Web Video / Binging with Babish

Serving up new episodes every week.

"Follow along with my torso every week as I recreate the iconic and obscure foods from your favorite movies and TV shows, all in dazzling 4K. We'll make some delicious dishes, have a little fun, and if you're not careful, you might just learn a thing or two."

— Andrew "OliverBabish" Rea

Binging With Babish (sometimes abbreviated to BWB) is a YouTube-based cooking show hosted by food enthusiast and hobbyist chef Andrew "OliverBabish" Rea. Each episode sees Andrew attempting to accurately replicate a food and/or recipe that appears in either a film or a TV show, using descriptions from the movie or show combined with his own culinary knowledge. If the food in question doesn't work, ends up being inedible, or could otherwise be improved upon, he then attempts to create a better version. Some episodes cover multiple dishes from one piece of media, or showcase variations of a food from different works, such as the "Cocktail Special" episode.

The show debuted in February 2016, and after hitting 100,000 subscribers in January 2017, it quickly exploded in popularity, making it all the way to 1 million subscribers in less than five months. The channel hit the 3 million subscriber mark in August 2018 and is still growing.

The show also became affiliated with other major cooking channels, such as You Suck at Cooking and First We Feast, and did several collaborations with other channels, like Cocktail Chemistry and Bon Appétit magazine's It's Alive! with Brad [Leone].

In October 2017 he released a cookbook, Eat What You Watch: A Cookbook for Movie Lovers, containing recipes he's done on the show (and some he hasn't).

On October 12, 2017, Andrew launched a subseries, Basics with Babish, to help people who are just starting cooking.

On March 19, 2019, Andrew announced a series by the name of Being with Babish, featuring he and his friend/collaborator Sawyer visiting/helping fans (with It's Alive!'s Vincent "Vinny" Cross as cameraman). It launched on March 22nd.

On Sept 24, 2020, Andrew renamed the channel "Babish Culinary Universe" after starting a whole set of cooking shows with different shows—the better to the variety of shows the channel now hosts alongside Binging With Babish. These are:

1. Stump Sohla, starring Sohla El-Waylly, formerly of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. Starting in 2020, this lasted only a few months before Sohla moved on to other projects
2. Pruébalo,^note Spanish for "Try it!" starring Rick Martinez, also formerly of the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. Starting in 2021, this is a food travelogue series exploring Mexican cuisine. Season 1 (2021-22) was based around exploring the regional cuisines of western and northern Mexico, with Rick based in Mazatlán, Sinaloa (where Rick had originally been stranded during the Covid-19 pandemic). Season 2 (2023) is based in Mexico City and is devoted to exploring diverse and vibrant culinary scene of the vast metropolis.
3. The FundaKendalls, starring Kendall Beach, BCU kitchen assistant. This series, launched in 2021, showcases Kendall's research into cooking fundamentals as part of writing Andrew's next cookbook.
4. Anime with Alvin, starring Alvin Zhou of Buzzfeed. This series, launched in 2021 after the success of Alvin's hijacking of the channel with the April Fool's "Gotcha Pork Roast" video, features Alvin making foods from anime in the same basic style as a classic Binging with Babish video. This got a further sub-series/spinoff in 2022 with Arcade with Alvin, in which Alvin makes food from video games (usually Japanese ones) instead of anime, and still another in 2023 with Anything with Alvin, in which Alvin makes more or less what he wants, but usually something from a video he saw online and usually something from Asia.
5. KendallCombines, again starring Kendall Beach. Starting in 2022, in which Kendall is given two mystery ingredients and must make a delicious dish featuring both—with Andrew handing out her final grade.
6. Football Fusion, starring Sawyer Jacobs, Esq., COO and in-house counsel for Binge Entertainment (the legal corporate form of the BCU) and (more importantly) Andrew's friend from childhood and a huge fan of the Buffalo Bills. Launched in fall 2022, this one has Sawyer—who by his own admission has no culinary training, not even as a home cook—creating dishes that combine classic foods from two cities whose teams are playing each other that week into a craveable gametime snack.

Also new in 2021 was the "Botched by Babish" series, in which Andrew seeks "redemption" for dishes he allegedly messed up in Binging or Basics, generally in a chaotic/farcical way.

Also, for full, detailed versions of the recipes from each of the episodes, please see the the Binging With Babish website.

Compare to How To Drink, which is like if Binging with Babish specialized in Mixed Drinks.

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Binging With Babish has the following tropes:

