About two thirds of the way up one wall, there are what look like bloody footprints and – what do they call it, arterial spray? How they got there, so high up, I can only guess. In spite of the EZ Clean design features, there are suspicious and dismaying stains on the walls. There’s one lightbulb, a warped dresser, and a complimentary plastic comb with someone else’s hair in it. Picture this: a single swayback bed, a broken TV set that shows only fuzzy images of Thai kick-boxing, a tile floor with tiles halfway up the wall and a drain in the middle – as if the whole room were designed to be quickly and efficiently hosed down. I’m about as far away from you as I’ve ever been – a hotel ( the hotel, actually) in Pailin, a miserable one-horse dunghole in northwest Cambodia, home to those not-so-adorable scamps, the Khmer Rouge. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary UnderbellyĬhapter 4 Where the Boys Are/Where the Girls Are The cover image for A Cook's Tour A Cook’s Tour Written with the inimitable machismo and humour that has made Tony Bourdain such a sensation, A Cook's Tour is an adventure story sure to give you indigestion. Other stops include dining with gangsters in Russia, a medieval pig slaughter and feast in northern Portugal, the Basque All Male Gastronomique Society in Saint Sebastian, rural Mexico with his Mexican sous-chef, a pilgrimage to the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and a return to his roots in the tiny fishing village of La Teste, where he first ate an oyster as a child.

Bourdain heads out to Saigon where he eats the still-beating heart of a live cobra, and travels deep into landmined Khmer Rouge territory to find the rumoured Wild West of Cambodia (Pailin). 'Brilliantly written up in a raw, stylish gonzo prose, with pitch-black humour and a devilish turn of phrase' Evening StandardĪnthony Bourdain, life-long line cook and bestselling author of Kitchen Confidential, sets off to eat his way around the world.īut being Anthony Bourdain, this was never going to be a conventional culinary tour. In large part because Bourdain is a very funny writer sharp, honest and with a beguiling mix of belligerence and sensitivity' Sunday Telegraph

A Cook's Tour by Anthony Bourdain