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Editorial Review:
A Cook's Tour is the written record of Tony Bourdain's travels around the world in his search for the perfect meal. All too conscious of the state of his 44-year old knees (Crunch! Pop! Snap!) after a working life standing at restaurant stoves, but with the unlooked-for jackpot of Kitchen Confidential as collateral, Mr Bourdain evidently concluded he needed a bit more wind under his wings.
The idea of "perfect meal" in this context is to be taken to mean not necessarily the most upscale, chi-chi, three-star dining experience, but the ideal combination of food, atmosphere and company. This would take in fishing villages in Vietnam, bars in Cambodia and Tuareg camps in Morocco (roasted sheep's testicle, as it happens); it would stretch to smoked fish and sauna in the frozen Russian countryside and the French Laundry in California's Napa Valley. It would mean exquisitely refined kaiseki rituals in Japan after yakitori with drunken salarimen. Deep-fried Mars Bars in Glasgow and Gordon Ramsay in London. The still-beating heart of a cobra in Saigon. Drink. Danger. Guns. All with a TV crew in tow for the accompanying series--22 episodes of video gold, we are assured, featuring many don't-try-this-at-home shots of Tony in gastric distress or crawling into yet another storm drain at four in the morning.
You are unlikely to lay your hands on a more hectically, strenuously entertaining book for some time. Our hero eats and swashbuckles round the globe with perfect-pitch attitude and liberal use of judiciously placed profanities. Bourdain can write. His timing is great. He is very funny and is under no illusions whatsoever about himself or anyone else. So far, so PJ O'Rourke. But most of all, he is a chef who got himself out of his kitchen and found, all over the world, people who understand that eating well is the foundation of harmonious living. --Robin Davidson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Mmmmm... Fried Mars Bar.... To enjoy this book, you have to (A) really like food, and (B) accept that the whole exercise of Bourdain tramping around the world in a psuedo-quest for the ultimate food experience is rather artificial (which he admits right up front). So, bearing in mind that he's being trailed by Food Network cameramen, and has producers to prearrange a lot of stuff for him, Bourdain's global hopscotch of culinary exploration is a very readable and fun journey. He's not really looking for the "perfect meal" so much as... more info
Bang on! A friend of mine bought me "Kitchen Confidential" for my birthday. It led to me going out and searching for offset-serated knives, sagely telling people to "avoid the swordfish" and was a damn-good read.
I holidayed in Vietnam and Cambodia last year and so I was well chuffed to find that Bourdain's follow up was a foodie-travel book including visits to these places. His descriptions of Saigon and back-water Cambodia are spot-on, as is his descriptions of the food. Plus there is loads of good stuff about... more info
A great companion Since I haven't been able to travel a lot the past five years this book really has been a treat to me. The thing with Bourdain is not the fact that he is a chef. He is a natural writing talent, In his previous book, Kitchen Confidential, he could just as well had been telling the story about a guy working as a brick layer. It is his ability to tell a story that makes him so readable. Of course, food and eating, is an important part of experiencing a foreign country, and Bourdain certainly makes great... more info
Brilliant, hilarious, thoroughly non-PC This is a killer of a book; sharply observed, acid-tongued, but thoroughly sensitive to the right things, it's a rip-roar of a read. Lots (lots!) of fun. Maybe the tour itself doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense, and the best meals seem to be those that are rather anti-cuisine culture, but that's the point,isn't it? A real surprise.
