Action Bronson is high at dusk, standing outside of Noma in Copenhagen, the best restaurant in the world. The rapper and chef has just consumed, and Instagrammed, a 24-course meal. Now he has stepped out, posse in tow, to take in the “Nordic beauty” of the city’s Inderhavnen, or inner harbor. “Life is good.”

Thus begins the Tues., Nov. 4 episode of “Fuck, That’s Delicious,” Action Bronson’s latest encroachment into Guy Fieri’s territory. You can find it on Youtube, through VICE’s culinary imprint, Munchies (munchies.tv). Part concert film, part food tourism show, “Fuck, That’s Delicious” follows Bronson as he eats and performs around the world (so far, the series has seen him on four continents). Applied to anyone else, this concept would be utterly incoherent, but Action’s raps are notoriously full of food references, and his analysis of food is likewise inflected with the hyperbolic imagination of his raps. Instead of giving viewers serviceable cooking advice à la Food Network, Bronson prefers to extrapolate life stories from his meals. In Bronson’s imagination, the man who prepares his seekh kebab in London “has no sex ever. His sole purpose is cooking lamb.”

There are useful observations here and there, but pragmatism is not the point. It’s way more fun to see Bronsonelli sample an entire menu than to have him narrate the preparation of an aioli. Action is undeniably charming, and when he is eating, he jokes around, he chats with fellow diners, the chef, fans. But then he suddenly gets reflective, struggling to portray a cut of meat with the right metaphor. To observe the rapper-chef brooding over a dish is remarkable, not just because of the idiomatic descriptions, but also because his sense of taste and his appetite are so intense that he will exit the highway if he smells the right barbecue smoke (episode two) and he will leave the stage, shirtless, in the middle of a show, if he wants chicken wings (episode three).

“Fuck, That’s Delicious” is compelling because Bronson eats right—local classics served at legendary establishments, but also meals prepared by chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants, like Matt Orlando. And sometimes he cooks for himself too. These scenes immediately cement his culinary credibility to viewers who are unfamiliar with “Action in the Kitchen,” Bronson’s series of funny, more orthodox cooking videos produced circa 2009. His personality hasn’t changed much since then, and that series is worth a watch, but now Bronson’s life is a world away, and it shows in his collaboration with the VICE media empire.

Not only does he sumptuously dine around the world, but his show is well produced, beautifully shot, and meticulously researched. Still, there are flaws typical of VICE’s sophomoric fascination with the mildly shocking: the egregious scenes of Bronson smoking marijuana, the presence of his less interesting, creepy friend Big Body, and enough bad language to prohibit you from watching this with your parents (even though you might really want to).

Anthony Bourdain doesn’t smoke weed on TV because he’s not allowed to. Otherwise, he’s pretty similar to Action Bronson. I’m only half joking. Not only have they both eaten at Paesano’s Philly Style (see episode two of “Fuck, That’s Delicious,” and the Philadelphia episode of “The Layover,” a Bourdain show on the Travel Channel), but they even had the same favorite sandwich, the Liveracce (chicken livers fried with orange zest, salami, gorgonzola, et cetera). In other words, their worldviews overlap substantially. They’re intrepid eaters, forged in the kitchens of New York City, which itself is the most diverse kitchen on the planet. The finest example of their kinship is a 2011 appearance by Bronsoliño on the New York episode of “The Layover,” in which he explains his life at the time: “What I do every day is I drive around, I smoke weed, I look for cheese shops, I look for all kinds of artisan breads…that’s what I choose to do with my day.”

This also serves as a very loose description of Bourdain’s itinerary on his current TV show, “Parts Unknown,” which is in the middle of its fourth season on CNN. Regional cuisine is on the agenda, of course, but Bourdain is much more ambitious than that. As its title suggests, “Parts Unknown” sets out to explore, with quite a broad scope, locales unfamiliar to the average viewer. These include not only Myanmar and Iran, but also the Bronx. Bourdain is always eating, yet he often aims the lens of his sincere, informed curiosity elsewhere—onto Tokyo’s subcultures, Myanmar’s authoritarian government, and onto both sides of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. He interviews chefs, musicians, journalists, political prisoners. His insights are astute but not necessarily revelatory: they simply concern places or cultures you might not have considered before.

This methodology of finding new stories to tell and new ways to tell them is the key to the show’s success. Each episode is dramatically different from the previous one. Save the opening monologue, the format is completely tailored to the subject. Sometimes that subject is food—one of the most enjoyable episodes takes place in Québec, where Bourdain feasts with two Canadian chefs on delicacies traditional and modern—and sometimes it is not. Yet food is an ever-present force. Bourdain builds many of his conversations around meals, using the collective experience to relate to his interlocutor. There is also a broader application here— Bourdain’s ambition lies in an idealism, his belief that one meal, one experience can distill the essence of a place. On one level, food can be read as a symbol—for example, disagreement over the origins of “Israeli” falafel. On a deeper level, however, food is a universal venue for creativity—no culture is without it. Seeking and enjoying a society’s best dishes is an incredibly optimistic act, of which Bronson and Bourdain are both exemplary.

For this reason, “Parts Unknown” is an intensely compelling show, even more than “Fuck, That’s Delicious.” It is shot in a bold, cinematic style (although you get some over-produced sequences that belong in the early 2000s). Tony Bourdain is an equally passionate eater and more persistent, curious questioner than Bronson. Beyond that, his show is far more ambitious, setting out on sustained inquiries of regional culture, politics, and history. There are obviously a few failures: its wide-eyed thirst for cultural knowledge can result in superfluous scenes of music and dancing, and if Bourdain puts you off for some reason (he calls weed “reefer”) you are out of luck. Yet “Parts Unknown,” and its wild younger brother “Fuck, That’s Delicious” feel different, inducing hunger, laughter, and curiosity without the tedium of standard cooking or travel shows.

Foodism has always had a dual focus on the high and low styles of cuisine—good food simply transcends status. Yet this often results in an uncomfortably voyeuristic narrative, in which the celebrated cuisine is dispelled of its cultural context and the rest of a disenfranchised society is ignored. Appropriation, in other words. Or, as is becoming increasingly common, the desolation and poverty of a place are celebrated in lieu of the good things happening there. This was arguably a key method in VICE’s growth into a $1.4 billion media monolith, and while it sometimes shows through on “Fuck, That’s Delicious,” Bronson is eager to connect with the places he visits.

But Bourdain is more sensitive to these phenomena—speaking, for example, with Detroit residents who revile the city’s post-apocalyptic image and want to revitalize it. “Parts Unknown” does find beauty in Detroit ruins, but the noblest and often most successful pursuit of these shows (especially Bourdain’s) is to work in the opposite way, moving past touristic impulses and treating food as an essential part of human lives, but only a part. And they’re still superb entertainment.