Final Season of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘No Reservations’ Debuts Labor Day On Travel Channel

by Laurel Miller on

You know the old saying; it’s always best to leave the party when you’re having a great time. So it is with Anthony Bourdain, chef/author/keen observationist of the absurd/master of the pithy sentiment, and dark lord of the filthy, matted belly of the culinary underworld. On Labor Day, the Travel Channel will premiere the ninth and final season of its Emmy Award®-winning series, “No Reservations – The Final Tour.”

On September 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, Bourdain will take viewers on a tour of Austin. Later episodes will span the globe, culminating in a Brooklyn-based finale. If you want to get your Tony on, check out the nine-hour “No Reservations” marathon beginning at 12 p.m. ET/PT. Tune in, turn on, pig out.

Below, a compilation of the Travel Channel’s favorite “Bourdainisms.”


Boston’s Galleria Umberto: America’s Best Cheap Slice Place?

by Dave Seminara on

The Galleria Umberto Rosticceria pizzeria in Boston’s North End is named after a stunning, ornate 19th century shopping arcade in Naples. But the interior of one of the country’s best cheap slice places is as Spartan as they come. In fact, the place resembles a cafeteria or, if you’re there at lunchtime, when the lines stretch out the door and around the block, a soup kitchen.

Boston’s North End is one of my favorite neighborhoods in the world. Despite the fact that it’s right smack in the middle of an expensive city that’s overflowing with wealthy, highly educated young people, somehow the neighborhood has preserved its distinct Italian-American character. Walk the streets of the North End on a nice day, and you’ll still see plenty of old timers sitting out on their stoops, speaking Italian.

There are dozens of good places to get pizza and other Italian specialties in the North End, but Galleria Umberto is the only place I’ve seen that consistently attracts long lines. Why? They serve damn good Sicilian-style slices of cheese pizza – no toppings! – for just $1.55.

I’ve been to Galleria Umberto (GU) three times for slices over the last few years and I’ve never waited less than about 25 minutes. But I love GU because their volume-driven business model is very 19th century. They have a razor thin profit margin, but sell thousands of slices of every day. Who opens a business these days charging ridiculously low prices, hoping to make it up with volume? Almost no one.

We have more high quality pizza places in the U.S. right now than ever before, but the prices keep going up to the point where pizza isn’t the cheap option it once was. In April, I had a chance to eat at Da Michele, one of the best pizzerias in Naples, and discovered that even the world’s best pizza doesn’t have to be expensive. That’s what I love about GU- they view pizza as a cheap staple, not a luxury.

My sons and I had five slices of pizza and two drinks and the bill came to $9.75. I can’t take them to McDonald’s for that price. Domestic beers are $3. And wines range from $2 -$2.50. Now that’s my kind of place. If you’re looking for a budget lunch in one of Boston’s most interesting neighborhoods, and don’t mind the wait, check out Galleria Umberto. What’s your favorite cheap place to get a slice of pizza?

Infographic: Best Value In Europe As Rated By Coffee Price

by McLean Robbins on

Financial pros use a number of tools to rank the best places to live, work and play, but this new infographic from Travelbite uses the average price of a cup of coffee to determine where you can best spend your hard-earned dollars on vacation. We’re all about Barcelona and Prague, but we’re not sure why it’s more expensive to score your java in Copenhagen than in, say, Paris or London.

Quirky Cocktails In Mexico: Mango Distilled Spirits

by Jessica Festa on

While Mexico is renowned for its tequilas and mescals, if you’re heading to Mazatlán there is another type of drink you should try: mango distilled spirits. Onilikan, which translates to “the place of liquor,” is a distillery putting their fruit to good use. In fact, they are the first people in Mexico and one of the only in the world fermenting mango to create delectable spirits.

The drink is a combination of local Mexico and foreign European influences. While the fruits are grown in Mazatlán, Onilikan adapts the European liqueur production traditions to extract the mango essence and craft a premium-quality, smooth sipping mango beverage.

So, what’s so special about the mango-infused libation? While distillers have used mango before, it hasn’t been in this manner.

“There are other people processing mango and creating mango wine, or adding mango into rum, tequila, and so on, but not the way we do it,” says Onilikan Sales Director Maria Victoria Campos.

They use a distiller called “Dora the Distiladora.” This is a German-made “pot still” designed to maximize and capture the fruit aromas. It features a heating/evaporation component, which heats the fermented fruit and juice; an aroma collection column, which uses bronze plates to trap the scents from the alcohol; and a condenser, which cools down the gases and turns them back into liquids. While the model is still widely used in Europe to distil alcohol from a variety of fruits, it is the first of its kind to operate in Mexico.

You can get the spirit in two different strengths. The milder one, a sweet sipping liquor, has an alcohol content of 24%, while the other is referred to as Aqua Caliente – fire water – due to an alcohol content of 40%. Along with being used as for cocktails, the mango liqueurs can be used for cooking and making a delicious marinade for fish or chicken.

How To Eat A Fertilized Duck Egg

by David Farley on

The first time I ate a fertilized duck egg was at a Vietnamese restaurant in New York City three years ago. I was headed to Vietnam in a few months and knew I’d be writing about something food related, so I spent the run-up to the trip eating as much Vietnamese food as I could. When I saw balut, as fertilized duck eggs are often referred to, on the menu, I knew I had to try it. But as if the chef expected no one to order balut, my dining companion and I were informed they were out of it. “You want us to go get some,” the server said, daring us. We called their bluff and soon enough someone from the restaurant was making a fertilized duck egg run to Chinatown. A few minutes later, the eggs were presented to my dining companion and I.


They weren’t good. They weren’t bad, either. If you closed your eyes and didn’t look at the little dead baby partially formed fetus duck pinched between your chopsticks you’d just think you were eating something very egg-y. My dining companion went for seconds but I think he was just showing off at this point.

I thought I’d sworn off eating duck fetuses but a few months later, there I was in Saigon, doing a story on Vietnamese-born New York chef and prolific restaurateur Michael ‘Bao’ Huynh for a New York Times travel article. The mission seemed easy enough: just go where he goes and eat what he eats. The rub, though, was that he was eating congealed pigs blood, rats, snakes and, of course, those fermented duck eggs.
I looked around and watched happy families inserting the aborted partially formed duckling carcasses into their mouths. I figured out there was a five-step system to eating balut:

1) Crack the top of the egg with a spoon.

2) Sip the broth from the hole in the top of the egg.
3) Enlarge the opening to bite off the boiled, cooked yoke.
4) Pull out the partially formed duck and eat it. Yum.
5) Go into the bathroom and vomit.

I’ll admit balut wasn’t my favorite – even rat was better – but one has to do such things in the name of journalism. Right? You don’t, of course, have to go all the way to Asia to eat balut. That Vietnamese restaurant on New York’s Lower East Side where I first ate a duck fetus is long gone. But there’s a new place proudly serving balut in New York City. The Filipino restaurant in the East Village called Maharlika. Or you can just stop by the very first balut eating contest on Saturday August 25 at 3 p.m., taking place at the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn, where 10 brave eaters will try to eat as many fertilized duck eggs in five minutes. It’ll be five minutes of unborn-duck-eating glory!

Nicole Ponseca, owner of Maharlika and sponsor of the eating contest, said, “Our goal is to push Filipino food forward. We’re the third largest minority in the US behind Mexicans and Chinese. But no one knows our food.” She added, “Some people ask why we’re putting balut on the menu. It might turn people off. But we have to be proud of our food. And I want it to cross over.”

Anyone want to meet me for some balut?