“No Reservations” season 4, episode 14: Uruguay

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Location: it’s a Bourdain family vacation to Uruguay, the hidden secret of South America. Quietly tucked between beach-strewn Brazil and boisterous Argentina, Uruguay is the unsung hero of grilled meats, beautiful scenery and a quintessential “laid-back” lifestyle.

Episode Rating: Four bloody meat cleavers out of five. The cleavers are extra bloody this week from the insane amount of meat Tony eats during his Uruguayan odyssey. It’s worth noting that the high ratings so far this season are not inflated – every single new episode this summer has made for highly-watchable television.

Summary: Little did we know, but the Bourdain family has a colorful family history, starting with Tony’s grandfather who headed across the Atlantic in 1918 to settle for a few years in Uruguay. It is this mysterious voyage across the ocean which frames Tony’s trip. Who were his ancestors? What was life like in early 20th Century Uruguay? To help in his quest, Bourdain invites along his brother Chris, and the siblings set off to try and find some answers (and possibly eat some animal flesh during their downtime).
There’s no better place to begin a trip to Uruguay then by visiting the country’s capital, Montevideo. It’s a majestic old gem of a city, full of crumbling old buildings and picturesque streets. And perhaps no landmark is more emblematic of Uruguay than the Mercado del Puerto, arguably the “beating heart” of the country. The market is filled with vendors selling a virtual cornucopia of meat of every shape and size, slow-cooked a la parrilla (on the grill) over the burning coals of a huge wood-fed fire.

It’s here that Tony lays out his “meat manifesto” for his brother while the two gorge themselves on steak, sausages and loins served with a side of the ubiquitous chimichurri sauce. The consumption of potatoes, vegetables or bread of any kind while eating meat is forbidden! It only serves to fill you up so you can eat less meat. Mercado del Puerto truly seems tailor-made for Mr. Bourdain.

But this is Uruguay after all – there’s much more grilled flesh to be eaten, so Bourdain and his brother travel to “Gaucho country” near the village of La Galleja to visit a Uruguayan estancia. While there, Tony is hosted by a family originally from Canada that has made the Uruguayan countryside their home. The family cooks a huge feast in honor of Chris and Tony’s visit, including a whole piglet a la parrilla, an Estofado (a South American stew) made with sweet potatoes and Nandu and the centerpiece: an armadillo. Tony’s reaction: it tastes like chicken. Really Tony? Is this not the cardinal sin of food television?

Next up is the sleepy village of Garzon, population 200, where Tony pays a visit to renowned chef Francis Mallmann. Mallman has retreated from the glitzy dining scene of nearby Punta del Este to focus his energies on simple, traditional Uruguayan cooking. To demonstrate his new focus, he prepares Tony a meal using the traditional styles of asado – meat cooked between two iron grills, meat cooked in salt crust, vegetables cooked in hot ash and a pascualina spinach-egg pie on the side. As they eat this simple, delicious meal, Francis and Anthony discuss virtues of patience and the ultimate simplicity and primal nature of barbecue. The normally vitriolic Bourdain is downright mellow and rightfully so – an enormous simple meal of grilled meats seems to be perfectly suited to Bourdain’s temperment.

Seemingly satisfied with his time in the interior, Bourdain heads for the coast where he relaxes in Punta del Este, Uruguay’s infamous summer beach retreat for the rich and famous. After sunning himself on a beautiful stretch of sand, Tony and Chris have dinner seaside at La Huella, where they dine on fire-roasted prawns and sauteed octopus. Not surprisingly the Uruguayan seafood is just as good as the barbecue.

The two brothers then head up the coast to the hippie enclave of Cabo Polonio. They drink at a small bar with a local named Raoul, downing shots of the local moonshine made from grapes while the bar’s pet penguin, Pancho, scurries about beneath their feet. How did the penguin get there? He just sort of got lost one day and decided to stay. About the same way most wanderers find themselves in Cabo Polonio.

Upon their return to Montevideo, Tony and brother Chris conclude their visit at a raucous street fair featuring chorizo sandwiches, some drum based candombe music and siete y tres cocktails made from a mixture of red wine and coke. Though Bourdain and his crew clearly planned the event for television, the scene quickly becomes a full-fledged party as the friendly locals notice the commotion and begin to gather. It’s fairly typical of Uruguay – it just sort of sneaks up on you with its beauty, its surprising and fantastic food and the unassuming friendliness of the locals. But don’t expect Uruguay to stay under the radar much longer – a place this good can only stay a secret for so long.

“No Reservations” season 4, episode 12: Colombia

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Location: This week Anthony is in Colombia, a country that finds itself the setting of one of South America’s most remarkable transformations. In the 25 years since the death of Pablo Escobar, one of the world’s most notorious drug lords, this once war-torn country has emerged like a phoenix from the scars of the past. Colombia offers Tony a tantalizing mix of cultures, delicious food and beautiful mountain scenery.

Episode Rating: Four bloody meat cleavers (out of five) in keeping with last week’s rating system.

