A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

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A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 10,706 ratings · 657 reviews

The only thing "gonzo gastronome" and internationally bestselling author Anthony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling. Inspired by the question, "What would be the perfect meal?," Tony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail, and in the process turns the notion of "perfection" inside out. From California to Cambodia, A Cooks' Tour chronicles the unpredict...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published November 5th 2002 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 2001)

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Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

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May 21, 2012 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, educational, food, humour, non-fiction, travel, male-author, 2000s, 2001

Anthony Bourdain's second book has him traveling the globe looking for the "perfect" meal. Visiting locales like France, Portugal, Morocco, Japan, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as a little bit of his home country, Bourdain's goal is to try true, authentic, fresh food and not be afraid to join in and eat like the locals. No matter what their speciality is. Lamb testicles in Morocco, the beating heart of a cobra in Vietnam, haggis in Scotland, nattō in Japan. He's willing (though sometimes underst...more Anthony Bourdain's second book has him traveling the globe looking for the "perfect" meal. Visiting locales like France, Portugal, Morocco, Japan, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as a little bit of his home country, Bourdain's goal is to try true, authentic, fresh food and not be afraid to join in and eat like the locals. No matter what their speciality is. Lamb testicles in Morocco, the beating heart of a cobra in Vietnam, haggis in Scotland, nattō in Japan. He's willing (though sometimes understandably reluctant) to try it all and along the way discover that it might actually be good. Except nattō. That just looked disgusting.

Told in vignettes each section focuses on one part of the location he is currently in. There are quite a few from Vietnam and even though they happened concurrently and interspersed throughout the book which can be a little odd to read. The journey he went on was also filmed by the Food Network for the show of the same name and I have that ready to watch to add another dimension to the story. From looking at the episode titles on that it seems that is just as mixed up but in a completely different order to the book.

I've always been an adventurous eater, willing to try anything once, though I don't have a very wide or refined palate. That said I'd be willing to give his trip a try (minus part of the time in Cambodia where he visited a Khmer Rouge-ran city) and hopefully have my horizons expanded. One of Bourdain's beliefs is that nothing should be wasted and all the places he visits are cultures which also embrace that philosophy. Just because some people may be squeamish with things like offal doesn't mean it should be thrown away. The more that can be used out of one animal means the less total number of animals needed to feed people. And it can be quite tasty. Liver and kidney are both nice, though I'm not really a fan of brain, heart or tongue.

One of my issues with the book is it didn't venture to enough places. He visited 5 European countries, 3 in Asia, 2 in the Americas and 1 in Africa. Maybe a little less time in Europe and some more elsewhere would have been good. But his current show, No Reservations, has taken care of that. I really liked Bourdain's attitude - self-deprecating, honest, harsh but always respectful of other cultures and willing to give things a try. And also passionate about the eradication of vegans. A great book I look forward to watching the show and then probably grabbing his next book. (less)

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Jun 12, 2007 Leela rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: gourmets, travelers, adventurers, and adventurous vegetarians

After fourteen years of contented vegetarianism, it takes a lot to make me want to try roasted lamb testicles. I could almost stop writing here: the book is that good. Bourdain's attitude is part of his charm. I'm not sure I'd want to work in his kitchen, but he writes a damn good story. From one end of the earth to the other, he and his faithful camera crew take on whatever is local, exotic, beloved, and edible. Then he eats it. The way this man writes about food is incredible--last time someon...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Travis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, manly-literature

Now, I love Anthony Bourdain. He's basically full of shit and insane, but honest enough to be aware of it.
He's smug, cynical, occasionally snobby and has all the tact of hammer to the forehead.

At the same time he's very aware that he's stumbled into a job most people would kill for, he's getting paid to eat good food and travel anywhere he wants in the world. Someone is paying him to go live out his boyhood dreams and fantasies.
He also loves going places, meeting people and food. He has a soft r...more

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Apr 18, 2009 RandomAnthony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kim says I have a man crush on Anthony Bourdain.

So what’s a man crush?

My favorite urban dictionary definition of the term reads:

Respect, admiration and idolization of another man. Non-sexual. Celebrities, athletes and rock stars are often the object of the man crush.

Let’s see. Do I have a man crush on Anthony Bourdain by that definition? Let’s frame the question around my recent reading of A Cook’s Tour.

