Damn. I'm sure I would have loved this just like I did everything else of his I've read but having seen the TV show already this was just so close it felt like I'd read it already and although I'd like it to be, it doesn't seem to be re-read-grade material for me. ( )

Apparently Bourdain is a pompous ass in person, and this comes out a bit in his writing. Reading this book made me want to drink wine, smoke cigarettes and consume lots of French provincial cooking. Oh, and go to Vietnam. Alas, living vicariously through Anthony Bourdain does not necessarily make for a pleasant reading experience. ( )

I can’t help but imagine everything being read in Anthony Bourdain’s voice from the shows my dad would have on in the background when I was little. This makes for an enjoyable, but very very very long and slow read. Definitely made me hungry for both travel and food. ( )

Certainly entertaining, with Bourdain's trademark attitude. At times, though, Bourdain comes across as a hypocrite. (He tries to use the old "people are starving in Africa" line to justify his own extravagances.) This is not a good look. As he himself admits, he has "sold his soul" to the television devil.

> I had, you see, sold my soul to the devil. ‘We’ll follow you around,’ said the nice man from the television production company. ‘No lighting equipment, no boom mikes, no script. It’ll be very unobtrusive. Just be yourself.’ … I’ve had a lot of fun trashing Emeril and Bobby and the Food Network’s stable of stars over the last few years. God, I hated their shows. Now I’ve gone over to the dark side, too. Watching Emeril bellowing catchphrases at his wildly barking seal-like studio audience, I find myself feeling empathy for the guy. Because I know, I think, how it happened. One sells one’s soul in increments, slowly, over time. … But when you hear me carping about how lonely and sick and frightened I am, holed up in some Cambodian backwater, know that there’s a television crew a few doors down the hall. That changes things.

> Today, while lesser mortals cower around their veggie plates in hemp sandals, cringing at the thought of contamination by animal product, St. John’s devotees – and there are a lot of them – flock to his plain, undecorated dining room to revel in roasted marrow, rolled spleen, grilled ox heart, braised belly, and fried pig’s tails. It was a very ballsy position to take back in the early nineties – and it’s an even ballsier proposition today, when the Evil Axis Powers of Health Nazis, Vegetarian Taliban, European Union bureaucrats, antismoking crystal worshipers, PETA fundamentalists, fast-food theme-restaurant moguls, and their sympathizers are consolidating their fearful hold on popular dining habits and practices.

> The enemy wants your cheese. They want you never again to risk the possibility of pleasure with a reeking, unpasteurized Stilton, an artisanal wine, an oyster on the half shell. They have designs on stock. Stock! (Bones, you know – can’t have that.) The backbone of everything good! They want your sausage. And your balls, too. In short, they want you to feel that same level of discomfort approaching a plate of food that so many used to feel about sex. … Do I overstate the case? Go to Wisconsin. Spend an hour in an airport or a food court in the Midwest; watch the pale, doughy masses of pasty-faced, Pringle-fattened, morbidly obese teenagers. Then tell me I’m worried about nothing. These are the end products of the Masterminds of Safety and Ethics, bulked up on cheese that contains no cheese, chips fried in oil that isn’t really oil, overcooked gray disks of what might once upon a time have been meat, a steady diet of Ho-Hos and muffins, butterless popcorn, sugarless soda, flavorless light beer. A docile, uncomprehending herd, led slowly to a dumb, lingering, and joyless slaughter.

> It was difficult for me to be polite (though I was outnumbered). I’d recently returned from Cambodia, where a chicken can be the difference between life and death. These people in their comfortable suburban digs were carping about cruelty to animals but suggesting that everyone in the world, from suburban Yuppie to starving Cambodian cyclo driver, start buying organic vegetables and expensive soy substitutes. To look down on entire cultures that’ve based everything on the gathering of fish and rice seemed arrogant in the extreme.

> And the hypocrisy of it all pissed me off. Just being able to talk about this issue in reasonably grammatical language is a privilege, subsidized in a yin/yang sort of a way, somewhere, by somebody taking it in the neck. Being able to read these words, no matter how stupid, offensive, or wrongheaded, is a privilege, your reading skills the end product of a level of education most of the world will never enjoy. Our whole lives – our homes, the shoes we wear, the cars we drive, the food we eat – are all built on a mountain of skulls. Meat, say the PETA folks, is ‘murder.’ And yes, the wide world of meat eating can seem like a panorama of cruelty at times. But is meat ‘murder’? Fuck no. … Hide in your fine homes and eat vegetables, I was thinking. Put a Greenpeace or NAACP bumper sticker on your Beemer if it makes you feel better (so you can drive your kids to their all-white schools). Save the rainforest – by all means – so maybe you can visit it someday, on an ecotour, wearing comfortable shoes made by twelve-year-olds in forced labor. Save a whale while millions are still sold into slavery, starved, fucked to death, shot, tortured, forgotten. When you see cute little kids crying in rubble next to Sally Struthers somewhere, be sure to send a few dollars. ( )

My Goodreads account is not keeping up with my books currently reading. I started this on Saturday (December 9th) and finished it yesterday.