• 420, Blaze It: Andrew has admitted he enjoys smoking "Jazz cigarettes" from time to time, so he wasn't going to pass up on the jokes when he released a video on April 20, 2021. During the creation process of the Space Cake from High Maintenance, he finds it curious that both the vegetable oil and butter is curiously green in color. By the end of the episode he goes all in and acts totally baked after eating a slice of the cake.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Numerous examples:
  • Episode 61 (The Wire) stands out.
    At this point, you can keep these fries frozen for up to three months, so you can have fresh fries whenever you fancy. But for now, I want fries in my face forthwith.
  • Episode 23, "Rick and Morty Szechuan Sauce" he describes Szechuan as having "fruity floral flavors".
  • After he finished making Double Triple Bossy Deluxe on a Raft, Babish tried to eat it, but says that it's "not the most structurally sound sandwich I've ever swallowed".
  • While making Pretty Patties, Babish would prepare to cut his colorful buns, before remarking that a coaster was "the perfect pedestal upon which to prop our pain." ("Pain" being French for bread, of course.)
• Affectionate Parody: In his contribution to the Leftovers Challenge (a fundraising effort for the Restaurant Workers Community Foundation), Andrew briefly imitates the distinctive speech pattern of chef John Mitzewich, host of the fellow cooking channel Food Wishes. A clip of Walter White, with a still photo of Chef John's head pasted on, then warns Andrew to "stay out of [his] territory," to which Andrew hastily apologizes. Chef John himself commented that he loved the video.
• And a Diet Coke: The Paunch Burger, aka The Dinner For Breakfast is a triple cheeseburger with onion rings and a fried egg... as well as a single leaf of lettuce on the bottom. It also comes with a side of chili cheese fries.
• April Fools:
  • He makes "traditional Japanese donuts" from the English dub of Pokémon for his April 1st, 2019 episode. (He makes actual riceballs the next day.)
  • In the video he released on March 31st, 2020, he creates the Imaginary Pie from Hook by using an imaginary set of ingredients and the creation process of the pie. The pie only turns real once it has been completely made. He shows the actual creation process afterward, while also showing the imaginary footage in the corner, and making sure to make the same goofs and mistakes to mimic the footage perfectly.^note There was also a bit of Real Life Writes the Plot there: it was an easy recipe to do and he and Jess were recovering from an illness at the time.
  • 2021 had two jokes:
    • His weekly Tuesday video from March 31st starts off by mimicking the ads on YouTube videos in order to actually advertise the launch of his Babish cookware line. The "Skip" button in the lower corner counted down to "ERROR 404 - PART OF VIDEO - GOTCHA"
    • On April 1st proper, it's suggested that Alvin from "About To Eat" snuck into Andrew's house at 3 AM in order to cook up the "Gotcha Pork Roast"^note which is a potato dish presented as a pork roast, in keeping with the April Fools spirit from Food Wars!.
• Alliterative Title: Binging With Babish. Sometimes abbreviated to BWB.
• Author Appeal: Frasier.
  • For a while the opening theme of the series was "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs".
  • During the episode on il timpano from Big Night, he mentions that he watched the show for six hours while cooking.
  • A special on it after co-star John Mahoney died was made.
  • In one episode, he gets into an argument with his cameraman if Daphne or Roz is hotter.
  • He sometimes uses the show's episodes as units of measure for cooking times.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Andrew makes a point of saying that he's not going to use real blood in the Game of Thrones blood pie... before admitting that yes, he is, in fact, doing so (pig's blood, to be exact).
  • In "The Moistmaker", Andrew starts off by claiming he will use store-bought processed ingredients to make the titular sandwich before admitting he's just fucking with the viewers. He then proceeds to make cranberry sauce and stuffing from scratch and cooks a fresh turkey which he then hand-carves in order to make the sandwich.
  • Does this twice in "Instant Macaroni and Cheese".
    The only way to make truly shelf-stable cheese product is to freeze-dry your cheese, but home freeze dryers start at about $2,000, so it'd be crazy for me to order one, right? Anyway, it'll be here in about 2 weeks.
    [...]
    The only way to make this more gourmet is to make the pasta from scratch, but that'd be crazy, right? Anyway, we want to make the right kind of pasta dough for extrusion.
  • The Twinkie Wiener Sandwich looks completely unappetizing, and Babish was expecting it to taste horrible before immediately changing his opinion mid-sentence and polishing the whole thing off on camera.
  • "Brock's Jelly Donuts" was an entire bait-and-switch episode, with Andrew making jelly donuts that reasonably look like what's shown in the American dub of Pokémon while repeatedly saying he doesn't know much about Japanese cuisine. Once done, he reveals he was just screwing with his audience as an April Fool's Day prank and that the next episode would show how to make onigiri from the original Japanese dialogue of the show.
  • Once the "Overnight Salad" is assembled, it's meant to be left out overnight on the radiator. Andrew points out that his current residence does not have a radiator, so he brings out a space heater to simulate the same environment... and then points out that no, he is not going to let this already-disgusting concoction rot in the heat for multiple hours.
• Beat:
  • Played straight in the Pasta Aglio e Olio episode when he fails to peel garlic with the Tupperware method.
    Babish: You have perfectly peeled... oh, that didn't really work, did it?
    [grabs scotch from pantry]
    Babish: I-I guess we're gonna peel these by hand, so get your tools ready...
    [pours a stiff one]
    Babish: ...and get to peeling.
    [beat]
    Babish: Be sure to use your scotch as necessary.
  • Also from The Perfect Bite, when asking his girlfriend Jess about the duck carbonara he made for her:
    Babish: But seriously, do you like it?
    Jess: Seriously, I love it. Plus, dude, you made duck bacon. Definitely a member of the clean Jess club.
    [beat]
    Babish: What?
• Broke the Rating Scale:
  • The Peep Show rum, water, lettuce, vinegar, and salt cocktail is the first accurate show cocktail recipe Babish has done that he flat out stated there was no making it good.
