I took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha la la la la sha la la la la la sha la la la la sha la la la la la la anthony its the spicy, sensualist heartland of all the things i love about china. The collision between very, very old and very new. An exploding middle class. A lot of history. And food that can burn you down to a charred, smoking little stump. Sichuan province, located in the southwest of china. Over a thousand miles from beijing. A region so fertile and lush that its been referred to as chinas breadbasket. And its capitol, chengdu. Despite its evergrowing skyline, it hasnt lost its deep culinary roots and traditions. Man heart. Anthony and i figured if im going back to sichuan i should bring a friend. Someone unused to the, how shall i say, level of heat commonly found in the food here. Someone whos never been to china before and is unused to its ways. Im talking, of course, about chef eric ripert, of such threestar michelin restaurants as new yorks le bernardin. So, welcome to china, eric. Eric thank you. Anthony first time to the mainland . Eric yes, and im very surprised already about, uh, what i see in the city here. I was expecting, like, uh, kind of a gigantic chinatown that we have in new york. Anthony thats some racist shit right there, im telling you. Eric no, very surprising the streets, theyre very clean, just, it almost looks like a european city. Anthony except for the air. The air quality, i mean, maybe youve noticed that haze eric yeah, its like a anthony thats not, thats not good. Eric but im definitely out of my comfort zone. Anthony really . Eric for sure, yeah. Anthony oh, good. Well, im hungry, you hungry . Eric yeah. Anthony noodles, thats where you should start around here. Chengdu is famous for little spots like this. Don don. Named after a muchbeloved chengdu noodle snack. Oh, yeah. Now were talking. Eric ive never been good anthony really . Eric with chopsticks. Never. This is not bad. I can grab it. Kind of. Anthony oh yeah. That is awesome. Eric so, its all spicy. The peppers get to me. Anthony yeah . Eric im, like, ooh anthony yeah, well, this is just day one, man. Eric im surprised you dont drink beer with that. Anthony dude, its only 11 20 in the morning. What kind of an animal do you think i am . Eric because theres nothing to soothe your taste buds. Anthony this is a good, sort of, uh, intro. Anthony so, were gonna have fun. Eric oh, man. Anthony were gonna eat well, youre gonna drink a little more, more than you like. Eric okay. Anthony and i have to stress this to you now, eric, you can not refuse. Eric dont look at me with eyes like that. Like anthony im saying its drinking culture is very important here and if we go to, like, a formal meal your ability to drink leads to a number of assumptions about you. You know . Your general manliness. Penis size. Your worth as a human being. Eric im comfortable with my size. [ laughs ] anthony think of yourself as an ambassador. Not only for america, but for france, eric. Eric but i am an ambassador of le bernardin, as well, of the people who work with me and so on. Anthony right. You dont want people on the other side of the world thinking that le bernardin sends pussies out there to represent. Eric you know what, youre scaring the shit out of me now. Seriously. Anthony you cant let the team down. Eric to me, to me its more insulting to be shitfaced at the table anthony no, no. Not here. Its perfectly okay to be shitfaced at the table. Thats completely acceptable. Its gonna be a wild week. Eric yes, i have the sense of that. Anthony heres something they talk about a lot in sichuan when discussing food two elements of flavor personified by two ingredients that are integral to so much of the cooking around here. The sichuan peppercorn, known for its flowery, aromatic flavor and its tingly, mindarranging, mouthnumbing affects. A phenomenon called ma. And the spicy chili peppers like or the even hotter facing heaven chili provide the la, pure heat. So, if you imagine, like, isla, she wolf of the ss, tormenting you with nipple clamps as the la, the ma, provided by the pleasantly deranging peppercorns, would be like the naughty nurse with the ice cubes. [ singing ] anthony whats your uh, whats your feeling on msg . Eric i dont mind msg. Anthony yeah, i think its good stuff. Eric i do not react to it. Anthony right. No, no. Me too. Nobody does. Its a its a lie, man. Eric well, you find a lot of