Anthony Bourdain is always a good read to me. I really loved his first memoir, Kitchen Confidential. I think due to what is going on in the U.S. right now, I have been reading a lot of cooking memoirs the past few weeks. There is something wonderful about reading about other cultures and their love of food. And I have tried to recreate some menus (did not attempt any in this book though for obvious reasons).

Off the bat you get that Bourdain loves food. He loves meeting/talking to other food obsessed people. Starring in a television show that is taking him around the globe to eat food seemed like a win-win. Some scenes were rather hard to read about (the one describing how ducks are stuffed to make foie gras---no thank you), others are humorous, and at times you get a feeling of sadness depending on what Bourdain is going on about in a particular chapter.

I have to say that the book itself jumps around a lot. I don't know if this is the order he filmed or what. We go to Russia, Tokyo, Scotland, France, England, Saigon, and other countries with Bourdain and his camera crew along with local men/women who show Bourdain how to eat/prepare their favorite dishes.

I would say don't read this if you have a weak stomach though. You read about a pig being slaughtered, a goat, and about Bourdain hunting rabbits (seriously).

I think my favorite chapters has to be about Bourdain waxing enthusiastically about Gordon Ramsey and Hubert Keller. I really wish I could eat at The French Laundry cause it sounds wonderful.

I didn't rate this five stars since the book jumped around a lot and I didn't know what angle Bourdain was going for in the final execution of this book. Was it to share his love of food? His realizing there is no such thing as a perfect meal, rather it's the memory that you go chasing when thinking of your favorite food? Or was it to showcase other cultures and how they got really screwed by other countries (Vietnam and Cambodia). ( )

Bourdain writes just as he delivers his monologues on his TV shows, no BS, gets straight to the point, says what he feels in his gut. The book is a series of vignettes, bouncing around the world in sixteen chapters, but some places like Vietnam he revisits. It may be a cook's tour, but food is really just his path to the culture and history of a place. He's a travel writer in his own right, bringing his own particular experience and his unique optic to new places. However surly and rebellious he may come off, he really models what a good traveller should be: friendly, humble, curious, respectful, and honest, especially about himself. The book isn't revelatory, but it is fun to experience these places and cultures as Tony does, with a heart wide open and a mind similarly disposed. ( )

A pleasant surprise. He writes like he speaks on his shows. Insightful if over the top on a few subjects (vegetarians, Vietnam War, cook from San Francisco) he had a great grasp of where he was and very very humorous. Look forward to reading more of his books. ( )

A wonderful companion to the TV series of the same name. Bourdain's witty prose gives a deep insight into the world he lived in behind the camera during his year abroad searching for "the perfect meal" and lets even the most the casual reader experience his horror and delight as he's confronted by the next plate set before him. He opens a door to countries many of us will never visit and details delicious and strange foods we may never get to eat or may be too scared to eat. In my opinion it was a great book that I would definitely read again. ( )

I'm a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain and A Cook's Tour did not disappoint. It was really amazing to me how his tv 'voice' is so close to his more personal voice. I will definitely be reading more of his books in the future.

Also, a huge traveller myself it was really nice to read about places that I'd been or that are currently on my to-do list. ( )

Like tony is standing right there reading the book to you. Skipped the animal slaughter parts...ugh. ( )

Tale of a man's travels around the world to get drunk, stoned, and eat gross stuff while trailing a television crew and sniping at other TV chefs. Self indulgent and boring. ( )

4 stars is probably generous, but I can't help it - I inexplicably find Anthony Bourdain really appealing and funny and just exactly the person I would pick to take me on some global trek in search of a great meal. ( )

Bourdain's not a deep philosophical writer, and I am sure I read more into this book than what he ever intended. What is perfection? is it something predefined you are searching for? Is it something you'll know when you see it? Is it something realized after reflection? Regardless, a great idea for a book, something I am sure we all have wanted to do. To be able to travel our planet, learning about our neighbors and eating the best they have to offer. ( )

I liked this book a lot better than I expected to, having encountered Bourdain a few times on TV and when reading interviews. I am not fond of enfants terribile in general, and Bourdain is old enough that it's an increasingly pathetic approach as his hair grays and his face wrinkles. Fortunately, his writing in this book shows little of this aspect of him directly, and his writing is engaging.

This book tracks a year of his life, as he travels around the world looking for both trouble and the "perfect meal", with mixed success. Both the failures and the successes made interesting anecdotes.

I liked that the candidates for his "perfect meal" were all traditional for their cultures. So much modern food writing is very of-the-moment; Bourdain here is more interested in foods and food ways that have stood the test of time.

I do wish there had been rather more detail about the foods and food ways he encountered, especially at the expense of some of his repeated tales of overindulgence in booze, drugs, and trouble-seeking; the later held little charm for me.