This is Bourdain’s second, book, after Kitchen Confidential. The title is a “double dip”, a...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Daniel Jr. added it · review of another edition

As someone who grew up poor, ate cheap, salty stuff out of boxes and cans (powdered milk was a staple of my childhood), and never traveled, I'm a culinary dilettante at best and likely always will be. Much of the insider foodie stuff is over my head if not interesting and often fascinating. But like all quest narratives, Bourdain's--under the guise of a quest for the elusive "perfect meal"--is a quest for identity. And the guy can write. At his best, he's as good as any of the too-many memoirist...more

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Jul 28, 2009 Hannah Eiseman-Renyard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, reasons-to-be-cheerful, what-writing-is-supposed-to-be

He's Still Got It - and Now He's On the Road

If you loved Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, then imagine all that again, with some incredible travel writing (ie even more exotic delicacies, and the occasional threat of death) chucked in for good measure.

Also wonderful are the behind the scenes story about filming Bourdain's show (Reasons You Don't Want to Work in Television, sections 1, 2 and 3)

There's something magical and infectious about letting someone, anyone, tal...more

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Jul 11, 2008 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

I can't figure what holds me back about his book. I love Anthony Bourdain's attitude about food and his philosophy about what makes a great meal. I love his desire for absolutely fresh food, right off the bleeding stick or never touching a refrigerator, and I admire the distinctions he makes about how food looks and how it tastes--my wife is one who cannot get over the appearance of food and lets it affect her enjoyment of it, while I don't care how food looks, but simply want good-tasting stuff...more I can't figure what holds me back about his book. I love Anthony Bourdain's attitude about food and his philosophy about what makes a great meal. I love his desire for absolutely fresh food, right off the bleeding stick or never touching a refrigerator, and I admire the distinctions he makes about how food looks and how it tastes--my wife is one who cannot get over the appearance of food and lets it affect her enjoyment of it, while I don't care how food looks, but simply want good-tasting stuff. I love Bourdain's sense of experimentalism, his willingness to try live cobra heart, and his sense of adventure, how he searches out a fugu chef (who knows how to properly prepare poisonous blowfish), and my wife is now relieved that I take Bourdain at his word that the stuff doesn't really have much flavor and wasn't quite worth all the excitement.

The concept of this book is fantastic--Anthony Bourdain travels to Vietnam, Japan, Cambodia, Portugal, Russia and other fine spots for the adventure of eating. And we're not just talking about the food itself--Bourdain wants the whole experience of food, from the killing of the livestock to the last shot of vodka before heading out into the night. He understands that food comes from a place and people, and he wants to know both as intimately as he can to get a true sense of what the food is about. It is a brilliant gesture in a category of writing that I find all too sterile, a style of writing often taken over by self-professed food gurus sitting in palaces removed from the real cooks and snubbing their noses at true cuisine while only praising what is served in delicate portions in a fine atmosphere. That Bourdain continually bashes Food Network stars is wonderfully brilliant and it makes me trust the man implicitely--were he to serve me brains wrapped in pig cheek and smothered with mayonnaise, I would gladly eat it if he told me it would be some good stuff.

But for whatever reason, I found this book as a whole not so engaging to read, and I can only attribute that to the writing itself. I don't know if this books suffers from Bourdain's inexperience at writing, or if this simply has been edited to death to remove a lot of life from the prose. I would love to praise this book as one of the best that has ever crossed my path, for the content itself is comforting in that it expresses the heart of a true food lover, one I will probably emulate for years to come, but as a book itself, I must say that I skipped over passages that I found highly tedious to read.
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Aug 03, 2008 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biographies-memoirs

I love Anthony Bourdain. He can be as irreverent and hilarious as someone like Jon Stewart. At other times he is thought provoking and almost shall we say, profound? This book is a quick read and a must if you are a fan of his television show No Reservations. Sometimes you salivate as he describes a meal (especially his particular favorites, that include dead pig) At other times I found myself skimming the page not really wanting to know just how nasty and vile the stuff was! The thought of bird...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Ashland Mystery Oregon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: culinary-narratives

A Cook's Tour was the segment I'd missed from Bourdain's rocket to chef-stardom. Following the success of Kitchen Confidential, flush with the confidence and wealth of its earnings, Bourdain contracted to travel the world and experience unusual settings and extreme cuisine. I enjoyed A Cook's Tour as much as all of Bourdian's other works, and it was fun to go back to this earlier period and fill in the gaps.

