Da Beef wrote:Never said mutually exclusive or that Guy was a better host. I just said that most of Guy's critics are big fans of Bourdain who in return is Fieri's biggest critic, it's the piling on effect you mentioned. All you have to do is google "Bourdain Fieri" and you'll see every result is something Bourdain said in an interview about Fieri. Being a smart ass is part of his shtick*. Can people be fans of both? Of course, I am to an extent in that I'll watch either of their shows if they're on.

And I didn't mean to imply that Guy was a better host. He is, however, very well suited to the type of show he's doing, though at this point he's made the show so much his own that it's hard to separate the two.

Guy Fieri Goes To Vegas:

The Off-Da-Hook Original Smash Burger! $16

This burger is money! Crunchy righteous rojo rings, ITOP + the kicker - Guy's bourbon brown sugar sauce is sandwiched between a toasted brioche bun. It'll leave you in a food coma!

Well, the price looks reasonable.

There do seem to be two Guy Fieris:

The one who concepts (may one assume?) schlocky , carny-style restaurants that absolutely positively do not make any effort to "introduce ordinary Joes to good food" (or however GF's admirers may phrase the spin). You don't have to be a "snob" to stay away from items like the O-D-H OSB. (And it's not an atypical menu item, it's a 100% typical one.)


And the one whose TV show has recommended a number of obscure (to non-LTH eaters), kind of special places in Chicago - including a number of LTH GNRs - that really do offer good, interesting, well made food: Smoque, White Palace, Vito & Nick's and many others. (Maybe not actually "many", but quite a few - enough to make your nose hair spontaneously burst into blue and green flames of wonderment!!!!)


So - anybody here supplying Guy's staff with Chicago recommendations ... ?

Roger Ramjet wrote:Guy Fieri Goes To Vegas:

The Off-Da-Hook Original Smash Burger! $16

This burger is money! Crunchy righteous rojo rings, ITOP + the kicker - Guy's bourbon brown sugar sauce is sandwiched between a toasted brioche bun. It'll leave you in a food coma!

Well, the price looks reasonable.

There do seem to be two Guy Fieris:

The one who concepts (may one assume?) schlocky , carny-style restaurants that absolutely positively do not make any effort to "introduce ordinary Joes to good food" (or however GF's admirers may phrase the spin). You don't have to be a "snob" to stay away from items like the O-D-H OSB. (And it's not an atypical menu item, it's a 100% typical one.)


And the one whose TV show has recommended a number of obscure (to non-LTH eaters), kind of special places in Chicago - including a number of LTH GNRs - that really do offer good, interesting, well made food: Smoque, White Palace, Vito & Nick's and many others. (Maybe not actually "many", but quite a few - enough to make your nose hair spontaneously burst into blue and green flames of wonderment!!!!)


So - anybody here supplying Guy's staff with Chicago recommendations ... ?

I do wonder how many people defending him (here) have ever eaten at any of his restaurants or would frequent them. I do appreciate the Guy who recommends some off-the-beaten-path places but I'd never willingly set foot in one of his restaurants. If that makes me an elitist, so be it. I've been called worse.

=R=

Roger Ramjet wrote:Guy Fieri Goes To Vegas:

The Off-Da-Hook Original Smash Burger! $16

This burger is money! Crunchy righteous rojo rings, ITOP + the kicker - Guy's bourbon brown sugar sauce is sandwiched between a toasted brioche bun. It'll leave you in a food coma!

Well, the price looks reasonable.

There do seem to be two Guy Fieris:

The one who concepts (may one assume?) schlocky , carny-style restaurants that absolutely positively do not make any effort to "introduce ordinary Joes to good food" (or however GF's admirers may phrase the spin). You don't have to be a "snob" to stay away from items like the O-D-H OSB. (And it's not an atypical menu item, it's a 100% typical one.)


