A few weeks ago on No Reservations (Mondays @10p on the Travel Channel. Check your local listings), Anthony Bourdain travelled to Osaka, a part of Japan I knew very little about even though that’s where my sushi chef Sam hails from. It turns out that Osaka is my kind of town; the people there are absolutely insane about food. They say there’s an old joke that says if you took a native of Tokyo, one from Kyoto and one from Osaka and gave them each a fortune, the Tokyo person would blow it all on shoes, the Kyoto person do the same with clothes and the Osakan would bankrupt himself on food and drink. They even have a specific word to describe this Osakan way of life- Kuidaore (QUEE-da-oh-ray). It roughly translates as “to eat oneself to ruin”. Hrmmm… does that sound like anyone you know? 🙂