Once upon a time, a working knowledge of moo shoo pork, California roll, and pad thai got you through most Asian restaurant experiences.

Today, if that’s all you’ve got on your mind’s menu…..your little white take-out carton is intellectually empty.

There are now more Asian restaurants than ever in the U.S.–indeed, more kinds of Asian restaurants than ever!–and, as the movement rolls, more of us are patronizing them more frequently.

But the anchor dishes we once depended on are increasingly surrounded by waves of other things. And, for most of us, sticking with General Tso, no matter how you feel about loyalty, seems positively antediluvian.

So the crunch is on: to get maximum enjoyment, we need to know more about Asian cuisine. How to acquire it? Precisely at this delicious moment, along comes a fine way to do so: a new book by super-foodie Steven A. Shaw, the eGullet founder, called Asian Dining Rules (William Morrow, 2008).

Shaw starts us off with some biographical insight: as a boy on Manhattan’s upper West Side, he was gob-smacked with Empire Szechuan Columbus, where he says he ate more Chinese dumplings in the 1980s “than any Chinese person–or perhaps any village–in China.” Young Steven figured out how to crack the family barrier at Empire Szechuan Columbus–how to be treated like a family member by the Chinese family that ran it–and thereby gained a great deal of insight into touching the insider heart of any Asian restaurant in America.

Making it clear that “this is not a cookbook,” Shaw spends 250 pages piling up “guerilla tactics” for getting the most out of a wide range of Asian restaurants in America. He begins with useful general principles–such as becoming a regular, asking lots of questions, going at slow hours if you’re trying to amass knowledge, taking risks, and saying you want “the real stuff.”

But the core of this very entertaining book is a welter of specific training ideas within each major ethnic cuisine. Here are some good examples from various sections:

CHINESE: A guide to dim sum strategy called the “dim sum survival guide,” which discusses such key dim sum dining elements as observing the rhythms, being decisive, even being pushy.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN: A great insight here: “make a seafood decision.” Shaw argues that the seafood dishes of Southeast Asia “are among the world’s finest”–but that “many Southeast Asian restaurants in North America just don’t get great fish.” So, to Shaw, the right move is to start testing early at a Southeast Asian restaurant to see if what you get is “low-quality frozen shrimp….(and) generic supermarket-quality fish fillets.” Once you know…..proceed accordingly.

SUSHI: Fabulous information here. Shaw’s roster alone of Japanese fish terms is worth the price of the book. You know the collar of nori that often holds sea urchin, or salmon roe, and rice? Shaw gives us its name, gunkan-maki, and says it was invented at Tokyo’s famous sushi bar Kubei in the 1930s to keep slithery stuff on the rice. There’s an o-toro lesson, as Shaw points out that o-toro has two sub-categories: shimofuri (even flecks of fat throughout), and dandara (fat running through in a striped pattern). And you may not be aware that hamachi is only one type of yellowtail: a small one is called wakashi, a medium one is called hamachi, a medium-large one is called warasa, and the largest yellowtail is called buri.

KOREAN: Wonderful section on “Barbecue Mistakes to Avoid,” ranging from “cooking too much at once” to “putting too much stuff in your wraps.”

INDIAN: A dandy concept–order made-to-order dishes! “While curries and other stewlike dishes are by far the most popular selections at Indian restaurants in North America,” Shaw writes, “other dishes are often the better choices. Those stewlike dishes are often made…..in advance and lack the vibrant freshness of truly great Indian cooking.” Hurrah!

Shaw concludes the book with a rousing call to…..breaking the rules. “Reading the glossy food magazines,” Shaw writes, “the newsletters, and the Internet, and even when talking to educated gourmets, I get the sense that the authenticity police are everywhere these days…….But what if evolution itself lies at the core of authenticity? When hot chilies first appeared in China, did the local food cognoscenti protest, ‘We don’t use these things in authentic Sichuan cuisine?’ No cuisine springs into existence as a fully formed entity, and all living cuisines evolve.”

Fair enough. But if you’re eager to get the best Asian food there is–utterly traditional, or with a creative twist–you are duty-bound to grab a copy of this book.

Guest blogger David Rosengarten is a food writer, cookbook author, TV chef and wine writer. He is best known for his 2,500 shows on the Food Network, and as author of The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook.