Latest news with #AnthonyBourdain
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Yahoo
Fact Check: Photo allegedly shows Obama and Epstein drinking beers in Southeast Asia. You should have reservations
Claim: A photograph authentically shows former U.S. President Barack Obama drinking beer in Southeast Asia with convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein. Rating: Context: The man in the photograph with Obama is late television host and chef Anthony Bourdain. In July 2025, a photograph circulated online purportedly showing former U.S. President Barack Obama drinking beer with disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The picture was allegedly taken in a Southeast Asian country, according to numerous posts. One X user's caption read: "It was buried by the press, but not only were Obama and Jeffrey Epstein friends, they traveled around Thailand together, in search of 'the perfect spring roll'." (X user @baltic_dan) However, the photo above does not show Obama drinking a beer with Epstein. The man drinking alongside the former president is the late chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain. As such, we have rated this picture as miscaptioned. The authentic photo was taken while Bourdain was interviewing Obama in a small restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam — not Thailand — for his show "Parts Unknown" in 2016 (archived). They had a dish called bún chả while drinking beer. During the interview, Obama spoke about his past experiences in Southeast Asia, parenthood and reaching across political divides. Bourdain died by suicide in 2018. On June 8 of that year, Obama posted the above photograph of the pair drinking beer in Hanoi with the caption: "'Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer.' This is how I'll remember Tony. He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We'll miss him." While Bourdain and Epstein may have had some facial similarities, it is clear that they are two different men and that Epstein was not pictured in the above photo alongside Obama. Snopes has investigated numerous claims regarding Bourdain and Obama. For example, we looked into whether the late chef said that people should have a drink with those they disagree with and whether the former president said that boys need gay mentors. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health, suicide or substance use crisis or emotional distress, reach out 24/7 to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) by dialing or texting 988 or using chat services at to connect to a trained crisis counselor. "Barack Obama & Anthony Bourdain Have Dinner | Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown." YouTube, HBO Max, 25 Nov. 2023, Accessed 29 July 2025. 'Former Obama Adviser Ben Rhodes Remembers Anthony Bourdain'. Explore Parts Unknown, 25 Oct. 2018, ' X (Formerly Twitter), Accessed 29 Jul. 2025. Ibrahim, Nur. 'Anthony Bourdain Said "Have a Drink" With People You Wouldn't Agree With?' Snopes, 3 Jul. 2024, ---. 'Examining Claim Obama Said Boys Need Gay Mentors'. Snopes, 24 Jul. 2025, Instagram. Accessed 29 Jul. 2025. Severson, Kim. "The Last, Painful Days of Anthony Bourdain." The New York Times. 27 Sep. 2022. Available at: YouTube. Accessed 29 Jul. 2025. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Shellfish You Shouldn't Order At A Restaurant, According To Anthony Bourdain
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Anthony Bourdain was hardly reluctant to share his recommendations and laments about the food and hospitality industries. Whether barraging the concept of awards ceremonies or raving about local hot dog stands, Bourdain was vocal about his opinions, including advising curious gourmands how to best travel, eat well, and experience all that life has to offer. In his book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures In The Culinary Underbelly," Bourdain set out a list of instructions to help restaurant goers improve their meals with smart orders and thoughtful decisions. In addition to advising customers to stay away from ordering fish on Mondays from establishments in which the freshness might be questioned, Bourdain also veered away from plates of mussels. "I don't eat mussels in restaurants unless I know the chef, or have seen, with my own eyes, how they store and hold their mussels for service," he wrote. "I love mussels. But, in my experience, most cooks are less than scrupulous in their handling of them." For a man who had seen his share of kitchen inner workings, this kind of advice holds considerable weight. Read more: Anthony Bourdain's 12 Favorite Spots To Eat And Drink At In The South Taking Calculated Culinary Risks Though mussels might be one of the things to avoid ordering at a restaurant, putting together recipes at home is certainly not off the table. Bowls of creamy garlic mussels or coconut curry mussels can target cravings for this dish, all while you are certain of the level of sanitary handling and quality of product. As Bourdain recognized, if just one mussel is off in a bowl of the mollusks, it could cause seriously unpleasant consequences for those digging into the meal. "It takes only a single bad mussel, one treacherous little guy hidden among an otherwise impeccable group," he penned, before adding that if the urge to sample a mussel might strike, Bourdain would not shy away from plucking the best-looking mussels off the plate of a friend. In addition to questioning servings of mussels, Bourdain was also skeptical of hollandaise sauce as he said it was unlikely to be made to order and could be a breeding ground for bacteria. He also avoided any kind of special offering that might be made up of kitchen scraps: Shepherd's pie and chili, for example, for similar reasons. Though ultimately the call is yours, it is worth considering the reputation of the restaurant and the cleanliness of the establishment before placing your order. Read the original article on Tasting Table.
