A Cook's Tour of Hong Kong

HK Magazine: What are you trying to get out of this trip?
Anthony Bourdain: No more crazy food. I’m not interested. What I’m looking for are the people from Hong Kong, longtime residents. It’s late, you’re a bit drunk, what do you do for pleasure? What’s fun? What’s your local place? I don’t want to go to the best or fanciest restaurant. I don’t want to eat the weirdest food. Lifelong residents of Hong Kong, born and bred - what gives them pleasure? What’s everyday food? What does Hong Kong taste and smell and feel like for people who really know the town?

HK: Do you get some locals to guide you around?
AB: Yes, always. It’s very helpful to contact chefs and cooks. Where chefs and cooks like to eat and drink after work is always a useful starting point. And marketplaces. I’m much more interested in street and night markets and working-class everyday food. I’m not looking to make “Jackass” or shock horror food or “Fear Factor.” That’s not what I’m about at all anymore. Of all of the cities in the world, Hong Kong is one of the most fantastic food destinations.

HK: Favorite Chinese food?
AB: It’s such a terrible question because is there any cuisine larger, more varied, more fantastic than Chinese? There are so many things I love. In the heart and soul of every great cook, everywhere in the world, I think there’s a Chinese guy. A perfect soup dumpling or a good Peking duck or roast pig, those are all wonderful things to me; Sichuan hot pot... I could go on forever.

HK: Do you think Hong Kong is a real foodie town?
AB: Food in Hong Kong or China is about how many generations came before to get the food exactly right. When you eat even a simple thing like suckling pig or roast duck, you’re very aware that for centuries, or at least for generations, possibly one cook after another after another in the same family has been working very, very hard to get it right and keep it good. There is so much tradition, so much wisdom, so much practice and experience and love and passion involved in even the simplest thing, that the Chinese can make anything good, whether it’s chicken feet or duck tongues. It’s a wonderland of food.

HK: You talked about the French and how they use the discards, like tripe, in your book, “The Nasty Bits.” Is that a shared trait with the Chinese?
AB: Absolutely. That’s exactly what I mean when I say that in the hearts of every great cook, anywhere, are certain commonalities. The really great cuisines of the world, the really great cooks, understand that any idiot can cook a steak or lobster. The real cooks are free of what A.J. Leibling calls the “crippling handicap of affluence.” They come from cultures that understand every little bit is either good already or that there is some way to make it good. And a culture as old as China has had a lot of time to figure out how to make everything good. One of the things that’s fascinated me as I’ve traveled is the common denominator in all great cuisines is the ability to celebrate and make good the nasty bits.

HK: Best experience of your recent Asia travels?
AB: Sichuan hot pot was a particularly enjoyable one. I’d never been to China before, so that was very exciting - my first taste of the mainland. It was a truly sadomasochistic experience. The pain from the Sichuan peppers and the numbing, cooling floral effect of the flower peppers was a really exciting new spectrum of sensation and flavor. I really loved it.