ANDREW ZIMMERN: The theme of
tonight's episode is people that have fired me or
wouldn't hire me. I was such a drug addled mess. This was generically
what happened. I either was able to ingratiate
myself right away because I had a lot of good
talent and I could keep up when we were in the shit, which
was the biggest mistake, because I always ended up just
drinking and drugging myself out of the job. I did a year at Raquel with
Thomas, and that was great. But he and a couple other guys
found in the liquor room drunk from the night before, passed
out on the floor. When he saw me for the first
time like 10 years ago-- I was helping a friend-- he
literally walked across the room, gave me a hug, and
whispered in my ear, I thought you were dead. And then I moved to Minnesota. I got well, and things got
dramatically better for me. My whole face is numb. Wow, wow, wow. This smell back here
at this part of the sheep out in the desert-- fantastic. These little curved pieces
here are the intestines. And then this is the
stomach lining. I'm Andrew Zimmern. I'm the host, co-creator, and
co-executive producer of "Bizarre Foods" on the
Travel Channel. What fascinates me about the
world is food is the ultimate lens through which to
view another people. When we go into a city, we can
explore that city's history through the food. When we go tribal, we are able
to, through the food, discover how they think and
how they feel. When you share food with other
people, you end up talking about the things you
have in common. There's no way to escape it. Even if you haven't spoken
a word to me in three day because I'm suspiciously weird
and white, if I'm eating their mom's food, they will look at
me, and at some point, they are obligated to say,
what do you think? It's a little salty. It's a little fishy
and putrid, but it is very, very tasty. So I sit there and I
go, you know it is. It's like, someone comes into my
home, and my wife makes her tater tot hot dish, I look at
them at them and I'm like, uh-huh, you know what
I'm saying? It's just the way it is. I came to New York for the
script to network upfronts. I come into town, I want to have
fun for a couple hours and go see some friends and
hang out in a couple restaurants and eat a couple
of good things. Met a bunch of friends
at Osteria Morini. And I come here all the time
when I'm in New York, because I just think it's great
rustic Italian food. Marisa, this is Niki,
Niki, Marisa. Marisa was one of the interns at
our production company for the most painful
three months-- brutal. My friend Niki, who's also my
publicist, my friend Jordan, who just moved here from
Minnesota, and his girlfriend Taya, also from Minnesota. JORDAN HUSNEY: You know she's
not my girlfriend. ANDREW ZIMMERN: You're
not his girlfriend? TAYA MUELLER: His girlfriend
will kill me. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Does life
get any better? We're just eating a snack,
have a drink, and then off to Forgiones. This is a grazing night. Couple little snacks always
ends up dragging on for at least 45 minutes longer than
anyone else's version of eating a couple little snacks,
number one because I'm a serial over-orderer. We'll do prosciutto, spec,
copa, lardo, fegatini. The [INAUDIBLE] peas,
and the lamb prudo. I'm looking for the filled-- -The [INAUDIBLE] with
the [INAUDIBLE]. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Oh, yeah. We'll do two orders of those
because we'll need two. Michael White, who owns the
place is a friend of mine. The chef who started this
restaurant for Michael is a guy named Bill Dorrler, who's
a fantastic chef. Asi has been here originally
when they opened, and now he runs the place. ANDREW ZIMMERN: That just
looks beautiful. The brilliant part of it to me
was that they were able to say, well, what would happen if
we let it go twice as long in the aging room as is
normallly thought appropriate? Now, I should tell you, but I
doubt very much whether any of you have ever eaten
beef this old. 120 days is a third of a year. If beef is aged 24, 36
days, it's a miracle. If you get it aged 45 days, it
starts to get really finessed and antique. If you go 120 days, the flavor
of the meat is so different. Even great steakhouses
won't go this old. I laughed when the waiter
said the beef flavor is very focused. I'm like, you mean dank and
almost cheese-like, funky, almost tastes like the forest
floor in a damp sort of fetted way. It creates a flavor that
is like no other. It just melts in your
mouth, tender. It was just crazy good. That's ridiculously good, just
beautiful funk to it-- really beautiful. What's this? -Lamb brain and veal
sweet breads. ANDREW ZIMMERN: People go, oh,
brains and sweet breads. But if you didn't tell someone
what that was, they'd scarf it down. NIKI TURKINGTON: It's got
an interesting texture. It's marshmallowy. ANDREW ZIMMERN: If you saw one
of my New York episodes, we have pictures of the
