No Reservations
 

Does any one else watch this show? It's become one of my favorites.

My two favorites on that channel are "No Reservations" and "Bizarre Foods". Both of them are great shows.

Wasn't there a movie called this lately? Absolutely horrible.

I like Bourdain. With him, what you see is what you get. A nice guy who is a straight shooter. A nice thing, is while he is a chef and understands cuisine, doesn't proclaim himself as a chef in terms of a Gordon Ramsay, Thomas Keller, and such.

No. No Reservations is a show on the Travel Channel hosted by Anthony Bourdain.

I'm watching it right now. One of the few things on TV I go out of my way to watch.

I absolutely love Bourdain and his show. It's not often you get a travel host that will audibly shriek in horror whenever the indigenous folk threaten to break into song and/or dance.

All of the 'Zamir' episodes, Uzbekistan, Russia, Romania, arre truly wonderful television.

Yep, I've got 10 or 11 eps of NR recorded that we're eventually going to watch once the Spring shows we're watching end and we can get to them. Great show.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481141/

Bad movie..

Isn't this the guy (and the show he hosts) who nearly blacked out in the Himalayas (or some similarly highass mtn range) and smoked a cigarette to feel better?

If so, yeah, I find him pretty watchable.

If not, that sure SOUNDS like him.

I enjoy watching, and have quite the buildup on DVR right now.

...that's him, and speaking of:

Did anybody notice that if you watched this season Anthony WASN'T smoking. At one point in the Romania episode he mentioned "Geez, this almost makes me want to pick up smoking again."

It's understandable, that even though he kind of built smoking as a primaary part of his personal ethos, when he did decide to give it up, for whatever reason, he shouldn't have had to have a whole show, and formally announce that he's given up smoking in some sort of ceremony....but on the other hand it's kind of weird to a regular viewer, to not mention it at all, and it blew my mind when I realized I'd actually been watching an entire season of No Reservations and hadn't noticed that he wasn't smoking.

He stopped smoking when his daughter was born.

I like this show and I've read both of his books. He's hilarious.

I honestly don't understand though, how a chef can smoke. How can you taste the food you're preparing? I thought smoking killed the taste buds?

Must be not.

LOTS of cooks smoke. Sometimes it can seem like the rule rather than the exception. Cooks can have 1-2 hours of intense stress and pressure followed by periods of intense boredom, and smoking is a habit that can very easily slip into those cracks, while also offering some kind of release, as well as offering an excuse to just plain get out from behind the burners for five minutes. Smoking also seems to be part of restaurant culture, to some degree (even to a global extent) and all of that combines to give you more cooks who smoke than you might expect.

...but it certainly does effect your sense of taste.

I wish the full seasons would come out on DVD.

The London/Edinburgh show was especially good. Particularly the part with Marco Pierre White.

I'm pissed. Without getting into too many details (don't want to spoil any upcoming episodes), I had the opportunity to hang out during an upcoming taping of NR, and I love Anthony Bourdain. Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to make the trip. I don't think I'll be able to watch that episode... I'll just get too annoyed.

This is code for Mrs. CamEdwards would have kicked your ass if you got to hang out and she didn't...

+1

Anthony Bourdain goes to different counties and eats food, drinks alcohol, and hangs out with the locals. He'll eat anything (he had chicken anus in Korea, said it was chewy) and he hates karaoke. My description doesn't do it justice, it's really an entertaining show. Here's the homepage.

To add to your description as I watch the show in Belfast right now, a big part behind his 'idea' of the show is to experience and learn about different cultures through their foods. The show can give a little history lesson and relate it to the current time, like with story of Belfast right now.

Depending where he goes, who he's with and what he's doing, the show can take on a slightly different flavor every week. Sometimes it's travel show, sometimes it's a food show, sometimes it's like a bad 'buddy road trip' movie. Sometimes it's goofy, sometimes more serious. Etc. Etc. That's part of the show's charm for me, the flavor's always a teeny bit different and you're never quite sure what you're going to get.

