Let's play a game of Guess Who.

Which chef operates 18 restaurants worldwide, including seven in New York City and one in Minneapolis at the Chambers Hotel? (And no fair looking at the picture caption above.)

Who has written three cookbooks, including a new one on Asian flavors?

Who has been named a "legend" by Bon Appetit magazine and "outstanding chef" by the James Beard Foundation?

That would be Jean-Georges Vongerichten. (His name is actually much easier to pronounce than it appears: VONG-a-ric-ten.) Those in the know simply call him Jean-Georges.

He's in town today as part of two events at the Chambers Hotel, in recognition of the publication of his new book, "Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges."

French by birth and by culinary training, Vongerichten took an unexpected turn in his food interests when, at the age of 23, he went to Bangkok to work under chef Louis Outhier.

At the Oriental Hotel, Vongerichten's job was to prepare food for an international clientele and it was expected that he would do so in familiar ways.

But once Vongerichten had walked through the Aw Taw Kaw market in Bangkok and seen the breadth of options -- from curry paste and lemongrass to galangal and 50 kinds of rice -- his cooking style would never be the same. It couldn't be with a whole new world of ingredients at his disposal. With passion and zeal, Vongerichten embraced what would later be called "fusion" food -- blending cultures and flavors in a way that only a traveler and hunter of flavors can do. Keep in mind this was in the early '80s when Asian foods, outside Asia, were still barely visible on the distant horizon.

Vongerichten spent five years in Asia as he helped Outhier with restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, as well as Bangkok, before he headed to the United States. He worked first in Boston, then in New York before opening his first restaurant, JoJo, in 1991. A second restaurant, Vong, opened in 1992, using the flavors of Thailand with the French techniques he had mastered much earlier. By the time Vongerichten opened Chambers Kitchen in Minneapolis in 2006, he had earned a second four-star review from the New York Times and opened a restaurant in Bora Bora that same year.

"It all started in 1980 when I traveled to Hong Kong and China. I got over there and everything was fresh. The food groups were pretty much the same as anywhere, but the spices were different, " he said. Though the chicken might have been the same, his options weren't. He could cook chicken with lemongrass or licorice. "Then you have a new dish," he said. The same was true for vegetables. "You come up with some interesting combinations: with chiles, with lemongrass, with ginger," he said. Vongerichten still travels to Hong Kong three or four times annually to look for new flavor combinations.

His new book reflects those spice combinations from his restaurants (recipes include Rice Cracker-Crusted Tuna, Passion Fruit Pavlova and several flavors of sorbet, all served in Minneapolis).

For those cooks who flinch at a long list of unusual ingredients (and the book has many of them), he suggests a compromise. "Start with an easy one with four or five ingredients, then move on to the more challenging recipe. Do the easy one once or twice until you're comfortable, then move on," he said.

Though some of the recipes are longer than the average quick recipe favored today, those in the cookbook are not formidable. And the ingredients aren't too difficult to find. "Most every city has a little Chinatown today, as the Asian population is growing. Once you have the ingredients, these recipes are easy to cook," he said.

Well, all but the Peking duck, which requires placing a small battery-powered fan in your refrigerator.

Lee Svitak Dean • 612-673-1749