Rating: 
Summary: An Engaging Read
Review: Anthony Bourdain has fallen pray to the same trap as Bobbie Flay and Emeril Lagasse (as he will remind readers of the book throughout in small segments describing the pains he went through to help the TV series), but at least he is honest about it.The premise of this book, and the TV series that it is a companion to, is for Bourdain to travel around the world looking for the perfect meal. His travels take him throughout asia, into Europe, Africa and even parts of the US, as he looks for culinary delight. He describes with admirable detail the food, people, and culture of the places he visits, often with vary favorable comparisons to our own culinary culture. He regrets the US' "refridgerator culture" and how we have lost track of where our food comes from. Mixed in with the food talk is some other random rantings and ravings, as can be expected from him. The paragraphs on Henry Kissinger, and the comparison of Cambodia to Vietnam are probably the most off topic in the book, but you can tell that he wrote them which a lot of personal feeling. Bourdain is a pretty engaging fellow, and his writing, while not some stellar example of perfect prose, has a very personable feel to it that makes the book quite the pleasant read. What comes out more in the book than the TV series, was that this was his plan to exploit his fame from "Kitchen Confidential". He knows full well that he has become that which he has professed to despise, but his open and honest acknowledgement of it deserves some respect. It's hard to fault the guy for taking this opportunity when he could, for it's plain that he truly enjoyed touring the world, and most of the food that he found.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth it for the vegan potluck alone
Review: Anthony Bourdain admits cheerfully to selling his soul to the devil [television] in order to carry out his childhood James Bond world adventure fantasies. Along the way he experiences joy, fear, awe, and nausea. Those looking for recipes will be disappointed: those looking for hilarious and insightful descriptions of how food is cooked and served around the world will be thrilled. Bourdain never forgets the importance of food culturally; he packs the book with interesting tidbits on how a cuisine is shaped by necessity [what kind of livestock can you raise in an enclosed town?] Many of his experiences, particularly in Mexico and Vietnam, leave the reader with a feeling of loss. Food in the United States frequently consists of a fast food hamburger eaten alone in front of a television set. The "third world" may be poor but they haven't lost the ability to make food a source of shared joy.
Rating:
Summary: Very Personal and Knowledgable Chronicle of Food
Review: The colossal irony of the Food Network series on which this book is based is the heart felt statements in the author's previous book 'Kitchen Confidential' that he will never get his own Food Network series. He goes on in that book to say some rather unflattering things about Emeril Lagasse that seem to be a guarantee that his prediction will come true. Well, Anthony Bourdain got his own Food Network show, and it is, to my lights, the most enjoyable travelogue style show they have ever done. I will warrant the prediction that it will also be the most enjoyable travelogue show they will ever do. I think the original 16 to 18 episodes are even better than the 'second season' episodes he did which were not in this book. In the follow-up episodes, Bourdain (or his handlers) tend to start parodying themselves and make more coy, self-referential statements such as the cute business when Tony is in New Orleans and he gets slugged by matronly women for dissing their favorite son, Emeril. In case you are not familiar with the Bourdain persona, I can quote a local paper's comparison to Emeril as the Food Network's star student, Alton Brown as the class nerd, and Tony Bourdain as the perennial juvenile delinquent. That is not to say Bourdain's view of things is juvenile. It is, in fact, as insightful as any other culinary commentary. The difference between Bourdain and other culinary travelers is that Bourdain is telling us about things from the inside, from the point of view of palate, tongue, nose, ears, and tummy. He is also talking from the inside in that he has been a working cook and chef for his whole life, who has seen just about everything the other culinary journalists have seen and more, including a stint at a childhood in France. The sardonic twist which gives Bourdain's reporting an outlaw flavor just adds to the entertainment value. One of the more successful realizations of this book is the author's interpretation of 'Extreme Cuisines' in the subtitle. This includes all the expected venues such as a boatride up the Southeast Asian River to Cambodia, with more than a few references to 'Apocalypse Now' and trips to Spain, Morocco, Russia, Mexico, Japan, and Scotland. How can you expect an exotic foods show not include haggis. But Bourdain also includes the very tame and very safe venue in Napa Valley called the French Laundry. While this site may be free of iguana meat or eels or lamb testicles, it is not safe for Bourdain's psyche and self-respect. This is the home ground of Thomas Keller, arguably the most distinguished chef in the country. To insulate himself from facing the Olympian cuisine of Keller alone, and to insure that he gets his invite for himself and his camera crew, Bourdain sits down to the meal with three very well-connected colleagues. These three musketeers are Scott Byron, the chef at the New York City restaurant Veritas, Michael Ruhlman, a journalist / chef and co-author of Keller's cookbook, and Eric Rippert, one of the most highly regarded chefs in New York City. As predicted, Bourdain is humbled by the French Laundry tasting menu. As an at best journeyman chef in a somewhat better than average New York bistro, Bourdain ponders his wasted talents when he sees what Keller has done with food. I'm sure Bourdain is crying all the way to the bank with proceeds from his journalistic products. One of Tony's colleagues has said Bourdain is a better writer than he was a chef. I believe it, because his writing is as entertaining as the professional writer Ruhlman, and even a touch more insightful due to his true insider's point of view. Not quite as good as 'Kitchen Confidential' but it does have all the stuff the Food Network could not show on television. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Even better than the first course
Review: Who else but Tony Bourdain could get away with starting off a piece on food in Cambodia with a bitter rant against Henry Kissinger? Much less regale the reader with his various temper tantrums, drunken escapades and intestinal woes for more than 300 pages and still come out smelling like a rose. Bourdain only gets better in "A Cook's Tour," a book whose limp title hardly reflects the bacchanalian revels within. The highlights in this book are often Bourdain's lowlights, his frequent bouts of melancholy and fits of pique against the indignities imposed by the TV crew trailing him around the word. And no one writing today has captured the sleazy half-life of expats in third-world Asia better than Bourdain in a few brilliant paragraphs on Phnom Penh. Travelers, food fans, fans of great writing, you'll treasure this book.