The show is great because Bourdain is a fantastic writer, which comes through in his narratives/voiceovers, and each show has a specific theme and history lesson about the country/culture he's visiting. If I ever traveled to any of these places, I'd do the same touristy things everyone else does. So he takes me to the places I would miss, AND I learn a little something in the process. And he's entertaining as hell.

This thread needs a bump for obvious reasons. New season of 'No Reservations' begins tonight (7/7/08) on the Travel Channel. Woot!

Our 2 months without cable is starting to kill my wife. Now it begins to kill me too. :(

Time to start looking for a feed somewhere on the internet. :)

I was wondering why that showed up on my recording list again. Cool! I still have 8 or so from last season I haven't gotten around to. Need to make that a habit again before the fall TV season comes around.

His show on Beirut was stellar. He and his crew essentially arrived just before Israel started bombing parts of the city. The whole episode traced their experiences as they watched the bombs fall wondering when they would be airlifted out. They finished the taping on a US aircraft carrier after having been shipped away from the city. It was pretty intense to hear Bourdain share his thoughts and feelings about the whole thing.

Any idea of the locations this year?

Found this on a blog:




Tonight is Laos.

In addition to the episodes that Ksyrup listed, there will also be a Labor Day special episode. No word yet on what it will cover.

I noticed that all of the previous episodes are available at iTunes for those that want to catch up on those episodes.

Visiting DC, is he?

Or perhaps South Carolina or Missouri.

Either would be better than D.C. College towns > murder capital.

Ditto. I did a Zimmern impression at a cookout Saturday and it killed. I had a little piece of chicken and was saying that it was pickled pidgeon uterus and "oh...this is fantastic. It's not gamey like you'd expect, but you definitely know you're eating uterus."

Bourdain is great as well. Loved his Florida Keys episode and loooooooooooooove him on Top Chef as well.

Speaking of Top Chef, my fiancee has no interest in FOF Central, so I can get this off of my chest: I think Gail Simmons, the judge they have from Food and Wine magiazine is gorgeous. My finacee "hates her face" and her "floppy looking boobs" but I don't care what she thinks. It seems to me, that I'm only allowed to find women who she thinks are better looking than her attractive. Scarlett Johansson...fine, Megan Fox...fine, Sarah Silverman..."oh my god you're weird." If my fiancee didn't exist, and I was given the option on who I'd choose to marry, assuming the three afformention women were in love with me, I'd take Silverman every time.

From pickled pidgeon uterus to marrying Sarah Silverman, I am the king of digression.

My personal favorite is when he refers to any food as 'gelatinous'. Pig's snout and lukefish are the two things that come to mind that he's called gelatinous.

He's love his pig, duck, and goose (and that includes all parts). I like the one show where he goes to Montreal and eats at the Foie gras restaurant. The chef just keeps sending out dish after dish that are twists on foie gras. I thought he was going to die.

I'm looking forward to Tokyo.

Yeah, some professions just lend themselves to much higher rates of smoking. I notice a large percentage of Hell's Kitchen contests smoke, for whatever that's worth. :D

Retail is another professions that has a greater percentage of smokers than the general population. Same basic concept: high-stress job that can have periods of intense boredom if nobody's shopping.

I'd never seen the Vietnam episode that aired tonight after the Laos premiere.
Classic stuff with the "Central Committee" guy.

that was amazing TV

Didn't he get an Emmy nomination for that show?

i believe so

It's quite interesting. The one, rich guy was pretty interesting.

Should be an interesting show tonight.

You know, he went out of his way to point out several times that Columbia is such a changed country. I'm sure it's better, but I'm not going to be booking vacations to there anytime soon. It's always much safer when you have a full television crew with you.

I really enjoyed the show in Saudi. It was very entertaining, and very interesting.

After watching last night's show on Tokyo, it just enforces why it's one of top places I want to go visit.