Food travel tropes

[Shalmanese]

It seems like there are certain mandatory scenes that appear in any food travel show about a particular city.

For example, no show about Tokyo would be complete without a scene from Tsukiji fish market. And every scene follows the same rough script:

The host appears bleary eyed and announces that it's 4 o'clock in the morning, we get to see some chunks of big, seriously expensive tuna being carted off somewhere, there's a quick montage of all the exotic seafood for sale, a shot of the host walking in a discussion about the importance of quality in Japanese cuisine and to cap it off, a shared meal with the fishermen at one of the mom & pop diners lining the market.

edit: There is a comment about how the market smells clean and not at all like fish.

What are some other tropes you've noticed in food travel tv?

Edited October 5, 2009 by Shalmanese (log)