You might already know this is you've clicked on any of the No Reservations ads on our site, but I just found out myself that Anthony Bourdain has a new blog. It's over at the Travel Channel site.

Bourdain has kept blogs before. He's been writing about Top Chef and has entries at other food blogs once in a while, but if I'm not mistaken this is the first permanent blog that he's had. Hopefully he'll keep it up even after the season of No Reservations is over. If the first few entries are any indication, it might be fun.

Tonight, another season of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations begins on the Travel Channel, and our sister site Gadling managed to track down the busy host in between shoots for an interview.

If you have ever seen the show, you'll know that their primary goal is to seek out authentic experiences in regards to the food and flavor of a particular culture, often traveling off the beaten track in order to find it. They aren't interested in what the local Tourist Board has to say, they'd rather take the word of a street vendor who actually feeds vast amounts of the population on a day-to-day basis. Yes, this sometimes leads to sore stomachs (among other things), but at least you know you are finding out the real deal about a particular locale.

Bourdain reveals how the show chooses their destinations, what they look for in a local guide (or "fixer" as he calls them), as well as divulges some of the locations they will be visiting this coming season. If that alone weren't quite enough for you, he also talks about his love of traveling, and what he really thinks about places like Vietnam and Uzbekistan.

You can read the entire interview via the "read" link below.

If you are into extreme cuisine, how does you top eating the still-beating heart of a cobra? Or what about going right up to Korea's DMZ and fishing for your lunch?

If you're Tony Bourdain, you party in war-ravaged Beirut while airports are bombed and all ports are blockaded.

Bourdain flew to Beirut a week ago to do an episode on the local cuisine of Lebanon for his Travel channel show, No Reservations. He and his crew ate and partied Monday and Tuesday, but were holed up in their hotels after the bombings started, waiting for instructions on evacuation. I haven't seen any more news recently if Bourdain and his crew have left yet, but according to the New York Post, he's "not getting a show out of this . . . I just wanna hang out and drink at the bar. The mojitos here are great."

Sure, sure, Tony. We know you're a tough guy. Get home safely.

Sarah was pretty critical – and with good reason – of Anthony Bourdain's recent trip to Korea, which was featured on the Travel Channel's No Reservations. Along with many of the commenters, she felt that there was not enough food and too much traveling. But it takes a lot of filming to put the show together and the crew is always trying to find the right balance of food, adventure and travel.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer was able to get behind the cameras when the show was being filmed in the Pacific Northwest. It takes up to 100 hours of footage to make the hour-long program, so there is a lot for the editor to choose from. While they try to concentrate primarily on food, stories about locals or unique travel situations are what keep the program moving and interesting to viewers because No Reservations is not a cooking/food show, but a travel/food show.

Check out the whole article if you're interested in reading about Tony's geoduck hunt or how the crew has to bribe him to eat particularly distasteful foods. Otherwise, just wait until the episode airs later this season.

Did anyone else catch Tony Bourdain's No Reservations last night? I did. He went to Korea and I was slightly disappointed.

First, let's do a little recap of the episode.

Tony has been to several places in Asia, both for the show he did for the other network, and for No Reservations. He's been to Vietnam, Japan, China, and India. Nari Kye, a producer on the show, has been hounding Tony about going to Korea, her Mother Land, so he decided to go, and takes her along as his tour guide.

A lot of people know Anthony Bourdain either as a chef or "that guy on the TV shows who travels a lot and eats funky things." Sure, he's both of those things, but he also happens to be a very good writer. Not just his books that look behind the scenes of the restaurant biz (like Kitchen Confidential, a must read for anyone in the food service industry), but also his mystery books. Bone in the Throat, Gone Bamboo, and The Bobby Gold Stories are all terrific reads. The guy can write, period.

Now he's back with The Nasty Bits, a collection of articles he's written for several publications, including Gourmet, Chow, Esquire, Best Life, Blackbook, The L.A. Times, Town and Country, and others. Nicole picked it as the Cookbook of the Day last week, and I think this might be one of his best books yet.

As many of you know, I am not shy about my lusty chef crushes, and Tony Bourdain could tie me up with his apron strings any day. I absolutely love his fast-talking, four-letter-word spewing, smoking, drinking personality, and the fact that he cooks? Well, let's not get me all worked up now, okay?

We have been afforded the rare opportunity to exchange a few questions and answers next week with the celebrity chef, writer, traveler, and king of all food media (at least in my eyes) as we await Season Two of his show, No Reservations on the Travel Channel.

We may be able to slip a few questions in at the end from readers, so if you have any burning questions you want to ask my dream chef dinner date, leave us a comment, and we'll do our best next week.

The two-hour season premiere of the show airs this coming Monday, March 27, 2006, with Tony traipsing through China and Japan. Please, don’t call me between the hours of 9 and 11 pm, because I won’t answer.