of dialogue used as filler between sex scenes - she gives you an actual engaging story that you want to follow all the way to the end.

Keep up the good work, Jodi!

Not only did the cover of this book draw me to it, but the excellent reputation of Jodi Thomas did also.

I loved the main characters. They were very real. These people, you feel like you know them, maybe because her characters are just like the people you know. The secondary characters were great as well, I wanted to know more about all of them. All these people were vastly different, yet were a family. The story was well written, and flowed nicely. You feel for all the characters in the book, and Jodi Thomas leaves you wanting more.

I have been fortunate to have eaten at the White Grass Cafe and have always come away more pleasantly surprised than the time before. Laurie and Mary Beth have given us the keys to their kitchen with this book. The food is easy to make, healty, satisfy, heck, it's great. Add some music from Ottmar Liebert in the background, the smell of the wood stove, and you'll be in the West Virginia Mountains as the sun sets over the mountains. Check their menu (...). With the recipes in this book you can serve it up.

The White Grass Cafe Cookbook is one that will travel everywhere with me. The recipes are wonderful and simple to follow. Healthy eating and living is proven easy at White Grass. Anytime I fix something from the cookbook, the smell in our kitchen brings us back to one of our favorite places....White Grass Ski Touring Center and Cafe! Happy Trails!

This is, without a doubt, my favorite cook book! The recipes are simple and easy to follow. The results are special (ie: not your everday sort of mealtime selections) and delicious. The White Grass Cafe cookbook takes over top honors in our kitchen after knocking out a recipe book from a 1950s flour company. Standouts are a Sweet Potato soup that is tangy and soulful and a Walnut pie that is desert's version of heaven! Nothing much in this world beats having a mid-winter dinner at Whitegrass, but this cookbook is a close second!

This cookbook has the best variety of recipes I have ever seen! I love eating at the cafe, but when I am not in Canaan, I can have a taste of it in my house. Lots of good food that people with all different tastes will enjoy.

Never used a cookbook so much. Makes me feel like I'm back in WV. It's truly wonderful. Thanks for being my cooking teachers. Couldn't of done it without you.

After eating at this restaurant in New Orleans recently and seeing the book on the bar I wanted to purchase it. By ordering off of Amazon I got it for $10 less. It is a beautiful book with excellent pictures (many old) from the restaurant plus all the great recipes.

During my last visit to New Orleans my new bride and I became engaged at Arnaud's over a meal that celebrated our happiness. We use Arnaud's Cookbook to make our special occasion meals and when we entertain. The Trout Meuniere and other amazing recipes bring back those memories along with the lavishly photographed restaurant and dishes. The stories and history that accompany it make it special reading, and we keep it prominently displayed on our coffee table. When most cookbooks don't show the finished dish, this one is chock full of delicious pictures to inspire. It you have never been to New Orleans, it will give you a taste and a real feeling of an amazing city.

I enjoyed reading this book...have yet to make a recipe from it...I have some Cajun recipes written on paper from friends and each time I wan't to make something Nola...I keep returning to the tried and true.

A June visit to New Orleans, with dinner at Arnaud's, inspired the purchase of this cookbook. The book more than exceeded my expectations, with interesting anecdotes, beautiful photographs and doable, delicious recipes. The only thing missing is the recipe for the distinctive remoulade sauce they use for Shrimp Arnaud, a great favorite. However, they do sell the sauce so all is not lost. This cookbook is the next best thing to actually going to the restaurant, and offers some truly original recipes.

Arnaud's Restaurant is well known for its leadership in New Orleans cuisine, holding roots from 1918 to modern times and establishing a solid reputation for presenting Creole foods to customers around the world. Now you can enjoy many of these signature dishes at home with Arnaud's Restaurant Cookbook: New Orleans Legendary Creole Cuisine. Each recipe has been adapted for use in home kitchens, translating large-volume and complicated restaurant fare to home cooking. The resulting Creole dishes are very easy to work with - especially given the numerous full-page color photos throughout.

