Pretty Good Number One: An American Family Eats Tokyo - Softcover

Amster-Burton, Matthew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0983162980 ISBN 13: 9780983162988

Publisher: Viaduct Music, 2014

Synopsis

Everyone knows how to live the good life in Paris, Provence, or Tuscany. Now, Matthew Amster-Burton makes you fall in love with Tokyo. Experience this exciting and misunderstood city through the eyes of three Americans vacationing in a tiny Tokyo apartment. Follow 8-year-old Iris on a solo errand to the world's greatest supermarket, picnic on the bullet train, and eat a staggering array of great, inexpensive foods, from eel to udon. A humorous travel memoir in the tradition of Peter Mayle and Bill Bryson, Pretty Good Number One is the next best thing to a ticket to Tokyo.

Includes a new afterword by the author featuring Christmas in Tokyo, fried UFOs, a robotic sushi restaurant, and more.

"The layers of the city, its extraordinary food pleasures, its quirkinesses, emerge as the author and his family spend an intense month living in Tokyo and exploring widely...Warning: this book will make you hungry. You'll yearn, as I do, to catch the next plane to Tokyo, so you can get eating."

—Naomi Duguid, writer and traveler; her most recent book is BURMA: Rivers of Flavor (Artisan 2012)

"This is the book I've been hoping Matthew would write: smart, opinionated, and wickedly funny, crammed with in-the-know tips and observations about visiting Tokyo. From the intricacies of garbage sorting to the chirpy jingle for the local supermarket, the pleasures of pan-fried soup dumplings to the pain of junsai, I laughed, cringed, and got so hungry that I had to eat three bowls of cereal to make it to the end. I love this book."

—Molly Wizenberg, author of A Homemade Life and creator of Orangette

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Pretty Good Number One will put a smile on your face quicker than you can say 'Arigato!'... Perfectly sums up all of the reasons why I myself fell in love with the country, and why, once you have been, you will want to return again and again."

--Rachael Hutchings, LaFujiMama.com

"A must-read for anyone traveling to Tokyo or dreaming of that future trip."

--Yukari Sakamoto, author of Food Sake Tokyo

About the Author:

Matthew Amster-Burton is a food writer with credits in Best Food Writing, The Seattle Times, Gourmet, Seattle Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal—as well as his food blog, Roots and Grubs. He also co-hosts the hit podcast Spilled Milk. Matthew lives in Seattle with his wife Laurie, a school librarian, and his daughter Iris.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viaduct Music
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0983162980
• ISBN 13: 9780983162988
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 264