  • Likewise, breakfast dessert pasta is the first accurate movie recipe that Andrew doesn't even attempt to improve. The video ends with him forcing down one bite before switching to regular pasta to wash the taste out.
    • For laughs, it's one of the recipes he did include in his recipe book Eat What You Watch. The blurb at the top of the recipe advises against making it.
  • The car panini was so disgusting that Babish had no idea how to make it better.
• Buffy Speak: Sometimes Andrew doesn't know or forgets the proper name for an item or cooking technique and just describes it.
• Catchphrase:
  • "Let those flavors get to know each other."
  • "Let's get down to basics" for Basics With Babish.
  • "We can do better" whenever he's going to improve upon a recipe that doesn't work in real life, such as the Chocolate Salty Balls or Moonwaffles.
  • "Scrape up all that good stuff off the bottom of the pot..."
  • "I feel like I'm saying [type of food] a lot," usually followed by him attempting to give it a different name that fails quickly.
• Chewing the Scenery: At the end of Caprese Salad episode, Andrew pretends to audition for the role of Joseph Joestar by going full ham and belting out his over-the-top reactions.
  Andrew: OH NOOOOOOOOOO!! OH MY GOOOOOOOOODDDD!!!!
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • He lets out one of these after accidentally cutting himself by using a mandolin without a hand-guard. Quite fitting, considering the episode covered the foods of South Park.
  • Happens again during an episode of Being with Babish after he tries to sneak a taste of brewing whiskey by sticking his finger directly into a boiling vat of the stuff.
  • Happens as a reference to the famous "Corn Baller" running gag in the Arrested Development episode.
• Comically Missing the Point: In the "Brock's Donuts" episode, he spends the majority of the video seemingly very sure that the food item depicted was a genuine jelly-filled donut (rather than a clumsy Cultural Translation) and working out a reasonable method of constructing a donut that would look like that. At the end he admits it was an April Fools' Day video and he'll make onigiri for real in the next episode.
• Cool, but Inefficient: He notes that the Tortilla Chip Sombrero, though far more functional than he expected, is ultimately a lot worse than simply eating chips and guac normally: you can't see the hat when you're dipping, so it's anyone's guess how much dip you're getting, and it's, well, a hat made of fragile tortilla that you're breaking off chunks of over the course of your meal, meaning there's a pretty good chance of the hat cracking apart and leaving your shoulders splattered with guacamole.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Andrew himself is a skilled cook, but he invokes this for the sake of accuracy and/or humor towards a disgusting dish, such as the Elf dessert pasta or Homer's Moon Waffles. He'll then try to make an appetizing version of the dish.
  • Peter Griffin's car panini ended up leaving a mess in his car and was too vile to take a second bite. He tried recreating it in the kitchen, but the combinations of Reese's chocolate, Cadbury Creme Eggs, and Doritos still proved too much to stomach.
  • The Every Meat Burrito was made by gathering 18 different exotic types of meat including alligator, rattlesnake, kangaroo, and even bull testicles. He literally couldn't swallow a bite because most of the meats need to be properly cooked for hours on end to bring out their flavor or textures. He attempted to remake it by only using various types of Mexican-style pork, and ended up making an even larger burrito that was quite delicious.
  • The Overnight Salad is lettuce, cheese, lemon juice, far too much mayonnaise, too many raisins, too much pepper, hot dogs, and Fritos drowned in root beer then topped with cookies^note intended to be the croutons, pizza, even more mayo, and a maraschino cherry. In short, a soggy haphazard mishmash of sweet and savory smothered in root beer-infused mayo. Even leaving out the quarter and not simulating the overnight stay on the radiator on the basis that he didn't want to die because of a parody of terrible recipes from The '50s, Andrew found this monstrosity of a salad absolutely revolting.
  • The Mississippi Queen is a cocktail consisting of chocolate sauce, soy sauce, mayonnaise, kimchi, pasta sauce, mussels, sushi, and Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No. 9. You can probably guess how Andrew felt it tasted like.
  • Downplayed with the Clay-Roasted Thigh, but Andrew notes prosciutto is out of place in a dish based on Beggar's Chicken, which involves exotic Eastern ingredients like shiitake mushrooms, longan flesh, and wolfberries.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Not an actual battle but in the very first episode, Babish declares Ron Swanson's Burger to be way better than Chris Traeger's East Meets West Turkey Burger. This is on top of the former having virtually no steps other than just cook the meat and put it on the bun. Chris's East Meets West burger didn't stand a chance.
• Dagwood Sandwich: Bubble Bass' order was a twenty-four patty patty melt, which Andrew diligently made over the course of six hours.
  • Also, Jake's "Perfect Sandwich", which in Babish's version contained a steak and a whole Cornish game-hen, among other things.
• Deadpan Snarker: Andrew, though his humor is more on the deadpan side than outright snark.
• Defictionalizationinvoked: The premise of the show is recreating dishes seen in entertainment media, and some of these dishes are wholly fictional.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Andrew is well aware that creating the Turturkeykey looks like something much dirtier, outright calling the inserting turkey a "turkey dildo", accidentally using Ky Lubricant, and briefly blurring out him shoving the turkey in.
  • During the Chateaubriand Steak episode, he gets tired of calling the beef roast a roast and decides to call it "Julio". One second later, this gem appears:
    "We're going to insert our probe into (laughing) Julio."
• Does Not Like Spam:
  • Andrew does NOT like cilantro, which he once even called "the Devil's lettuce". The times a recipe calls for cilantro, he'll still use it for the sake of accuracy but make a point of mentioning his dislike of it.^note This trope, incidentally, is biologically justified, as a small percentage of humans (varying by ethnicity) perceive certain compounds in cilantro that make it taste bitter and soapy; given Andrew's repeated descriptions of cilantro as tasting like soap, it appears he is one of those people. In his Basics video for Chicken Tikka Masala, he mentions his dislike of cilantro as an "affliction", which means he seems to be aware of the genetic condition.