He's a younger Bourdain, filled with the heat of fame and only somewhat tempered by exper...more

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May 05, 2012 Mike Panic rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm a fan of Anthony Bourdain's books in audio format, I find the way he reads a really nice compliment to the book. Yesterday I knew I'd have a long day of driving and sure enough logged 430 miles. This book had been saved on my iPhone for a while in audio format and figured I'd listen to it all.

If you're a loyal watcher of No Reservations you'll relate to many of the stories, as they are recaps of what happened on the show. There's also the typical rants about vegans, and some rather nice wor...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Pat rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm an unabashed Tony Bourdain fan, love his brain and P.o.V on just about everything (although there are things the man eats that I would NEVER, in a million years, even if I was starving to death, put in my mouth) and Cook's Tour is, I think his first book (or an early on in any case). It chronicles the beginning of Tony's running-around-the-world-eating-cool-stuff adventures, and most of the book is broken down into short sections by place, i.e. this five pages is about Vietnam, this really h...more

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Jan 08, 2012 LeeAnn rated it 5 of 5 stars

A COOK'S TOUR by Anthony Bourdain Bloomsbury 2001

If you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Channel program “No Reservations” you will enjoy this more detailed travelogue of exotic food and interesting people. I had often wondered about the behind the scenes of the crew and shooting adventures they must have encountered and this story lets the reader in on all of the graphic details of Chris hanging over the toilet bowl. Lydia wants Tony do shoot a scene and he’s not in the mood but she cajol...more A COOK'S TOUR by Anthony Bourdain Bloomsbury 2001

If you are a fan of Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Channel program “No Reservations” you will enjoy this more detailed travelogue of exotic food and interesting people. I had often wondered about the behind the scenes of the crew and shooting adventures they must have encountered and this story lets the reader in on all of the graphic details of Chris hanging over the toilet bowl. Lydia wants Tony do shoot a scene and he’s not in the mood but she cajoles him into it anyway. The roads are dangerous and they bounce on endlessly in the middle of desert or jungle not knowing when it will end.

And then there is the food. Food porn is the latest obsession with TV shows or any books about food, it's an awful lot like the relationship between pornography and sex. Throw Anthony Bourdain, who understands the whole food porn phenomenon, into the mix and you have a winning combination. He spends pages and pages waxing poetic about ingredients and dishes that the reader wants to experience, but probably never will, and like porn you get it only in your dreams.

A COOK'S TOUR finds Anthony Bourdain, America's favorite ex-junky celebrity chef, traveling the world searching for the perfect meal, with each chapter devoted to a particular country or trip. Bourdain talks about what he loves including the Japanese obsession with quality, the toughness forged of hardship on the Russian frontier, the sense of community in small town Mexico from where most of his kitchen staff hail. Obviously his favorite, Vietnam is painted in contrasts of extremes that surprise him and shed light on a world many Americans experienced in the 1970’s.

Bourdain's previous book, KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL, was a huge success and led to the TV series. A COOK'S TOUR reads like series of TV episodes but delves into more than any show could possible say. It’s an enjoyable read and satisfied my desire for more Bourdain wit and adventure while safely tucked into my nice comfy bed. What better way to enjoy great food without the calories! (less)

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May 21, 2011 Cyndy Aleo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

My husband is an avowed Food Network addict. From his game of playing Spot the Pot (finding his favorite Le Creuset dutch oven used by his favorite chefs) to his laughter at mocking Rachael Ray's lousy tipping, Food Network shows occupy approximately half our evening television watching. Every so often, a show comes on that we both like, and when I found the book version of Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal, I grabbed it for him for Christmas. Little did I know that...more My husband is an avowed Food Network addict. From his game of playing Spot the Pot (finding his favorite Le Creuset dutch oven used by his favorite chefs) to his laughter at mocking Rachael Ray's lousy tipping, Food Network shows occupy approximately half our evening television watching. Every so often, a show comes on that we both like, and when I found the book version of Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal, I grabbed it for him for Christmas. Little did I know that I'd read the book first, but that's life.

::: Anthony Bourdain, Gonzo Chef :::

Anthony Bourdain has been referred to as the "Hunter S. Thomspon" of the culinary world, and that description might not be too far off the mark. If you caught even one episode of the Food Network show bearing the same name as the book, you probably spotted Bourdain doing one of two things: smoking or drinking, and probably both. A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal is the unedited version of his quest to travel the world for the perfect meal, or, as he confesses in the book, to travel all over the world eating and drinking his face off on someone's expense account.