And the one whose TV show has recommended a number of obscure (to non-LTH eaters), kind of special places in Chicago - including a number of LTH GNRs - that really do offer good, interesting, well made food: Smoque, White Palace, Vito & Nick's and many others. (Maybe not actually "many", but quite a few - enough to make your nose hair spontaneously burst into blue and green flames of wonderment!!!!)


So - anybody here supplying Guy's staff with Chicago recommendations ... ?

It seems a little unfair to say there are "two" GFs, as though he's some kind of hypocrite. His menus seem a fairly accurate reflection of his over-the-top approach to food, and many (though far from all) of the places he visits on DD&D are of the fry-it-if-you-can, pile-it-on, amp-up-the-sauce-and-spice variety.

My belief is that he deserves some modest defense in part because those who attack him so abundant and the dislike of him so seemingly knee-jerk (not that there cannot be some criticism made of him or his food, which does seem many times like hyped-up TGIF stuff).

Without contradiction (or hypocrisy), one can appreciate what he does on his show but at the same time be skeptical of some of what it sounds like he's serving in his restaurants. The same could be said of Bourdain, who has many fans of his shows but who it seems may not be near the equal of some of the chefs he features (In the most recent Lyon episode, he hangs with some of the finest French chefs in the world...and he is, by report, no Paul Bocuse).

That said, I vow that the next time I'm in NYC, I will take one for the team and eat at a GF's Time Square location (heck, might even try to eat at Les Halles, too, just to continue the Fieri-Bourdain comparison).

Da Beef said early on in this thread that he'd provided Guy himself with Chicago recommendations during a random encounter. You're not suggesting that any of his "admirers" on this board are contracted to provide him with Chicago recommendations, are you? And about that word "admirers," I think one can defend a person without holding him in particularly high regard; for instance, I'd defend a citizen's right to his second amendment armaments, but I wouldn't admire him for amassing an arsenal in his garage.

David Hammond wrote:
It seems a little unfair to say there are "two" GFs, as though he's some kind of hypocrite. His menus seem a fairly accurate reflection of his over-the-top approach to food, and many (though far from all) of the places he visits on DD&D are of the fry-it-if-you-can, pile-it-on, amp-up-the-sauce-and-spice variety.

.

Yes, his menus reflect his approach to food.

No, hardly any of the Chicago restaurants on DDD reflect his approach to food. Kuma's, that's about it.

"Contracted"? No, it's highly unlikely he'd pay anybody for recommendations. It's just odd that someone with Guy Fieri's approach would be such a connoisseur of GNRs. It seems out of character. It seems hypocritical.

There's a difference between "admirers" and "defenders", that's why I used the former term. There's plenty of admirers - or people writing admiring articles anyway - out there, saying that GF's restaurants are only criticized because they serve plain ol' reg'lar fellas food - you know, the kind disdained by elitist warthog-anus-eating snobs like Bourdain.

Roger Ramjet wrote: It's just odd that someone with Guy Fieri's approach would be such a connoisseur of GNRs. It seems out of character.

That's because it's actually the producers of the show who are the connoisseurs of the restaurants, not (necessarily) Guy himself (who likely has little to nothing to do with the restaurant selection process). Like his "Good 'Ole '67", Guy is trucked in after the fact and placed before the camera to do his thing.

Roger Ramjet wrote:It's just odd that someone with Guy Fieri's approach would be such a connoisseur of GNRs. It seems out of character. It seems hypocritical.

We'll just have to disagree here, not only about GF but about human nature in general. There are a lot of folks here (like me, maybe like you) who would be as eager to eat at Gene and Jude's as they would be at Grace. These two places represent radically different eating experiences, and I, for one, enjoy them both on their own terms. If I opened a place, it'd be more like Gene and Jude's (for many reasons) but that doesn't mean I would not encourage people to go to Grace, Alinea, The Peninsula Lobby, etc. And it sure doesn't mean that if I simultaneously served G&J-like hot dogs and praised Grace's truffle panna cotta that I'd be a hypocrite. Rather, it would just mean that I'm an omnivore, capable (thank the goddess) of enjoying just about any type of food except bad food...just like, I'm guessing, pretty much everyone else on this forum.

stevez wrote:

Roger Ramjet wrote: It's just odd that someone with Guy Fieri's approach would be such a connoisseur of GNRs. It seems out of character.

