Best TV cooking show

Arts & Sciences Arts & Entertainment
1

What’s your favorite TV cooking/food show?

  • Anthony Bourdain
  • Keith Floyd
  • Jamie Oliver
  • Kylie Kwong
  • My Greek Kitchen
  • Andrew Zimmern
  • Take Home a Chef
  • Nigella Lawson
  • Other

0 voters

I admit, I watch a lot of them, partly because I require safe family entertainment for my 5 year-old and partly because I just love food.

Here are my opinions on a few.

Anthony Bourdain: Near the top. Probably won’t improve my cooking, but cool guy, fun show, good cook, decent entertainment. Would be fun to join him out on the town, but there’d be pain afterwards.

Keith Floyd: half drunk most of hte time, but whips up some great dishes in all sorts of odd locations (eg., surprisingly good looking indian food in some bombay slum, or great food on the beach, in the mtns, etc.) Good show.

Jamie Oliver: probably the healthiest food of them all and it looks tasty too. If I could only eat food from one of them for my lifetime, it’d probably be his. Of course, he’s kind of a weenie, but the good food would make up for it.

Kylie Kwong: Pretty good. She’s australian born chinese and a great cook. One could probably learn a few good dishes by watching her show.

My Greek Kitchen: Wow! The food looks ok, but I just like to watch the host.

Andrew Zimmern: not a cooking show, but how can you not love this guy? He’s fat, loves food, and eats everything from grubs, intestines and testicles, to brains, eyeballs and fetuses. :bravo:

Take Home a Chef: Does it make me gay to watch this show? I don’t know, but it almost embarasses me sometimes, seeing him hitting on housewives on TV while their hubbies are at work. I’d bet most of the guys have mixed feelings about him having cooked dinner for them.

Finally, I saved the best for last: Nigella Lawson. :notworthy:
I love this woman. Of course she’s totally beautiful and sexy despite the fact that she’s 40 pounds overweight. But why is she so fat? Because that woman LOVES to eat. She’s practically orgasmic over every dish, especially when she gets to desert, which usually involves icecream and whipped cream and liqueor and cake and chocolate and some more heavy cream for good measure, and then after scarfing down on all that she’ll come back for a midnight snack and eat a whole giant plate of the stuff. You go girl. No barley and wheatgrass for her; only the luscious, most fattening, gluttonous feasts. :thumbsup:

2

I like food porn too. I like Jamie Oliver’s food but the guy’s such a fucking (multi-millionaire) dweeb I can’t stomach too much of that put-on Essex lovely-boy cheeky chappie pose he’s adopted.
Gordon Ramsay’s a prick too, and his food is far too frou-frou for my taste, but I like his Kitchen Nightmares series.
Come to think of it, they’re pretty much ALL complete tools. Maybe its a job requirement for a TV celebrity chef.

3

Food porn – that’s hardly an exaggeration with Nigella.

4

They’re up there with house decorating shows for me.

Floyd is ace and reminds me of my great uncle and Bourdain reminds me of my dad, loathesome Bohemian that he is; too much hippy witter about thee good honest peeeeple cooking thee good honest fooood. Does he actually cook anything or just travel around eating third world specialities?

Loathe Oliver and Ramsay. Lawson is a boring posh bird who used her connections to get on telly, although she does do women’s PMT-porn. Never seen the others.

5

Nigella really reminds me of a certain poster.

6

the chief?

7

Keith Floyd by a mile: he spanks the others.

I can’t stand the jerky close up camera work in some of the other shows. It’s a cooking show, not some bloody hip hop video.
Agree with Buttercup about Anthony Bourdain’s annoying hippiness, but I would still go on the piss with him.

8

I like Anthony Bourdain as an entertainer, the rest of the shows are too painful to watch most of the time, though I would smash Nigella if she was up for it.

You left off Bobby Chin, a cheeky lil Sino Egyptian who is really skilled. I ate at his resto in Hanoi and it was really good. I have also been to Floyd’s resto in Phuket which left a lot to be desired.

9

Bear Grylls in Man vs Wild.

Best skunk recipe I’ve ever seen.

10

Bourdain and Floyd are great, for different reasons. Bourdain is probably my favorite. And as MT suggested, going out for a night on the town with him would be very interesting and a lot of fun, but painful the next morning.

