New Season has had several episodes, the one in the Czech Republic was ok, but the one on Monday, on the Hudson Valley was terrific. Anthony was witty, visited his old school the CIA along with foodie writer Michael Ruhlman.
Yes, thank you Barb, and it was interesting conversation to boot. I was completely unaware that Murray lived upstate. I have to say that the Hudson River Valley is particularly beautiful. Nice of Mr. Bourdain to visit the Mohonk Mountain House too, and I liked the Shining reference as well. The place is both impressive and spooky. Did I mention it is extremely expensive? It's starts at $650 for a Victorian king sized bed for two!
Yeah, I looked at the price of that hotel right after the show as well. Ridiculous! Cheapest rooms go for $510/night. I mean, it looks nice but come on! OTOH, the restaurant that Bill and Anthony ate at in Yonkers is quite affordable. Bill hit the nail on the head about NYC in the summertime. lol
yep. That view of Mont St Michel was breathtaking. He should've swung by, just for the comedy of him ragging on all the tourists at the omelets at La Mere Poulard.
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Yeah, after that episode I had a craving for anchovies and bread. I made sure the anchovies were standing upright!
And yet back to Asia, this time Manchuria. I've really had enough of the Far East, especially China. So many shows done by so many hosts on so many networks, that it has become banal and common place. It's lost it's exotic appeal and quite honestly the food of many places does nothing to spark my curiosity.
I'm thinking that when Bourdain & co. makes a trip to Asia, it's not just one trip to Manchuria, then maybe another trip next month to Cambodia. Because these places are literally halfway around the world, I think they spend weeks on end visiting a number of countries, and that's why you probably see a lot of stuff from Asia. Personally, I like that Bourdain does a lot of Asia. I don't watch a lot of TV, so I probably have yet to OD on Asia. I've seen some Travel Channel shows featuring that bizarro scumbag traveling to Asia and being repulsed at the stuff he shoves down his throat. The bizarro guy has no respect to the customs and cultures he visits. Bourdain OTOH is amused and bemused at some of the spectacles, but does not disparage what he sees and experiences, and has an irreverent take on the whole experience.
Andrew Zimmern is just way too bizarre. I find him disturbing to look at and what he eats is gross. I question anyone that would find Lutefish to be gourmet and delicious.
I'll take Bourdain doing Asia over Bourdain doing Eastern Europe any day. He tends to have decent guides in his Asian episodes, and he doesn't treat Asia as some sort of exotica and doesn't get overly sentimental as he does in many of his US episodes, but instead shows genuine curiosity and appreciation. Plus, Asian techniques and ingredients have been driving American cooking for the past few years, so it makes sense that he spends disproportionate time in the region.
I love the C.I.A. Been to both the Hyde Park and the Napa Valley locations, the former for dinner, the latter for lunch.
Excellent point. Chinese has been gentrified as of late, Japanese has gone mainstream, so has Thai. Vietnamese and Korean has seen an upsurge in popularity, kogi taco trucks has seen Korean food take to the street. momofuku made braised pork belly a dish to die for, now every restaurant seems to have a braised pork belly or something dish. Mmmmm ..... getting hungry just thinking about all this.
His show should be on the food network. It has nothing to do with travel. With regards to the Bourdain show, one way it can be improved is finding better guides to take Anthony around. The guides always seem to drag him to these giant tourist-traps to eat. He keeps saying the food is great, but I find it difficult to believe that these big commercial places can be anything to write home about.
Except for the part about how he's traveling around to exotic locales. I disagree that he's always going to tourist traps. Yeah, sometimes he does. But just as often he goes to to street vendors or local hangouts or has a meal in someone's home. And when he does wind up at tourist traps - remember the Dracula restaurant? - he laments over it and often blames it on the producers, rather than the fixers.
Well, being touristy might not always mean a bad thing. It's easy to equate but not necessarily true. Also, seems like most of the places he gets taken seem to be very esoteric. Maybe not to the locals, but to him, certainly. And as for being on the Food Network, he wouldn't be able to get away with a lot of the stuff he says if it were on the Food Network. But he does show the cultural parts of the cities he visits. He's met some weird musicians, artists, locals that show him around. In the end, the food is what brings them all together but I definitely would not say it's just about food.
I'm confused as to whether you guys are talking about Bourdain or Zimmern here but it's worth pointing out that Bourdain was initially on the FN and left exactly because he couldn't get away with what he wanted to. They wanted the family-friendly Disney version and he refused. As for weird food shows on the FN, they do have this one guy who does what Zimmern does, but is much more pleasant while doing it. I can't remember his name, though.
Actually, I misread what BocaFan was referring to. My comment about the Food Network, I didn't realize he was referring to Zimmern. My entire entry is about Bourdain. I actually don't mind Zimmern all that much. I used to enjoy his show much more when it first came out but then it just kinda became a regular food/travel show. Nothing really bizarre about it. Then again, I haven't watched in a while so I could be completely wrong. I do enjoy him trying to eat durian though.
Yeah I meant Zimmern. Zimmern goes to some exotic places but too often these places have nothing to do with the food he's eating. For e.g. he'll go to Santiago to eat pigs feet then travel half-way around to world to Shanghai to eat pigs ears. The food should have something to do with the city he's visiting (like Bourdain's show does), otherwise its not appealing to "travel channel" people. My two cents...
Here we go again a new episode on Vietnam. He did an episode on it two or three seasons ago. Why, the revisit? Maybe because the first episode so so boring. Yeah let the idiot who thought of the idea of going back to Vietnam sit a a Squeezle. Folks no need to mention that he considers Vietnam his favorite destination. I know that and I recognize good tv versus bad tv and that episode was a bore.