South China Morning Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
From pho to banh mi to bun cha, the evolution of Hong Kong's Vietnamese food scene
The late US celebrity chef and travel personality Anthony Bourdain was a big fan of Vietnam and its cuisine. He even invited former US President Barack Obama to appear on the Hanoi episode of his food and travel show Parts Unknown in 2016. Like the chef, Hong Kong – known for its love of international cuisines – is not immune to the charms of Vietnam and there are plenty of Vietnamese restaurants to be found in the city. The ties between the two, however, go much deeper than food. More than 200,000 Vietnamese refugees entered Hong Kong between the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 and the 1997 handover of the city from British to Chinese sovereignty. In 1991, Hong Kong had around 64,300 Vietnamese asylum seekers, the highest number ever according to government statistics. The 1998 Hong Kong Yearbook – a government publication covering the year's developments in the city – states that more than 143,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled to other countries between 1975 and 1998, while more than 70,000 migrants were repatriated home. Bun cha was made famous by former US President Barack Obama's 2016 appearance on Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown. Photo: Pho Viet Authentic Hanoi Cuisine As of 2024, the Migration Policy Institute, a US think tank, estimated that only 12,000 people from the Vietnamese diaspora live in Hong Kong, accounting for 0.16 per cent of the city's total population. Hong Kong, it seems, has mostly served as a transit port for Vietnamese people in their efforts to relocate elsewhere.
Mint
6 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Will AI Help or Wreck Your Summer Vacation?
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- On a recent trip to Taiwan, I turned to ChatGPT to ask for recommendations for the best beef noodles in my area — with the very specific request that the shop had to accept credit cards, as I was running low on my stash of local currency. The chatbot immediately recommended a place that was a short walk and featured some of the most delicious, melt-in-your mouth beef tendon I've ever had. I was pleased to be the only foreigner in the no-frills, no air-conditioning joint that was home to a fat, orange cat taking a nap under one of the metal stools. But after my meal, I panicked when the impatient woman behind the counter had to put aside the dumplings she was folding to try and communicate in English to me that it was cash only. Even a quick Google search of the hole in the wall would've saved me from this fate, and I felt foolish for blindly trusting the AI's outputs. Talking to other travelers, I realized I was lucky that the restaurant existed at all, hearing stories of AI tools sending confused tourists to places that were closed or not even real. Still, I found the tool incredibly helpful while navigating a foreign city, using it not just to find spots to eat but also to translate menus and signs, as well as communicate with locals via voice mode. It felt like the ultimate Asia travel hack. Back home in Tokyo, where a weak yen has helped make Japan a top destination for global travelers, I decided to put various AI platforms to the test. I asked DeepSeek, ChatGPT and the agentic tool Manus to create itineraries for someone visiting the city or Japan for the first time. The results were jam-packed and impressive, but mostly featured all the same tourist spots that you'd find at the top of sites like Trip Advisor. Some of the recommendations were also a little out of date; ChatGPT advised staying in a traditional inn that has been closed for over a year. And even my request for more off-the-beaten-path locations spit out areas I specifically avoid at peak times, like Shimokitazawa, because of the crowds of tourists. The outputs made sense given that these tools are an amalgamation of data scraped from the internet. It does save travelers the step of having to scroll through hundreds of websites themselves and put together an itinerary on their own. But relying on this technology also risks a further homogenization of travel. Already, the tech industry is being blamed in tourist hotspots for creating feedback loops that push visitors to the same destinations — with winners and losers chosen by a powerful algorithm. Given that AI systems are predominantly trained on English-language text, this can also mean that local gems easily slip through the cracks of training data. I can't imagine the late Anthony Bourdain eating pho on a stool anywhere in Vietnam that even had a website. AI isn't entirely to blame, even if it adds a much larger scale to the issue. Before