A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal is not for the faint of heart. Even if you watched some of the more "out there" episodes of the television show, you might not be prepared for Bourdain's no-holds-barred descriptions of some of his experiences, from slaughtering a pig in Portugal to bouts of food poisoning in Asia.

::: Non-Sequential Ramblings :::

A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal does not follow Bourdain's tour sequentially, but rather, follows his own stream-of-consciousness recollections of his tour. The book begins with a letter home to his wife that describes the utter lack of glamor of the trip, and follows along a rambling path that takes us to Europe, Vietnam, Mexico, Cambodia, the former Soviet Union, back to Vietnam, and through the rest of his tour. Bourdain describes not only the fantastic meals featured on the show (every piece of a cobra including its still-beating heart, anyone?), but also the people he met, and the overall ambiance of the countries he fell in love with.

Bourdain minces no words when it comes to his feeling of selling out by agreeing to the television show, and his obvious distaste for some of the "created" moments the producers and camera crews foisted on him is all too clear. As a loyal watcher, I felt vindicated in the uneven feeling I had when watching, but having read Bourdain's own account of his trip, I can now see that the episodes I enjoyed were parts of his journey where he enjoyed himself, and the parts I didn't were more of the "forced" situations.

Regardless of whether or not you have a cast-iron stomach, most of the food that Bourdain describes will have your mouth watering. His descriptions of the meals he loved left even my currently pregnancy-poisoned mouth watering, and I swear that he can make even haggis sound like a tempting treat. His obvious delight in native culture is never so apparent than in his descriptions of his time in Mexico and in Vietnam, where he seems almost like a child in a candy store with an unlimited pocket of change: out to experience every single morsel of goodness that he can. From roasted goat in Morocco to caviar in St. Petersburg to a simple bown of pho in the morning in Vietnam, Bourdain describes an entire experience, from the food to people to sights and sounds.

::: Reader Discretion Advised :::

Bourdain pulls no punches in his writing, which might make A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal unsuitable for a gift for grandma. He makes no secret of his drug use (both former addiction to heroin and current recreational use of marijuana and hash) and lets fly with his opinions at the drop of a hat. His utter disdain for Food Network hosts had me laughing out loud, because I truly thought there was no person on Earth who found Bobby Flay as annoying as I did until I read the book. He describes his wife punching out another woman in a bar, and doesn't bat an eye when discussing the prostitution prevalent in areas of Asia he visits. And woe betide the card-carrying PETA member, for Bourdain does not suffer vegans silently, nor anyone who prevents him from smoking.

However, for anyone who has always wanted to have a foodie tour of the world without the innate fears many of us have about eating from street vendors or being served possibly endangered species, A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal is a must-read.

This review originally published at Epinions: http://www.epinions.com/review/A_Cook...(less)

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May 28, 2008 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I have to admit a guilty pleasure in reading this book. The author is definitely a little crude, so be forewarned. Mr. Bourdain is a famous TV chef who travels around the world to exotic places, trying out the local food -- some of it very good and some of it very bad. He travels to Cambodia, Vietnam, France, Scotland etc... He watches the whole process of butchering a pig in France and he eats the still beating heart of a cobra in Vietnam! Read at your own risk, I did.

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Oct 24, 2011 adri patamoma rated it 3 of 5 stars

não conhecia o anthony bourdain antes desse livro, e confesso que depois da leitura antipatizei muito com ele. este livro tinha tudo pra ser legal, já que conta sobre as muitas viagens de um chef renomado em busca do prato perfeito. adoro histórias, adoro viagens, adoro comida -- o que deu errado? achei o bourdain muito mal humorado e arrogante durante todo o texto. do meu ponto de vista, ele estragou o que poderia ter sido um livro muito bacana. a leitura só vale porque é sempre bom ler sobre a...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Sesana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: actually-pretty-funny, behind-the-scenes, food, nonfiction, travel

Before No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain did a short-lived series with much the same premise for the Food Network. There was an actual plot, of sorts: the search for the perfect meal. From reading the book, it seems like he gave up on that as impossible idea early on and just enjoyed himself. From the show? The fact that it was on Food Network explains very neatly why the show hasn't seen the light of day in years and this book is the one and only exposure most people will have to it.

