Anthony Bourdain's New Television Program

Details @ The Travel Channel.

E.M.

Thanks for the tip, Erik. Bourdain is generally a love-em-or-hate-em kinda guy. I'm firmly planted in the "love-em" camp. This show would've passed me by without your heads-up.

Best,
Michael / EC

this guy is my husband's hero! (not so much mine since he's pretty anti-vegetarian). he's going to flip when he hears about this - thanks for posting this!

In addition, Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" is being turned into a Fox sitcom this fall. Normally I'd be very skeptical of how it would be (ahem) butchered, but it'll be paired with my beloved "Arrested Development" on Monday nights, so I can at least give it a chance.

I caught this show last night. I like the concept, but it still has a few rough edges. I particularly liked the Absenthe segment and the part where he went to the new market, although I wish it had been a little more in depth. Once this show hits its stride, it should be a wonderful series.

We also watched the show. I wasn't aware this was brand new, but we're looking forward to the Iceland installment next week. We laughed throughout the absinthe portion of the show, but our daughter was horrified. I think she's scarred for life.

I like the show but Tony needs to lose the cigarettes.

RevrendAndy wrote:I like the show but Tony needs to lose the cigarettes.

That's not about to happen.

The show was surely 1/2 hour too long.

Vital Information wrote:The show was surely 1/2 hour too long.

I disagree. This show is worthy of a full hour, but they've got to work on the pacing and content a bit before it's "done" IMO. That's what I meant earlier when I said it has not hit its stride. This is a common occurance in many new series (no matter what the genre). Until the show starts airing and the producers get some feedback from the real audience they can't fine tune the production values. I wouldn't draw any final conclusions just yet. Wait until the 5th episode or so for the tweaks to be made.

RevrendAndy wrote:I like the show but Tony needs to lose the cigarettes.

Why should he lose the cigarettes?

Maybe it was the fact that I had already been through a bottle of sylvaner* and I was on my second glass of port when I pulled it up on the tivo, but I loved this show. Bourdain carries a combination of boyish wonder and head-over-heels romance around with him. It makes me want to follow him around.

I felt the urge to go to Paris. He made me want to have roast beef sandwiches and red wine with a bunch of butchers at 7am. He made me want to eat veal stew in an out-of-the-way bistro. I found some segments were a little silly, but who else is doing TV about drinking too much absinthe in weird Parisian bars? It added a lot to the character of the show.

I also laughed a lot, (again, maybe too much to drink). I thought the show was (mostly) very well written and the network seemed to let through enough of his acerbic charm to make it seem "uncensored". I thought his Rocco DiSpirito bit about the rats (rat-at-touille) was very funny and I nearly spit out my wine when he was cold and said, "I need some hot chocolate and a couple of fat chicks."

Anyway, I'm glad he's back on TV even though he swore up and down in "A Cook's Tour" that he'd never do TV again.

Best,
Michael

* I loved this bottle of wine

I like Tony Bourdain. His restaurant in New York, Les Halles, has gone down the tubes though. On the other hand, he did go to my high school.

I thought the first episode of the new show was great. Yes, there were a few silly moments that could have been shortened or left out altogether but there was a lot of real food-related content and many nice scenes. It was also nice too to see fellow LTHer, Louisa Chu, on the show.

In general, I'm a big fan of Mr. Bourdain; his views and mine on a variety of things seem to coincide and I think there are some further attitudinal similarities. Given that he's about my age and from a couple towns over in Jersey, perhaps it was something in the water way back when (heck, Hoffman-La Roche and other chemical factories were in the area)... either that or...

Anyway, he and I tend to see things the same way...

Antonius

Antonius wrote:...and from a couple towns over in Jersey

I checked my Tivo and the synopsis of episode three reads something like "Bourdain explores the New Jersey of his youth".

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:

Antonius wrote:...and from a couple towns over in Jersey

I checked my Tivo and the synopsis of episode three reads something like "Bourdain explores the New Jersey of his youth".

