Is Eddie Huang The Next Anthony Bourdain? Watch And Find Out

by Laurel Miller on

If the name Eddie Huang isn’t familiar, it may soon be, if the folks at VICE.tv have their way. The Washington, D.C., native is a chef, former lawyer and, according to his website, a former “hustler and street wear designer” born to Taiwanese immigrants – a background that led him to become the force behind Manhattan’s popular Baohaus restaurant.

Huang’s new VICE video series, “Fresh Off the Boat,” premiered online on October 15. According to VICE’s website, the show is “Eddie Huang’s genre-bending venture into subculture through the lens of food.” That’s one way to describe it.

Huang has been positioning himself as a chef-turned-media-personality in the vein of Anthony Bourdain or David Chang for a while now. As in, he’s street smart, opinionated, and doesn’t appear to give a rat’s ass what people think of his renegade ways. Ostensibly, it’s a great fit for VICE, which is known for its edgy exposés and other content.

Here we hit the first divergence among FOTB and the canon of travel series. Regardless of how you feel about them, Bourdain and Chang are still, respectively, articulate, intelligent commentators of what’s been called “food anthropology.” Huang is obviously a savvy businessman, and thus, one must assume, not lacking in brain cells. But he isn’t as likable. Unlike Chang, a mad genius, he’s not so outrageously batshit that he’s funny. He’s not particularly charming, witty, or aesthetically appealing, and he comes off more wannabe-Bourdain and imposter street thug than informative host and armchair travel guide.

In the premiere, Huang takes viewers on a backwoods tour of the Bay Area, starting with a visit to Oakland’s East Bay Rats Motorcycle Club.

We’re briefly introduced to Rats president Trevor Latham, and next thing we know Huang and Latham are armed with rifles and wandering Latham’s Livermore ranch in search of rabbits. Says, Latham, an avid hunter, “People that eat meat and aren’t willing to kill an animal are fucking pussies, and fuck them.”

Of note, the below video is fairly graphic.


For his part, Huang appears suitably humbled, although I have to wonder why a chef of his standing and ethnic and familial background (his father is also a restaurateur) doesn’t appear to have been exposed to animal slaughter before. Still, he gets bonus points for trying to disseminate what should have been the primary message.

Says Huang in the final scene, “Every time I eat meat now, I have to be conscious that…I am choosing to enable someone to kill an animal and create a market demand for slaughter. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Just be conscious of the choices you make.”

Well done. I just wish the rest of the episode carried that levity.

“Fresh Off the Boat airs Mondays; future episodes will include San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, and Taiwan.

[Photo credit: Eddie Huang, Youtube ; rabbits, Flickr user Robobobobo]

Ghosts Of War: Photographer Overlays ‘Then’ And ‘Now’ Photos

by McLean Robbins on

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. They also say that a photo can capture a memory. Which partially explains why we’re so fascinated by photographer Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse’s haunting overlays in the “Ghosts of War” series (see her Flickr and Facebook pages here), which takes images of locations today and overlays them with people-filled images from World War II. The series showcases locations in France, Auschwitz, Poland, Germany and Amsterdam.

Dutch historian Teeuwisse found negatives at an Amsterdam flea market and had the idea to begin this series, the Daily Mail reported. Each photograph and location is researched before being put together. We’re fascinated by the idea of seeing modern-day locations in historic and haunting context.

Which image is your favorite?
%Gallery-169150%

[Photos used with permission from flickr user juffrouwjo]

London Bartender Makes World’s Oldest And Most Expensive Cocktail

by Jessica Festa on




World-renowned mixologist Salvatore Calabrese has recently broken the Guinness World Record for making the world’s most expensive cocktail, “Salvatore’s Legacy.”

The video above shows Calabrese creating the concoction in London at Salvatore at Playboy, using the world’s most expensive and oldest spirits. The total price of the drink is $8,830. Supposedly, the “world’s leading cocktail expert” had to get creative and modify his recipe after a customer dropped and smashed a $77,480 bottle of cognac.

Curious as to exactly what’s in it? According to The Atlantic Cities, the recipe calls for “40 mL of 1788 Clos de Griffier Champagne Cognac, 20 mL of 1770 Kümmel herbal liqueur, 20 mL of 1860 Dubb orange curacao and two dashes of Angostura Bitters, a combination that involves a collective 730 years.”

Check out the video above to see the lavish libation being made by Calabrese.

The Grand Canyon Captured In Time-lapse

by Kraig Becker on

There is no doubt that the Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful and dramatic landscapes on Earth, drawing in millions of visitors each year. But seldom has it been captured so spectacularly as it has in this time-lapse video. To create this short film, the photographers spent seven weeks in and around the canyon, shooting over 80,000 photos in the process. The results are hard to dispute. This is simply one of the best time-lapse videos I’ve ever seen.


“Grand Canyon : Blink of Time” from GOTM Films on Vimeo.

Video: Norwegian Man Survives Crazy Cliff Fall … Or Was It A Jump?

by McLean Robbins on




A Norwegian man is alive and well after suffering what many might have thought to be a foolishly life-ending accident, the Telegraph reports.

Richard Henriksen, a surgeon, has become somewhat famous for performing daredevil gymnastic acts before BASE jumping from cliffs. While taping a segment for a TV show aptly called “Normal Madness,” Henriksen planned to swing from a high bar before catapulting himself off the cliff.

As you might imagine, things took a wrong turn when the high bar fell apart, sending him flying off the 4,000-foot cliff.

There’s a happy ending to this story – Henriksen is just fine. He managed to open his parachute before landing.

What does this tell us? We’re fairly certain that it means common sense and book smarts don’t go hand-in-hand. We hope this dumbass daredevil takes it easy for a little while.