Rating:
Summary: I'm hoping for a second volume
Review: Anthony Bourdain's tour of meals around the world is an homage to food, to meals, and to "the good guys" who prepare those meals. I read the book before I saw the companion series on FoodTV, and they're different enough that I wanted to read the book while I was watching it unfold on TV. His chapter on England is great, particularly his praise of Fergus Henderson, the king of blood and guts cooking, and his takedown of a vegetarian dinner party is worth the price of the book. Given the choice between Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour, I'll take the former, but I'd rather have, and re-read, both.
Rating:
Summary: What an adventure
Review: I loved this book. Whenever I travel I like to eat the local food, good or bad. Honestly most everything is great. I loved the fact that the only thing he hated was the hygienic vegan food he ate at some constipated fancy dinner party. I feel the same way. The book was an engaging read and I like the way he didn't shy away from the slaughter that precedes most of his meals. That is what is takes and I'm glad to see somebody is happy to describe it and then readily consume whatever animal has so recently been unceremoniously killed. It is a great book, not for the weak stomached, but great nonetheless. I'd recommend it to almost anybody. As a person who has eaten camels, snakes, porcupines, jellyfish, insect larvae, and virtually every organ found in vertebrates I feel like Mr. Bourdain is a kindred spirit. Read the book and start your own eating adventure
Rating:
Summary: so jealous!
Review: What a rollicking good adventure, and I appreciated his upfront admission that this trip was possible due to the wild success of Kitchen Confidential which he calls 'obnoxious' (in the best possible way, say I) and the fact that the Food Network was footing the bills and greasing the wheels. Wow, whose lamp do you have to rub to get that kind of sweet deal? He's such an endearing personna on the page that I can't begrudge him landing my dream ... I just wish it came with a tasting sampler. I loved this book, even when he's busting on my vegetarian kind - I appreciated his description of the Portugese pig slaughter too - honest and complex and I knew that the tofu alternative I'd be stuck eating wouldn't taste nearly as good as the rustic whole hog feast he partakes of a few pages later. Write us another one, Tony!
Rating:
Summary: You may want to skip this while eating.......
Review: I really like Anthony Bourdain, though I suspect he'd have sneering contempt for me. I say this because, even though I've been in the same business as him for over 30 years, I lack his extreme sense of gastro-adventure. But, he writes with such skill, humor, and openness to new experiences in this book that going along for the ride is irresistable. Speaking of contempt, here, he famously and unapologetically expressees HIS for the likes of Emeril and Burt Wolf, and what he perceives to be their faux theatrics, as in Emeril's case, or lack of real ability, as with Mr. Wolf. He also has something of a love/hate relationship with "The Food Network", that mixed blessing largely responsible for both his fame and his dreaded occasional need to be "sociable." He abhors pretension of any kind, and is ready, anxious, and able to squat down in the rice paddies or the mud-hut to fest with the locals. He has a huge respect for not only the inhabitants of wherever he's visiting, but for their traditions and foods. He is well aware of what every good chef/cook should know, that, you never stop learning, sometimes in the most unlikely places, by the most unlikely people. He is definately more "blood & guts" commando, more resembling a burned out rock star, than haughty chef. It is ,however, obvious that he is not only a talented chef (though he refers to himself as a "utility cook"), but a very talented, intelligent writer, who wastes neither food nor words. As for myself, I am someone who has gained a local reputation as something of a very creative short-order wizard where cooking is concerned, so I can really appreciate his referring to himself as "cook", not "chef." (We cooks have been maligned for too long!) Unfortunately, I am definately someone whom Mr. Bourdain would call a "wuss." Though I am not exactly a vegetarian, I like my meat to resemble anything but a formerly "living" thing. And though his skillful descriptions here of the preparation and partaking of numerous meals often had my mouth watering, Mr. Bourdain also recounts in this book numerous incidences of not only witnessing the slaughter of their very imminent meal, but of often eating the fresh kill as it's barely had its last breath. Though he swears that the jumbo lambs testical or sliced calfs face he savored was something that all would enjoy, I can assure you that I'd skip those, thanks...just pass the curried cous-cous with raisins and pita bread. This is a very entertaining book, which is just as much a travel adventure as a gastronomic one. Whether exploring the dangerous underbelly of Russia, or sensually describing the search for the perfect oyster of his past, he makes it all thrilling, and this book would interest those who have never stepped foot in a kitchen. I really enjoyed this book, as I did his "Kitchen Confidential", which exposed the entrails of the restaurant world, to much humor amongst those, like myself, who have long lived it, and to the horror, I'm sure, of many restaurant goers. To Mr. Bourdain, who finally got his aging and over-used legs (I hear THAT...ache!) out of the kitchen, I say, "You go Boy!"
Rating:
Summary: Global Gourmet!
Review: this was a fun, enteraining read. if you enjoy Tony's show on Food TV, then this is added excitement. After seeing a few episodes, I had to get the book. Tony's writing is as colorful as the locations.
Rating:
Summary: This is really great writing
Review: I loved this book. Initially I thought it would be about food only and obviously food of different cultures. But the book turned out to e much much more than this. You have food, you have cultures, you have analysis, wit, humour, and much much more. It is such an enlightening book about food and all the factors related to food, such as sociology of the country etc. It was indeed one of the most enjoyable books I have read in recent years. I congratulate the author. Please give us more of this kind of stuff. And don't wait too long for your next book.
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