Best,
Michael

Thanks! That will be interesting for me to see.
A

Thanks Antonius. It was nice to be seen. I myself will have to wait until I get back to Chicago for a series viewing marathon.

eatchicago wrote:

Antonius wrote:...and from a couple towns over in Jersey

I checked my Tivo and the synopsis of episode three reads something like "Bourdain explores the New Jersey of his youth".

Best,
Michael

If anyone has a Palm PDA and subscribes to AvantGo, there is a channel available about this show. The first 5 episodes are:

1. Paris
2. Iceland
3. New Jersey
4. Vietnam
5. Malaysia

I would guess that these are the five that they had "in the can" before starting to show the series. Subsequent shows will probably fine tune the production values (as I talked about earlier in the thread). There is also a website about the series.

The "old malt shop" in the slideshow from the New Jersey episode is none other than Baumgart's Cafe, an ice-cream shop in Englewood, NJ that has, since 1989, been serving Taiwanese and nouvelle Chinese dishes. They've since opened two other branches in Bergen County and their Ridgewood branch (162 Franklin Ave) is where my family has held court on Thursday nights for at least the past fifteen years. If you're ever going to be in the area, go there, mention my last name, and you'll be treated like a regular.

I truly enjoyed the first episode. Not everything pretained to the theme about why the French don't suck. The sewer tour was extraneous, but the jab at Rocco with the rats was hilarious. The segment on baked goods had me riveted. Looking forward to more episodes.

Bill/SFNM

I'm so happy to hear that the baking segment's being so well received! Pascal was one of my chefs at Cordon Bleu and he's an incredibly decent guy. I was so grateful that Tony and company agreed to let me have him in the show. If anyone deserves a bit of hard-earned success, it's Pascal.

BTW I've posted the location of his bakery in Paris - and all the locations used in the show - on my blog.

Bourdain Fixer's Guide to Paris

Louisa Chu wrote:Thanks Antonius. It was nice to be seen. I myself will have to wait until I get back to Chicago for a series viewing marathon.

Louisa,

I watched the show last night and thoroughly enjoyed myself, though the 60's style absinthe flashbacks were a little hokey.

You were great and it was fun to see someone on television whose posts/blog I've read over the years.

Enjoy,
Gary

I just watched it, too. Certainly they need to get into a groove, but it's got a ton of potential. And I desperately want to go to some of those places, now. I guess it'll have to wait until next spring...

Gary,

Thanks so much. And absinthe itself is a lovely libation - what a shame it's illegal to bring back to the States!

Louisa

I was anticipating this week's episode with a mixture of great interest and considerable trepidation; Bourdain goes home to Jersey. As I've said elsewhere (above), I've found that I more often than not agree with Bourdain on many things and generally have really liked his sense of humour.

Well, as a real Jerseyman, I missed half the show because I was busy watching the Yankees (they're playing the White Sox at the moment, so I get to see three games in a row). I saw the second half and was amused by a couple of things but in the end was disgusted by the Bourdain and Batali wallow-in the-gutter of playing to the lowest-common-denominator.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the ethnic group that is most prominently and regularly free game to obscene stereotyping and abuse in this country is the Italians -- if I'm wrong, that's more depressing than I care to imagine. Bourdain, his network, with the cooperation of the professional asshole and prostitute Mario Batali, came through with what I feared would be the case: a long series of sophmoric Soprano-Mafia-Jersey jokes. How pathetic.

By the way, how these morons could go to Giancarelli's as a great Italian pastry shop in Jersey is beyond me. I'm inclined to assume the folks at places like Carlo's in Hoboken and some of other old school places told 'em to go f_ck their collective selves. Either that or they don't know what they're talking about. Well, the latter I know for fact.

I'm still waiting to meet the person who equates Italians with Mafiosi who isn't an a-h_le or a moron. Most often, they're both.

Antonius

Antonius wrote:I was anticipating this week's episode with a mixture of great interest and considerable trepidation; Bourdain goes home to Jersey.

