Globe-trotting chef and raconteur Anthony Bourdain has a good thing going with his delicious Travel Channel series “No Reservations.”

“This year I’ll probably hit 20 different locations,” says the elegantly dresssed raconteur, who held court at a promotional event at the W Tuscan hotel in midtown. “I get to indulge my curiosity and have a good time at the network’s expense. And I have final cut. That doesn’t suck. They ask me to take out the occasional sodomy reference, though.”

Bourdain’s new season of shows kicked off last week with a visit to Shanghai where he sampled the local delicacy, Shanghai Hairy Crab. This week, he returns to New York and finds much to explore in a city whose restaurant life is parsed to the nth degree, visiting the places where chefs go after work.

“We go to six different locations that are off the beaten path,” Bourdain says. “We’ll grab the sushi chefs from Geisha and Le Bernadin. It’s like one inbred hillbilly family, the chef world.”

Bourdain’s New York stops are located in multiple boroughs. The American-style Prune is in Manhattan. Ali’s Café, which serves Egyptian cuisine, is in Queens. The National, which Bourdain describes as a “sinister Russian nightclub,” is in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn

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“They put on a straight-faced, Vegas-style floor show,” he says. “It’s as if Pee Wee Herman and Don Ho joined forces. It’s pure camp.”

NO RESERVATIONS

Monday, 10 p.m., Travel Channel