Fresh take on a food show

Illustration by Mark Stivers

I'm a big fan of food television, and Iron Chef, Top Chef and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations are some favorites. But those shows get repetitive after a while. So recently, I started watching Fresh Off the Boat with New York-based chef and restaurateur Eddie Huang, and it's like Bourdain's show, but even crazier. In Vice's typically high-shock-value style, Huang goes rabbit hunting in Oakland, tries to get high on betel nuts in Taiwan, and takes a porn star out to dinner in Miami. But that stuff's not what's good about the show. Now in its second season, FOB excels because the 31-year-old host relates to young people, talks about food intelligently (although largely in a hip-hop-inflected lexicon), and gets himself into unusual and sometimes humorous situations. A few of his best journalistic moments in past episodes include exploring the Middle Eastern food scene in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Kyrgyz cuisine of Moscow. Check it out at www.vice.com/fresh-off-the-boat.