That's because it's actually the producers of the show who are the connoisseurs of the restaurants, not (necessarily) Guy himself (who likely has little to nothing to do with the restaurant selection process). Like his "Good 'Ole '67", Guy is trucked in after the fact and placed before the camera to do his thing.

Yes, as mentioned above, it seems there's a lot of stagecraft behind GF's appearances, but there's a lot of stagecraft behind every "reality" show on television.

And are we so sure GF is not involved in the selection process? I just don't know, but based on Da Beef's recounting of his encounter with the guy at White Palace, it seems he is involved in the process -- and you know, he does have a brand to protect, so I'd guess he does play a role in selection.

David Hammond wrote:Yes, as mentioned above, it seems there's a lot of stagecraft behind GF's appearances, but there's a lot of stagecraft behind every "reality" show on television.

Yes, there is. As a producer myself, I like to see credit (or blame) fall where it is due. Just because somebody knows how to smile pretty for the camera and spout catchphrases doesn't mean that they have anything to do with the creative process involved with making the show.

According to IMDB, Guy gets no production credit for the series, other than "host". In fact, in the past Mr. Fieri's services were provided as a part of the contract with the Food Network separate and apart from the production budget, implying to me that he had no involvement in the actual production of the show.

The Internet wrote:According to a lawsuit filed on Friday 5/13/11, with the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, David Page, producer of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, alleges that the Food Network is failing "to provide the services of [Guy Fieri] and failing to make payments required by the Contract."

According to bizjournals.com, "Page Productions said in its lawsuit that the Food Network signed on for 39 more episodes over three seasons in 2007 and agreed to retain and pay host Guy Fieri separately from the show's budget."

To be clear, I'm not a Guy Fieri hater, and I watch DDD on occasion. I like the show. I find the places featured to be in line with the kind of places I like to visit. I watch and appreciate Bourdain, too. I especially enjoy his new CNN series because, while he still does quite a bit of eating, he does get to explore what it's like to live in the episode's location. Having said that, the recent Lyon episode was a bit over the top on the douchy scale, but I find that to be the exception rather than the rule.

You guys better watch it. Soon hipsters are going to start having Guy Fieri cooking parties and going to his restaurants ironically. Apparently it has already started
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... ning-mecca

mgmcewen wrote:You guys better watch it. Soon hipsters are going to start having Guy Fieri cooking parties and going to his restaurants ironically. Apparently it has already started
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... ning-mecca

Flavortowne Grille opening in Logan Square any day now.

I have zero interest in going to Johnny Garlic's or whatever Flavortown-inspired restaurant Fieri comes up with. I just think he's a better host, who shows more interesting and diverse affordable restauarants than anyone else on TV today.

Whether that's him or the producers is irrelevant to me. He doesn't deserve the abuse he gets, especially from his so-called peers on TV. No one takes Bourdain on for running a mediocre french bistro for decades, because he likes the Ramones and was a junkie.

David Hammond wrote:

Roger Ramjet wrote:It's just odd that someone with Guy Fieri's approach would be such a connoisseur of GNRs. It seems out of character. It seems hypocritical.

We'll just have to disagree here, not only about GF but about human nature in general. There are a lot of folks here (like me, maybe like you) who would be as eager to eat at Gene and Jude's as they would be at Grace. These two places represent radically different eating experiences, .

Gene & Jude's and Grace are different from each other, but they are more like each other than either is like a Fieri restaurant.

There's no conflict between liking both Big & Little and Alinea. There's an enormous conflict between liking either of those places and liking Guy's "Can We Ladle More Glop On That?" Vegas Adventure.