  • Andrew also doesn't like bananas, but this is even more justifiable than the last case, as he's outright allergic to bananas and has to carry an epipen around.
• Dog Food Diet: When recreating Futurama's "Bachelor Chow", he quickly concludes that there's not actually such a thing as dog-food-for-humans, and so the most accurate available alternative is... actual dog food. He was not happy about having to taste-test it.^note He was even less happy that the footage from the first take got corrupted, meaning he had to taste-test it again. The recreated recipe he came up with afterwards ended up being freeze-dried beef bourogignon, which did follow the letter of the concept (could be rehydrated with just water like in the show), but not the spirit, as it was a ton of extra work, which really defeats the purpose.
• Don't Try This at Home: Before attempting the Meat Tornado burrito, Andrew calls up Physician Nutrition Specialist Dr. Michael Rothkopf for advice on figuring out just how much meat in a dish could actually kill someone, since the show's clip mentioned that someone died trying to eat it. It was settled on two pounds of meat, so Andrew went from there. On top of mentioning that nobody should actually try to eat the burrito for themselves, he liberally doused the burrito in The Last Dab hot sauce that he was gifted from his time on Hot Ones. Andrew comments that he would make an effort to add it to the clean plate club, but the hot sauce acted as quite the deterrent for him to stop.
• Drunk on Milk: In his video on the Triple Gooberberry Sunrise, he noted that to get the same effect as the film, he mixed whiskey in with the homemade ice cream—not enough to get you really drunk unless you ate about ten of them (which SpongeBob and Patrick did), but enough to give the dish an added kick.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The torso and hands of Andrew's friend and then-roommate, Rashid, first appear in the thirteenth episode (Fish Tacos from I Love You, Man), ten months before we ever see his face or hear his voice.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first episode (Parks and Rec burger cook off) was made before Andrew ever intended to make a series, only existing as a test of food lighting. It is missing the usual intro, and Andrew doesn't take the same effort, as usual, to keep his face off-camera. Also, although it involves him making not one but two sandwiches, he doesn't cut into his burgers to show a cross-section.
• Epic Fail:
  • When making Eggs in a Nest, Andrew managed to screw up the bread-making process 5 times before deciding to measure by weight instead of volume and got it right the first time.
  • The "Pizza from Deadpool" episode has him beginning the process of placing the pizza dough onto the oiled countertop... only to realize once it's on the counter that he forgot an important step... Specifically, said oiling.
  • He makes homemade ladyfingers and custard for Superbad's tiramisu and fully assembles it, only to realize once he picks it up that he assembled the springform pan upside-down and the whole thing just falls out the bottom onto the floor.
• Everyone Has Standards: Andrew usually tries to stay true to the recipes as they were described in the media they came from (hence why he tends to avoid making "magic" foods), but he's not above taking liberties with the dishes if he feels the need to do so.
  • To make Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls, Chef himself claims you need two bags of sugar. Andrew points out just how insane that amount is and opts to put in a pound of sugar instead, which is still a lot but still.
  • Sticking with South Park recipes, Andrew obviously couldn’t use actual human flesh for Cartman's chili, so he used pork shoulder instead based on some morbid articles he read about human tasting most similarly to pork.
• Everything Except Most Things: The description of the biscuits and gravy episode of "Basics with Babish" opens with "It is nearly impossible to turn down biscuits and gravy. Unless you are vegetarian, vegan, celiac, lactose intolerant, kosher, or have even a modicum of appreciation for or understanding of your basic human health."
• Excuse Plot: Some of the simpler television dishes are used as an excuse to make homemade versions of the ingredients.
  • The bagel sandwiches from Steven Universe means he gets to make his own bagels, as the sandwich is mundane otherwise.
  • The Raspberry Pastry from Ant-Man and the Wasp is nothing more than a store-bought Entenmann's Raspberry Danish Twist. Andrew stated he had no desire to try to improve upon perfection, and just wanted an excuse to make pastries for Jess.
  • The "Broodwich" from Aqua Teen Hunger Force is an excuse to make homemade lunch meats.
  • Lampshaded in the intro of the Chicken Kiev episode.
    Andrew: *making excited hand gestures* Hey what's up guys, and welcome back to "They said it on TV and I wanted to eat it so I'm gonna make it," With Babish.
• The Faceless:
  • Andrew deliberately keeps his face out of frame in order to keep the focus on the cooking while he narrates in a voiceover. For the first two years, this was occasionally subverted in short, incidental moments when preparing the food or in involuntary reactions to particularly bad tastes.
  • Directly averted in his 1 million subscriber special, where he revealed his face to thank the viewers and give a tour of his apartment. He began showing his face a little more often thereafter, such as for the 2 million sub special, where he answers some fan questions while driving out of town to go shopping for exotic meats, and the Hot Pepper Challenge made to honor his late friend Garmt who had recently passed from ALS; his roommate Rashid also shows his face for the first time in the latter. The Garbage Plate episode is a rare non-special with both Andrew and Rashid on-camera to show how much better homemade pasta salad is than store-bought.
  • Also averted on Basics with Babish; Andrew gives a brief on-camera introduction to each episode.
