Name: Anthony Bourdain Collection on Late Show, 2000-2011
Uploaded: 2018-06-09T20:22:50.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Bourdain Collection on Late Show, 2000-2011' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-06-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Anthony Bourdain Collection on Late Show, 2000-2011' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2018-06-09. Transcript available.

Anthony Bourdain Collection on Late Show, 2000-2011

All right.
Our next guest is the executive chef of New York's Brasserie L'Azal
and the author of this best-selling memoir of his life in the restaurant
business
entitled Kitchen Confidential.
Here's Anthony Bourdain.
Welcome to the program.
Happy to be here.
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book.
It was fascinating stuff.
It seems like a great, wild, exciting, colorful life,
being a chef, being a cook, working in restaurants and stuff.
The child's dream of running a pirate crew.
Yeah.
Now, you used to run a restaurant.
I had a restaurant right next door to this theater, right?
Yeah.
It was called Sullivan's, and you were hoping to cash in on that Ed Sullivan
mania.
What was the deal?
Because everybody thought, well, great, this is nice.
We'll have a nice restaurant here.
But what happened to that?
Yeah, what a concept, an Ed Sullivan-themed restaurant.
Maybe that wasn't such a good idea, was it?
But, I mean, it wasn't really a theme restaurant, was it?
Yeah, I guess.
Really, we never figured it out.
Was it a nightclub or a restaurant?
I mean, Ed Sullivan is not the first name that comes to mind, you know, rollicking
good time and a good meal.
Yeah.
How long was that in business?
I think about two years.
Let's talk about where, tell me the story from the book about the time that you
first had an oyster.
You're a kid.
You're in France with your family.
Yeah, I was bouncing around France with my family.
Actually, they were dragging me around.
I was not happy to be there.
I was complaining, you know, the butter tastes cheesy.
This milk is strange.
I hate this food.
And we were invited out on an oyster boat with a neighbor who suddenly reached
into the water and pulled one out, cracked one open.
And I saw my whole family kind of recoil in horror.
And I think largely because I realized this is a real opportunity to shock and
horrify my family that I'm going to give it a shot.
Right.
And it was great.
So you, as a kid, you just really loved it.
Yeah, yeah.
So that was the beginning.
A little light went off and you said, maybe I have a life in food here.
Food has power to, you know, create an impression.
And then you spent a lot of time, I don't know, a lot of time, some summers
working at a, like a resort restaurant up in Cape Cod.
Is that right?
Yeah, one of those places.
You know, you've been there someplace like at a, you know, a ramshackle seafood
restaurant, fried clams, fried shrimp, you know, French fries, diet, you know,
light cooking.
And, you know, I was a dishwasher and just a summer job.
And I looked over at the cooks and these guys, they dressed like pirates.
They carried big, badass knives.
They stole everything in sight.
They drank for free.
They had these incredibly prolific social lives, shall we say.
Uh-huh, sure.
That looked good to me.
Yeah.
There's also another moment, I think, when you're working at one of these
places when you had injured yourself working for a meal and you asked a guy if
there was like a first aid kit or do you have any ointment or bacitracin lotion
or something.
Right.
Yeah, that's something you don't do in restaurants.
I mean, it was my first real job as a cook.
I thought I was hot stuff.
I'd worked a little bit in this knucklehead restaurant.
And I went into a restaurant where they really knew what they were doing.
It was very busy.
And I was in the weeds, as we say, just terribly behind.
And I burned myself on a hot sizzle platter, one of the things they put under
the broiler.
And I turned to the guy next to me and said, you know, do you have a Band-Aid?
And, you know, it was just the worst moment.
Everybody, the whole kitchen went quiet.
And the guy says to me, oh, you know, you want a Band-Aid?
Reaches under, grabs a sizzle platter, bare hand, puts it down in front of me,
looking in my eyes the whole time.
I just, you know, slunk home and, you know, thought about it.
Now, there was a – let's talk about eating in restaurants.
In New York City, we just were like knee-deep in rats.
Now, are there rats in restaurants in New York City?
Not my restaurant.
Yeah.
There are.
I worked in a Mexican place years ago where they used to drag – they'd drag
avocado pits and chicken bones up in the ceiling.
And you'd be working, and suddenly the ceiling would crumble and, you know,
chicken bones and –
From the rats.
Avocado would come down.
They'd come scurrying across your feet.
I had one – they'd eat poison curl up on my shoes in the kitchen.
Horrible.
Are they that prevalent?
Not that.
Now, is it possible to have a sanitary kitchen and also have rodents in it?
You know what I mean?
Can you cook reasonable meals and still have mice and rats and stuff?
If you save them for stock.
Yeah.
You know, there's a – when comedians get together, they love nothing more
than to talk about times that they have bombed,
when they've gone out and for an hour got no laughs.
Is it the same with cooks and chefs?
Do you get together and talk about meals that you really screwed up?
We're all control freaks.
We've all had at least one and probably more really terrible nights like that,
and I think our whole lives are constructed in such a way as to avoid any
possibility of that happening.
Yeah.
I had one New Year's Eve at a big nightclub years ago that, you know, people
who'd ordered at 9:30 at night were walking in the kitchen around 12:30,
walking themselves in the kitchen, looking behind the line and saying, "Is that
my appetizer?"
And the waiters were hiding in the kitchen.
When the kitchen's quiet, you know you're in trouble.
Now, if there is like a wise guy eating in your restaurant, do you, like, touch
his food and lick the plate and that kind of thing?
What a good idea.
Yeah.
No, we give them what they want and quickly.
