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sidemeatsays
Thank you Dude!
Reminds me of the old Vat & Tonsure. I was once sitting with a friend at their bar(in our coats and hats) when some unfortunate asked if the heat couldn’t be turned on. Marie storms out of the kitchen, demanding, “do you know how f-ing hot it is in that kitchen? Why don’t you worry about something other than your own balls for a change?” I loved that place.
I was pretty disappointed in the show. The underground Portland tour has been done to death, as has Voodoo donuts. Even the camping with Boulet was pretty cursory at best. In my opinion, the only good part was the piece on Apizza.
I spent some time finding a decent definition of the libertarian philosophy and came up with this:
>>Out of the many political philosophies that exist, one of the most misunderstood is libertarianism. It is frequently labeled part of the “extreme right”, or it is merely associated with drug legalization. Truthfully, there may be several definitions of the term, but in general, libertarianism encompasses all or most of the following: strong support of individual civil liberties, social tolerance, and private property; belief in the positive powers of the free market; and an espousal of constitutionally limited and greatly reduced government. To put it succinctly, the libertarian believes in the freedom of individuals to pursue their lives as they see fit, as long as they cause no harm to others, with minimal governmental interference.>>
Nee-chee — I think he was focusing too much on the living life as one sees fit part of it. For the libertarians I know, the government/market side of it is just as important as the personal liberty part. My dealings with the government wouldn’t suggest limited or reduced by any stretch of the imagination. Private property and the free market seem to be tenuous concepts as well, though to be fair that’s not just a Portland thing. And to be fair the city doesn’t seem to micromanage the lives of its citizens nearly as much as San Francisco.
The Apizza part was good and I thought the Voodoo donuts segment was interesting. The underground part was a bit too overblown and drawn out, but his editors seem to do that (his show on Paris is unwatchable because of how badly the segments are drawn out.)
As for the show as a whole — if someone who has never been to Oregon/Washington watched it, I’d put money down that the vast majority would head straight for Seattle and skip Portland completely. Portland comes off as quirky and dirty (did they scout out the bombed out buildings?) and Seattle comes off as the northwest food mecca.
“liberterian” (small l) is defined as “a person who advocates liberty, especially with regard to thought or conduct; a person who maintains the doctrine of free will.”
I thought the show was… okay. I am as happy as the next person to see tattoos, but can we perhaps have an explanation as to who these chefs are and where they cook? Without it, it seemed like a dog-and-pony show. My favorite part was hearing Bourdain make his little filthy comments in Spanish. I do love the guy, who quite strikes me as the very definition of a libertarian.
I watched the show as Bourdain had interviewed vendors at the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market and asked actual food and business related questions…i.e. “Why are there so many entrepreneurial food businesses in Portland?” and the like. Unfortunately he didn’t see fit to include this in his show…but, it’s his show and the markets obviously don’t include a high enough concentration of heavily inked, pierced and edgy hipsters.
I have to admit that I haven’t read his books and this was the first time I had seen the show…so maybe some of the other episodes have more substance, rather than being about his own quirky take on the food scene. I liked parts of the piece but felt that Portland has so much more to offer than what he chose to focus on.
Then when I saw that his Seattle segment was being led with an allusion to the “Underground Restaurant” and I can only guess…Michael Heb…Woo Hoo, how cutting edge.
I watched the show as Bourdain had interviewed vendors at the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market and asked actual food and business related questions…i.e. “Why are there so many entrepreneurial food businesses in Portland?” and the like. Unfortunately he didn’t see fit to include this in his show…but, it’s his show and the markets obviously don’t include a high enough concentration of heavily inked, pierced and edgy hipsters.
I have to admit that I haven’t read his books and this was the first time I had seen the show…so maybe some of the other episodes have more substance, rather than being about his own quirky take on the food scene. I liked parts of the piece but felt that Portland has so much more to offer than what he chose to focus on.
Then when I saw that his Seattle segment was being led with an allusion to the “Underground Restaurant” and I can only guess…Michael Heb…Woo Hoo, how cutting edge. Hmmmm.
