Obama makes moving tribute to Bourdain

Washington: Former US President Barack Obama took to Twitter to pay a touching tribute to the globetrotting celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain.

Obama shared a photo of the celebrated $ 6 lunch he shared with Bourdain at a Hanoi restaurant in Vietnam in 2016.

“Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer. This is how I’ll remember Tony,” Obama tweeted. “He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him,” he said.

Bourdain, 61, was in France for work on an upcoming episode of his CNN series Parts Unknown.

The chef was filming for Parts Unknown season 8 while the then President Obama was negotiating a deal with Vietnam, when the two met for the famous lunch at Bun Cha Huong Lien, a traditional roadside joint.

He taught us about food, but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of unknown. We’ll miss him — Barack Obama

Ex- US Prez

Bourdain later said he had found Obama to be “very relaxed and at ease” during their time together. “What can I tell you about what it’s like to sit across from the President of the US and drink beer from the bottle?,” he had told CNN.

Meanwhile, the owner of a Hanoi noodle shop where Bourdain slurped down ‘ bun cha’ with Obama expressed her shock. “( Bourdain) was a nice, friendly, folksy person... He praised our bun cha dish and its fishsauce broth. He loved Vietnamese food,” Nguyen Thi Nga, coowner said. — AFP, PTI