It's not about liking hoity-toity fancy-schmansy la-di-dah food more than honest plain solid food. It's about liking good food more than bad food.

David Hammond wrote:

stevez wrote:

Roger Ramjet wrote: It's just odd that someone with Guy Fieri's approach would be such a connoisseur of GNRs. It seems out of character.

That's because it's actually the producers of the show who are the connoisseurs of the restaurants, not (necessarily) Guy himself (who likely has little to nothing to do with the restaurant selection process). Like his "Good 'Ole '67", Guy is trucked in after the fact and placed before the camera to do his thing.

Yes, as mentioned above, it seems there's a lot of stagecraft behind GF's appearances, but there's a lot of stagecraft behind every "reality" show on television.

And are we so sure GF is not involved in the selection process? I just don't know, but based on Da Beef's recounting of his encounter with the guy at White Palace, it seems he is involved in the process -- and you know, he does have a brand to protect, so I'd guess he does play a role in selection.

Well the encounter at White Palace was a while ago, when the show was just getting going. It was totally random in that we just decided to stop in around Midnight and eat and there was a sign on the door saying you may be recorded for a television show etc. These days he's much bigger so to say and probably has alot of corporate stuff going on and not much time to ride around eating for fun and that's fine with me. Even though I've never bought any of his sauces nor would I ever plan on going to one his restaurants, btw isn't the Times Square one located amongst a Chili's, TGI Friday's Rain Forest Cafe and the likes? No reason to get too offended by something he put his name on that draws tourists who would of gone to one of the other spots mentioned instead. Not to make it anymore about Bourdain vs Fieri but the former is appearing on what I can only say looks to be an awful reality cooking show on ABC. So he can call out whoever he wants but it doesn't seem quite as slick after appearing on that pile of crap. All I would say is give Guy (and the show) credit for putting places on peoples radars that they might of never visited if not for it being featured on DDD. It's a good resource for the average business traveler, hockey mom, family road trip etc. I think it's fair to say it's showed the average American you don't have to eat at Cracker Barrel on the annual visit to your mother in-law's place in Tennessee.

Roger Ramjet wrote:It's about liking good food more than bad food.

I wouldn't be comfortable confirming or denying that GF's food is good or bad unless I had eaten at one of his restaurants. Which one of his places have you eaten at?

I was looking through the menu at Johnny Garlic's and googled one of the farms listed. I expected green-washed bullshit (it's regular feedlot beef but with a special name etc.), which is usually what happens when I google the farms that certain Chicago restaurants list. Nope, an actual legit source.

David Hammond wrote:Which one of his places have you eaten at?

Hey, you're the OP. What are your favorite items at Guy's restaurants? You must know them well to start this thread in the first place.

I never said anything about the quality of food in any of his restaurants. I don't think it's legitimate, fair or productive to evaluate a restaurant, a movie or a book if you haven't experienced the thing you're critiquing.

David Hammond wrote:I never said anything about the quality of food in any of his restaurants. I don't think it's legitimate, fair or productive to evaluate a restaurant, a movie or a book if you haven't experienced the thing you're critiquing.

"Third, and perhaps most importantly ... "

[in Jon Stewart voice] Yes....go onnnn

Look, RR, this is pointless: you want to keep arguing that I should have eaten at his restaurants because I've defended some aspects of his practice, television persona, etc. Fine, fine. I can keep arguing that you should have eaten at his restaurants because you've attacked his cuisine as "bad food," even though you have apparently never tasted it. Around we go. It's getting boring, right?

To step back, it seems like pretty much no one on this site -- neither Fieri attackers nor defenders -- has actually been to a Fieri restaurant (though I thought maybe buttercreme had posted that s/he had, though it was probably just a joke and perhaps that post has been deleted by the poster), and yet we can all have opinions about his impact on American culinary practices. I do think that those opinions that relate to the quality of his food (not the concept; the quality) are invalid if the poster has not eaten his food, but that dead horse has been beaten...to death.

