Member Reviews

Thank you for the opportunity to review - this was fun! I enjoyed the journey and development work that went into this and would love to read more.

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Thanks so much to the publisher and to NetGalley for giving me access to this book. Interesting cookbook... Would I use it regularly - probably not but it was interesting to read. Thanks again for letting have a chance to read it.

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Munchies: that recipe book every late night partier needs to make their experience complete. Mouth watering meals full of flavor. The food is meant to be shared, enjoyed, and devoured by more than just a few in a tasty eating extravaganza. But honestly, the recipes are so divine, you really don't need to be drunk to enjoy! Seven layer dip? YES! Cajun coquito? YES, please!

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Ten Speed Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Munchies: Late-Night Meals from the World's Best Chefs. I was under no obligation to review this book and this is my honest opinion.

Munchies brings the web series, Chef's Night Out, to book form, with many of the world's best chefs reminiscing about their favorite ways to unwind with friends after their long shifts in kitchens around the globe.

If readers are looking to kick back and relax with some of the best chefs in the world, then Munchies is the ideal food exploration cookbook. The recipes are not the stars here, which can be a little disconcerting to those who are looking for creative and inspirational dishes. The lengthy descriptions of the chefs and the situations that inspired their recipes are given more prominence. The accompanying photos give Munchies a cookbook feel, but there are really very few recipes for the number of pages. I found myself flipping through the pages to find the few and far between dishes, which does not bode well for the book as a whole. Readers who are looking for a straightforward cookbook should look elsewhere, as Munchies does not deliver on the recipe front. There are many simplistic recipes, like Cheese Quesadillas (p. 69) and Gemelli Pasta with Peas, Chicken, and Mushrooms (p. 129), which seem to outnumber the more intricate ones, like Pad Thai (p. 121).

Munchies was a miss for me, as I would rather choose a cookbook loaded with inspirational dishes than one that neglects the recipes for conversations with the chefs.

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A book playfully put together by inspiration of Chef's Night Out.  

To note, a lot of these "munchies" are made from scratch. If it's late at night and your looking for something FAST, I suggest you find something else to eat (and/or drink) and just read this book (ALONG with your other late night snack!) Seriously, though, I really enjoyed this book and found it to be a lot of fun reading! 

You see, I mislead myself in thinking it would be filled with "easy munchies" recipes....but please know...it's SO MUCH MORE!
 
The chapters go through drinks, sandwiches, things with tortillas (THINGS, lol), Morning After recipes and....uh...a chapter called Hardcore! There are 8 chapters total, all the way to desserts!
 
Munchies took me completely in to another fascinating world built creatively in it's photos, storytelling and sometimes "strong" words (lol, again), and VERY INTERESTING ingredients! Be prepared-in a playful way!

I feel this book would make a FABULOUS gift to anyone who loves the art of cooking and who has a great sense of humor!

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Munchies by JJ Goode and Helen Hollyman promises recipes for Late Night Meals from the World's Greatest Chefs". I was very disappointed with this book for three reasons. First, I do not understand the foul language. I know professional chefs curse, but adding it to a book does not make one cool, intelligent, or professional. Second, one of the recipes is for a grilled cheese. It literally lists the ingredients as bread, butter, and cheese. If someone needs a recipe for a grilled cheese, I am not sure she should be operating a cook top unsupervised. Third, another of the recipes includes two cans refried beans in the ingredient list. Am I supposed to believe that the "World's Greatest Chef's" use canned refried beans? Refried beans are easy to make. This book is obviously for a different audience than myself.

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I enjoyed the concept of this book, it's a bit like Diners, Drive ins and Dives in book form. Visiting restaurants, writing tid-bits, and recipes, and taste-testing.
What I really did NOT like was the swearing. I really find it unnecessary to flavour the text with swearing. I find it more offensive when I read it. I don't see anything added to a book that has the F-word littered throughout.
Maybe I'm a prude, but that's my opinion.

