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Renegade chef Anthony Bourdain's latest book The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps and Bones is a collection of leftover and previously published essays in which he muses on everything from the world's best sleazy dive bars to the downfall of pretty-boy celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito. Comparing fast food chains to crack dealers, skewering Times Square's fanny-packed tourists or channeling Hunter S. Thompson on a foie gras-fueled trip to Las Vegas, Bourdain has a writing style that's best described as one part Red Bull and two parts unfiltered cigarettes. You can imagine what the staunchly carnivorous chef thinks about the "raw food" movement and its biggest celebrity advocate: "Why would anyone listen to Woody Harrelson about anything more important than...how to make a bong out of a toilet-paper roll and tinfoil?"

Bourdain is at his best when he finds himself in the role of the outsider eating snakehead fish stuffed with pork in Vietnam or fried scorpions in Singapore. He's probably never been more of an outsider than when he had to mingle with the cruisewear set on The World, an ultra-luxurious resort ship where condos start at $2.5 million. His article about living and cooking meals aboard the posh ship is vintage Bourdain when his legendary iron stomach finally met its match in the form of gale force winds and 18-foot waves.

Opinioned rants verge on the self-important, but Bourdain keeps his ego squarely in check with a commentary section in the back of the book. Looking back on his essay romanticizing the days when crack cocaine and muggings were more commonplace in New York, he admits, "Who was I kidding? The bullshit meter is flashing bright red." Just like Bourdain would never order sole meuniere at an Applebee's, his writing is sharpest when it's in his element -- the food world -- and neither his love letter to organized crime nor his saccharine short story quite hit the mark. While this collection of the "nasty bits" isn't as cohesive as his memoir Kitchen Confidential or as seamless as his television show No Reservations, it will tide over Bourdain fans until he writes his next book.