Transcripts for CNN Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown 20190915 03:28:30 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
sichuanese sour and hot dressing, or sour and hot seasonings. like, on the street you d get just these seasonings with slippery sweet potato noodles and a load of offal. anthony: right. fuchsia: this is a banquet version. eric: ah. fuchsia: yeah. eric: this is going to be a challenge for me. i m still battling with my, uh, skills. fuchsia: i would hold your bowl a little closer like this, and then it s easier. eric: ah! thank you. fuchsia: less room for disaster. eric: you could have told me that before, tony. anthony: ah, i was having so much fun. [ fuchsia and eric laugh ] anthony: so that resistance, that boing, that rubberiness, actually, elasticity, it s kind of the last frontier for western palates. eric: the gelatinous? anthony: the and cartilaginous, you know? where there s actual, like, crunch. fuchsia: this dish, this delicacy, makes no sense in terms of western gastronomy at all because in the west there s just no concept of eating something for
sichuan in particular, since she first arrived here as a student in 1994. she was the first foreigner to study at the sichuan higher institute of cuisine and has written numerous books about her experiences, and about sichuanese food, which are rightly considered groundbreaking and definitive. to say she was way ahead of her time is an understatement. she s brought us to chef lan gue jun s restaurant. fuchsia: what he s trying to do is, sort of, raise the level of sichuanese food to, sort of, very refined banquet cookery. anthony: is what he s doing unusual for chengdu? for china? fuchsia: it is really unusual. so, i think, in the west we are, sort of, very used to the idea of the celebrity chef and the individual chef as artist. but in china people traditionally look down on chefs. so, this is quite a new thing. there are very few chefs who are really, like, the creative
for me, the apex of sichuan food, my absolute favorite, improbably enough, is a tofu dish. this tofu dish. the legendary mapo dofu. or pock mark granny tofu. ground pork or beef, cubes of bean curd, in a rich, deeply nuanced, fiery but intensely satisfying sauce of chili oil, bean paste, garlic shoots, ground sichuan peppercorns, and msg. this dish, done right, has got it all. oh, that s so good. it s a perfect balance of stuff going on in here. i just love, love, love this dish. eric: actually, the spiciness makes me already, like, um, feeling that i am drunk kind of. you know? go: really? eric: yeah. i m like anthony: you high, man? you look high. eric: i am. but i like it. go: yeah. anthony: and if you ever go, like, have a hangover, and you will, my friend, you will um, this will scare the evil right
out. eric: it s prepping me for a drinking night. anthony: the glory of france eric: shut up. anthony: is on your shoulders. [ go laughs ] anthony: and green peppercorn fish, served in a simmering vat of seasoned fish broth, laced heavily with fresh and dried green sichuan peppercorns, and finished off with a heavy pour of boiling hot vegetable oil. go: i think this is the most numb you are gonna feel. eric: that s going to be a challenge, this one, for me. anthony: any second now that perfect hair is gonna burst into flames. eric: that s good. anthony: man, i love the food here. how d that feel? eric: it changed you physically, like, i feel like my face is changing. like my eyes are in a different position. right? anthony: i got news for you. it yeah, you better look at