The Best Food Show Of All Time

"That's all she wrote"

I’m going to tell you about one of the easiest comfort watches of all time. Readers in the US will have heard of this but it’s a bit niche here in the UK.

Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives is a food show hosted by Guy Fieri, an American restauranteur and self-appointed “Mayor of Flavortown”. Fieri has bleached blonde tips and wears mirrored Oakelys on the back of his head. I know, he sounds terrible, but I could watch a thousand episodes of this and never tire of it.

In the show, Fieri is on a permanent road trip, visiting diners, drive-ins and, you guessed it, dive bars beloved by locals in small towns across the U.S. In each episode, he pulls up in his red convertible Camaro and meets the restaurant owners/chefs who show him how they make their dishes while he cracks annoying jokes and stuffs his face with their food.

Watching the Food Channel has always been a favourite pastime and I have spent an unholy number of hours watching The Barefoot Contessa (“Add 8 sticks of butter. How bad can that be?”), old episodes of Nigella and many more. But “Triple D” is the best. Although most of the places are proper dives situated in depressing industrial parks in the middle of nowhere, a lot of them make really delicious looking, “scratch made” food.

I’m sure there are plenty of truly dreadful dives turning out awful microwaved burgers but the care and effort these two-bit joints are making defies the worst kind of stereotypes of the American food scene. On the other hand, some of the dishes you watch being prepared are such a dog’s dinner that it’s laugh out loud funny.

Fieri, the king of the dad joke, has a lot of silly catchphrases. When a chef has finished showing him how to make their fried chicken or empanadas, he asks them, “That’s all she wrote?”; he describes things as being “off the chain” and actually says “winner winner, chicken dinner”. His critiques of the food are also joyfully bad/random. “The blackening of the chicken is exactly what blackening should be.” “It’s not lumpy”. I know, truly damning with faith praise.

In any other situation, I would hate a show like this but the charming naffness of it all is just so good. If you want to switch your brain into standby mode for a couple of hours, this is just the ticket.

Have you watched DDD? U.S followers - have I got it all wrong? What’s your favourite comfort food watch? Tell me in the comments.

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Hannah