I’m fully expecting Hong Kong Phooey to sign up to be a contestant on this show.

A new dating series based on the notion that “boys love their toys” will pit girls against gadgets in an attempt to answer that age-old question: hottie or hot HDTV? In a twist on the reality TV staple For Love or Money, Playboy TV’s Gadget or the Girl will make contestants choose between a weekend getaway with a girl of their choice or a surprise high-tech toy.

Some photos of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies:

This week Anthony Bourdain returns to Japan. In his blog, he notes:

Utility sushi is suddenly, no longer enough. You will be at least dimly aware that there’s “rice” and then there’s a universe of unknowable varieties and subtly different grades and preparations — about which neither you nor I have enough time left to learn enough about to even fake a conversation with a skilled sushi chef.

When, for a few days, or hours, your mouth comes to know the taste and feel of fish for which the proprietor paid $300 to $400 wholesale … when you wrap two fingers — gently — around slightly warm, crumbly/soft rice — over which a perfectly cut, slightly dressed piece of mackerel served at just the right temperature has been lovingly draped … when you realize the old man in front of you has spent fifty or more YEARS just getting these seemingly simple things right, you enter a whole new dimension of food appreciation.

(Apologies in advance if some of this, or even all of this, is stuff I’ve written about before.) In 1994, I was about to make my first trip to Tokyo. I was 40 years old and had never tasted sushi. Where I came from, it just wasn’t something people ate, it was something people joked about.

I figured I’d better find out what I was in for before I got there. I was on a project in Atlanta. I found a sushi bar, went in and told them, “I’ve never eaten this stuff before. Give me an assortment and don’t tell me what any of it is!” There were 8 pieces, each different, and I liked them all. I called the waitress over and asked her to tell me, piece by piece, what I had just eaten.

The following week, I arrived in Tokyo, got to my office at lunch time and they said, “We’re just about to go out for lunch. Do you eat sushi?” “Of course!” And my education began.

In 1995, I met the woman who’d become my second wife when I was working in Kuala Lumpur. She had lived in Japan. And one of her good friends was the master sushi chef at a Japanese restaurant in a 5 star hotel in KL. This was one of those classically trained, lifetime devoted chefs that you may have only read about. And because she was his good friend and I was her boyfriend, he took me through it, bit by bit. The first time I went there, he learned what I liked. After that, I was never allowed to order. He created each menu for me based on what was fresh, what he knew I liked and didn’t like. He showed me how to look at the fish, how to know what was fresh and what wasn’t, everything that simply enhanced my sushi experience for probably the rest of my life. I got to accompany my wife on many of her business trips to Japan and go along for business dinners where we were taken to some of the finest sushi places in town.

I’ve probably been to Tokyo 100 times by now. The guy who manages my team in Tokyo, he told me that everytime his last boss came to visit, he had to take him to Tony Roma. I promised him that I would never ask him to do that.

For each visit, he checks the reviews for the latest and greatest places (well, the ones that fall within our budget), prints out a map, and we go off hunting. He knows me well enough by now to try to make sure that we always have at least one thing I’ve never had before. And I’ve learned that when I go with him, when I don’t recognize something, I eat it first and ask what it is later. I will not allow myself to lose face by refusing any food put in front of me.

The thing is, the Japanese are so knowledgeable about sushi and there is so much competition there that even the cheap places – the robot belt places, the all night joints around Kabuki-cho, the shops at Narita – are all at least decent quality. Every trip to Tokyo, my last meal is always lunch at Narita, and it’s always sushi. I’ve had guys in those places ask me if I live in Japan – they say I know how to order like a Japanese and the stuff I order is at least somewhat different from the standard tourist fare.

The downside is that I can’t eat the cheap shit, and the great majority of HK sushi joints feature the cheap shit. Kids in town love to line up at those conveyor belt joints, because they’re cheap and I guess they feel it’s something special. But the fish served in those places is pretty tasteless. I’ve watched people fill up their little dipping bowls with wasabi and then just a dash of soy sauce on top. I realized that in these places, that’s not a bad thing because otherwise there’s no flavor to the food.

I know there are a bunch of good places in HK for sushi and I want to stress that I haven’t begun to find all of them. With the amount of Japanese tourists and expats here, there are plenty of quality spots. The problem is, all the places that I’ve found that I like are actually more expensive than some of the seriously good places in Japan. My favorite spot is Sushi Hiro in Causeway Bay, where a meal for two always runs me at least HK$1,000, and that’s not including the sake. I was also pleasantly surprised by Rei Sushi, over at IFC. Years ago, I also used to enjoy Tomokazu in Causeway Bay, but I thought on my last few visits there they had gone downhill – but that was years ago and they’re still there, did they get better again?

I’ve also had some incredibly fabulous meals at the Japanese restaurant at the Kowloon Shangri-La, where most of the staff is imported from Japan along with most of the ingredients. But each time I’ve gone for the full-on kaiseki dinner, which rivals what I’ve had in Japan but costs more than I care to think about.

(By the way, Japanese but not sushi, I’ve had really good tonkatsu at Tonkichi at World Trade Centre in Causeway Bay. And there’s this little two-store chain in CWB called Japanese Curry Bee that does nice Japanese style curry and decent ramen, cheap and cheerful.)

Anyway, of course I’ll be downloading and watching the next Bourdain show (as I do every one of them). Anyone have some tips on other good places I should try around here?