Well, there's a very funny story in here, and my impression from this is that
people in your profession go from one job, one restaurant, to another job, to
another restaurant, and just make a big swing and a circle through the city and
then back again, and they keep doing it over and over again.
And you go to an interview, and it's like a steakhouse, and things are going
pretty good, and finally, the owner of the steakhouse asks you one question,
and you think, "Well, geez, how exactly do I answer this and screw it up the
whole thing?"
Do you know what that is?
Yeah, the guy had a very thick Scottish brogue, and I desperately needed this
job, and I was doing so well in the interview, and he says, "Well, what do you
know about me?"
And I'm trying to figure out what does he want me to say, a flatterer of what.
Absolutely.
You know, I said, I decided to be honest, next to nothing, I said.
Right, right.
And, you know, suddenly, the interview's over, I'm on my way out the door, I
thought, "What did I do wrong?" And I realized, you know, he runs a steakhouse,
and what he really asks is, you know, "What do you know about meat?"
And I, not, not the right answer.
Not much.
Very little about, about what, about meat? No, nothing really.
And I was so proud.
Had a hamburger or two, that's it.
What do you think about these guys, like Emeril Lagasse and those guys on the
Food Network?
Well, you're asking me to, you know, kick Santa Claus in the crotch on
television, I mean, everybody loves the guy.
I'd pay money to see that.
Me too.
A nice guy who runs great restaurants, I find the show excruciating, and most
chefs I know, we see it, we want to jump out the window.
What about, what about, also like the Iron Chef, that kind of thing?
I don't understand it, but it's cool.
Yeah, it is, it's exciting, isn't it?
Now, if, if, if I would come to your restaurant tonight, or anybody comes to
your restaurant tonight, and people do come to your restaurant, who, who, who,
who's cooking their food?
Are you cooking their food?
Uh, not lately, no.
Uh, I think the best-
You got a guy who does it.
I have a lot of guys who do it.
Uh, I, I think the idea from television, people get the idea that, that the
people cooking your food, or wear starch white jackets, they, uh, speak well,
uh, they're adorable and cuddly, like Emeril.
Um, in fact, they're more like a Mexican prison gang.
You laugh.
Yeah, bon appetit!
Uh, it's a fascinating book.
It's doing well, too, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, nice job.
Kitchen Confidential, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for being here.
Nice to have you with us.
Anthony Bourdain.
We'll be right back with Foo Fighters.
Thank you so much.
Come and call.
Our next guest is, uh, one of America's, uh, leading chefs and the star of a
new Travel Channel series entitled, "No Reservations."
Here's Anthony Bourdain, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome back to the program.
Good to be here, thanks.
I have a lot of things to talk to you about, but first of all, let's remind
people that you once worked here in the same building nearly, didn't you?
Uh, yeah.
That spot's not having a lot of luck, is it?
Well, they got a pretty good pizza place in there now.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But yours was, uh, it was based on, uh, Ed Sullivan.
The life of Ed Sullivan or something, that was the restaurant?
Not a good theme for a restaurant, I don't think, you know?
Does Ed Sullivan spell fun and delicious?
I don't know.
What was the problem there?
Was it the, the, the lease was the problem, the customers, the walk-in, what
happened there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All of the above.
Just didn't work.
Uh, but, but since then, you've gone on to become the chef at the, uh,
wonderful-
uh, France Leal, yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, in your life, you've been a professional chef for like 26 years or so?
Yeah, about, uh, I spent the first 28 years of my working life standing up in a
small closet-like, uh, space,
you know, one or, one or the other, uh, all over New York.
Right.
I've seen very little of the world too recently.
And, and also a very accomplished, uh, author, best-selling books, Kitchen Confidential,
on and on and on.
Yeah.
And, and will eat anything.
Look at this guy, Paul.
Yeah.
Is there an ounce of fat on the man?
There is not.
Yeah.
Nothing is real.
I saw a, uh, part of the new show where you're in, uh, North Vietnam and you're,
you're eating porcupine.
Yeah.
And, and I'm, I'm thinking to myself, well, it's gotta be horrible.
How can it not be horrible?
Plus, it was like, porcupine of indeterminate age.
That's right.
You know, the restaurant was closed when we arrived and we were with somebody
from the Interior Ministry who flashed a card.
Suddenly they opened.
And I'm looking at this thing, it, it really looked like roadkill.
I was relieved, in fact, that, that, that it was porcupine.
At least it was identifiable meat, you know?
And what, what did it taste like?
Um, not like chicken.
Yeah.
Um.
Uh, somewhere between, you know, a turtle and cat food, you know?
What was it?
Now, now, when I, when I watch on these shows, you always make it look like you're
the luckiest man alive to be eating this, this wonderful, indigenous
presentation.
But you, you must run across stuff that's just god-awful, right?
Uh, I was just in Iceland, uh, for the show and I ate, they eat, uh, once a
year they have a big, uh, sort of a traditional festival called Toreblat, where
they eat putrefied shark.
That is, they, they let it rot and then they marinate it in lye or lactic acid
for six months.
And this is --
Six months!
This is --
Oh, my God!
Like, it wasn't bad enough already.
It was six months!
Um, and I will tell you, it is the single worst thing I have ever eaten in my
life.
And that, this is me talking, so that's, I've eaten live reptile parts, so this,
they're saying a lot.
And, and what about it do the Icelanders enjoy?
Um, I think it's sort of a rite of passage celebrating earlier, harder times.
I, I don't think a lot of them like it.
I mean, they handle it with rubber gloves or, and pick it up with toothpicks,
so you don't even touch it.
It's, it's really, it's really nasty.
You know, if, if you think back on your childhood goldfish that died like 35
years ago, if you were to revisit 'em now and take a big bite