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Pu Pu Hot Pot
100 snapshots of the world's most amazing, dreadful and utterly bizarre restaurant names
"What's in a name?" —William Shakespeare (foodie)
For too long, restaurants have been judged on the quality of their food. In some parts of the world, chefs have been known to waste literally hours of their lives carefully preparing and cooking stuff, only for other people to eat it and, later, part ways with it. This insanity must stop. There is only one thing to look for in a restaurant; a secret hidden in the pages of this laugh-out loud hilarious book.
Ben Brusey has scoured the globe from Sunderland to Majorca to find the world's best-named restaurants, bars, and cafes. Breathtaking discoveries have been made, new standards of culinary excellence have been set. So, cancel that table at Per Se, forget that drink at the John Dory Oyster Bar, and open wide for a mouthful of wisdom guaranteed to leave you hungry, thirsty, and gagging for more.
Why not savour the culinary delights of:
A SALT & BATTERY (New York, USA). Chef's tip: Don't make eye contact with him.
NEW COD ON THE BLOCK (Sheffield, UK). Previously THE GILL NEXT DOOR.
PHO SHIZZLE (Cambridge, Canada). Vietnamese has never been so gangsta.
THAI TANIC (Washington DC, USA). Our tip: Avoid the Iceberg Lettuce.
HINDENBURGER (Toronto, Canada). Flame grilled and disastrously good.
PU PU HOT POT (Boston, USA). The critics say: Chinese food guaranteed to put fire in your belly.
JESUS FAMILY RESTAURANT (Fort Worth, Texas). The Lord grills in mysterious ways.
"What's in a name?" —William Shakespeare (foodie)
For too long, restaurants have been judged on the quality of their food. In some parts of the world, chefs have been known to waste literally hours of their lives carefully preparing and cooking stuff, only for other people to eat it and, later, part ways with it. This insanity must stop. There is only one thing to look for in a restaurant; a secret hidden in the pages of this laugh-out loud hilarious book.
Ben Brusey has scoured the globe from Sunderland to Majorca to find the world's best-named restaurants, bars, and cafes. Breathtaking discoveries have been made, new standards of culinary excellence have been set. So, cancel that table at Per Se, forget that drink at the John Dory Oyster Bar, and open wide for a mouthful of wisdom guaranteed to leave you hungry, thirsty, and gagging for more.
Why not savour the culinary delights of:
A SALT & BATTERY (New York, USA). Chef's tip: Don't make eye contact with him.
NEW COD ON THE BLOCK (Sheffield, UK). Previously THE GILL NEXT DOOR.
PHO SHIZZLE (Cambridge, Canada). Vietnamese has never been so gangsta.
THAI TANIC (Washington DC, USA). Our tip: Avoid the Iceberg Lettuce.
HINDENBURGER (Toronto, Canada). Flame grilled and disastrously good.
PU PU HOT POT (Boston, USA). The critics say: Chinese food guaranteed to put fire in your belly.
JESUS FAMILY RESTAURANT (Fort Worth, Texas). The Lord grills in mysterious ways.
- GenresHumorNonfiction
200 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2012
2 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 9, 2013
The signs, for the most part, are funny, but the "jokes"
that the "author" captions each photo with are obscure and impenetrable. Or else just plain not funny. Or else in extremely poor taste. Glad I didn't spend money on this.
that the "author" captions each photo with are obscure and impenetrable. Or else just plain not funny. Or else in extremely poor taste. Glad I didn't spend money on this.
March 20, 2019
This book is amazing!!! My favourite is Grow numb Biscuits. Also Phât Phúc and lord of the fries and my MOST FAVOURITE is MY DUNG 💩
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 7, 2025
😳👉👈what if we kissed
at the Pee & Poo Steakhouse🙈🥹
at the Pee & Poo Steakhouse🙈🥹
November 1, 2023
Entertaining for the pound I paid but I wouldn’t have paid full price. The normal mix of puns and accidentally funny names. Does include the restaurant Cabbages and Condoms. This actually started as a small shop selling vegetables and condoms in The Population and Community Development Association offices in Thailand and the money raised went to support their work. It’s now a chain with 2 restaurants in the UK now and the money made still goes to support the work of the PDA.