  • Subverted since the launch of the "BCU" and his cookware line in 2020; both use the (now-highly recognizable) outline of his facial hair and glasses as a brand identity.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Sloppy Joes, as featured in Billy Madison. Ground beef, a can of Manwich, and prepackaged buns. Boom, episode over. Put up the end cards. ... Except, of course, everyone knows Andrew wouldn't be satisfied without making it all from scratch, so the episode continues. The thumbnail reading "Three Levels of Sloppy Joes" probably tipped the viewers off before they even clicked anyway.
• Food Porn: But of course. A common example occurs whenever Andrew makes a sandwich, burger, or other multi-layered device, and slices it in half to show the cross-section.
  • Cheesy food should always show a good cheese stretch.
• Foreshadowing: Coupled with Spot the Thread; in the tiramisu episode, when Andrew is filling up his springform pan, you can clearly see the latch on it is backward.
• Fun with Subtitles: During the Squid Ink Spaghetti episode, the subtitles write the name of the dish's most-used kitchen tool as "『stand』mixer".
• Gone Horribly Wrong:
  • The first attempt at making "Homer Simpson's Patented Space Age Out-Of-This-World Moon Waffles", by following Homer's method exactly^note waffle batter, caramels, and liquid smoke on a waffle iron, then wrapping the waffle around a stick of butter, resulted in Andrew's waffle iron becoming completely wrecked due to burnt caramel^note making the waffle also ruined the Simpsons' waffle iron as shown by a later scene in the episode, and Andrew's mouth being burned in the process when attempting to eat it. The episode ends with Andrew attempting to chisel the now-solidified caramel off the waffle iron before giving up and buying a replacement.
  • Twice in the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode:
    • "Whatever you do, don't make Grilled Charlie don't make unless you're in the mood to scrape a whole bunch of burnt cheese off the bottom of your pan."
    • The first attempt at "Milk Steak"^note boiling a steak in milk almost made Andrew throw up on camera.
  • Downplayed: attempting to cut back on the number of times he says "roast" in the Chateaubriand Steak episode almost immediately backfires when he settles on calling the roast he's working on "Julio".
    Andrew: We're going to insert our probe- (breaks down in laughter) into Julio...
  • Downplayed: Andrew forgot to oil the countertop before scraping his pizza dough onto it in "Pizza from Deadpool", and as such has to pry the sticky mass off the counter and his hand in order to quickly remedy it.
    • Similarly, right as he's pouring the cheesecake filling into the springform pan in "Pies from Waitress", he immediately realizes he forgot to butter down the sides. Cue him pouring the filling back into the bowl and doing so.
  • The tiramisu from Superbad went perfectly... up until it was time to put the springform pan in the fridge. Which is when Andrew learned the hard way it was upside down.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: In his Basics for Millionaire's Short Bread, he calls dibs on "Chocolate Temper."
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: In celebration of Groundhog Day, Andrew makes the angel food cake from Groundhog Day, and finds himself in a time loop. He uses the first loop as a chance to improve his skills and make a second, better improved cake. On the second loop he starts raging out on the alarm clock.
• Honor Before Reason: Even though he admits that pre-shredded cheese would have worked fine for the first re-imagining of the Pizza Ball, he still grates "just a whole sh*t-ton" of mozzarella by hand, because...
  Andrew: ...No way, dude. Not in my house.
• I Like My X Like I Like My Y: When making the gravy for the Moistmaker sandwich from Friends, Andrew quips, "I like my gravy like I like my women — thin and rich." He then apologizes for it. He apologizes again for the quip in the Moistmaker episode of Botched in 2021, in which he reiterates that the joke was in very poor taste and also reveals that he doesn’t actually like thin gravy, he just couldn’t get his to thicken as much as he liked.
• Insistent Terminology: Andrew makes it clear in his Hot Ones episode that he is not a chef, he's a home cook. He can cook very well but he does not consider it the same as working in a kitchen and feeding hundreds of people a day, and respects those who do it for a living.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: During the Margarita episode, with guest star H Jon Benjamin, Andrew goes through the "Sterling's instructions" margarita and makes a comment about Cointreau.
  Andrew (voiceover): ...a pricey French triple sec only available in large bottles-
  Jon: Just to point out, I have a very small bottle of Cointreau.
  Andrew (kitchen): Oh my god, it's adorable!
  Andrew (voiceover): Well, shut my mouth.
• Jump Scare: Played for Laughs in the Basics With Babish: Grilling episode. Andrew is having trouble operating various types of grilling units, so Shannon from Ace Hardware poofs up behind him out of nowhere in a puff of smoke and gives him multiple jumps. He expects her to show up by the third time, but she still gets him.
  Andrew: Oh my god, Shannon! You are haunting me with helpfulness!
• Know When to Fold 'Em: For the Twinkie Wiener Sandwich, Babish admits that "Weird Al" Yankovic's imagination is a better cook than he is, as his gourmet attempt at creating the sandwich from scratch doesn't hold a candle to the real deal.
• Lemony Narrator: Andrew's silky smooth voice and slightly offbeat humor are half the reason to watch the show.
• Lethal Chef: Although Andrew himself is a Supreme Chef who can and often will make the works of even the worst fictional examples at least palatable, he did make two dishes that were literally lethal in their works of origin, and strove to replicate that facet.
  • Although he couldn't make the Death Sandwich kill the diner who ate it wrong (as the advertising proclaims), he was able to make a version that would kill a diner if it was prepared wrong - namely, by adding fugu blowfish to the otherwise unimpressive meatball sub.
  • The Meat Tornado, which had killed a guy the year prior, was made with two pounds of meat - a quantity which, according to Physician Nutrition Specialist Dr. Michael Rothkopf, could absolutely be lethal if eaten by one person (Andrew had to coat it in The Last Dab to stop himself from trying to add it to the Clean Plate Club).
