The Anthony Bourdain thread

But Bourdain is definitely telling you something: go out Tuesday/Fridays for fish.

I’m okay with people who are horrified by cruelty to animals. I understand that completely. Who isn’t? Well, a lot of people aren’t, but I am.

She wrinkled her nose & said "My husband loves him, I'm only here because of him. I just want to see if he's clean."

When I asked her what she meant she smiled in this deranged way and said primly "He looks so dirty on TV. I just came to see if he's clean in real life, or if he really is that dirty."

I swear, she's the single weirdest person I've ever encountered.

I can just picture her snapping on a white cotton glove & giving him the 'finger test' at the signing table....

No.

I like A.B., from what I'v read. And I totally support Nice Guys in the Military, but I support neither the gov't nor the "military."

Also, Dan's right -- I've spent some time in commercial kitchens, and he pretty much nails it.

When I first read Kitchen Confidential I loved it because it showed the Way It Really Is. Now I hate Bourdain because he is an example of The Way It Really Is. He is just the sort of macho, self-aggrandizing, control freak that plagues too many restaurant and makes life miserable for the rest of the staff including waiters, managers, cooks, runners, bussers, and even owners.

I think my breaking point was when I saw Bourdain on The Restaurant, dining at Rocco's in NY with another chef, talking some crap about "Chefs embody madmen, visionaries and artists, all in one body..." as the camera spun and zoomed giddily about them. Blarf.

That said, I have never tasted Bourdain's food, and from what I have heard he's a good, workmanlike chef but not a truly special one. He seems to know his French comfort food, which is still better than what most of America ever eats.

But whatever, he's not even a chef anymore, he's a full-time writer and TV personality. Fuck TV -- he's a professional personality. I happen to like this personality. Some will not.

So I like Bourdain, but only when he is eating durian.

The fish tip doesn't hold true right across the board though, where I work we sell out of stuff over the weekend, so a fresh fish delivery arrives on Monday.

maybe this is why Friday has always =ed "fish day"?

"is everybody happy? well i should say!"

At my former workplace (an upscale fish restaurant) deliveries came in fresh every day except Sunday. And they weren't frozen. And this was in Chicago.

Monday had very fresh fish since we ran out of a lot of stuff on Sunday.

So, suck, Bourdain.

No.

Evan, half the people on this thread also post on the Chicago thread. QED.

I wonder why Les Halles and Bourdain would order that way. If weekends are amateur nights, wouldn't you want to serve the amateurs the 2nd rate stuff and have fresh seafood for your more discerning patrons?

(I grant that this is complete speculation about a business that I am not running, but still.)

So did Steve Shasta upthread!

I think it's worth pointing out that in our kitchen we're all very polite to each other, and even to the floor staff for that matter. That said, I like Bourdain. He loves food, and that's what it's all about.

haha!

He's turning into a hippy with each new season/show though.

Any thoughts on The Nasty Bits, his newest book, a collection of magazine pieces? Enjoyed it, especially the endnotes where he cops to where he was wrong in each.

He rocks.

Well, his marriage fell apart because he was traveling all the time. He was not happy about that.

Worst episode: the one with Joe Rogan

I love almost all of the rest of it but haven’t seen all of it yet. The Quebec episode was great, I liked the one in the Philippines a lot cause he obviously had such a personal connection there.

that Berlin episode with that numpt US rockband mate of his was pretty bad, though at least there was a bit of Ellen Alien in there as well to almost redeem it!

one of the production crew, i cant remember if it was an editor or a director, said that they would call “cut to wide” to mark the end of a scene, and that Tony would often invariably say something offhanded because he knew he was done - they used 100% of those, because he always said or did something great.

it was cool reading about how engaged he was with the show, even about what a pain in the ass he could be. as a crew they were very much “all-in” with him, and working towards the same goal because of his enthusiasm for the authentic experiences they were trying to capture. a lot of it kind of sounds like a stressful nightmare as you could well imagine, but the driving underlying determination to get it right really shows on screen remarkably consistently

Yeah the Berlin one a good example of his self-indulgence. Newcombe is entertaining enough, but c'mon, show me Berlin!

I'll have to check out that oral history book, I loved the behind-the-scenes ep in the last season and am eager to know more about how they made the show

it’s great - and a lot of varied feedback about him, not just a “he was a genius” circle jerk

watched road runner last night, and found the last 30 minutes or so completely repugnant. was enjoying the enneagram 7 energy before that tho

Biopic but great cast and I've enjoyed everything I've seen from Matt Johnson so far, so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1MVnzd2aVc

also seems like it's going for a "the summer he became who he was" coming-of-age story rather than a cradle-to-grave epic or even something focused on the period of his life we all remember him from.

Yeah, seems more Kitchen Confidential, which iirc was constantly rumored to be coming soon (maybe once with Fincher attached?) but eventually became a ... sitcom? With Bradley Cooper?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential_(TV_series)

Kitchen Confidential is an American television sitcom that debuted on September 19, 2005, on the Fox network, based on Anthony Bourdain's New York Times bestselling book, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. Bradley Cooper played the lead character, Jack Bourdain, inspired by Anthony Bourdain.

After the show's first three episodes aired on Fox, the show was put on hiatus due to Fox's coverage of the Major League Baseball playoffs. In November 2005, Fox announced the show would not air during sweeps and that only 13 episodes would be produced because it was only averaging 4 million viewers. The show returned on December 5, 2005, with its fourth episode, but only received 3.38 million viewers. Four days later, Fox announced the cancellation of the series

LOL had never heard of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDSqbZ1COhc

still looks better than that stupid biopic

Funny that Cooper then went on to do this (purely fictional) film:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/Burnt_Poster_Updated.jpg

that sitcom is wild

aww nicholas brendon was in it RIP

And some others, too, like John Francis Daley from "Freaks and Geeks," and John Cho. Weird. I wonder how many random pilots are locked in a vault somewhere featuring who knows who.

i wonder if it's online in 144/240p but one of Bourdain's first few books (a cook's tour?) was turned into a short season of food-doc-tv and when Tony (as he was known then) and Eric Ripert went to The French Laundry, my then-roommate was TFL's lead expo and apparently made such "good TV" that he was featured more than Thomas Keller (known neurodivergent/introvert) which irked TK to no end haha.

480p!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYjZpfr6JQ4

starts at 5m12s

Man, nothing says Anthony Bourdain like "heartwarming coming of age vehicle with an aging star getting to play an Oscar-friendly mentor role."

All is forgiven if you get the heartwarming coming of age story and then a smash cut to Bourdain ten years later combing through shag carpet looking for a shard of crack.

we live many lives don't we

Haha, I clicked on that Cook's Tour video thinking it was the Tony trailer and the first minute had me thinking Matt Johnson was doing this in a Nirvanna guerrilla style.

Television & Spoon over the trailer were really good touches! gave me a good feeling. Even knowing he would hate the idea of a movie at all lol. But I like that it’s focused on that one summer. So we’ll see.

so does stavvy play his coworker/coke dealer here?

It looks like it! Great casting if so