natural msg in tomatoes. Anthony in breast milk. In parmesan. Eric yeah, in a lot of products. Anthony yeah. You know what causes Chinese Restaurant syndrome . Racism. [ eric laughs ] anthony ooh, i have a headache. It must have been the chinese guy. Go most of the traditional, very famous dishes of sichuan cuisine are not made from chef. It all comes out from the family. Eric uhhuh. Go so, family dishes is the key of sichuan cuisine. Anthony in my quest to set erics perfect hair on fire, i have arranged dinner with this man, go sa, who runs the Sichuan Cuisine Museum here. He takes us to a neighborhood favorite for some typical local dishes, like pickled chicken feet, cartilaginous little bits of gnawable goodness. Eric how do you eat this one . Go just bite it and dont eat the bone, though. Eric no, no. Oh, its good. Anthony its delicious. Eric its spicy also, yeah. Go yeah. Very spicy. Have some beer. Eric but the food is really good, but the spice is a little bit of a challenge, i have to say. Anthony oh yeah. Now were talking. Youre gonna love this dish, my friend. Go yeah, thats a find the chicken in the pile of chili. Anthony lao sze chi literally means spicy chicken, but the dish, in practical terms, is a game of finding the bits of chicken in the mountain of assburning goodness. Cmon, its fun for the whole family. Is that a tiny nubbit of hacked chicken . Or a nuclear cluster of chili seeds . The sichuan peppers are the, for me, like, the really, super addictive. Eric oh yeah, i feel them now. Its all tingling. Anthony yeah. Eric like that. Right . Anthony theres a scientific name for the process, for what happens. Is the biological agent that causes confusion in your nervous system. Causes tingling. Go confusion. Anthony confusion. Yeah. Eric its what i feel right now, yeah. [ anthony laughs ] eric im totally confused, ill tell you that. Go oh, mapo dofu. Anthony oh, my favorite. Eric that one i have the feeling is the killer. Anthony look at that, man. That is some goodness right there. 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, thats so good. Its 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. Im 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 its 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 thats going to be a challenge, this one, for me. Anthony any second now that perfect hair is gonna burst into flames. Eric thats good. Anthony man, i love the food here. Howd 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 yourself in the mirror, man. Go just slow down. Dont rush. Eric slow down, right . Go yeah, slow down a little bit. Anthony man, those, those peppercorns are awesome. Eric ah. I need towels. Holy cow. Whoa. [ anthony laughs ] eric theyre all looking at me from the kitchen. They are like, this guys gonna survive or what . For barcelona . We did promise wed go. [dogs] they get the miles. We get a petsitter. Use the card that gets you miles closer to your promise. [dogs] they should do this every year. And start something priceless. Yesss, im doing it all. The water. The exercise. The fiber. Month after month, and i still have belly pain and recurring constipation. So i asked my doctor what else i could do, and i said yesss to linzess. Linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. Linzess is not a laxative, it works differently. It helps relieve belly pain and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. Do not give linzess to children less than 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to less than 18, it may harm them. Do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. Get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. The most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. If its severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. Other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. Im still doing it all. The water. The exercise. The fiber. And i said yesss to linzess for help with belly pain and recurring constipation. Ask your doctor. Anthony thank you. Oh no, do i have to wear one of those vests . Ah, geez. Youre gonna sink like a stone in this thing. My friend eric is a buddhist. Not a weekend buddhist either. A serious, longterm practitioner of tibetan buddhism. Its what makes him so different from me. He, for instance, is nice. I am not always so nice. Eric look on the rock. Its something written in chinese. Anthony maybe, you know, gift shop this way. Eric no. [ laughs ] anthony whoa. Check it out, man. Eric i know. Anthony about two hours south of chengdu at the confluence of the min jiang, dadu, and ching yi rivers is the giant leshan buddha. Carved out of the cliff wall back in 713, it still stands as the largest stone buddha in the world. Whoa, that was pretty awesome. Eric that was beautiful, huh . Anthony and me without my selfie stick. Though erics buddhism diverges somewhat from the kind practiced here, as you might imagine, the site is respected and revered by all buddhists. I am respectful of faiths not my own, and i am more than happy to let my friend do what he does. It means a lot to him. And, like i said, i respect that. Really. Pretty cool. Eric isnt it . Anthony all right. This is a tasty rabbit head dispensary . All right. Eric is it here . No. Is it here . Anthony yeah, man. Thats what youve been waiting for. But all this time, in a little, evil, part of my brain, ive been secretly looking forward to this moment. A tasty sichuan snack famous and much loved around these parts. Im talking bunny heads, yo. Tasty, tasty bunny heads. I think you use the glove. Eric yeah. Anthony like youre doing a little, uh, prostate exam. Look at look at those teeth. He hates, whoa. Eric oh, you have the tongue too. Anthony yanked the jaw right out. Oh, thats good. That is delicious. Seriously spicy, delicious, flesh still clinging to little thumpers skull. Look at those little teeth. And, the best part, after you rip off the jaw and split the skull, the tasty, chicletsized brain. Eric hm. Its a lot of meat. Anthony just suck that brain right out. Eric im not a fan of brains, but im gonna try. Anthony you havent had these brains. Rabbit brains are different. Theyre not, like, custardy, creamy. Theyre, kind of, like, little, theyre like uni. Here comes peter cottontail hoppin down the bunny trail right into my mouth. Eric how did you crack that . Anthony you just get that soft spot, you just crack that thumb in, and pry it apart. Yeah. Aw, geez. Yeah. Or you just pound it on the curb. So you, you basically crack it. Oh youre whittling out the brain with its own jaw bone. [ eric laughs ] anthony theres a certain country justice to that. I wish id known about these things. You know what, im gonna make these next easter. Eric yes. Anthony i mean, the whole easter egg hunt. What does that have to do with bunnies . You know what im saying . Bunnies dont lay eggs. But they do have heads. Look deep. Deep into the murky depths of that most glorious and iconic of sichuan dishes. It burns. It burns you down to your soul. All cheers. Anthony local friend xiao bin and Musician Friend seven. Wu jiao ling and gao shin. All enjoy a good hot pot. Almost everybody around here does. Eric, however, seems apprehensive. Anthony so, this is erics first time for sichuan hot pot. Gao really . Anthony i think youre really going to enjoy this. Eric yeah. Anthony so this is particularly good, right . Xiao it is known for being spicy. So [ laughs ] seven not a good news. [ laughs ] eric i feel it in my eyes already. Yeah. Anthony the way it works is you order a whole bunch of ingredients meat, vegetables, noodles, fish, whatever you like, a lot of different ingredients, and you feed them into the pot. Seven we should just throw them first. Anthony yeah. I mean, cause thats gonna take a long time. Lets throw that tripe in. Seven thats called, like, thousandlayer stomach. Anthony its all going in there, man. The inner ring is a more neutral broth. The outer ring, though, is the good stuff. The hard stuff. Xiao this is now boiling. Anthony oh, thats good, man. Thats good. Xiao that was erics first bite of hot pot. Anthony awesome, right . Eric yes. Anthony and it only gets better, my friend. Gao oh, this is nice. Anthony oh yeah. Seven tofu. Eric oh, this is tofu . Seven yeah. Eric oh, its the skin on top . Seven yeah. Anthony common ingredients like tofu and seaweed, various meats and fishes, are stirred in along with ingredients that are, shall we say, less familiar to the western palate. They got the duck. Eric yeah, yeah. Anthony then they reach inside, they grab the, grab the intestines, and yank em out of a live duck. Eric no seven yeah. Supposedly thats the bit that gives you, like, the most fresh. Eric but its a bit cruel, right . Anthony well, you want em fresh, eric. I mean seven yeah. I think we should drink some beer. Anthony yes, i think so. All cheers. Seven how are