Granted, I find new more recent "Bizarre Foods" (under the moniker "Delicious Destinations") slightly lackluster, there were a few interesting episodes. The ones about Ireland, Newfoundland and the Faroe Islands, for example. The Zurich-Episodes seems so far the most disappointing of the lot. For various reasons: For one: almost no Andrew Zimmern. There is very little of the chef to be seen in this episode, Zimmern merely narrating the happening and letting customers and restaurateurs do the major part of the talking and explaining. Zimmern has the gift of being able to convey much about the food he generally consumes on his shows, making the viewer almost fell like they're there with him (or at least, as I personally do, to put the location on a "to-go"-list).
Secondly (and that is considering that this episode is barely half an hour long), I'm pretty certain that Zurich has to offer a little more than just those couple of dishes presented. Cheese and chocolate, fine, you'd have to live either on the moon or south of St. Louis to NOT know already that Switzerland's culinary landscape is renowned for cheese and chocolate. I dare say that Züricher Geschnetzeltes, Rösti and Fondü are universally known, at least in Europe. Doesn't make it less tasty, but exotic it's not. Granted, the Swiss kitchen is not being renowned for being overly exotic and who'll be unlikely to find too many "bizarre" dishes (unless perhaps rural specialties that I'm not aware of), but focusing on those three dishes would be like filming an episode about the US, focusing on steak, thanksgiving turkey and blueberry pie. I for one would have still rather enjoyed watching Zimmern feast on "Berner Fleischplatte" (a variable heap of kraut, meats and sausages, as if the Swiss meant to stick it to the Germans) or give his opinion on the Swiss variation of "Wienerli", a lovechild between a hot dog, Frankfurter sausage and a croissant. Getting into the realm of "bizarre", we could also point out the infamous "canned cheeseburgers", to my knowledge only available in Switzerland. And did I mention that some rural areas in Switzerland have a reputation for eating cat meat? Oh well, can't have maggot-infested cheese and Balut in every episode, and perhaps I'm being too harsh and the newer episodes cater exclusively to the American market (which would still be a shame, since the charm of the original "Bizarre Foods" was that it catered to a global audience). To make it short, the Zurich-episode I simply found bland.
4/10