Kitchen Confidential author and gastronomic rabble rouser Anthony Bourdain is our guide on a culinary voyage across the globe in search of authentic regional delicacies. Looking like a taller, thinner version of I’m Your Man era Leonard Cohen Bourdain is the antithesis of the boorish American abroad, respectfully rolling up at street side stalls, people’s houses and anywhere else he can scran what the locals scran. Although he sometimes indulges in high end dining, as on his trip to London where he chose to be fed by Gordon Ramsey and Fergus Henderson, as opposed to stuffing a Greggs chicken bake down his gob.

Bourdain is also refreshingly honest, exclaiming, “I’m so depressed right now I feel like killing myself”, during an episode in which he ate a cheese toastie at an end of the pier diner in his native New Jersey. Even more endearing is his recent confession that he spends the majority of his travels drunk off his ass.

So in between smoking like a chimney, knocking back enough local booze to rival the late great Keith Floyd, and extolling the virtues of The Ramones Bourdain eats. My god he eats; seal eyeballs, dubious pork products, foetal duck eggs, blood soup, gelatinous bean curd stuff – basically if there’s a wild eyed native frying up a batch of something over a bin fire he’ll gladly pull up a chair and tuck in. Not that Tony’s enthusiasm is always rewarded, as in one hilarious episode in Mexico where is forced to stomach some badly cooked iguana tamales, and another in New Zealand where not only does he narrowly avoid death in a dune buggy accident but then has to endure a bunch of ropey looking meat pies in a trucker’s café.

The cable channel Shed is currently showing episodes of No Reservations and Bourdain fans have kindly uploaded quite a few episodes on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. If you have a penchant for travel or cookery programmes with a nice dollop of cynicism and debauchery then I would advise you to dig in immediately and gorge yourself on several helpings of Mr. Bourdain.