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"Brasserie Les Halles, like its Chef-at-Large, Anthony Bourdain, has a certain ill-mannered charm.  The restaurant reminds me of the grubby spots I used to visit in Paris, the ones that titillated me because they appeared to be in violation of health codes. \n\nBourdain, yet another chef who hates the drudgery of preparing food, recently went back to the restaurant to play line cook.  You might have seen him last night on No Reservations, the Travel Channel show where he slouches, smirks, drinks, smokes, swears, pontificates, and eats bugs (possibly the attributes of a modern Renaissance man).  Although he claimed on the program that \"the cooking life has been a long love affair,\" he also pointed out that it had been eight years since he had worked in a kitchen.\n\nWhen I phoned the restaurant to ask his role there, I was told he acts as a \"consultant,\" although it's hard to know what a place that specializes in the hoariest of French dishes would need from an American who wasn't much of a chef back in the days when he worked at being one.  I visited Les Halles on Park Avenue this past weekend and found the butter and the fries quite good.  Perhaps churning and frying are Bourdain's culinary specialties these days. \n\nI had planned to go twice, but once was enough.  I entered and was led to a miniscule table covered in white paper.  It was in front of a banquette that appeared to have been slashed, probably by an understandably dissatisfied customer.  The lighting is so dim and the furnishings so battered that it was difficult to accurately assess the damage.\n\nNext to the table was a marginally better one, and my guest and I asked to be seated there.  The surly hostess, who had heretofore said nothing, snarled \"no,\" and when I pressed for an explanation, she said it had been reserved.  I was suspicious, since it's hard to imagine anyone going to the trouble to reserve a specific table at a restaurant where none are desirable.  It was a falsehood easily exposed.  When we asked the people finally seated there if they had indeed reserved it, they told us that they had just wandered in, having no idea where they..."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/kitchen-inconsequential>