Anthony Bou...more

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Mar 08, 2010 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although he occasionally comes across as a Jeremy Clarkson of food, all bombastic arrogance and impatient with anything that infringes his right to do what he likes, I am rather fond of eating, so Anthony Bourdain's pesrpctive is one I largely share, even if his playful likening of vegetarians to the hezbollah is something of a one angled view.

In particular, he has no time at all for the lily-livered, western-centric tendency towards fussiness - if it's there to be guzzled, be it the still beati...more

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May 31, 2012 Robyn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: culinary, nonfiction, given-away

I expected to enjoy this much more than I did. Since I have watched No Reservations off and on for years, and watched some of A Cook's Tour years ago; and because I just finished Kitchen Confidential and liked it much more than I thought I would, I figured this book would be an automatic hit with me. Unfortunately, no. It was just ok. I did enjoy reading a chapter, then going to YouTube and watching the Cook's Tour episode that went along with it. I think I got a better sense of what was outside...more I expected to enjoy this much more than I did. Since I have watched No Reservations off and on for years, and watched some of A Cook's Tour years ago; and because I just finished Kitchen Confidential and liked it much more than I thought I would, I figured this book would be an automatic hit with me. Unfortunately, no. It was just ok. I did enjoy reading a chapter, then going to YouTube and watching the Cook's Tour episode that went along with it. I think I got a better sense of what was outside the lines of the book and on the editing room floor of the show by getting both than I would ever get from reading or watching alone.

This book is Anthony Bourdain trying too hard to be what the first book led to him being perceived as. He works at being world-weary and a cynical bastard, and it comes across a little precious. The first book denigrated types of people, anonymous groups. This one is pointedly unkind to specific named individuals, probably because that was so encouraged during his first book tour by the interviewing media. Reading, it's very clear why Bourdain had to leave the Food Channel and continue with the Travel Channel. The "eating around the world" was just an excuse, a way to get someone else to bankroll his travel. There was no culinary reason to go to Cambodia, and he didn't even bother to pretend there was or to try to find one. Repeatedly it seemed to be a debauched vacation in which he was annoyed that the film crews continued to bring it back to a food focus instead of an afterthought. And really, it was embarrassing that he felt the need to buy drugs in Morocco. He couldn't stay sober for the meal that his hosts put so much time and effort into? I've had friends come to nice friendly dinners stoned, and while I don't care if they're smoking pot generally, it ruins the occasion. Them high and making everyone else uncomfortable.

Structured strangely, the trips were presented as if they were one after another in the order they were listed, but small clues in the text make it clear that they weren't. His final trip to Vietnam (the last chapter), for example, mentions a conversation in which he tells a guide/translator that Philippe might be coming for a bit. This concerns the guide, who will have to deal with red tape for Philippe's presence. According to that sentence, the itinerary was: Saigon, Nha Trang, Can Tho, back to Saigon, all one trip. The book split up the Vietnam visit into 4+ separate chapters that acted like separate visits, in the order of Saigan, Can Tho, Nha Trang, back to Saigon. If the various worldwide destinations were going to be shuffled around, with vague indications that this was all one long trip instead of multiple excursions, then it would have made more sense to either arrange the chapters geographically or to find something that would lead from one to the next. As it was, the book was structured thus: Cambodian "Dear Nancy" letter, Vietnamese intro, Portugal, France, Vietnam, Spain, Russia, Morocco, Vietnam, Tokyo, Cambodia, England, Mexico, Vietnam, California, Scotland, Vietnam.

Bourdain clearly lives under the misapprehension that his experience of America is the experience of America. I continuously found myself cringing and thinking "shit, I hope non-American friends who read this don't think he speaks for us!" Examples are page 10 in my copy (in which he recounts the nostalgia of food, but instead of making it his own food nostalgia, he lists things as if they are common American experiences--being a teenager in Paris with a Eurail pass who blew their money on hash, licking caviar off someone's nipple, hands smelling of crushed fireflies [what sort of child/teen crushes fireflies?! that's not a standard experience!], etc.), page 113 (in which he says we all have the cheap tourist tchotchkes and 'native handcrafts' to hold our stash), and page 258 (in which he says that there aren't wealthy Americans who can point to huge acreage of land with forests, streams, etc, and say that it's been in the family for generation upon generation. Come spend real time in the West, my friend. Many families here have owned huge swaths of land for more than 150 years. They came and homesteaded it, planted, and stayed. Wealthy Western landowners just don't generally discuss their riches and instead appear to be 'just workers').

