Handsome hero Anthony Bourdain appeared on The Opie & Anthony Show on Friday to discuss, among other things, vulgar villain Guy Fieri, who the No Reservations host has trashed before, because he’s awesome. The last time the two “interacted,” it was via Twitter, when Bourdain joked about Fieri’s stolen Lamborghini; this time, via Eater, Bourdain took on the “culinary Hell” that is Guy’s American Bar and Kitchen.
I’m fascinated by the Guy Fieri terror-dome they just opened up. 600 seats, something like that? 600 seats. And a gift shop. And all of these poor diners, drives and whatever, douchebags waddle in there. First of all, he single handedly turned the neighborhood into the Ed Hardy district which I’m a little pissed off about…But all of these poor bastards see him eating cheap food on TV, they go in there and it’s what $18? For a f*cking hamburger? The french fries are like $12? By the time you buy a drink you’re out of there for what? I tell you what [Ed. note: I like that he talks like Hank Hill], that guy has set back spelling like two decades. All these kids trying to spell “kewl” with a K. (Via)
HE MAKES FUN OF WHAT WE MAKE FUN OF. HE USES THE WORD “DOUCHEBAG.” WE USE THE WORD “DOUCHEBAG.” If there’s a photo of him with Christopher Walken out there, it might be true love.
<3
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He also likes @dadboner. I like @dadboner. I want to marry Anthony Bourdain.
He doesn’t like Smash Mouth?
I don’t know, man, Bourdain’s burns are obvious and Guy Fieri is low-hanging fruit. Seems like a classic case of smartish prick vs. good-natured simpleton. I’m not sure who I pick in that battle. Good -natured simpletons can be more pleasant to hang out with.
Ooh, an Ed Hardy joke, clever. *dismissive wank*
I think Fieri roofied your plate of No Can Beato This Taquito.
For what it’s worth, I happen to think all TV chefs are insufferable, but I find Bourdain to be the least awful. Sorry, Ted Allen.
He’s… close. I want to like him. He’s mostly good. But he seems juuuuust a smidge pompous, and never quite as smart as he thinks he is. I wish I had his job, that’s for sure. Michael Symon would be cool if he smiled a little less and didn’t try so damned hard to be likable. He’s naturally likable.
Totally agree with your second comment Vince. But here’s the thing: There is a reason that Kardashian bashing never gets old no matter how obviously horrible they are. Because people still buy their clothes and watch their shows, people do like them. Thus, it is OK to take on similar douchebags no matter how easy it seems. Take a look at that picture again. Guy Fieri actually CHOSE to look the way he does. He woke up and said, “This is how I want millions of people to see me every single day. It seems obvious to us, but not to everyone. Sort of like Scientology or Ashton Kutcher sucking balls.
I’ve fucking hated Guy since the first time I saw him I think on an Applebee’s commercial a few years ago? You can imagine my anger when I found out he was actually someone other than a stock commercial actor, that he actually had his own show. There’s a few people when I see them on TV, I get visibly angry and have a tendency to scream at the TV, and he’s one of them. I’ve cooled off a bit with my old age but I still can’t stand him. I had nothing to add to this except I saw an opportunity to share my rage of that blond-spiked-haircut-that-was-cool-in-8th-grade fat fuck and I had to take it.
Here’s the thing about the food industry: All chefs are dicks (except Chris Cosentino–nicest guy you’ll ever meet). I’ve worked at a Food and Wine event at Pebble Beach with Tom Colicchio, Chris Kostow, Thomas Keller, and a few other well-known chefs. I’ve met Bobby Flay, a few of the Top Chef contestants, Giada…their egos are all astronomical.
When someone like Guy Fieri comes in and brings the food couture down to its basest form–quantity, salt, and fat–it pisses off a lot of people. Bourdain’s great, but so is Guy Fieri in his own way. He makes people watch TV and think “not only do I want to eat that, but I bet I could try cooking that.” I don’t fault him one bit for that.
Anthony Bourdain (or his director/producer) is a genius of framing the meal as not just the food, but the experience–the old lady in the kitchen rolling pasta dough by hand, the crowd of people talking about baseball in Cuba, the cookout in Spain where everybody is hammered on wine. Guy Fieri shovels shit into his bleached-blond face. I don’t think there’s a need to take sides, but I fully understand why the former would hate the latter.
He’s a pompous asshole. He was insulting the people that go to that place talking about the “poor..douchebags..waddle in there”. Fuck him. If those people want to eat at Fieri’s place or Planet Hollywood, let them. They didn’t ask how some smug fifty-year old dickwad thought of it.