David Hammond wrote:I never said anything about the quality of food in any of his restaurants. I don't think it's legitimate, fair or productive to evaluate a restaurant, a movie or a book if you haven't experienced the thing you're critiquing.

It seems like a big leap of faith to defend someone whose restaurants you've never tried. I'm curious. If you ate at one and thought it was disgusting, would you still defend him?

Isn't blindly defending someone pretty much the same level of sin as ragging on him for being Food Network-created douchebag? Both positions are fueled, at least to some degree, by partially-informed generalizations aren't they?

=R=

But it takes no leap of faith to attack a restaurant you never tried? Ron, that makes no sense.

And who is blindly defending anyone or anything?

But to answer your question, if I ate at one of his restaurants and didn't like it, my points (and please, those are the points I presented in the original post) would still stand. To reiterate:

David Hammond wrote:Fieri may be obnoxious – no, I’ll admit it, he is, definitely, obnoxious – but the result of his food-goofing may very well make for a richer food culture, where little places can serve fun, reasonably priced food that broadens the culinary perspective of the average guy. And that, to quote the equally maligned Martha Stewart, is a good thing.

I've heard nothing here to make me back away from that position. The fact that he may serve "bad food" (a point no one here can, based on zero experience with his restaurants, actually attest to) is not relevant to that thesis.

My points address Fieri as a cultural force, not as a chef himself.

David Hammond wrote:But it takes no leap of faith to attack a restaurant you never tried? Ron, that makes no sense.

And who is blindly defending anyone or anything?

But to answer your question, if I ate at one of his restaurants and didn't like it, my points (and please, those are the points I presented in the original post) would still stand. To reiterate:

David Hammond wrote:Fieri may be obnoxious – no, I’ll admit it, he is, definitely, obnoxious – but the result of his food-goofing may very well make for a richer food culture, where little places can serve fun, reasonably priced food that broadens the culinary perspective of the average guy. And that, to quote the equally maligned Martha Stewart, is a good thing.

I've heard nothing here to make me back away from that position. The fact that he may serve "bad food" (a point no one here can, based on zero experience with his restaurants, actually attest to) is not relevant to that thesis.

My points address Fieri as a cultural force, not as a chef himself.

Got it. Thanks, for the clarification. If it's true that Fieri isn't actually responsible for the content of DD&D, I find little about him to defend. For me, it's not actually about him. It's about the overall insincerity behind almost everything that Food Network throws out there. For better or for worse, GF is just another example of that.

But yes, DD&D is useful and beneficial in several directions. That said, I think it probably would be equally so with any number of different hosts, more or less obnoxious than GF.

=R=

Thanks, Ron, for understanding.

I have to say, regarding our earlier exchange, I'm actually kind of eager to try some of his food, just for the experience. Looking over the menu at the Vegas location, I was actually surprised that some of the items seem fairly normal and others more-adventurous-though-edible.

That said, I don't think Bocuse has to worry about losing any ground to Fieri.

David Hammond wrote:Looking over the menu at the Vegas location, I was actually surprised that some of the items seem fairly normal and others more-adventurous-though-edible.

Having just returned from a trip to Vegas, let me say that the thought of going to the Fieri restaurant there didn't even enter my mind, but I did consult the DDD Google Map to see if there was someplace worth investigating that I hadn't been to before. I guess that's a data point that pretty much sums up my view on the whole DDD/Fieri debate.

I've never eaten at one of his restaurants, and since my current budget does not stretch to trips to New York or Las Vegas, I'm not likely to any time soon. But I agree with you, David, about the unwarranted dissing of (a*) Guy Fieri himself and (b* ) his DD&D show.

In a vein similar to the comments stevez just made, if I were to have the opportunity to go to Las Vegas sometime soon, I have other places in mind that I'd seek out, but if circumstances informed me that I'd be be dropped in Kansas City or Raleigh or St Paul or Philadelphia or or Denver or Santa Barbara or El Paso or any of hundreds of other places sometime soon, yeah, I think I'd check to see whether there were any DD&D spots nearby to visit. (And I hope visitors to Chicago do the same and find Paradise Pup in Des Plaines!)

