Anthony Bourdain bashes "most overrated" menu

[Robin Garr]

Funny stuff, from something called Radar magazine. What do you think? On target, or unfair? (Click the headline to link to the story online.)

[url=http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/09/anthony_bourdain_overrated_menu.php]Anthony Bourdain's Overrated Menu:
<b>The cranky celebrity chef chops up dining's hottest trends</b>[/url]

<b>Pea soup topped with truffle oil</b>: Truffle oil is the lazy chef's way to add value, by which I mean charge more.

<b>Mesquite-grilled Amish organic free-range chicken, served with Fijian mango chutney and accompanied by foraged mushrooms</b>: It should never take longer to describe your dish than to eat it. Mango chutney was innovative when Bobby Flay did it in 1978. Foraged mushrooms? Amish chicken? Who gives a shit about who picked the mushrooms or if the people who raised the chicken wear bonnets?

<b>Wasabi-crusted salmon with orange-ginger coulis</b>: Unless it's bread, pizza, or pie, it shouldn't have a crust.

<b>Cruelty-free Berkshire pork with shallot reduction and Yukon potato gnocchi</b>: Nobody wants to be cruel, but you did kill the thing—what's cruelty-free about that?

<b>Cayenne pepper-infused, freeze-dried chocolate nuggets bathed in marshmallow-star anise foam</b>: There are maybe two or three decent practitioners of molecular gastronomy in the world, so unless your name is Ferran Adrià, leave the foam on your latte.

<b>Be sure to sample our selection of flavored salts, and please await the water sommelier</b>: A chef who offers anything other than sea salt probably refers to himself in the third person. When the water sommelier comes over, I reach for my gun.

<b>Chocolate martini</b>: Both chocolate and liquor are good in bars, but ordering them together announces that you don't like or appreciate either. Anyone who requests this drink should also get a T-shirt that says "I am an asshole, please take my money."

agree, agree, agree.

This is so funny - I can just hear his cranky voice in my head. I love the Bravo series 'Top Chef', where he makes an appearance or two each season. There was a great scene where he was berating one of the chefs who then proceeded to rebutt him with contradictory language from one of his very own books - classic. I guess you can say that I hate that I love him.

Mango chutney was innovative when Bobby Flay did it in 1978.

When he was 14? LOL. At least if he's going to be insulting he could be somewhat factual about it.

My general opinion of Anthony Bourdain is best summed up by this quote from the Big Lebowski: "You're not wrong Walter, you're just an asshole."

[Robin Garr]

Mango chutney was innovative when Bobby Flay did it in 1978.

When he was 14? LOL. At least if he's going to be insulting he could be somewhat factual about it.

I'm going to confess that I use exaggeration to the point of burlesque as a regular tool in my own work, so I'm having a hard time zapping Bourdain for that one ... it made me laugh.

[Robin Garr]

agree, agree, agree.

Bear in mind, though, that some of our favorite restaurants right here in Derby City commit more than a few of these sins. What's <i>that</i> about?

Bourdain is hardly being serious Aaron. You shouldn't take him as such. He's not doing anything to food that Hunter S. Thompson didn't do to politics 30 years ago.

Plenty of restaurants in the 'ville and elsewhere go overboard with the super-descriptive menu listings. Can't explain it.

Flog me Ron, but I do love a chocolate martini. But then I'd love anything with chocolate in/on it.

He is a sexy beast. I like.

ABSOLUTE GENIUS.


<i>"When the water sommelier comes over, I reach for my gun."</i>

yet another reason Anthony Bourdain needs to be my huzzband.

Flog me Ron, but I do love a chocolate martini. But then I'd love anything with chocolate in/on it.

we all have our vices.

Bourdain is hardly being serious Aaron. You shouldn't take him as such. He's not doing anything to food that Hunter S. Thompson didn't do to politics 30 years ago.

Oh I know, I was really just trying to be silly in response because the Flay bit struck me as pretty funny to imagine.

My very favorite take on the subject of overblown descriptions of menu items is by Bill Bryson. From his "I'm a Stranger Here Myself"

I give you this gem:

"Tonight," the waiter began with enthusiasm, "we have a crepe galette of sea chortle and kelp in a rich mal de mer sauce, sasoned with disheveled herbs grown in our own herbarium. This is baked in a Prussian helmet for seventeen minutes and four seconds precisely, then layered with steamed wattle and woozle leaves. Very delicious, very audacious. We are also offering this evening a double rack Rio Rocho cutlets, tenderized at your table by our own flamenco dancers, then baked in a clay dong for twenty seven minutes under a lattice of guava peel and sun ripened stucco."

There was real food to be had here if you knew the lingo.

"I'll have the supreme de boeuf with a depravite of potatoes, hand cut and fried till golden brown in a medley of vegetable oils from the Imperial Valley, accompanied by a quantite de biere, flash chilled in your own coolers and conveyed to my table in a cylinder of glass.

The waiter nodded, impressed that I had cracked the code.

[quote="Ron Johnson"]Bourdain is hardly being serious Aaron. You shouldn't take him as such. He's not doing anything to food that Hunter S. Thompson didn't do to politics 30 years ago.
This is a spot on analogy Ron. I totally agree. Sometimes I like Bourdain simply for up front attitude.
My pet peeve is calling anything in a stemmed glass a martini. A martini is gin or vodka and maybe vermouth. No chocolate. Drink it if you like but please don't call it a martini.

One time at the Napa River Grill, I started to chuckle during the five minute salad description. By the time the waitperson was done describing the entrees, the entire table was literally in tears from stifling laughter at the overdescriptive recitation of the specials. Later, feeling regret, I apologized to the waitperson... she rolled her eyes and told me my reaction was entirely understandable.