September 1, 2016
Given the length of this book, this'll be a short review. There's a real chance that if I rabbit on to my usual length, I'll end up with something wiht a higher word-count than the thing I'm reviewing.
(Though it'd also probably be more enjoyable. BOOM!)
Well, not entirely. This is one of those books that's generally bought at bargain basement bookstores as stocking filler. It could be the result of a blog, or just a spur-of-the-moment "I could write a book!" thought process. War and Peace it ain't.
The book consists of about 100 pictures, each prefaced by a woeful/unnecessary caption. (Seriously, these things are almost universally not funny.) The pictures could've stood on their own, for the most part. Broadly speaking, there's three types: Engrish, witty and WTF/scatological. Engrish ones are understandable (if a bit tired) and yes, it's a book called Pu Pu Hot Pot so it was likely the travails of the arse would come in at some point. But I still contend that dining establishments such as Fishcotheque or Jason Donervan will always be funny.
There's also some kind of cheap shots in the book. The most obvious one is a shot, apparently of an Indian restaurant called Vagina. So far, so funny. Except that Blind Freddy can see that it's only apparently called that because of the obscuring of the first leg of the first letter: it's clearly called Nagina. Yeah, I know, maybe it was a submission and maybe it's funny and that's why it's running but surely there's more humourous names out there that would ensure one didn't need to resort to this kind of flim-flammery.
You know from the title and cover what you'll get: about 20 minutes of occasional laughs, and more dad-joke/unfunny groans that seem right in one publication. It's fine for what it is, but really, you'll get the same effect next time someone cobbles together a Buzzfeed listicle of this kind of thing.
(Though it'd also probably be more enjoyable. BOOM!)
Well, not entirely. This is one of those books that's generally bought at bargain basement bookstores as stocking filler. It could be the result of a blog, or just a spur-of-the-moment "I could write a book!" thought process. War and Peace it ain't.
The book consists of about 100 pictures, each prefaced by a woeful/unnecessary caption. (Seriously, these things are almost universally not funny.) The pictures could've stood on their own, for the most part. Broadly speaking, there's three types: Engrish, witty and WTF/scatological. Engrish ones are understandable (if a bit tired) and yes, it's a book called Pu Pu Hot Pot so it was likely the travails of the arse would come in at some point. But I still contend that dining establishments such as Fishcotheque or Jason Donervan will always be funny.
There's also some kind of cheap shots in the book. The most obvious one is a shot, apparently of an Indian restaurant called Vagina. So far, so funny. Except that Blind Freddy can see that it's only apparently called that because of the obscuring of the first leg of the first letter: it's clearly called Nagina. Yeah, I know, maybe it was a submission and maybe it's funny and that's why it's running but surely there's more humourous names out there that would ensure one didn't need to resort to this kind of flim-flammery.
You know from the title and cover what you'll get: about 20 minutes of occasional laughs, and more dad-joke/unfunny groans that seem right in one publication. It's fine for what it is, but really, you'll get the same effect next time someone cobbles together a Buzzfeed listicle of this kind of thing.
May 17, 2015
Fun book! A bit on the short side, maybe. Some of these show some demented ingenuity on the part of the restaurant owners ("Pho Shizzle" still makes me smile.) Others are clearly the result of people in other countries not being aware of the nuances of English slang. A few seem to be cases of strategic blotting out of parts of the original sign. Many of these have made the rounds of Facebook ("Thai Tanic" and "Phat Phuc" spring to mind.) It's a fun book to giggle over with friends, but a bit on the light and fluffy side.
August 2, 2015
The names and pictures of these restaurants are hilarious. The captions and commentary by the author really needed some more work. The other thing that these pictures are missing are the city locations for these establishments instead of the continent they reside on. Even a country location would have been better.
March 28, 2013
Nice picture book
June 15, 2015
Bought this book for friends of mine that own several restaurants and have books floating in said establishments. Fun!
September 26, 2015
This was a good laugh
November 10, 2013
AWESOMENESS!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews