Bourdain Loves Girl And The Goat, Hates Chicago Pizza
By Anthony Todd in Food on Nov 21, 2012 4:10PM
Whenever Bourdain comes to town, you know the results will be interesting. When he was filming the Chicago episode for his latest show, The Layover, back in July, Bourdain-tracking reached fever pace, as foodies throughout the city followed the man (and his huge green car) on Twitter. He even managed to get into a mini-drama fest/dispute with one business owner who outed him. We'd kind of forgotten about it all - at least until now. The episode finally aired on Monday and it's available online.
What does Bourdain have to say about our fair city? He begins with some (probably justified) hate for our airport. "Unfortunately, most layovers in the city of Chicago are involuntary, because there are few airports you want to be in less." Unfortunately, he didn't make it to Tortas Frontera; we know some foodies who pray for a delay.
He cruised all over the city, generally loving on us pretty hardcore. We're a great bar city, we have the finest hot dogs and italian beef anywhere, and if Girl and the Goat has ever gotten a better review, we didn't seen it. But he just hates, hates our pizza. "Inexplicably, in spite of their general excellence in food, drink, music, everything really, their most famous cultural export is the appalling deep dish pizza. The irony being in a town where everything is great, the thing they're most famous for sucks."
During his layover, he also checked out The Publican, Old Town Ale House, El Ideas, Budaki's Drive In, Johnnie's Beef, The Hideout and The Doughnut Vault. The show is pretty entertaining, though the picture-in-picture format made us feel like we were alternately ADD and a bit dizzy. Not everything he saw in Chicago actually made it into the episode, but at least they made it onto the online guide. The whole episode in one piece isn't online yet, but you can piece it together. If you need a teaser, we've embedded two segments below. The first is Bourdain's take on Girl and the Goat. The second contains his harsh words about our beloved pizza.