I saw the waiter rant book, too, but am waiting to hear if reviews are favorable or not. Kitchen Conf. didn’t make me feel like I needed to read a whole lot more true confessions about restaurants. There are some things I feel better about NOT knowing.

I read the book in 2006, also late. I really enjoyed it because I used to work in a restaurant kitchen while putting myself through school. I also bussed tabled and waitressed and even had to wash the grimiest of pots and pans by hand. The book was very true although in the mid-1980s for me we had mostly white workers with some Mexicans not the Equadorians that Boudain writes of. I worked with some surly characters so I felt the book was accurate in describing some people that he worked with similarly.

I credit FoodTV in general and the explosion of cooking shows in the early and mid 1990s combined with Martha Stewart’s show and magazine (pre-jail period) for the boom in interest in cooking at home.

A self published book which IMO tries to copy Kitchen Confidential but the view of the waiter of a fine restaurant in Wash DC is Fine Dining Madness by John Galloway. I read half of that and found it more crude and more judgmental.

Very recently a new waiter book came out titled Waiter Rant which was a blook–a blog that resulted in a book. I heard that author interviewed on a radio talk show and it made me want to read the book. I missed out on getting a review copy. I’ll check for it in my library but I doubt I’ll spend my money to buy a copy. I just have too many books in my TBR pile and too many things vyying for my time to read all that I want to read.

Have a great day.

(Linked through from Semicolon’s Sat Review of Books and I also am a faithful reader of MentalMultivitamin like you.)