80-year-old women making these pastas. When you taste these, the
quality quotient is insane. Michael White made a name for
himself cooking pasta. There are many people who feel
he's the best pasta cook of his generation. I've not eaten pasta cooked by
anyone in America in the last 20 years that's better
than his. Think about making all of those
tortellini, those little two-sided ravioli,
the espelette. It just blew my mind. The precision with these
things, you just won't have its equal. NIKI TURKINGTON: That
is like, oh, my god. I'm leaving you guys. I'm going to stay here with my
new favorite thing, the pasta. ANDREW ZIMMERN: This is the
worst part of my life, which is sitting there doing this
and getting frantic emails from producers of my show trying
to figure out how to make something work that right
now isn't working. We were able to get out of
Morini with our appetites somewhat intact and make our
way over to Marc Forgione's restaurant. NIKI TURKINGTON: What would
you have described yourself in the '70s? ANDREW ZIMMERN: I will tell you
about the '70s, Niki, you weren't born yet. It was a very exciting
time for some of us. Pot got you really high, and
it wasn't expensive. It was very simple. Life was so easy. Is Mark still here? MARC FORGIONE: Yes, yes. [INAUDIBLE]. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Marc Forgione,
iron chef, a lot of people think that guys who cook
on TV are TV chefs. Not so this guy. And the thing that I like most
about hanging out with him was I always remind him that his dad
fired me after half a day at an American Place. 30 years ago, an American Place
was a landmark in the history of the food
scene in America. I was a mess. I deserved to be fired one hour
after I went in the door. It was a miracle I lasted
half a shift there. MARC FORGIONE: I didn't even
know my dad was a real chef. I just thought he was a guy who
went to work every day and had a restaurant. And I didn't think
anything of it. American Place is one of those
restaurants that really changed the way Americans eat. My old man, people like Alice
Waters, Jonathan Waxman, all these guys are really
visionaries. When you're a teenager,
you find a summer job to make some money. I didn't know it at the time,
but my job to make some money over the summer was working in
one of the best restaurants in the country. And by the time I was 18 or 19
years old, I know it sounds crazy, I knew how to
make a consomme. But I didn't know that
other people didn't know how to do that. It was just, you don't how
to make dinner, dude. Like, I'll make dinner. The food here in American
through and through. America, to me, especially being
from New York, it's a melting pot. I like to have fun with
what we're doing. You can go anywhere and
just have dinner. I'm loving this. I told you we were going
to mess with your senses a little bit. First, everybody take
the ceramic spoon. This is called a Szechuan
button. So place it in your
mouth and roll it around with your tongue. Don't swallow it. It's like an herb. You want to wake it
up in your mouth. And your mouth is going to start
to tingle a little bit. You're going to then follow it
with the sashimi spoon with avocado mousse. You're going to breathe in
a wasabi and mint cloud. NIKI TURKINGTON: Wow. MARC FORGIONE: Then you eat the
rest of the tartar, which is a [INAUDIBLE] with
a little avocado and fresh wasabi sauce. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Full on
sensory overload. Here's what's so fricking
brilliant about it. You've got to be so spot on
perfect in terms of technique, flavor, and how you pull that
off, because otherwise, people are laughing at you. MARC FORGIONE: The cloud thing
we've been doing for about six, seven months now. And when you see a whole
visual of it, it's not something you see every
day in a restaurant. ANDREW ZIMMERN: For me,
this is why I eat out. If I want to take a simple piece
of fish and throw it on the grill and put it over some
green vegetable with a little bit of sauce that I made
in the pan, that's not why I eat out. That's how I cook at home. I eat at a restaurant like this
because I'm curious about what a chef can do within the
boundaries of the realm of ingredients and techniques that
you're constrained with. MARC FORGIONE: I also told you
I was going to mess with your emotions and your sense of
childhood and all that stuff. This is a fully-loaded
baked potato. This is what I need you to
think about while you're eating the next course. ANDREW ZIMMERN: All of that
sparks a thought and a feeling and creates a relationship
with the food. I think that's the purview
of what great restaurants should be. MARC FORGIONE: So these are the
ravioli filled with creme fraiche, a little parsley,
chives, red pepper flakes, a little bit of lemon zest, a
touch of truffle oil, and some raw shallots. Now, this is a stock
that we actually make with baked potatoes. There you have what we like