The representation of Portland was pretty narrow, nevertheless I did have a chuckle with him cursing the hissing goose in seattle. Also in Portland when he was being toured in the underground, saw the trap door, and reveled in the notion of a trap door in his restaurant by saying “vegetarian table one”
I thought the show was a little disappointing as well. I was hoping he would hit more restaurants in both the cities he went to. Maybe it was the $1 million dollar home with the view that it was staged in, but I wasn’t all that impressed by the “underground” dining segment. Did you see how many servers they had serving those 10 guests? I did enjoy his visit to Salumi and I really wanted some of that suckling pig.
Re: Bourdain PNW
Well, after this show I expect the sales of “Keep Portland Weird” bumperstickers to grow. :-) I now know that Portland is full of odd people with tattoos and stores selling bacon donuts. Portland seemed to appeal to Bourdain’s non-conformist leaning.
One thing I noticed is that whilst Portland is wacky, the impression of Seattle was really tired and boring. Throwing fish at the market. Yawn. The ferries and the buildings and the restaurants. Yawn. Cooking geoduck. Been there. The Salumi segment was the best.
For some reason, I really laughed hard when Tony was trying to be an outdoorsman with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The number of expletives being bleeped increased as he tried to split wood, build a tent and start a fire. Hilarious.
I guess we weren’t the only ones who noticed that the show made Portland look dirty, flat and gray instead of the green, beautiful place it is. I thought that was a bit odd, and thought that the show overall wasn’t up to Tony’s best. Even some of the shows with corny things make those things funny, and the underground scenes generally weren’t except for the vegetarian comment.
Bourdain and the show’s producers had 22 minutes to provide a interesting food-oriented travelogue of a slice of what makes Portland Portland, for the entertainment of the 99.7% of the country that doesn’t live here. Seems to me they hit that mark. Most of the complaints above seem to imply that his mission should have been to showcase what a great restaurant town Portland is, or be an infomercial for what, the clarklewis/Le Pigeon/Wildwood scene? (That’s what Rachael Ray is for.) Besides, for those that live and dine here, do you need to see the places that you eat featured on TV to feel better about yourself? ;)
Not sure…that just didn’t belong. Funny thing was, before No Reservations we were flipping the channels around and there was a “Extreme Houses” type show on HGTV that had the same couple on. Trust me, once was enough!
My beef is that when Bourdain talked about doing “Puerto Rico (not San Juan)” he said he wanted to cover the stuff not found on all the other dime-a-dozen travel shows.
Voodoo Doughnut and Shanghai Tunnels…half of the segment was always covered by such groundbreaking shows as Insomniac, Rachel Ray Bores You To Tears and Globe Trekker. All they needed was one more gratuitous shot of the MAX.
I don’t blame Tony though – I blame the finder. With Gorham and Dyer, Montes, Rucker and others getting some serious national spotlight, this piece looked 3 years out of date.
I am as happy as the next person to see tattoos, but can we perhaps have an explanation as to who these chefs are and where they cook? Without it, it seemed like a dog-and-pony show.
It’s just an anthropological hedge against gentrification :)
I’ll not get too much farther into the political stuff, this being a food blog and all (I also spend my other life dealing with government and regulation so I have some biases and we don’t need that dirty laundry on here), but any population that lets people like Sten hold public office shouldn’t fly the libertarian flag too high. Though it’s certainly better than Salem, where you can live how you want to live as long as you aren’t Mexican. We’ve got some forward thinkers here. Ugh.
I thought the underground dining segment was interesting, and even thought the pop rocks were a cool idea even if they are gimmicky. I just don’t really get the ooh-aah of the whole “underground” movement, as it just seems like a dinner party for the adventurous (and wealthy apparently) and not very many steps away from plain old catering.
Sorry for being so late to post on this subject. I just watched the tape late last night. Let me just sat that I am overwhelmingly disappointed by the lack of libatations coverage.
Portland has more breweries per capita than any other city in the world. And Tony doesn’t speak at all about beer. Does he even HAVE a beer here?
Not to mention the slew of new distilleries. Tony in Christian & Lee’s laboratory…now that, my friends, would have been good tv!
I think it was a missed opportunity to show a wonderful side of our town.
sidemeat says
Thank you Dude!
Reminds me of the old Vat & Tonsure. I was once sitting with a friend at their bar(in our coats and hats) when some unfortunate asked if the heat couldn’t be turned on. Marie storms out of the kitchen, demanding, “do you know how f-ing hot it is in that kitchen? Why don’t you worry about something other than your own balls for a change?” I loved that place.
