CHICKEN SKIN, our second course at Hagi, has been cooked over charcoal until it is crispy, then wound around wooden skewers. Tony picks his clean almost instantly, refills his glass of Sapporo from the pitcher, and starts telling me that he has fallen in love with Asia. So far, he's filmed eight episodes of No Reservations on the other side of the Pacific, on top of about ten he did for A Cook's Tour. His newest book, No Reservations, a photocentric chronicle of the making of the show that will hit shelves at the end of October, contains the official declaration that he has "gone bamboo."

"To be honest, when Chris, Lydia, and I went out to shoot the first episodes of A Cook's Tour in Vietnam, that was it for me," he says. "I didn't care what it cost me. I would do anything to keep doing that, to keep feeling that—to keep seeing those colors … My expectations of life changed so much. My previous life was not enough anymore."

Your previous life as a cook in America? "Even somebody else's life—somebody more successful and secure than I'd ever been. A nice house in Connecticut with savings and enough money to go on a nice vacation—that's not enough! When you've been to the places I've been in Asia, that's it. You want more.

"It's deeply traumatic," he continues. "It's like dropping acid. It really is. Your mind expands."