Frankly, I love it. I’ve always watched him, from Cook’s Tour through No Reservations and now this.
I love the idea of a TV show that travels to places most of us won’t ever get to go, interacting with locals, learning about their culture and food, and asking questions.
Yes, Bourdain can come off as a smug prick sometimes, but his show is worthy, IMHO. His ripostes with Eric Ripert are hilarious, and some of the drunken episodes are pretty memorable, like when he went to Nashville and hung out with Allison Mosshart and went to a house party there, or when he went to South Korea and got hilariously caught up in a severe drunkeness with drinking games with Korean salarymen.
I’ve loved all of Anthony Bourdain’s shows, even though I get them mixed up. I love his humor and when he gets together with his Russian pal, they are hilarious.
After reading Kitchen Confidential, I eventually read much of Bourdain’s stuff. Then I started watching Parts Unknown and similar series. It is a pretty good show, often amusing and educational. He goes to some interesting places and his knowledge of gastronomy is fairly complete. Does a good job offering a taste of local cultures, and is both somehow both smug and unpretentious.
It is a weird balancing act, isn’t it? That’s a great way of putting it. But I like his shows far better than Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods, even though Andrew is usually pretty respectful of culture as well.
The recent show featuring Seattle transcends tv into art, IMO. Plus, it gifted me with the music of Mark Lanegan and for that I will be eternally grateful.
Another great episode of Cook’s Tour is when he and Eric Ripert (whom I really like) and a couple other chefs venture to the French Laundry in CA and have the meal of a lifetime. Pretty amazing.
I watch him all the time… except for the episode in which he talked on and on about Judo. I think it was in San Francisco, which he could have talked just about the food.
I just rewatched an episode of his that I love from “No Reservations,” called Into the Fire. He goes back to the restaurant where he was chef for 28 years-- Brasserie Les Halles in New York, now closed–to see if he can still hack it on the line. To see the organized chaos that goes on in the kitchen of an upscale restaurant-- incredible. It’s a French restaurant and all the cooks are Mexican–from Mexico! So the orders are shouted in Spanish. Tony has a very hard time with the physical stamina required, plus his old-guy eyesight can’t read the order slips any more. At one point real French Chef Eric Ripert (who has never worked in a setting like this) joins him to work one of the stations and he does great! You can see that bugs the shit out of Tony. I’ve watched this episode maybe 15 times and I always enjoy it–it’s mesmerizing.
I love, love him. Adorable. He has had a very dangerous & unusual life to come out on the other side looking like a great guy. Lucky him. It could of went so bad. I like when gives the kids food. He was somewhere and it was basically mudhuts and bush meat. The women were cooking on the ground on their knees. And Bourdain fed the kids on giant leafs. It was great.
What I like about Parts Unknown is that he seems to talk more of culture and history than just the food. I don’t remember him doing it as much on No Reservations. Zimmern does the same but Zimmern’s end point has always been the food, period. There’s a lot more nuance with Bourdain.
I can hardly tell the shows apart, but yes, I think the emphasis on the new one is culture.
I’m from Michigan and I enjoyed when he got a Coney Dog. I literally learned from his show that Coney Dogs and the Coney Island restaurant are mainly a local thing in Michigan. One of those “I thought everywhere had that” kind of things.
I like that he can be sarcastic and disdainful in appropriate places, but when it’s called for, he can be humble and respectful. I remember on one show he went deep into the interior of China and the grandma of the family (who spoke no English) cooked him (and his crew, I presume) a sumptuous meal with many dishes in her one-room home that was really a shack. There wasn’t a kitchen as such, just a huge wok (as I recall) in the middle of the table and she served them one thing after another. He was utterly gracious and appreciative and you could tell just blown away by her hospitality. It was very sweet.
“No Reservations” was more about the food than the later show.
Cuz that was hilarious. I love Alton but he’s a bigger stick-in-the-mud than I am - seeing him tipsy and asking if Tony was gonna make it rain cracked me up.