• Long List: The Every-Meat Burrito. It includes chicken, beef, pork, lobster, shrimp, fish, duck, lamb, turkey, bison, cornish game hen, goose, pheasant, quail, rabbit, squab, venison, boar, alligator, antelope, caribou, elk, ostrich, turtle, rattlesnake, and kangaroo. Plus bacon. And bull testicles.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Because of the fact that "Eggs in a Nest" has been featured in several different shows and movies, people in the comments congratulated him for finally doing a Frasier episode.^note He later remade the doomed Frasier episode for-real to honor the passing of its co-star John Mahoney.
  • The episode concerning cannolis from The Godfather. "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." may be one of the most classic lines from the film, but the cannolis in question never actually appeared on-screen; Andrew just wanted an excuse to make cannolis.
  • Andrew also used the mere mention of a garbage plate in The Place Beyond the Pines as an excuse to make the Rochester classic.
  • Also a mere mention was Jim Gaffigan's Cinnabon routine, which Andrew openly admitted was an excuse to make homemade cinnamon rolls.
  • He uses Jon Stewart's notorious rant about Chicago Deep Dish pizza from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as an excuse to try making it.
• Lost in Translation: The jokes behind releasing a marijuana-themed episode on April 20th was a source of confusion for many of the international audience, as the comments for the Space Cake video reminded American viewers that almost everyone else in the world writes down the date at 20/4.
• Malicious Misnaming: Andrew hates cilantro and has referred to it as "the Devil's lettuce", as well as "chopped green soap".
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Andrew has proven himself to be quite an adept impressionist in his videos. Some of his best impressions include:
  • The owl from this Tootsie Roll commercial twice in the "Nachos from The Good Place" episode.
  • Michael Caine's portrayal of Alfred at the end of the "Teddy Brûlée" episode.
  • He narrates the first half of the "Bear Stew from Red Dead Redemption 2" video in an impression of Arthur Morgan, the main character of the game. Many commenters were shocked when Andrew stopped doing the impression, as it sounded so distinctly different from his natural voice that they thought he had hired a guest narrator.
  • In the outtakes for the Garbage Plate from The Place Beyond The Pines, he imitates Batman, the Joker, and Bane, as depicted in Christopher Nolan's films, delivering the line "It's Tool Time!" from Home Improvement.
• Masochist's Meal: Andrew always taste-tests his replications of fictional dishes, even if common sense dictates that said dishes should be unpalatable at best if prepared as the medium indicates, which Andrew does to the best of his ability.
• Mega Meal Challenge: Averted - Whenever a recipe is too big for a normal person to reasonably eat by themselves, such as the Bubble Bass Order or the Harold And Kumar White Castle meal, it's just divided up amongst the rest of the cast and other friends.
• Metaphorgotten:
  • In "The Secret Ingredient Soup from Kung Fu Panda", Andrew goes through the laborious process of his first attempt at making lamian (Chinese-style pulled noodles) by hand—a process that about 3 hours of constant kneading, stretching, and folding that Andrew did for the sake of showing how it's done.
    Andrew: About the only advice I can offer you is just don't give up. Sure, anyone can go to their local Asian grocer and get fresh noodles that are arguably better than what you can make yourself, and it would be cheap, and it would be easy, and it would be convenient, and it wouldn't physically exhaust you, but I... I can't quite remember what my point was here.
  • In the Botched episode on the Ribwich, Andrew notes that the worst of his buns is also the one with the best shape for his patties, and mentions how he was the weirdo in school. He then compares one of his better buns to a bully he went to school with and tells a three minute long story about how the bully scammed him out of money and managed to get Andrew suspected of dealing drugs, which led to Andrew having to change schools, but that ended up being a positive change for him...
    Brad^note the cameraman/editor: And, uh, so, how does this relate to bread?
    [beat]
    Andrew: Ummmmm... gluten development?
• Mundane Made Awesome: For the Giant Pancakes from Uncle Buck, he found that he was unable to make pancakes (which, according to the movie, were flipped with a snow shovel) of the size that would have "the John Candy seal of approval", even with the help of Dan Souza of America's Test Kitchen. His solution? Use a robot arm from the Autodesk robot labs (whose lab is below the Test Kitchen studios) to flip the pancakes.
  • Deconstructed with the "ram don" noodles from Parasite, which are cheap noodles topped with incredibly expensive gourmet beef. Babish goes into the social implications of this dish and how it cleverly highlights the financial disparity in the movie, but dismissing the dish itself (as originally described, anyway) as a grotesque flaunting of wealth, comparing it to adding black truffle to a Big Mac and calling both "a showy misuse of an expensive and unnecessary ingredient".
• "No. Just… No" Reaction:
  • Andrew pointedly decides there is no way to make the rum, water, lettuce, vinegar, and salt cocktail drinkable.
  • Rashid's reaction to store-bought pasta salad in a blind taste test for the Garbage Plate episode.
  • Even with a loss of sense of taste and smell caused by what could be COVID-19^note He comments on the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, but his doctor recommended he not get tested because his symptoms weren't potentially lethal. Reports of loss of taste and smell being a possible symptom of COVID-19 were just being released on the same day of the video's release, he could tell that Kenan & Kel's Cold Cure was absolutely hideous, and he visibly showed disgust on camera.
    Babish: I couldn't get any actual flavor, but it felt like I had just put cleaning supplies in my mouth or something.
• Nutritional Nightmare: It kind of comes with the territory. Plenty of the examples on that page have been attempted, with varying degrees of success, including Moon Waffles. Special note goes to the Paunch Burger, which Andrew admits was delicious, but didn't eat more than a third of, as it was so fatty he felt like his blood was turning into gravy.
• Obligatory Joke: During the Cocktail Special, Andrew shows the very brief recipe for sweet vermouth, rocks, with a twist... which he then repeats (although he cuts it off near the end, apologizing for the joke).
• Off the Rails: With both the Milk Steak and the Sloppy Steak, the recipe is based on just making a steak with a liquid somehow, so Andrew makes it more interesting by then going completely off the wall in making a fancy Michelin Star restaurant style beef dish.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You:
  • As the original faithful recreation of the "Ultimeatum" demonstrated, the entire concept was just a terrible idea. Except for the Himalayan ketchup, which he absolutely adored (no small feat, since he usually heaps scorn upon homemade ketchup for being very time-consuming but never significantly improving upon the stuff in the bottle).
  • The Spag-balls are a nonsensical concept with an unpleasant end result, but Andrew observes that "it is kind of cool to grab one and eat it like an apple".
• Paper-Thin Disguise: He's fond of invoking this in his 'Being with Babish' segments, often just changing his clothing or putting on a hat. It generally doesn't work because people recognize his beard.
• Precision F-Strike: Dropped in its uncensored glory in an outtake after the contents drop from the ring mold in the tiramisu episode.
• Quality over Quantity: In one episode, he attempted to make an Every-Meat Burrito out of every meat that is possibly fit for human consumption. The result is gag-inducingly awful because different meats require different cooking methods and prep times. In contrast, his Every-Pork Burrito (made from several Mexican pork dishes/products and bacon) is not only much tastier, but also even meatier than the Every-Meat Burrito. In his words, "it's not the amount of meat, it's how you treat the meat."
• A Rare Sentence:
  • During the Krabby Patty Supreme episode:
    Babish: While that heats up, it's time to batter our burger. Words I never thought I say.
  • And then again a little later:
    Babish: And then it's time to double batter our burger. Something I really never thought I say.
  • During the Twinkie Wiener Sandwich episode:
    Babish: And as you can see it's a little dark, but it has the makings of a gourmet savoury Twinkie, a sentence that I never thought I'd say.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: In August of 2023, Andrew began using clips of fake movies that he and the BCU crew create themselves to highlight innovative culinary creations while standing in solidarity with the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike. The reason is simple: Even requesting the use of clips from any movie not under public domain would be crossing the proverbial picket line by promoting that film.
• Real Trailer, Fake Movie: In recognition of the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, Andrew opts to make food from the nonexistent movies "They Kidnapped my Son on Christmas", "Sweet Tooth Goes Euro", and "Hot Dog Detective: Crown of Condiments", with him and the BCU crew acting out the opening clips.
• Running Gag:
  • Andrew's deliberate and varied mispronunciations of "Worcestershire", whenever the sauce is used. His pronunciation of "saucepan" (closer to "saucep'n") has also become a gag, especially as he extends the pronunciation to other kitchen pans (e.g., "fryingp'n").
    • Stockp't.
  • Egregious and messy plating mistakes whenever an episode is sponsored by paper towel company Bounty.
  • Commenting on going to get his cholesterol checked after eating something that was high in fat, sugar, salt or all three.
• Serious Business: Andrew considers the "garbage plate" to be this, due to it being the signature dish of his hometown of Rochester.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title is a reference to Oliver Babish from The West Wing, which is Rea's Reddit handle.
  • Andrew is also fond of quoting the "you are the [x] of your [food-that-rhymes-with—or-otherwise-puns-on-x]" joke favored by Chef John of Food Wishes.
  • He's also very fond of shouting out YouTube ration reviewer Steve 1989 MRE Info. He has used Steve's catchphrase "Let's get this out on a tray... Nice! Mmmkay" several times and shouted him out by name in one episode.
  • His 5 Million subscriber special features a shot-for-shot remake of Homer's Food Porn montage/rampage of eating through all of New Orleans' dozens of unique dishes from The Simpsons episode "Lisa Gets The Blues", including mimicking the exact body language, positioning, and eating methods that Homer applies to every dish. The video goes into extreme detail about the absurd amount of research and planning into finding out exactly where each dish could be found, including mapping out a travel route just to reach the restaurants. They thought they would be the first people to actually recreate the scene, but discovered that they were beaten to the punch three days earlier, which is referenced in their video.
• Shown Their Work: Andrew mentioned in an interview that he has never been to culinary school or even worked in a professional kitchen before and that all his recipes are compiled from his knowledge as a home cook and online research.
• Sick Episode: He recorded the Cold Cure episode while he was sick with an unidentified illness. He mentions the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, but reports of loss of smell and taste being a possible symptom^note he reported his symptoms as "pretty much like a flu with bonus loss of taste/smell", and during the episode, he's unable to smell a tin of sardines no matter how hard he tries; the flu bit is definitely consistent with mild COVID-19, as is the coughing, and he lives in what was at the time the worst-hit area of the United States were only being released on the same day that he uploaded the video. He also mentions in the comments that he and Jess had been sick for 7 days so far^note again, consistent with COVID-19, regardless of severity, and his doctor recommended not getting tested unless he was hospitalized. It was later confirmed when he and Sohla stated that they both had the antibodies for COVID during a July crossover episode.
• Simple, yet Awesome: The Lover's Delight Sundae episode ends with Andrew comparing the expensive, decadent, and time-consuming Lover's Delight Sundae with Liz's idea of decadent sweetness: a chocolate-covered doughnut microwaved for fifteen seconds. Andrew clearly enjoys the doughnut very much.
• Slow Motion: Occasionally used for neat effects, like showing an alcohol-based fireball in the "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Special".
• So Okay, It's Average: Andrew’s opinion of Kopi Luwak coffee. He claims that, while it’s good enough to not need any cream or sugar, there’s nothing especially extraordinary about it to justify the $100 price tag or the homework you'd have to do to avoid unwittingly rewarding animal cruelty by buying farmed beans.