*a, because I am, as I've mentioned in the past, opposed to mean-spiritedness in all its forms, and because whatever the topic---food, sports, home, arts, politics, whatever ---I quickly get turned off when the People magazine element creeps in and it becomes less about talking about the stuff than snarking about personalities; and

*b, because I think DD&D fills a particular niche that is not otherwise filled---not even by Jane and Michael Stern, who don't have a TV show and who are, IMHO, waaaay too focused on donuts and other sweet breakfast foods and the more the better. But that's just me. Not big on breakfast; not big on sweets.

Tnx Hammond, good job starting this thread.

I'll add a new ingredient to what's already been said. In Montréal, Triple-D re-runs show up daily on Canadian Food Network, during the hour before the PBS Newshour. So I clamber up on my exercise bike, and peddle away, watching Guy's selections and antics. And here's the cut to the chase: almost without exception, some neat looking dish will be featured in one of Guy's stops and that dish will interest me. "Hmmm, damn, that looks *good*!" I'll say to myself, and commence to find the recipe for the dish either on Guy's site, or by googling the dish's name as given on the show.

Damn useful--I've had quite a few unusual, and unusually tasty food that way.

Geo

Hating on Guy is like hating on Captain Kangaroo or Harry Potter or Justin Bieber--they are characters, carefully crafted by their marketers. The marketers hope we buy whatever they're selling. It's not personal, it's business. Do any of us know anything real about these people to actually hate or love them?

As for hating on the Food Network--some folks on LTH are their target audience--others of us are not. For those of us to whom it doesn't appeal, I don't think that makes it somehow evil. And if you find a television network that IS "sincere", I'd love to know what that is--I find the concept a bit hard to wrap my arms around

I'm not a big fan of DDD (or most "food" television for that matter), but I've watched a fair number of them and it's a decent show. I definitely like the concept and overall it's pretty well executed. The thing that strikes me about Guy Fieri is that there seems to be a big disconnect between the places he visits on DDD and what is on the menus of his restaurants, as well as the recipes he pitches. The whole FLAVORTOWN! thing seems to be the antithesis of the types of places I've seen on DDD. Maybe I haven't watched enough DDD, but it doesn't seem to be focused on places that are doing crazy over the top fusion type cuisines. It seems to mostly be places like Gene & Jude's. Fieri's restaurants and personal recipes feel like a bastard child of bad 80's California fusion type cuisine.

I suspect that Bourdain's issues with Fieri have to do with him as a businessman, his restaurants, and what he promotes - not with any cuisine snobbery. I doubt he has any issues with the restaurants featured on DDD - he did feature the Mother in Law on one of his shows, and seems to like to stand up for the little guy. Bourdain has an obvious hatred of chain places like Olive Garden, and Fieri's restaurants, product lines, and books, all seem to fall under that same umbrella for Bourdain. And yes, all we really know about either of them is their marketed personas, and I'm not a big fan of either.

I should note that I did eat a Tex Wasabi in Sacramento long ago, and found the food to be underwhelming, and in general just plain misguided. The cocktails I tried were abominations that I wouldn't wish on anyone. The place definitely had the feel of a well oiled corporate chain, but the product just wasn't any good.

boudreaulicious wrote:And if you find a television network that IS "sincere", I'd love to know what that is--I find the concept a bit hard to wrap my arms around

A great majority of the few food/cooking shows I watch these days are on WTTW/PBS (A Chef's Life, Pati's Mexican Table, etc.) and they come off as a lot more sincere -- certainly less marketing-centric -- than the programming and brands that are constant-casted via the Scripps Howard networks. Look, I understand that television is a commercial endeavor. I just don't like being beaten over the head by what I watch. It seems to me that that's exactly what GF is all about. I retreat from it without even making a conscious decision to do so.

=R=