| | |  | Culinary Books | Home » » Anthony Bourdain Omnibus: "Kitchen Confidential", "A Cook's Tour" | | | | | | | Description: | | Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly After twenty-five years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain has decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village, from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, as shocking as they are funny. A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal Bourdain sets off to eat his way around the world. But this was never going to be a conventional culinary tour. He heads to Saigon where he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra, and travels into Khmer Rouge territory to find the rumoured Wild West of Cambodia. He also dines with gangsters in Russia, finds a medieval pig slaughter and feast in Portugal, and returns to the fishing village where he first ate oysters as a child. Written with his inimitable machismo and humour, this is an adventure story sure to give you indigestion. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Anthony Bourdain | | Paperback:
| 608 pages | | Publisher:
| Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | | Publication Date:
| August 16, 2004 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0747574987 | | Package Length:
| 7.4 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.12 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.65 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.88 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 2 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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I don't read, but I LOVE this book.Mar 01, 2010
Having been to culinary school, Bourdain speaks in a language I can comprehend. His stories are filled with detail leaving nothing for the reader to try to piece together. I'm not typically a reader of books, but am a huge fan of all things food, restaurants, and learning what it takes to survive in the restaurant industry. I am not dissapointed I bought this book. It's really fun to read - can't wait to get to the next page sort of thing. I've chuckled out loud a few times, and I'm sure you will, too.
35 of 35 found the following review helpful:
A Compendium Of Culinary MadnessJun 01, 2006
The "Anthony Bourdain Omnibus" is a compendium of two earlier books, "Kitchen Confidential," and "A Cook's Tour" by noted chef Tony Bourdain. This book is a good value, and if you have read neither of these books I recommend it highly, otherwise it behooves you to buy whatever volume you are missing.
I like Bourdain, who is at once sarcastic, dry, and worldly, and yet can be surprisingly sensitive (if you have a hard time believing this last part, read the chapter in "A Cook's Tour" on Vietnam, and particularly his interaction with the napalm victim.) He is clearly very bright, but also earthy and amazingly funny. Both of these volumes are great to read, and I recommend them highly. Of the two, "Kitchen Confidential" is my favorite mostly because I used to cook in an upscale restaurant and totally grasp everything he is saying (he speaks the truth, believe me,) whereas "A Cook's Tour" was written in conjunction with a cable television show of the same name and deals with traveling and exotic delicacies encountered far from his home in New York. While I am mildly adventurous with cuisine, I readily confess that there are a few things that Bourdain consumes that I could never overcome my aversion to: that is part of why I like these books so much; Tony will try anything once and can make the reader viscerally understand what the experience is like without actually needing to eat it themselves.
Of all authors that currently write on food or travel, Tony Bourdain is my unquestioned favorite. I highly recommend this omnibus edition to meet your literary and gustatory needs.
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