There's a certain set of boomers who grew up surrounded by news of the Vietnam War, loved ones getting drafted, etc., who assumed they'd be going when they were old enough...but who turned 18 shortly after we left Vietnam and so never went. That group tends to have a fixation--of varying levels--with the country of Vietnam and what we did to it and its people. Bourdain is definitely one of these. He graduated high school in 1973 and did two year at Vassar before dropping out a few months after the Fall of Saigon. It seemed that practically all he could see or think about in his multiple chapters to Vietnam in this book was the war. He extrapolates the thoughts of Vietnamese children upon seeing him as "the Giant American Savage who once bombed and strafed the village..." and on the following page "I've got something to prove. We may have lost the war. We may have pointlessly bombed and mined and assassinated and defoliated before slinking away as if it were all a terrible misunderstanding--but goddamn it, we can still drink as good as these guys, right?" It was as if Bourdain was incapable of seeing Vietnam as a country that existed outside of Western imperialism, as if he'd read too much Graham Greene and not enough Vietnamese history pre-1941. It was embarrassing that he could only see this beautiful and rich country through the lens of past American Communism fears.

Also, I'm sorry, but I CANNOT believe he thinks it's ok to use the word "Charlie" to describe the average Vietnamese, as far into the book as page 224. That is a derogatory term. If he used the word "gook" or "chink" people wouldn't just ignore it. Just, no.

In the end I think this book would have been better with more advance planning. Either his editor needed to tell him to work out his Vietnam obsession with a separate book, or they needed to pare down the amount it appeared in this one into a) one chapter, or b) an opening chapter and a closing chapter. Not 5 separate sections. Either they needed a sensible travel plan, or a less random, more easily-explained reason to go from one location to the next.

Oh! And one final note. I've long suspected that much of Bourdain's public persona is very carefully crafted to match what he and his handlers think the public wants from him, and that many of his "unbelievable" bad-boy comments on other chefs are honed for effect. To that thought I offer this comparison:
On Paula Deen (years ago, before the diabetes debacle): "The worst, most dangerous person in America is clearly Paula Deen...she's proud of the fact that her food is fucking bad for you. I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it is OK to eat food that is killing us."
On Nigella Lawson: "while she may not look like too many cooks I know, she does seem to cook a lot of exuberantly cheesy, fatty, greasy stuff--not shying away from the butter and cream--which puts her on the side of the angels in my book. How many upper-crust widows do you know who say 'Fuck it! Let's eat what's good!' Not many. I like her."(less)

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Sep 21, 2009 MacK rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: am-lit, favorites, non-fiction

Goals for my life:

1) Write better

2) Cook better

3) Travel more

Redefined goal for life:

BE LIKE ANTHONY BOURDAIN.

I've listened through this book twice now, and I've loved it both times. In every case there's a new discovery to be had, a new element to enjoy, a new allusion to catch. Bourdain's voice doing the narration, a comforting mix of professor with a smoking habit and friendly guy at the bar, is perfect--naturally because it's his voice reading his words.

The meandering journeys through Asia,...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Stephanie W rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: food, nonfiction, essays

Perhaps if I had read "A Cook's Tour" in 2001 when it was first published, I would have been blown away. I would have given Bourdain 4 stars for his wit, his new experiences in Vietnam, Cambodia, England, San Francisco and Spain. There would be no obviously dated references to the supposed horrors of foot and mouth disease or the "much anticipated opening" of Thomas Keller's now established New York restaurant Per Se. It would have been new and fresh with a different personality than he presente...more

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Jan 02, 2010 Amanda rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's becoming a burden, this challenge. I haven't really enjoyed the last two or three books I've read, including this one, A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain. Perhaps it's because I loved Kitchen Confidential so hard, or because reading this book was sort of like reading eight episodes of No Reservations (although he set out a disclaimer that he was followed around by a camera crew for Food Network while writing the book). More likely, it's because I'm reading to get through it, not to savor any...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Byron rated it 3 of 5 stars

The not nearly as popular sorta sequel to Kitchen Confidential. It was also a TV show on Food Network back in like '01. I was reluctant to cop, because I thought it might just be transcripts of the voiceovers from the show, which I've seen, which is not very good. It's the exact same concept as No Reservations, the best TV show of all time, right up there with PBS Frontline, and he even goes to a lot of the same places, but I guess he'd yet to figure out how to make a good TV show, and I think h...more