• Stealing the Credit: Played for Laughs in the crossover with Cocktail Chemistry, where in the latter's video (Black Yukon Sucker Punch from Twin Peaks) Nick visits Andrew to get some help with beating egg whites to stiff peaks, and it cuts to Andrew seemingly giving a regular episode intro:
  Andrew: Hey, what's up guys, and welcome back to Binging With Babish where this week we are taking credi- (Nick walks in, interrupting him) Oh my god, where did you come from?
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Shannon, the Ace Hardware representative who teaches Andrew how to use two different types of outdoor grills in the Grilling Basics With Babish episode, scares the heck out of Andrew by randomly appearing, then disappearing with a puff of smoke.
• Squick: Invoked. Some recipes, such as the chocolate cake from Matilda, involve the use of human bodily fluids (sweat and blood in this case), which Andrew does include for accuracy.
• The Stinger: Some episodes end with a short, usually amusing clip from the cooking process with the raw audio left in.
• The Stoner: Freely admits to some of his weirder creations being the result of "Jazz Cigarettes".
• The Stoic: Andrew's narration, while having a dose of humor, is rather even-keeled.
• Stylistic Suck: During the 2023 WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike, the channel covers foods Babish made up from movies he also made up. This logically means that he has full creative control and could just make good food the first time around, and for some episodes he does, but for the episode making up "They Kidnapped my Son on Christmas", he intentionally writes flaws into the "screen-accurate" version so he can then correct them for the "Babish" version.
• Supreme Chef: Andrew is a skilled chef who has been cooking since he was a kid. When the dish comes out good, he and the occasional guest love it.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • In the Tortilla Chip Sombrero episode, while making guacamole for the sombrero, he insists he is chopping up cilantro and definitely not parsley, in keeping with his taste buds making cilantro taste like soap.
  • Also, for the Chicken Fingers episode, his first "from scratch" version included double-dipping. But while battering his finalized version of the chicken fingers:
    Andrew: Now, I am so confident in our breading that I am only going to dip these guys once. That's right. It's not because I forgot to do it, and it's too late to reshoot because the chicken takes two days to marinate and it is currently Monday. No, sir, this is confidence, not incompetence.
  • In the Botched episode for Cacio e Pepe, Andrew and Brad are very insistent on that a later part of the footage is from the same day as the earlier part, and Andrew definitely did not get engaged to Jess between filming sessions. Despite what the sudden appearance of mold on the giant wheel of parmesan that was opened during the first part would have you believe.
• Tempting Fate: In using the mandolin without using a handguard in the "South Park" special:
  Andrew: Now, unless you're a trained professional like myself, make sure to use a hand gu- (cuts finger) ow! (background music fades out) F*CK! F*CK! (walks offscreen) F*CK!
• Take That!:
  • Andrew bluntly states that putting lettuce directly on top of the patty, before even the cheese is a terrible idea.
  • Not only does Andrew flat out state that the "Car Panini" was a horrible sandwich, but during the Doug Score section of the video, Andrew gives it a Weekend Score of 15 out of 50, and a Doug Score of 28 out of 100.
    • The Cool Factor is given a 3, not only because of Family Guy not being as funny as it was in its first four seasons, but because Andrew states that the episode in particular where the sandwich comes from is only noteworthy "for its lack of 'manatee jokes'".
    • Not only that but as Doug DeMuro himself stated in the comments, the sandwich barely managed to beat out the Yugo GV in the Weekend Score.invoked
  • Downplayed: when citing the beer breakfast from The Wire, he labels it as coming from "the kind-of inferior Season 2".
• Take That, Audience!: As Andrew declares in "The Wire Special", if the viewer were to cook their pit beef any more well done than how Andrew did it, they would be "incorrect".
• The Tell: Andrew acknowledges that when he really enjoys a dish, his hand starts shaking up and down.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • In the Turturkeykey episode, he grimly knows that he's going to have to insert a phallic-cut turkey into another turkey at some point and takes no joy in that knowledge.
  • He can tell from the smell alone that the Every-Meat Burrito is going to be a Masochist's Meal.
• Throw It In!:
  • Invoked. Many examples of flubs (dropped food, injuries) or unrehearsed reactions to the food (whether good or bad) appear in the series, and Andrew occasionally comments on them. Expect any dropping or fumbling to be narrated with a "whoops" as if it was in real-time even though the narration is recorded separately from filming.
  • Implied in "Rum French Toast": it appeared that Andrew stumbled over his intro due to Don Draper's delayed response in the clip he was using.
    Sally: Is it bad?
    Andrew: Hey, what's up, g-
    Don: Not really.
    Andrew: Hey, what's up, guys?
• Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket: Invoked in the episodes sponsored by Bounty paper towels: he'll deliberately make a mess (sometimes more than one) in some completely improbable way just to have an excuse to demonstrate the sponsor's cleaning ability.
• Unfazed Everyman: Invoked by Andrew in the Two Million Subscriber Special. One butcher shop employee helps him find two dozen unusual types of meat, then rings up the sale (a total bill of slightly under six hundred dollars) without blinking.
  That guy was a stone-cold pro. He didn't even bat an eye.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Due to the tiramisu episode being sponsored by Philips Espresso, this gave Andrew the excuse to pepper in his own homemade commercials throughout the video, which only proved to be greatly beneficial when the springform pan fell open when he was moving it to the fridge.
  Nonononono! Oh. My god. Oh my god. It's the sum of all my fears. I don't know what happened. Cut the cameras! Cut to commercial!

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