Summary: Cocaine. Violence. Political instability. These are the unfortunate but typical words that are associated with Colombia, South America’s northern-most state. For many years the country suffered under the weight of rival drug cartels, fueled by an insatiable demand for their chief “pulse-raising” product in the United States and beyond. It is these very depictions that Tony comes armed to confront upon arriving in Colombia. Within the episode’s first five minutes Bourdain has already pronounced his visit to Colombia as an unexpected delight. Colombia is literally a country-transformed and with killer food to boot.
Tony wastes little time diving into the country’s cuisine. He meets up with restaurant owner Jorge in Cartagena, a city on the country’s Caribbean coast. After sampling some delicious ceviche at Jorge’s restaurant, the pair take a trip to Cartagena’s central market to shop for some fish. Mr. Bourdain looks like a kid in a candy store as he conducts taste tests on all manner of exotic produce – five types of mangoes, strange orange-lime hybrids, pretty much anything fruity and delicious is available and there for the tasting.

To top it off, Tony enjoys a hearty local dish consisting of seafood rice, chicken, fish and turtle eggs, the local delicacy. Ashamed that you’re eating an endangered species Tony? Although our host gives the ethics of turtle egg-eating momentary pause, the egg is already well on its way down his digestive tract before the issue comes up. All of you just promise you won’t try any turtle eggs if you decide to visit Colombia, cool?

Soon we are transported to Bocagrande, one of Cartagena’s flashiest neighborhoods, where Tony boards a small water taxi for a trip to a small fishing island just across the bay. The rustic island stands in stark contrast to the flashy mainland high rises, and Bourdain takes the opportunity to enjoy a laid-back lunch with a local free-diver, who catches him a Caribbean lobster for lunch. Throw the words fresh, lobster and rustic island together and you don’t need to add much else – the story basically tells itself. It was almost tortuous to watch him eat it all and not get a taste.

The next and final stop on Tony’s Colombian odyssey is Medellín, the second-largest city in Colombia and one of its most notorious. The crew visits Queareparaenamorarte (try pronouncing that one), a restaurant that serves traditional Colombian cooking from across the country. Tony gorges himself on a mouth-watering array of foods – a plate of chorizo, rice soup with meat, avocado and plantains, flank steak and tamales de tilapia prepared with coconut, plantains and passion fruit sauce. All the while he’s downing shots of aguardiente, the local Colombian rum, with his hosts. C’mon did you really think we could have an episode of No Reservations without Tony getting drunk?

And we’re just getting started. In a show renowned for its gluttony, Tony’s Medellín visit turns into one of the most gluttonous we’ve probably ever witnessed. Bourdain has breakfast at the “How Yummy” restaurant at the Plaza Minorista market in Medellín. After an appetizer of empanadas, he dines on Calentao, a typical breakfast plate of leftover rice, beans, fried eggs, fried plantains, an arepa covered in cheese AND meat. In what has to be the line of the episode, Tony decides that Calentao “makes the Grand Slam at Denny’s look like a carrot stick.” Heart attack anyone?

Clearly not yet full from his gigantic breakfast, Tony has an even bigger lunch, consisting of a plate with beans, salad, rice, fried eggs, pulled pork, an arepa, chorizo and chicharron. Good god man, please make it stop. It’s almost painful to watch a human being eat this much food. But then again, it is a cooking and eating show – who am I to judge?

Tony wraps up the episode with a visit to the some of Medellín’s rougher barrios for a traditional Sancocho lunch and a little local culture. His hosts are the neighborhood’s residents – people who have experienced a dramatic rise in their standard of living in recent years. What was once the training ground for the Colombian drug cartels and their armies of mercenaries is now home to young adults who have started their own hip-hop crew, a filmmaker and a talented young chef. Thankfully Tony spares us the “kumbaya” moment at the campfire and gets back to what he does best – eating some tasty food and hanging out with his guests.

Bourdain’s examination of Colombia offers the country high marks and an optimistic road to the nation’s future success. It’s the type of country that only Anthony Bourdain does best – a place cluttered with misconceptions waiting to be corrected. And although a “human interest” angle was definitely woven into the episode, No Reservations: Colombia was really all about the food. Tony’s focus on the country’s diverse and delicious cuisine definitely made this a surprising and very enjoyable episode to watch. But more than that, I found myself wanting to go visit Colombia – for any travel show, this is the pinnacle of a successful episode.

Notes from Portugal: Cat Steals Chorizo, Escapes

by Iva Skoch on

So far, I have enjoyed Algarve, Portugal immensely. Together with ten friends, we rented a villa overlooking the town of Santa Barbara de Nexe, which is a pretty cute town, but it is literally overrun by British tourists who own all the property.

Needless to say, we have turned the house into a party house. There are only two problems with it, and–incidentally–both have to do with animals.

  1. The cat. The owners have a cat and it steals our food. A few days ago, it stole my friend David’s chorizo [sausage] which was on the kitchen counter, sealed in plastic. He paid 8 euro for this special piece of sausage in a market in Spain, and, honestly, I think it will take years of therapy for him to get over this loss. Yes, that is an actual portrait of kitty the thief from yesterday, taken with flash through the window for extra-special scary effect.
  2. Ants. Our very first night there, we made the mistake of leaving a piece of cheese out overnight (what goes better with port wine than cheese). By the next morning, we had literally armies of thousands of ants marching through the living room, bedroom and bathroom. Trying to put an old wive’s tale to the test, we tried to pour salt over their path but it only worked a little bit. What else works on ants, besides poison?