@evilbanker, how were the fries at Fieri’s place then? Also, nice tribal tat.
@Swamp Thing: I want to chime in here in defense of the Top Chef contestants I’ve met and say that Jennifer Carroll is an absolute star (she very helpfully participated in an elaborate setup I put together to trick my wife when I proposed). I’ve also met Michael Voltaggio and he was really nice too (and that was literally the day after he won Top Chef). I met Chris Crary on Saturday and he was fine (though he was surprisingly coy when I said I recognized him from TV).
@Zack You’re right, I probably shouldn’t have said they’re all dicks. But they do all have large egos–even the nice ones. I’ve met Stefan and Jamie from Season 5 and they were totally delightful. But they know they’re awesome. You don’t get far in this business at all unless you have a high view of yourself…it’s very, very competitive.
whatever love i have for anthony bourdain has now swelled up, three sizes bigger.
And then it shrank by 90% because he was on the Opie and Anthony show. Ugh.
I’m still shocked that Guy Fieri bought Lamborghini rather than the obvious choice of a Ferrari so he could rename it to “Guy’s Ferrari.”
Yeah, I enjoyed my own joke *self high-five, trips on way out*
I’ve really hated the Fierification of the food network. They used to air cooking shows, like Molto Mario, Emeril, and Good Eats. That’s all been replaced with DDD, and a litany of other reality show crap.
Chopped is good.
Chopped is two minutes of cooking hidden amongst five minutes of the contestants being forced to talk about how they felt upon seeing the contents of the basket. There’s a good show in there somewhere, but Chopped isn’t it.
Robert Irvine is my spirit animal
My husband likes to watch DDD, mostly because it is mindless and says “Hey, you don’t have to be fancy with your pinky up and stick up your butt to make good food.” That being said Guy is SUCH a douche. He yells everything he says and his hair is just… un-respectable. On the other hand Bourdain seems like an asshole. A talented, good looking, intelligent asshole. I would definitely eat at one of his restaurants and I love his show. He tries a variety of foods (street food to hoity toity) but he seems like he’d pompously insult you/your pallat if you dared not to like something disgusting like tai pickled fish eyeballs. “How pedestrian of you to not like food that tastes horrible…” That being said: Bourdain > Fieri. The latter may be more likely to have a drink with you, but I don’t want him anywhere near me. The former would probably be more likely to run me over with a food truck for not having a taste for red wine.
Other than allowing your husband to lose brain cells watching DDD, I’m with you. Can we all agree that they’re both assholes, but one is preferable on TV? (Bourdain, of course, because Fieri is also a douchebag who likes to take a big bite of something unhealthy right as he turns to the camera and starts talking.)
Yes, Bourdain can be a pompous ass. But as far as cooking is concerned, he is the real deal. You don’t get to be head chef at Les Halles back in the time he was there without knowing your shit. He worked his way up from dishwasher and prep cook to graduate from the Culinary Institute of America back in the ’80′s and then worked a bunch of restaurants that failed until becoming executive chef at one of NYC’s finest French restaurants in the late 80′s/early 90′s. If you don’t like Bourdain’s on-air persona, then I encourage you to at least read “Kitchen Confidential”. Great read about cutting one’s teeth as a chef.
And why anybody is surprised by Guy Fieri’s Times Square abomination is beyond me. His two crappy California restaurants that have been around since the mid-90′s are, get this, “Johnny Garlic’s” and “Tex Wasabi’s”- both sound like Applebee’s knock-offs with, you know, less quality control and more lame chintz.
This is spot on. Bourdain is legitimate, Fieri is just a manufactured “star”. At a time when the country is getting fatter by the second a dude like Fieri is just irresponsible with his over-the-top glorification of grease and salt. It’s also pretty lazy and uncreative to sell 2,000 calorie burgers to fat people. Any asshole could do that.
I was reading down to see if anyone was going to bring up Bourdain’s books because he makes comments throughout about how he doesn’t want anyone to idolize him or look up to him as some type of roll model. He also talks throughly about his ‘celebrity’ and how he hates the whole thing, acknowledging the hypocrisy of it all. A lot of the insight he gives into his true personality is really quite humbling, I mean, look where the guy came from.
On the other hand, I work on the occasional movie/t.v. show that films in my neck of the woods and most of the people involved in that business really are high maintenance dicks. I imagine traveling across the world and eating amazing food on someone else’s dime can (plus becoming a popular celeb) change the way someone thinks and what they expect of other people.
I saw one of his live shows/talks/whatever you want to call it and he seemed alright. He took questions for about an hour.