to call baked potato. I think emotionally everybody
has an idea or an attachment or a flavor profile when
you think of a fully loaded baked potato. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Smell that. What does it smell like? It's a fully loaded
baked potato. MARC FORGIONE: When you buy
into that creme fraiche ravioli with the fried potato
and the bacon and the scallion and the butter, all that stuff,
all of a sudden, you're looking at a baked potato. You're eating something that
tastes like a baked potato. I'm sure it made you short
circuit a little bit. ANDREW ZIMMERN: And it's
a very simple idea. I just think it's brilliant. When it's done right,
it's brilliant. MARC FORGIONE: Anything else I
can get you, you let me know. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Wrong car. Fantastic-- people working out. The nice thing about New
York City is that restaurants are open late. The nicer thing about New York
City is that chefs are actually in their restaurants. Jonathan and I have known each
other for a long time. Jonathan Waxman belongs in that
generation of chefs who helped define what American
cuisine is today. He was at the forefront of
bringing in California farm modernism into New York City
when he opened up Jams. And what's incredible is that
Jonathan Waxman has been inspirational and
relevant to two generations of American chefs. NIKI TURKINGTON: It's a
beautiful kitchen you have here, Jonathan. JONATHAN WAXMAN: No,
it's a dump. NIKI TURKINGTON: I heard that
you're the chicken king. He thought it was funny that he
was going to make chicken from chicken king. ANDREW ZIMMERN: I had decided
that I wanted to make Jonathan the chicken wings. You might as well bring
coals to Newcastle. Famously, a man who's built a
career almost about roasting the perfect chicken. I wanted to cook you this dish
because, in the great tradition of [INAUDIBLE] Chinese chicken dishes,
this is my favorite. It's a 1,000-year-old Chinese
grandmother recipe that I learned from a Chinese chef in
New York who taught classes at the Y in the late '70s,
early '80s. When you eat this, you'll
taste it and go, oh, my god I know this. This is Chairman Mao's
red sauce. And it's really easy. But then when I went to China
for the first time and I had someone make it, I insisted
on learning it from them. And then I had those fabulous
chilis from my friend Yu's farm. And I was like, well, this
is going to be fantastic. There are people right now that
are talking about doing Chinese restaurants
and doing some of those classical dishes. ANDREW ZIMMERN: It's
very true. ANDREW ZIMMERN: I don't think
there's anything more fun than sitting around and shooting the
shit with guys who really know what they're talking about
and telling stories and engaging in the exchange
of ideas. By the way, while we're waiting
for this, would you please tell the story of your
dad and those dishes? JONATHAN WAXMAN: My dad, who
was an intrepid diner, he moved from the Bronx to
California because he knew the weather was better
and the food was better, which is true. But the best thing was going to
this restaurant called Sun Hun Yung, which is on Washington
Street in downtown Chinatown in San Francisco. And he refused to sit on the
ground floor with all the geisha and all non-Chinese. The third floor was only
Chinese, only family, only banquet-style. And one of the dishes, I
remember when I was a little kid, they brought me
this thing and it was parchment chicken. And it must have been chicken
thighs soaked in a marinade of soy, ginger, whatever wrapped
inside parchment paper and then deep fried in the
parchment paper. And you eat it, and the oozing
sauce and the paper. And you lick the paper. And oh, my god, it's the
greatest thing in the world. ANDREW ZIMMERN: I'm trying
some of this sauce. I'm going in here. JONATHAN WAXMAN: Go nuts. ANDREW ZIMMERN: That's
the stuff. But that is Chinese
grandmother food. JONATHAN WAXMAN: And my father
just passed away. And god bless him. ANDREW ZIMMERN: Sorry
to hear that. JONATHAN WAXMAN: Thank you. He was his passion
to eat that well. Cooking what you do reminds me
a little of my dad, honestly, because my dad had this sort of
penchant for really spicy things that have lots of acid,
onions, garlic, ginger, Chinese spices. It's kind of cool. Thank you. Thank you very much. ANDREW ZIMMERN: You're
welcome. That's really, really sweet. JONATHAN WAXMAN: He
once cooked a-- ANDREW ZIMMERN: That's the
great thing about food, though, because I had people
who reminded me of my grandmother while they
were [INAUDIBLE]. It is the greatest thing in the
world about what we do is that you can make a memory
like that come back. My first stir fry, we had a
wok in our house in 1966. When my mother finally saw one
in a store that she could get one, because she made this thing
that was chow mein that I called chicken a la gush. I still make it. It's my mother's old chow
mein recipe with a lot of celery and--