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Great munchies with many variations. with wonderful pictures.......

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I didn't think the recipes were all that interesting or tempting to recreate.

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A good gathering of recipes but I was hoping for more story to them. The recipes seem a little intense and I'm not sure I could put those together while drunk. Therefore, I'm not really sure why this book exists. There's not enough story to keep me involved but the recipes aren't accessible enough that I could make them.

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Is there anyone out there who doesn’t crave munchies late at night? And who isn’t interested to learn what famous chefs prepare late at night when their cravings appear? MUNCHIES: Late-Night Meals from the World's Best Chefs is a delightful cookbook filled with mouthwatering dishes that are perfect for serving late at night. They have all been featured on the popular television show, Chef’s Night Out. Of course chefs who cook during the day are most likely not up to going home and cooking more, so these dishes are quite easy and less involved than what would be expected from a famous chef.

One chef, Dominique Crenn, who has been awarded two Michelin stars, eats grilled cheese after hours, and gives perfect instructions for making these comforting sandwiches at home. Alisa Reynolds, Chef at My Two Cents, takes the grilled cheese to an ethereal realm with her delicious Fried Shrimp and Bacon Grilled Cheese. There are several Asian recipes for favorites such as Pad Thai, Chinese Drunken Noodles, and Fried Chicken Fried Rice. Some of the recipes require a bit of prep work and some of the components are made ahead, but nothing in the cookbook is too involved or time-consuming. There is an excellent recipe for Poutine, which is a calorie-laden dish of French fries with cheese curds and gravy, and an incredibly delicious Tuscan Fried Chicken from Robert Bohr of Charlie Bird. Those with a sweet tooth won’t be disappointed with the sweet offerings such as Blackout Stout Cake and Toasted Coconut Lemon Curd tart. Yum!

An important note: All of the recipes turn out exactly like they are supposed to, and end up picture perfect. The instructions are organized and succinct. Anybody can actually prepare these dishes – no culinary school degree needed, and the photographs let home cooks know just how each dish should look when finished.

All told, MUNCHIES: Late-Night Meals from the World's Best Chefs is a fun cookbook for anyone who gets cravings late at night or happens to have hungry friends hanging around.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

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Slightly complicated for the premise of something you could rustle up after a few drinks but a book of deliciously sinful munchies all the same!

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The premise of this recipe book is 'chefs tell you what they cook drunk at night' and I found that in that, it was probably perfect: complicated, niche-ingredient recipes for the food experts. For the lay-person, this book is a little less useful. I read it with a pen in hand, ready to write down any recipes I wanted to try, and I didn't find even one. If you're a fan of chefs, give this a read - otherwise still to Nigella's comfort food recipes.

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I received this arc from Netgalley for an honest review.
This is kind of a toss up for me. I thought that this would be a cookbook with recipes from the tv show. What I got was a book with some recipes and the stories behind them, which is fine, but it just wasn't what I was expecting when looking at the cover. I think it will be a popular holiday gift though for the foodies out there.

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I love that homemade fernet begins the books! I likely won;t do more that taste it, but have family and friends who may enjoy it! The food recipes in this book sound wonderful! The grilled cheese sandwiches are worth a shot as is the softcrab sliders! I loved that there were taco recipes for pulled pork and quesadillas

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While scrolling through this gourmet-wannabe book, I uttered a sentence I hope never to repeat: "This book has too many Words."

If you are going to make a 50,000 word cookbook, the non-food related paragraphs better have a purpose. If you promised me munchies, I don't want to read an 800 word biography of the chef who sold you this recipe. I can do with a funny story of how the chef invented this recipe, but it has to be creatively written. Otherwise you are boring me and taxing my already poor eyesight with unnecessary words.