Still, I'm glad I read it. I'd read another book of Bourdain's... assuming I could, like this time, borrow it rather than paying for it. ( )

Very well written. Bourdain takes you through his search for the perfect meal while making his first TV show. You see here what they didn't put in the show and how he truly feels about the food he is encountering, all the while your mouth waters and sometimes your stomach gurgles. ( )

Great book.Based on his tv show, he tells about his travel and food adventures in various countries with his usual wit ( )

Bourdain is much better on audio than in print. His style is much better spoken than read, in my opinion. This book describes his search for the perfect meal. He went on a world tour with the Food Network and tried to find the perfect meal. His descriptions of his adventures highlight, not the food, but the people he encounters. ( )

Yes it's official, I am addicted to reading and watching everything Anthony Bourdain does! This book was a nice change from his other books. Basically writing about his specific episodes when he was filming with the Food Network from Vietnam to Glasgow.

For the rest of the review, visit my book blog at: http://angelofmine1974.livejournal.com/57622.html ( )

A solid 4 stars. I took my time reading. Savouring each chapters slowly. I still like his style, take no prisoners, it's an adventure, let's go and have fun type of writing.

Bourdain loves food. I mean, really, really loves foods and it shows. I especially liked the trip down memory lane in France and every chapters in Vietnam.

Funny, serious about food, bullshit artist with an ego the size of Godzilla, Bourdain is confident in his talent and it shows throughout the book. I enjoyed his quest for the perfect meal even if he knew he wouldn't find it. ( )

I know I read and liked it, but I can't remember a single scene from the book. Yay, I can read it again! ( )

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. ( )

I think I'm supposed to find Bourdain a hot, hip, un-PC bad boy of culinary and gustatory adventures. I think he's actually most appealing when he isn't trying so hard to be insulting, and to my ear his tales of vomiting, smoking, and eating animal testicles ring a bit false. This may be more the editor's fault than the author's; Bourdain's voice doesn't always hit authentically.

I enjoyed this compendium of cross-cultural feasting primarily for the food pornography aspect of hearing each meal lovingly described (even when Bourdain thinks the food is disgusting, he's clearly fascinated by it). It was a particular pleasure to read the chapters on Vietnam before and after a recent visit there, as well as the chapter on Cambodia, where I traveled recently. As for Bourdain the man, like durian, I would rather regard him from a distance.
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Bourdain's unique writing style is not for the soft-hearted. He swears and is not hesitant to write about the "nasty bits" of the restaurant buisness. His trips aren't your typical Irish meadows in the sunshine and eating pastries next to the Eiffel Tower, but take you into the heart of a country's culture, experiencing what Morocco or Cambodia is truly like. The book is colorful, filled with energy, humor and imagery that will appeal to experienced travellers. I recommend this book to anybody who needs a nudge out the door and wants to go see the world. High praise for Anthony Bourdain. ( )

I reviewed this book a long time, before I fell out of love with Anthony Bourdain. However, this is how I felt about the book six years ago.

I want to make this man's babies. Chainsmoking, bitter, foulmouthed, omnivorous, foodappreciating babies. This book tracks his journeys as he films "A Cook's Tour" wandering around the globe in search of food. and this isn't anywhere near as pretty as Steingarten. Part of what makes it so brilliant is that it isn't clean or prissy or refined. He goes to Saigon, and becomes disgusted with the fact that he's "making a petty, useless, lighter-than-air television fucking show." He goes to a gun club in Cambodia, a sauna in Russia, kills a pig in Mexico.

I admit it it. I have a problem with food writing. I can't resist it. Cooks are sexy. Cooks who are a little nuts, even sexier. Even though he scorns vegetarians as self-indulgent prigs (and from the ones he meets, it certainly sounds like he's well within his rights to do so), i still love him. He's clever but not at the expense of being eloquent or informative. And i'm pretty sure he'll put anything in his mouth.

And hell, how many places can you read about someone consuming the still beating heart of a live cobra? or read text like "What is love? Love is eating twenty-four ounces of raw fish at four o'clock in the morning." or "We work in aprons, for fuck's sake! You better have balls the size of jackfruits if you want to cook at a high level, where an acute sense for flavor and design, as much as brutality and vigilance, is a virtue. And be fully prepared to bulldoze any miserable cocksucker who gets in your way."

this book makes me forgive him for tricking me into read that absolute atrocity of a book, A Bone in the Throat which was so bad i decide it didn't count toward my list of books read this year. in fact, reading it probably counted as anti-reading, and i should have knocked off another book along with it. So, if you're going to read anything this man writes, skip the novels. i'm keeping reading Kitchen Confidential as a carrot of a sort, i have to read more of the books i own before i'm allowed to take anything else out from the library.

I was pleasantly surprised by Bourdain's witty and wickedly funny writing. Read this book, but plan your next vacations around his destinations (and meals). ( )