101 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die: Discover a New World of Flavors in Authentic Recipes

*I've updated my review since I originally published it. I first wrote the review 3 days after I received the book and had only made a few recipes. Now I've cooked my way 1/3 of the way through! My glowing 5-star review remains the same.* I’m a major Asian food snob (or at least I like to think I am) – I used to live in South Korea and spent a year travelling Asia. I also own so many cookbooks that I have to hide Amazon packages from my boyfriend so he won’t see I bought another cookbook. :) I pre-ordered this book because I just love Jet Tila! I watch him on Cutthroat Kitchen, I follow him on Instagram, and I watch his AWESOME Facebook Live cooking demos. This book basically covers most of Asia (Thai food, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, India, etc) – and Jet is one of the few chefs I trust to be able to pull off a whole continent. I did not need another cookbook (especially Asian food.. I own every Korean cookbook written in the last 15 years & about 25 other Asian cookbooks..), but this book is just stellar & we’ve had Jet’s recipes for dinner 3 nights in a row now! The typical cookbook has only a couple recipes that sound good & I may make 1 or 2 things out of the entire book. Looking through this book, EVERY SINGLE recipe sounds delicious! “Oh, I should make that! Oh, I bet we have the ingredients for that. Ohhh, maybe I’ll make that! Oh, that looks good!!” I’ve read the book cover-to-cover, and I just love Jet’s comments and pointers on each recipe & the abundance of pictures. So far, I’ve made Korean spicy grilled chicken, Pad Thai, and panang chicken curry. All 3 recipes turned out spectacularly! The Korean chicken was perfectly balanced sweet & spicy, just as I remember from Korea. I’ve made pad thai twice in the past, and it’s SUCH a hassle & mine always has turned out a little mushy and oddly thick. This recipe is written in a far more approachable way vs. the unnecessarily complicated recipes I’ve attempted to follow in the past. Jet’s tips on when you the noodles are done with their soak, when they’re done being stir-fried, and when you add the sauce to finish were all key for making the perfect dish. I was so impressed! Neat to read Jet’s family was one of the first to bring Pad Thai to America 40 years ago. I received this book in the mail on a work day, so I’m looking forward grocery shopping this weekend to stock my pantry, so I can make things other than just the chicken recipes. I love that there are no wacky, impossible-to-find ingredients in this book. No special trips to Asia required to find some sauce they only make it a little village in the middle of nowhere.. I live in the boonies of Northern California & every ingredient is wildly available in our grocery store or the little Asian market. I’m obsessed with Thai sticky rice, so I’m excited about the straight-forward instructions on how to make it! I’ve looked online in the past & it always seemed too complicated. Can’t wait to make the sticky rice & then to Jet’s mango sticky rice. YUM. The coconut chicken soup sounds delicious, Jet’s famous drunken noodles, as well as miso roasted cod – I always buy cod and never know what to do with it. I could go on & on about which recipes I'm excited to make, but then I will have listed everything in the book... This is a very non-intimidating, yet wonderfully authentic cookbook everyone should own. I’m going to see how many nights in a row I can make dinner out of this book, but I don’t think I’ll have a problem trying every recipe. 3 nights down, maybe 60 more to go! Go buy this book, it’s awesome!

Love this cookbook Lots of delicious recipes that came out perfect Easy to follow Great chef

Best recipe book ever. Each recipe was clear and precise. Every ingredient was listed, and the full -color photos were helpful as well.

I love this book and find most of the recipes really easy to follow. I do feel that some of the cook times are a little shorter than reality on a non-industrial strength stove, but overall I really enjoy this.

MUST HAVE COOKBOOK! I didn't even know who Jet Tila was, i was scrolling thru amazon for a good cookbook. When i seen his title "101 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook before you Die" I stopped and read a little about it, that totally caught my attention cause I usually tell my friends you need to try this before you die LOL so I had a feeling his recipes had to be good with that kind of statement. I own a lot of Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Taiwanese cookbooks.. All of my cookbook collection has nothing on this Jet Tila's cookbook. For example all the cookbooks I have I only want to make maybe a handful of the recipes in the cookbook, and from Jet Tilas cookbook I want to make all 101 recipes! I've never felt that way about any cookbook. So far I've owned it for a week, ive read it front to back, I learned the differences in Thai Sriracha and I finally understand that when cooking Thai food when it calls for "Soy Sauce" I need to use "Thai Soy Sauce" aka Golden Mountain Sauce or Maggi not Kikoman soy sauce thats only for Japanese dishes.. So far i have made two of his recipes, Pineapple fried rice and the Drunken Noodles. I had most of the seasonings on hand, just needed to buy a few things, fresh noodles and for the first time ive purchased Chinese sausage for the rice recipe and its delicious. As I was prepping and cooking the smell throughout the house felt like i was at a Thai restaurant. Smelled so good and I got compliments from my girlfriend and mom that it smelled amazing with the garlic, Thai chile's, onions etc.. I sampled the rice and the noodles while cooking and I honestlyhave never been so excited before the taste of the food was perfect. The recipe is 100% on point and taste like an experienced Thai Chef made it but it was me in the kitchen following Jet Tilas recipe step by step. Im so thankful and so happy to have this cookbook, I honestly dont even care about any of my other cookbooks. This is my go to for the next 99 recipes Im seriously going to make all of them. I stocked my spice pantry up for each recipe. Jet Tila I LOVE YOU! I wish I could quit work and be in my kitchen all day making all his recipes. Tonight im trying the Char Sui recipe. :) Also just a tip for the Thai Sriracha sauce I personally asked Jet Tila what brand to buy and he said Shark Brand. I went to my local Asian market which mostly sells Vietnamese stuff but to my surprise they had tons of Thai products and they had Thai Sriracha Shark Brand.

The most straightforward cookbook! It makes you want to try everything!

I love jet he has great recipes and his knife skill are amazing

My Marine son loves to cook and really likes certain foods he discovered while stationed in Okinawa. I wanted to give him a kitchen display or coffee table book to both use & display as a conversation starter whenever he has visitors over. He meal preps and cooks mountains of homemade food every week…it’s just him! lol I look forward to visiting him now as he’s stateside and letting him introduce me to all the culturally different food he experienced abroad and while on missions.