Following on the munchie theme, these guys need to take a cue from Jack in the Box and find some creativity. If someone wants munchies, they don't want to have to go shopping to create a mini bistro in their one room apartment. They want inspired combinations of foods that are generally readily available and cheap to create (preferably with a microwave but definitely faster than you can make a pack of instant Ramen)

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OMG. Just reading the table of contents made me get my drool on -- fried shrimp and bacon grilled cheese, soft-shell crab sliders, "things with tortillas', 'hardcore' (goat poutine with redeye gravy) -- WHAT?! I don't care if I have to hit the gym harder (well....okay, maybe I do, but it'll be worth it). "How to drink vodka like a Russian" -- not that I needed to be enabled to do so, but hey, life is short! It's a great book to read for fun, however in terms of the layout, I would have preferred better photos and numbered instructions for recipes; I'm more of a step-by-step follower than a narrative reader when it comes to recipes. I'm not familiar with the show "Chef's Night Out", nor did I recognize many of the chefs (I live under a rock), but it was the food and drink that got me (and that's the most important thing, right?)

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This is the opening paragraph of Amazon’s official description of MUNCHIES: Late-Night Meals from the World’s Best Chefs by JJ Goode and Helen Hollyman.

This cookbook, based on the game-changing web series Chef’s Night Out, features stories of the world’s best chefs’ debauched nights on the town, and recipes for the food they cook to soak up the booze afterwards.
Yes, my little chickadees. MUNCHIES captured my attention from the word GO. I was already a fan of Chef’s Night Out. BUT… famous and respected chefs? (Anthony Bourdain, Dominique Crenn, David Chang, Danny Bowien, Wylie Dufresne, Inaki Aizpitarte, and Enrique Olvera, among others.) Debauchery? Foodie hijinx? This is a party in book form that was just waiting to happen.

My To Make List is deceptively short. Don’t let that list fool you, dear readers. I’d eat nearly everything in this cookbook and I found reading it enormously entertaining. I even giggled like a kid a few times. If you love food porn and chef stories, you probably will too. It is the cooking of some products that causes me to fall short. Let’s take uni for example. I would absolutely eat the Scrambled Eggs with Uni dish in this book. However, I’m pretty sure that it is safe to assume that I would have a tough time sourcing uni in Topeka, KS. Add into that a schedule that can be prohibitive and some of the more labor and time intensive dishes dropped off the list of things I might actually attempt.

My ‘To Make’ List:

David Chang’s Pork Buns
April Bloomfield’s Chopped Liver on Toast
Paulie Gee’s Hellboy Pizza
Leah Cohen’s Pad Thai
Michael White’s Late Night Carbonara
Dale Talde’s Nasi Lemak
Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinki’s Oxtail Curry with Roti
Rajat Parr’s Cardamom Rice Pudding
Agatha Kulaga and Erin Patinkin’s Blackout Stout Cake
Jamie Bissonnette’s Scrambled Eggs and Potato Chips

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3<b>I am not hungry </b> Stars

I don't think this cookbook/storybook was for me. Only about 3 recipes really jumped out at me and they were the simple easy ones : Grilled Cheese, Poutine and Carne Asada burrito... i wanted to love this ... but i didn't. I am not sure if my reading it on a kindle was the cause but i felt the recipes and stories didn't always flow and yet sometimes it flowed wonderfully. For the Poutine recipe there was seriously good flow it went from a classic pouting to a goat poutine to a Chicken Tikka Poutine and it showed how versatile one recipe can be but others it would skip around. They discussed a ramen recipe in Austin and yet never talked about the exact recipe or what type of ramen only that it existed and its apparently good. \
what hurt the book is that sometimes the left page would have ingredients for part of a recipe then the right page would have the title of the recipe and then cooking directions... i feel like the title needs to be with the ingredient list.

i found i enjoyed most of the photos taken and i did enjoy that almost every recipe had a photo especially since some recieps have unheard of titles to me such as Dale Talde.But not ever foreign name had a photo so it kind of deterred me from attempting.

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Some really good recipes that made my mouth water. There were some stories I found interesting.

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