Best take out: Sisini in Trasteverte three blocks from Ponte Cavour. Best,astounding pizza, pasta. No drinks. Busy all day and night. Friendly, fast, very cheap. Try pizza with arugula.
This is not in Cheap Eats but should be.
Best pasta: L'Archetta near Pantheon, on east side of Via Corso near Trevi Fountain. Magnificent spaghetti.

see kosher bakery by main synagogue. Delicious baked goods-ask for 'pizza' a soft biscotti filled with crystallized fruit.

Going to Florence, Rome, or Venice? Like to eat well without breaking the bank? Buy this book. Went on my honeymoon to all three. Brought this book along, and we ate like kings, but paid like paupers. You can't go wrong with any of the restaurant,cafes, etc. suggested. Be aware, however, that the maps are hard to follow for Venice (probably because Venice is such a maze).

My friends and I recently went on spring break to Rome and Florence and we took along the cheap eats book. We had the best food of our lives on a college student's budget. Everything in the book was accurate, in our experience, and even the picky eaters among us were satisfied. We knew exactly what to expect at each place we went, which made things much easier. We actually met Sandra Gustafson at a restaurant in Florence where she was updating her entries for a new edition!

My wife and I have used this book in Rome on two occasions and were extremely satisfied both times. I believe there is now a revision appropriately entitled "Great Eats in Italy". Both books cover Rome, Florence, and Venice. The book is fairly accurate about the menus so you know what to expect (where to go or not to go based on your preferences). The meals are not cheap. They are reasonable. I think the author does herself a diservice but using "cheap eats" in the title of the book. Cheap is not relevant with this book. These are very good places to eat at reasonble prices. You can a vacation just sampling her recommendations. We let other people borrow this book from us when they go to Italy... I bought her other books for Paris, and Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville). She has another one for Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. Keep 'em coming!!!

We just returned from Florence, Venice and Rome. Everyone in our group raved about Cheap Eats recommendations. The food was always good and the price reasonable. The added bonus was a more comfortable setting and local atmosphere. We are more at ease with a casual, friendly atmosphere rather than stuffy, overly formal environments.

This Korean cookbook is filled from cover-to-cover with beautiful photographs of all the traditional Korean dishes. The recipes are traditional as well and have not been modified for a Western palate. No Asian fusion here. I have purchased many of the other top-rated Korean cookbooks from Amazon.com but I consider this one probably the best so far.

Having spent two years in Korea and totally fallen in love with the food, I have a keen sense of taste for Korean food. I've tried just a few of the recipes so far and have been pleasantly surprised with all of them. While the recipes do make amazingly delicious food if you follow them exactly, I tend to alter them just a little to achieve the authentic Korean I am accustomed to.
Recipes are easy to follow and the ingredients can be food at your local Korean market.

This is the perfect cookbook for everything from everyday home cooking to Korean dinner parties! The recipes are straightfoward and easy to follow - I've even made two of the kimchee recipes with fantastic results! Making kimchee was always like a black-box to me--something only my mother and grandma did. But I just followed the instructions, and voila! KIMCHEE success!

I love the accompanying pictures and the picture-list of common Korean ingredients in the beginning of the book. I finally know the "American" names for some of these ingredients, which makes it easier for me to describe dishes to my friends. Anyway - I highly recommend this book!

I just got this book and its the BEST korean cookbook I have found. First of all I'm korean american and I've been looking forever and haven't found one as relevant, with all the recipes you will really use, beautiful colorful photos and how can you beat recipes from the best korean restaurants in LA?? I've been to most of them and this book has picked all the best dishes that these restaurants specialize in. I may stop my chase for anymore cookbooks because it covers all the recipes you need including kimchee! Beautiful, complete, well written like a korean martha stewart cookbook, great job finally!!!!

My Son-in-law is Korean and my daughter is learning to cook authentic Korean food at home. This book is both true to traditional Korean cooking and easy for a non-Korean cook to use. It does help having authentic taste buds at work in the kitchen to make sure everything tastes as it should. I purchased several books for my daughter and Son-in-law, this is the one they use.