the rise of these tools, social media was already reshaping travel in Asia — sometimes in bizarre ways. There's a railroad crossing in my neighborhood that an influencer posted on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu and is now constantly inundated with people doing photoshoots. One of my favorite summer swimming spots in the outskirts of the city unexpectedly went viral on TikTok last year, and it was shocking to see how crowded the riverbanks had become with foreigners. A town near Mt. Fuji garnered international headlines last year after briefly erecting a barrier to block the view of the iconic landmark when it was overrun with tourists trying to all get the same shot — behind a convenience store, of all places. Of course, this isn't limited to Asia. As AI applications proliferate, more people are turning to them to plan vacations from Barcelona to New Orleans. Instead of just advice on local customs, online travel forums have also become popular places to share clever ways to engineer prompts for generative AI tools to make more personalized itineraries. Still, there are inherent limitations to the data they're trained on. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to put the phone down and ask a local for their top spots. Ultimately, AI can break down language and cultural barriers for travelers in ways that seemed unimaginable a decade ago. That's a good thing, and the convenience is undeniable. But it's good to remember that some of the best parts of travel can never be optimized by a machine. More From Bloomberg Opinion: This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Catherine Thorbecke is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech. Previously she was a tech reporter at CNN and ABC News. More stories like this are available on
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Old-School Sandwich Anthony Bourdain Couldn't Stand To Eat
We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. Anthony Bourdain — chef, television show host, and author — had no shortage of opinions when it came to food and dining. He was firm about which cuisines he considered underappreciated in the U.S., and offered plenty of great advice for how to find delicious meals in any city. However, some dishes were targeted by Bourdain's sharply honed disdain — and one of the most consistent targets of his culinary wrath was the seemingly innocuous old-school club sandwich. In his 2016 cookbook "Appetites," Bourdain famously expressed a strong dislike for the dish. He explained to the LA Times, "I'm really irritated by that useless middle slice of bread on the club sandwich. It's been there forever; it's not a trend. It's lasted for decades and why, when we can so easily dispense with it?" Bourdain's contempt for the club sandwich wasn't confined to one rant — it was a recurring theme in his fiery food commentary. As reported by Thrillist, in a notorious list titled "Crimes Against Food," he doubled down on his hatred, describing the sandwich's third slice of bread as an invention by "enemies of freedom" meant to "sap our will to live by ruining our sandwich experiences through 'tectonic slide.'" And in a 2016 interview with NPR, Bourdain again railed against the extra bread in a club sandwich, saying, "The third slice of bread on a club sandwich, I think, is a satanic invention." He was nothing if not consistent in his tastes. Read more: Foods Anthony Bourdain Hated With A Passion Bourdain's Many Sandwich-Based Beefs Anthony Bourdain was all about authenticity in food; he despised artifice. So a sandwich with extra bread easily slid into the category of overbuilt and underwhelming. But the club sandwich was not alone in his "Crimes Against Food" list. The brioche burger bun was another bread-based beef the chef had. "God is against the brioche bun," he wrote. "The hamburger bun is designed to ABSORB grease, not add greasiness to the experience." For Bourdain, burgers had an architectural logic: structurally sound, texturally balanced, and best served on a humble potato bun. Bourdain similarly hated Kobe burgers, deeming them "utterly fraudulent" when served in over-hyped restaurants or popular gathering spots for "bro's," along with his contempt for those who ordered them. Even eggs Benedict wasn't safe. That soft muffin served at brunch spots drew his ire: "The lazy cook toasts it under the broiler for a few seconds on one side, leaving the outer surface gummy and raw tasting and lacking the textural note your poached egg and Canadian bacon and sauce desperately need," he declared. Want more food knowledge? Sign up to our free newsletter where we're helping thousands of foodies, like you, become culinary masters, one email at a time. Read the original article on Food Republic.