-s says
My DVR is recording it, so if there’s a need I can throw it up on Google Video until the copyright nazis find it.
-s says
Wow, apparently Bourdain thinks Portland is “libertarian.” Perhaps he needs to take a poli sci refresher course.
Food Dude says
Welcome Nee-chee.
I was pretty disappointed in the show. The underground Portland tour has been done to death, as has Voodoo donuts. Even the camping with Boulet was pretty cursory at best. In my opinion, the only good part was the piece on Apizza.
What did you all think?
Nee-chee says
Perhaps, he’s right…..
I spent some time finding a decent definition of the libertarian philosophy and came up with this:
>>Out of the many political philosophies that exist, one of the most misunderstood is libertarianism. It is frequently labeled part of the “extreme right”, or it is merely associated with drug legalization. Truthfully, there may be several definitions of the term, but in general, libertarianism encompasses all or most of the following: strong support of individual civil liberties, social tolerance, and private property; belief in the positive powers of the free market; and an espousal of constitutionally limited and greatly reduced government. To put it succinctly, the libertarian believes in the freedom of individuals to pursue their lives as they see fit, as long as they cause no harm to others, with minimal governmental interference.>>
Sounds like Portland to me.
-s says
Nee-chee — I think he was focusing too much on the living life as one sees fit part of it. For the libertarians I know, the government/market side of it is just as important as the personal liberty part. My dealings with the government wouldn’t suggest limited or reduced by any stretch of the imagination. Private property and the free market seem to be tenuous concepts as well, though to be fair that’s not just a Portland thing. And to be fair the city doesn’t seem to micromanage the lives of its citizens nearly as much as San Francisco.
The Apizza part was good and I thought the Voodoo donuts segment was interesting. The underground part was a bit too overblown and drawn out, but his editors seem to do that (his show on Paris is unwatchable because of how badly the segments are drawn out.)
As for the show as a whole — if someone who has never been to Oregon/Washington watched it, I’d put money down that the vast majority would head straight for Seattle and skip Portland completely. Portland comes off as quirky and dirty (did they scout out the bombed out buildings?) and Seattle comes off as the northwest food mecca.
nancy says
“liberterian” (small l) is defined as “a person who advocates liberty, especially with regard to thought or conduct; a person who maintains the doctrine of free will.”
I thought the show was… okay. I am as happy as the next person to see tattoos, but can we perhaps have an explanation as to who these chefs are and where they cook? Without it, it seemed like a dog-and-pony show. My favorite part was hearing Bourdain make his little filthy comments in Spanish. I do love the guy, who quite strikes me as the very definition of a libertarian.
doc says
I watched the show as Bourdain had interviewed vendors at the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market and asked actual food and business related questions…i.e. “Why are there so many entrepreneurial food businesses in Portland?” and the like. Unfortunately he didn’t see fit to include this in his show…but, it’s his show and the markets obviously don’t include a high enough concentration of heavily inked, pierced and edgy hipsters.
I have to admit that I haven’t read his books and this was the first time I had seen the show…so maybe some of the other episodes have more substance, rather than being about his own quirky take on the food scene. I liked parts of the piece but felt that Portland has so much more to offer than what he chose to focus on.
Then when I saw that his Seattle segment was being led with an allusion to the “Underground Restaurant” and I can only guess…Michael Heb…Woo Hoo, how cutting edge.
doc says
I watched the show as Bourdain had interviewed vendors at the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market and asked actual food and business related questions…i.e. “Why are there so many entrepreneurial food businesses in Portland?” and the like. Unfortunately he didn’t see fit to include this in his show…but, it’s his show and the markets obviously don’t include a high enough concentration of heavily inked, pierced and edgy hipsters.
I have to admit that I haven’t read his books and this was the first time I had seen the show…so maybe some of the other episodes have more substance, rather than being about his own quirky take on the food scene. I liked parts of the piece but felt that Portland has so much more to offer than what he chose to focus on.
Then when I saw that his Seattle segment was being led with an allusion to the “Underground Restaurant” and I can only guess…Michael Heb…Woo Hoo, how cutting edge. Hmmmm.