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Jul 10, 2010 James Kittredge rated it 4 of 5 stars

Though this book does not contain the same sort of continuous narrative that "Kitchen Confidential" did, it was still a fun read. Bourdain presents a series of travelogue essays on his gastronomic journeys around the world. Ranging from eating cobra and bird nest in Vietnam to haggis in Edinburgh, Bourdain covers it all. The book was originally a companion piece to his old Food Network show, but viewers of No Reservations will be right at home. To put it simply, Tony is one of the world's finest...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Caitlin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

This was good, but I didn't enjoy it as much as Kitchen Confidential. I've been trying to decide why & I think it's because ultimately this isn't so much a food book as it is a travel book. That's okay, but the notion of hunting down the perfect meal has an appeal to me & led me to expect something different.

Having said all of that, I enjoyed the book. It's hard not to love someone who hits the jackpot with a best seller & says to themselves, "Hmmm ... I think I'll see if I can get s...more

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Sep 19, 2007 Andi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: foodies

Shelves: memoir

I have to say, this book is much better than Kitchen Confidential. While I enjoyed KC very much, A Cook's Tour is a poetically written, passionate, and always snarky ponderance of food. Tony outdoes himself with this one. Highly recommended.

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May 11, 2010 MsSmartiePants ...like the candy... rated it 5 of 5 stars

Anthony Bourdain is an unusual person, to say the least. He's definitely an addict of many things, some good, some very bad. Thankfully, he's cleaned up most of his bad tendencies, while preserving his sense of adventure and experimentation. You have an opportunity to experience the result of Mr. Bourdain's exploration into the search for good food and the cultures containing them.
Travel to Morocco on camel-back for fresh braised lamb. Glide upstream in a rickety riverboat to the "heart of darkn...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Zoe Jussel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have never been disappointed in any of Anthony Bourdain's books and this one is no exception and yes, they do all seem to run into one another but there is never a dull moment. Sit down, fasten your seatbelt and get ready for takeoff! From Cambodia to Japan, and San Francisco to Mendocino, he is always the brash bad boy and doesn't pretend to be otherwise, but his overt love of good food, unique food and sometimes disgusting (but tasty food) is always evident. I can tell you one thing, after h...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Kate Quinn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Warning: do not read this book if you are on a diet, because it is flat-out food porn. Anthony Bourdain, the foul-mouthed self-deprecating and always hilarious author-chef of "Kitchen Confidential" and the travel-food show "No Reservations" this time details his experiences with food around the world. Roast goat in a tagine in Morocco, vodka and reindeer in Siberia, pho in Vietnam, sushi in Tokyo - he hops over the globe in search of the perfect meal, taking a camera crew and his no-holds-barred...more

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Mar 18, 2009 Dave Johnson rated it 4 of 5 stars

another home run from Bourdain.

i almost want to give this a 5 for the sheer fact that Bourdain is just a great writer and his ability to convey emotion in a book about food is crazy good. overall, if you like watching his show No Reservation, i think you would like this. the only downside--and this is a big downside, i think--is that it doesnt always translate well to paper as it does to TV. On TV you see what he eats, what it looks like, what his reactions are to eating it, and the whole scene....more

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May 21, 2011 tea_for_two rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, memoir, nonfiction, travel, food

I was hesitant about A Cook's Tour. I thought someone who was as self-professed a egomaniac as Bourdain would be insufferable to read about, and my suspicious were not eased when my little brother, who had read the book, waxed on about how much he loved Bourdain's pleasure-seeking hedonistic lifestyle. My brother, God love him, is kinda insufferable.

I was, howerver, pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the book. Bourdain is an excellent writer. His prose is crisp and clear, and he does an...more

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About Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is the author of the novels Bone in the Throat and Gone Bamboo, in addition to the megabestsellers Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour.
His work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and he is a contributing authority for Food Arts magazine. He is the host of the popular television show No Reservations.

More about Anthony Bourdain...

Books by Anthony Bourdain

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones

Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Stategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking

No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach

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“They're professionals at this in Russia, so no matter how many Jell-O shots or Jager shooters you might have downed at college mixers, no matter how good a drinker you might think you are, don't forget that the Russians - any Russian - can drink you under the table.” — 65 people liked it

“I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder. I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies” — 40 people liked it

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