The Bear on FX: aka HEARD! aka YES CHEF! aka Ketamine Gene Wilder cooks for u

Just got back from a visit to Chicago and Pequod's is definitely good (didn't know it was featured in the Bear). I recommend getting extra cheese. Also went to Piece, a microbrewery/pizzeria co-owned by Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick that serves new haven style pizza.

Pequod's is excellent, as is piece. The tourist spot is usually Uno, which is very good but not the best. If you grew up in or around Chicago, the default places were whatever your local tavern style place was (my local-ish favorites below). The local chain Barnaby's was outstanding though my go-to location in Schaumburg closed a number of years ago. Giordano's is good though definitely not nearly as legit.

https://billspizzapub.com/
https://nickspizzapub.com/
https://foxholepizza.com/

btw i meant Joe's Pizza on carmine as a classic nyc slice joint. John's of Bleeker is one of the Lombardi's offshoots.

yeah, I love a good New York slice, but in my opinion it is less that the pizza is somehow spectacular and more how good it is for such a simple thing that is relatively easy to come across and eat. I mean, it's essentially the pizza I ate growing up in Pennsylvania, and likely the pizza people ate in New Jersey, and so on.Just pizza, imo, not an idiosyncratic offshoot, like Chicago pizza, or New Haven pizza, or Detroit Pizza, etc.

Like, I wish I could just get a slice in Chicago,
but it's not really a thing here.

The really old-school NY places, where pizza as we know it was invented, the Lombardi's and it's offshoots like John's, Grimaldis, Patsy's etc, is more neapolitan than slice joint, but these days I think you're better off with Johns of Bleeker or Best Pizza in williamsburg. Di Faras etc.

I just want to eat L&B all the time, which maybe shows a hankering for deeper dish pizza!

― dan selzer, Wednesday, August 23, 2023 11:21 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Special shout out to Grimaldi's in Hoboken, which has separate indepedent ownership unlike the national chain. SUPER good.

One of my few regrets about leaving NJ is not getting to Santillo's beforehand.

But I'm more about checking out NJ Bar pies these days.

https://www.kinchleyspizza.com/

this place down the street from my home office is legit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e8sH65X-hc

I used to drive by Kinchleys a lot when I was living in montvale during the pandemic (height of), always meant to check it out.

Pequod's really getting that Bear Bump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTpu7_0vaGU

If you want to go authentic tavern style, here was a rare tip of the hat via Kenji López-Alt in the New York Times (which often struggles to grasp Chicago, or any place that is not New York):

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/dining/tavern-thin-crust-pizza-chicago.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mIbyUgNOlo

Finally watched The Bear and yeah good stuff

we just got to the christmas episode. good times! jlc’s sauce hands are some of the most cursed imagery in recent memory

this is a very loud show! i like the restaurants scenes, i'm not so big on the family stuff. i think the family should be like the alien in ridley scott's alien - oft mentioned and referred to but never seen. the christmas episode, too much shouting and big emotions, okay throw the fork or don't throw the fork, chekhov's fork who cares whatever.

i recognize that the writers intended for the family to be a big part of the show, from episode 1 of the first season. but the writers also did the stupid tomato ex machina ending of the first season.

at the end of the day i think a little psycho restaurant guy can just be a little psycho restaurant guy without needing a big backstory to explain why he's a little psycho restaurant guy. sometime psychos are just psychos!

Maybe, but we wouldn't have gotten those amazing performances from JLC and Odenkirk!

jlc sauce hands

IDK I think the family stuff is great but I agree that it works better as background than foreground; when we're kinda just given hints as to what these relationships and history are all about

I found series 2 harder to get through, and there were a few things in it I didn’t like (mainly the whole Claire storyline, and the series being so much based around having to open a restaurant against such a tight deadline). Series 1 was almost flawless for me, except for the series ending.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/the-bear-renewed-season-3-fx-hulu-1235781001/

Worried about diminishing returns setting in here. I hope S3 is the last

The answer to the question we've all been asking: https://hard-drive.net/hd/entertainment/fx-confirms-the-bear-season-3-will-require-no-prior-mcu-knowledge/

They say that now, but then the Blob'll show up in Ep 5 or something.

Gonna be funny if Carmy shows up super jacked (because Jeremy Allen White played a pro wrestler in a movie in between seasons) and absolutely no explanation is offered.

I think he's been super jacked all along, they just hide it well

They'll reveal that's the real way he got out of the freezer

Just hulked his way out

https://media.vogue.co.uk/photos/6471ec8f07c77016fcc85adb/2:3/w_2560%2Cc_limit/001.jpg

I mean, dude is already pretty jacked in the show

https://media.vogue.co.uk/photos/6471ec8f07c77016fcc85adb/2:3/w_2560%2Cc_limit/001.jpg

I mean, dude is already pretty jacked in the show

mmmmhmmm

Should have made him a baker, got baker guns.

in other JAW news, I saw recently that he's apparently dating Rosalia, love that kind of random celeb pairing

I think he's been super jacked all along, they just hide it well

They absolutely do not hide it well. It was a small thing that annoyed me about the first season. This is not a man who goes to the gym, but look at him. The set dressers could at least have put a set of weights in his spartan apartment.

i guess in my head he was pumping iron during his vintage jeans swapping limbo but yeah otm

i was gonna say, venn diagram between vintage levis in the oven guy and keto gains guy is pretty high

They lay enough clues to indicate that in his Michelin days Carmy was absolutely a fashion guy, so I think it’s not a huge leap to think he’s been pretty invested in how he looks.

kinda like a ketamine Gene Wilder imo

I saw an early Robert Mitchum the other day and it occurred to me that he has a look of Carmy about him.

I saw an early Robert Mitchum FILM, that should be. Not Robert Mitchum strolling along at 5am.

And his hair was ...

i am devoted to Matty Matheson’s youtube channel cooking show

i can’t eat half of what he makes but i find it so therapeutic to watch! he’s so relaxed & good vibes, i heart him

his youtube series from maybe 2-3 years ago where he was interacting with his zoned out staffers more was hilarious

i’ve watched some of those too they’re v funny

i’m obsessed with his jetsons microwave drawer, it’s so wild to me

Billy Zane episode is all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahlGT2dVToI

!!!

have now finished both seasons. it's really good. they absolutely whiff the s2 finale though

Hard disagree that they "absolutely whiffed" it.

the stuff with claire and the fridge is just...no. no

as i say, great show, was pleased to see the richie episode is the highest rated on imdb, nothing wrong with feelgood-of-substance

That was a little weak, but the rest of the ep was so good - JLC was perfect, again. And watching Sydney work through her feelings of sheer stress and confidence was great.

okay fairer to say the s2 finale is really good, even while carmy is in the fridge, then it turns out he was there not as symbolic of letting go of being in control but so they could contrive a moment of absurd melodrama where lengthy character arcs are thrown in the fire. him being in the fridge should have been freeing, and claire should have been there as he emerged, euphoric. end of show.