Food Dude says
To me, the underground dinner seemed gimmicky to the point of being stupid. Otter pops in dry ice? Pop-rocks? Come on.
atlas says
The representation of Portland was pretty narrow, nevertheless I did have a chuckle with him cursing the hissing goose in seattle. Also in Portland when he was being toured in the underground, saw the trap door, and reveled in the notion of a trap door in his restaurant by saying “vegetarian table one”
other than that… yawn
hoonan says
I thought the show was a little disappointing as well. I was hoping he would hit more restaurants in both the cities he went to. Maybe it was the $1 million dollar home with the view that it was staged in, but I wasn’t all that impressed by the “underground” dining segment. Did you see how many servers they had serving those 10 guests? I did enjoy his visit to Salumi and I really wanted some of that suckling pig.
grapedog says
Re: Bourdain PNW
Well, after this show I expect the sales of “Keep Portland Weird” bumperstickers to grow. :-) I now know that Portland is full of odd people with tattoos and stores selling bacon donuts. Portland seemed to appeal to Bourdain’s non-conformist leaning.
One thing I noticed is that whilst Portland is wacky, the impression of Seattle was really tired and boring. Throwing fish at the market. Yawn. The ferries and the buildings and the restaurants. Yawn. Cooking geoduck. Been there. The Salumi segment was the best.
For some reason, I really laughed hard when Tony was trying to be an outdoorsman with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The number of expletives being bleeped increased as he tried to split wood, build a tent and start a fire. Hilarious.
Marshall Manning says
I guess we weren’t the only ones who noticed that the show made Portland look dirty, flat and gray instead of the green, beautiful place it is. I thought that was a bit odd, and thought that the show overall wasn’t up to Tony’s best. Even some of the shows with corny things make those things funny, and the underground scenes generally weren’t except for the vegetarian comment.
Food Dude says
and what was with the velvet painting place? Quirky.. but boring
JDG says
Bourdain and the show’s producers had 22 minutes to provide a interesting food-oriented travelogue of a slice of what makes Portland Portland, for the entertainment of the 99.7% of the country that doesn’t live here. Seems to me they hit that mark. Most of the complaints above seem to imply that his mission should have been to showcase what a great restaurant town Portland is, or be an infomercial for what, the clarklewis/Le Pigeon/Wildwood scene? (That’s what Rachael Ray is for.) Besides, for those that live and dine here, do you need to see the places that you eat featured on TV to feel better about yourself? ;)
Marshall Manning says
Not sure…that just didn’t belong. Funny thing was, before No Reservations we were flipping the channels around and there was a “Extreme Houses” type show on HGTV that had the same couple on. Trust me, once was enough!
Daaaaave says
My beef is that when Bourdain talked about doing “Puerto Rico (not San Juan)” he said he wanted to cover the stuff not found on all the other dime-a-dozen travel shows.
Voodoo Doughnut and Shanghai Tunnels…half of the segment was always covered by such groundbreaking shows as Insomniac, Rachel Ray Bores You To Tears and Globe Trekker. All they needed was one more gratuitous shot of the MAX.
I don’t blame Tony though – I blame the finder. With Gorham and Dyer, Montes, Rucker and others getting some serious national spotlight, this piece looked 3 years out of date.
-s says
I am as happy as the next person to see tattoos, but can we perhaps have an explanation as to who these chefs are and where they cook? Without it, it seemed like a dog-and-pony show.
It’s just an anthropological hedge against gentrification :)
I’ll not get too much farther into the political stuff, this being a food blog and all (I also spend my other life dealing with government and regulation so I have some biases and we don’t need that dirty laundry on here), but any population that lets people like Sten hold public office shouldn’t fly the libertarian flag too high. Though it’s certainly better than Salem, where you can live how you want to live as long as you aren’t Mexican. We’ve got some forward thinkers here. Ugh.
I thought the underground dining segment was interesting, and even thought the pop rocks were a cool idea even if they are gimmicky. I just don’t really get the ooh-aah of the whole “underground” movement, as it just seems like a dinner party for the adventurous (and wealthy apparently) and not very many steps away from plain old catering.
Suds Sister says
Sorry for being so late to post on this subject. I just watched the tape late last night. Let me just sat that I am overwhelmingly disappointed by the lack of libatations coverage.
Portland has more breweries per capita than any other city in the world. And Tony doesn’t speak at all about beer. Does he even HAVE a beer here?
Not to mention the slew of new distilleries. Tony in Christian & Lee’s laboratory…now that, my friends, would have been good tv!
I think it was a missed opportunity to show a wonderful side of our town.