Anyone remember Wok With Yan? :laughing: (you probably won’t if you’re not Canadian…)

11

I think Ainsley Harriott deserves a spot on his own apart from “other”

12

Floyd is hands down the best.I don’t consider Bourdain or Zimmerns shows to be cooking shows as you don’t see much of the actual cooking,but I do enjoy them.I find Jamie and the Ozzie bloke to be smarmy twats…I wish Jamie would have tongue reduction surgery.I hope Nigella never has any kind of reduction surgery.

13

Whose cuisine reigns supreme?

14

[quote=“Mer”]Bourdain and Floyd are great, for different reasons. Bourdain is probably my favorite. And as MT suggested, going out for a night on the town with him would be very interesting and a lot of fun, but painful the next morning.

Anyone remember Wok With Yan? :laughing: (you probably won’t if you’re not Canadian…)[/quote]

Also…Yan Can Cook. Great show.

15

It’s not a cooking show per se, but I just love the British show “Come Dine With Me” in which 5 competitors host dinner parties for each other and rate the host’s performance at the end of each show.

16

[quote=“Taike”][quote=“Mer”]Bourdain and Floyd are great, for different reasons. Bourdain is probably my favorite. And as MT suggested, going out for a night on the town with him would be very interesting and a lot of fun, but painful the next morning.

Anyone remember Wok With Yan? :laughing: (you probably won’t if you’re not Canadian…)[/quote]

Also…Yan Can Cook. Great show.[/quote]
Yan was hilarious.

17

I like Bourdain probably because he’s a recovered heroin addict. He does immerse himself in the culture too, unlike that smarmy, patronizing little twat Ian Wright. Nigella bores me with her constant bedroom eyes. That Aussie Take Home Chef cooks crap that he calls “gourmet”. Hah! I’d rather eat instant noodles. Zimmern is quite funny and has got some balls, mind. Jamie Oliver. Shit, he tries hard, but his twattery is harder to shrug off than his wife. He does cook some nice, wholesome food at times, though.

Kylie Kwong has got to be my worst. She’s got the charisma of a drowned peanut and cooks food that reminds me too much of Taiwan night markets. She fries everything in her dirty little wok and adds sugar and other vile crap to every dish.

And the winner is: FLOYD! Should be called Pink Floyd 'cos he’s such an old lush. I wouldn’t eat much that he makes; 20000 chillis in EVERY FUCKING DISH is a bit much, but he always tries to cook authentic cuisine and his locations rock.

18

Definitely Floyd!

He cooks, drinks, is funny, goes to really interesting places, and doesn’t whinge.

Bourdain is cool but it feels a bit forced at times. And he doesn’t cook that much. But he’s solid.

Oliver is a great chef and entrepreneur. He is also the only one with a real cause: reforming the alleged sad state of everyman’s English cuisine. Considering how bad-cooking is a cliche for England, and how eating good food is so beneficial for health, I really have to hand it to that plump, dweeby, mockney for trying to make a difference! But I’m really sick of hearing him battle his tongue and say things like “cheap as chips” or “pull my finger out”. But he’s the real deal in terms of food.

Andrew Zimmern is an animal! The guy is definitely the best culinary adventurer on the air.

Lawson has got “huge tracts of land!” And also a massive butt, carefull hidden by the camera person and editor. I’d do her, then eat her food, gladly! But her phrasing seems really practised, as opposed to Kylie Wong who seems quite unpretentious.

Bobby Chin is great as an Asian food tour guide. But he’s miles away from Bourdain or Floyd in terms of personality. He’s always trying to be funny but I never laugh.

I’m voting Floyd!

19

Yup, he’s single handedly decimated take-up of school meals in low income areas and closed down dozens of school kitchens.

20

Anyone seen “The Surreal Gourmet”?
http://images.google.com.tw/imgres?imgurl=http://www.kiteaddict.com/images/1g2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.kiteaddict.com/foodnet.htm&usg=__EADyU7DhUrF2RYmJk93PuUQAh3E=&h=192&w=222&sz=42&hl=zh-TW&start=13&sig2=_CdGdslbMMKEbB-9s8O0oA&um=1&tbnid=HoQSm6i-5qFDAM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=107&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsurreal%2Bgourmet%26hl%3Dzh-TW%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=d60BSoFop-DqA56YlWk