Back after a hiatus!- is a bit of an overstatement. Probably I am making more comebacks than Dinesh Karthik or a Shahid Afridi !
If there was a prize for procrastinator of the year, I would surely be one of the top contenders. But hey, the past three months were eventful to say the least.
Well, my trip to India finally happened where I got to attend my childhood buddy’s marriage, a hill station visit with the college gang, a family nostalgia tour, and more importantly got my stomach full with 4 meals a day – sometimes even more if you include in-between snacks* 😛
*P.S: Relatable to only those peeps who live outside home.
Anyways, lets get back to headline today. Its been a while since I wrote any kind of cinema review, but I really wanted to put it out here to make you peeps watch it.
Its called “The Bear”. Season 2 released last week I binged it in a day 😛
Anybody who likes cooking or wants to cook, or atleast watches those ASMR reels on Insta/youtube, surely is a treat to watch.
The story revolves around a blue-eyed young Michelin star chef “Carmy” who leaves his fine dining world to come back to his hometown to run his family’s sandwich restaurant after untimely death of his brother. The restaurant is a mess with debts, old utensils, unruly staff and losing customer base.
How Carmy gets the restaurant in working condition with the help/limited help from his kitchen staffs and family forms the core plot of the series.
Last year when the first season released, it became a breakout show amidst Emmy winning bigwig shows like The Succession and Ted Lasso. The show beautifully captured the cacophony that happens in a working kitchen at a high end restaurant.
What surprised me was that with eight half-hour episodes, no sexual or romantic storylines and an ensemble kitchen crew cast that grew better by the scene, The Bear was one of the very few shows that left me craving more.
Especially when the lead character “Carmy” is tattooed, masochistic, grief-addled yet highly competent in a tight white T-shirt – became an overnight internet boyfriend.
Years ago I was watching Kitchen Nightmares– a reality show with star chef Gordon Ramsay who goes to pretty below average restaurants which had a long history before and transforms them into a successful one again.
My guess is that the story writers took this leaf out of the their bag and started writing this crux into one of the most entertaining shows ever.
We know that kitchens are high-pressure environments. But then so are operating rooms, trading floors and building sites and even newsrooms. Many workplaces, from time to time, are locations for nerves and heightened tension. The Bear would have you believe that running a restaurant is up there with piloting a fighter jet. That’s why it keeps you on toes on whats coming next!
Being away from home, cooking was something I never thought I would be really invested in. Shows like these just pump up the adrenaline in you to make us just love the art of cooking. Yeah, I know there has been quite a few cooking based movies and reality shows over the past few years, but I would keep this as a cherry on top 🙂
Magizhchi.