you doing there, eric . Eric im doing amaamazingly well. Seven hanging in there . Eric my sinuses are seven open. Anthony so open you have no idea. Wu best part of hot pot is to share. Eric is to share . Wu to share, yeah. Eric yes, i like that too. Its very convenient. Wu yeah. Sometimes when, we have, like, hotpots for four hours. Anthony as it cooks down it gets stronger and stronger and the heat more intense. A delicious yet unpredictable silt of spice gathering at the bottom of this river of hot lava. If you dig deep, like, down to the sediment down there, the river bed, man. Its spicy. You feel enlightened yet . Look how the colors changed in the broth. Xiao that was you kind of expected it . Eric yes. It is exactly what i expected it. [ laughs ] seven more beers, guys . Anthony yeah. Definitely. Eric i cannot think anymore. So im gonna eat and drink. Anthony but the baijiu comes out and everything is fine again, for me, anyway. Im not so sure about eric. Anthony youre out of it, man. Its all good, though. Its all good. Eric okay. Anthony dont say okay. The evenings just beginning. Xiao everything you just had was appetizer. Anthony its all good, though. Its all good. Eric hes the devil. Look at him. Seven lets drink baijiu. Anthony all right, eric. Yeah. Youre getting into the spirit of things. Eric do you know he took me, he took me on this trip to make me suffer. Seven yeah. Eric to kill me slowly or fast. Seven thats what friend does to another friend. You know . Thats what good friends do. Anthony yes. Seven in drinking culture of china we enjoy torturing your friends. [ eric laughs ] xiao well, lets drink to friendship. Seven yeah. Anthony to friendship. Seven to friendship. Eric thank you. I like that. Wu ah, okay. To friendship. Eric yeah, to friendship. Seven to friendship. The nations largest and most reliable network. The best network is even better . Best, fastest, best. Enough. Sprints doing things differently. Theyre offering a new 100 total satisfaction guarantee. I mean i think Sprints Network and savings are great, but dont just take my word for it. Try it out and decide for yourself. Switch to sprint and get both an unlimited plan and one of the newest phones included for just 35 a month. For people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay. Com. So chantix can help you quit slow turkey. Rkey. Along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. With chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, youll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. When you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or lifethreatening allergic and skin reactions. Decrease alcohol use. Use caution driving or operating machinery. Tell your doctor if youve had Mental Health problems. The most common side effect is nausea. Talk to your doctor about chantix. Classical Music playing throughout anthony morning in chengdu, and my restless pilgrim friend is up early, always a seeker, checking out the sights, sucking up knowledge, nibbling at the edges of celebrity. Due, no doubt, to the fact that most of these people think hes richard gere. Me, i dont need the glitter or the recognition, and screw wisdom. Give me some damn noodles. Now, you know thats good. Come on. I dont even have to taste that. Just look at it. Now, get in my mouth. Mm. [ cell phone rings ] girl uh, excuse me. Can you help my family . Im from anthony nothing from eric. Eric they think im anthony bourdain. [ laughs ] im gonna play a son of a bitch. Anthony probably turned his phone off. Eric sorry, tony. Girl thank you. Thank you very much. Eric good . Youre welcome. Thank you. Anthony i think he was up last night doing, uh, sichuanese karaoke. Eric good, thank you. Thank you. Anthony he could be, uh, i dont know, riding the porcelain bus, as they say. Eric this is very sweet and sticky, but i like it a lot. I dont even know what im eating, but why not . Mm. Spicy, oof. [ laughs ] thank you. Anthony i just know this soup is awesome. I could rule the world after this. Still no word from eric. Fuchsia the chinese invented being obsessed with food. They invented, you know, being obsessed with the providence of the ingredients, with going to a particular place for a particular dish. Anthony right. Fuchsia so, theyve had that tradition for at least 800 years. Anthony fuchsia dunlap has had an extraordinary relationship with china, and 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