Matthew Amster-Burton

A food critic and writer shares his experiences as a stay-at-home parent to his young daughter, Iris, who he endeavored to expose to the richness of his culinary world, in an account that describes how he came to understand the wonder of tasting foods from a child's first-time perspective.

A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater

Hungry Monkey

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. Now with a new afterword by the author, covering robotic sushi and spending the holidays in Tokyo. "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 blogger, Orangette

An American Family Eats Tokyo

Pretty Good Number One

Becky Selengut

A bite-sized (100+ page) Tokyo food adventure, perfect for your carry-on luggage. One November, two friends left their families at home and set out on an epic food crawl that found them ogling robots, eating just-dispatched eel, drinking whisky chilled with hand-carved ice balls, consuming fish sperm on purpose, and getting kicked out of public baths. An all-new illustrated book from Seattle food writers Matthew Amster-Burton (Pretty Good Number One) and Becky Selengut (Good Fish, Shroom), with manga-inspired illustrations by Denise Sakaki.

Two Food Writers Devour Tokyo

Not One Shrine

"Like all of Matthew Amster-Burton's books, Child Octopus puts you right into the middle of his travels, chopstick to chopstick. With Iris and Matthew as my guides, I would virtually and literally go anywhere." -Becky Selengut, author of Shroom: Mind-bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms Seattle food writer Matthew Amster-Burton grew up on Chinese-American food. One day, he decided to take his ten-year-old daughter out for Chinese...in Hong Kong. Join two adventurous eaters as they explore night markets, hawker centers, gargatuan malls, and a fancy dim sum palace, all while living out their food fantasy: spending a week without having to eat anything other than Chinese food. Along with Matthew and Iris, you'll: * Ride the world's most exhilarating form of public transportation * Eat crispy rice, egg tarts, Hong Kong French toast, and a spicy chicken dish with more chiles than chicken * Hang out with locals (human and feline) * Discover Iris's supervillain lair, high above the city Featuring two dozen black and white photos, Child Octopus is the first installment in a new series of short ebooks about Asian food and travel.We're not experts. We just got here. And we're hungry.

Matthew Amster-Burton

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