A,

I just got home and Ellen said I missed Bourdain in New Jersey. As soon as she said New Jersey I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, there would be a 'displeased' Antonious post awaiting on LTHForum.

I fully intend to watch the episode, though I still have not watched Bourdain in Iceland (thanks tivo) and will contribute my 2c, if any, at a later date.

I think it's safe to say Bourdain will never visit, for television purposes, my old hometown of Milwaukee so he seems safe from my ire.

Enjoy,
Gary

Well, having seen the Iceland episode, I'm just glad we don't have an Icelander on here too. The part with the dinner party where he tries the rotted shark and generally mocks his fellow diners is hilarious, but cruel.

A,

As an Italianoid First Class, I feel I can say that although all Italians are not Cosa Nostra (of course, I’m not; you’re not), all Cosa Nostra (in the truest sense of this Italian word) are Italian. Positing a close association is an easy mistake for the misinformed to make.

Frankly, though, I feel that the Mafia (were they to exist), would seem to have performed a signal service to the Italian American communities in the early part of the past century. Plus, they helped Frank in his early days. So, maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be labeled thus.

This is getting complicated. Okay, here’s a good analogy. Take the movie “Alien vs. Predator.” Turns out, the Predators – though BMFs – are really kind of our friends. Plus, they founded Mayan culture, chocolate and all of that. So I don’t think calling a person Mafia is necessarily a bad thing, or an insult, is all I’m saying.

David “My friends call me T-Bone – though sometimes Asshole or Moron” Hammond

PS. Do you really think Mario Batali is a professional prostitute?! Interesting!

G Wiv wrote:I just got home and Ellen said I missed Bourdain in New Jersey. As soon as she said New Jersey I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, there would be a 'displeased' Antonious post awaiting on LTHForum.

To know me is to...

I fully intend to watch the episode, though I still have not watched Bourdain in Iceland (thanks tivo) and will contribute my 2c, if any, at a later date.

I saw the Iceland-show and it was at times reasonably interesting, at times pretty funny, at times rather irritating. But I guess I had a wee harbinger of how I would feel about the Jersey show. I've visited Iceland a number of times; hell, I spent half my honeymoon there; I've devoted years of my life to studying Icelandic language and literature and taught Old Icelandic a bunch of times (Amata took the class once and did very well -- actually, she was frighteningly good at it, but that was perhaps just a question of genetics). Anyway, Iceland, the food is, to coin a phrase, pretty not spectacular -- actually, it's generally mediocre to bad (though there are some specific items that are really, really good)... Anyway, waching that show, I started to get the feeling the jokes that would work with a stupid, quasi-xenophobically-pseudo-sophisticate American audience were more important than the communication of the experience of visiting Iceland. (Luckily, there are folks who don't buy the caricature version of Iceland -- Thank you MikeG for commenting on that episode; it all was sort of funny but also cruel and in a very real way off the mark.)

But the Jersey episode took it to a more pathetic level, especially in that it didn't involve a foreign country and a relatively obscure culture. The Icelandic-schtick was obnoxious but without the societal and historical implications and resonance that render tonight's show a display of racist crap.

Consolation was watching the Icelanders that he was trying to make fun of laughing at him. They know who they are and don't depend on American t.v. audience approval to feel good about themselves. There are some Icelanders who are dorks, but there are lots more who are cool and there are also lots of seriously bad-ass cool Icelanders too. And they spend lots of time doing things that Americans find weird, like reading books.

God bless Iceland. (Gods... Odhin, Thor, etc.)

Antonius

G Wiv wrote:I think it's safe to say Bourdain will never visit, for television purposes, my old hometown of Milwaukee so he seems safe from my ire.

Enjoy,
Gary

But he SHOULD go to Milwaukee. In fact if Bourdain was 1/2 as cool as he thinks he is, he'd have filmed 10 episodes in Milwaukee (well, to include Racine, "up-north", Door Counnty, Sheboygan, etc.).