How Was Your Hometown's Episode


As someone who has lived my whole life in Cleveland, I must say that Tony did an excellent job with the Cleveland episode. As someone who has been to all of the places he went to as well as many other places in the area, I think Tony managed to capture much of the essence of America's North Coast. It didn't hurt that he went to Sokolowski's University Inn. The Treemont Community's popular Polish restaurant has been one of my favorites for years now. Hot Sauce Williams' is a must visit whenever I'm on the near east side by University Circle (Art Museum, Severance Hall, Case Western Reserve University, Etc.). Though it started in Cincinnati, Skyline Chili has become a staple throughout the state of Ohio. The one location I wish he had visited was the Great Lakes Brewing Company on the city's near west side. Cleveland's oldest microbrewery has some of the best beer this side of the Atlantic.

I'm curious what other people think about the job that Tony did when he visited their hometown. Did he do a good job? Is there anything you wish was included? Is there anything you could have done without?

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This is kind of a sore spot for me. Detroit deserved its own episode. There is so much in Detroit, in terms of history, culture, etc and we got 15 minutes of a show.

My hometown is actually a small town where Tony went to the Polish restaurant with the Duck Blood soup, that was passed off as Detroit, but it wasn't.

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He did a show on Malaysia.

Very disappointing!!

He didn't bother to check the major FACTs. He got confused about major ethnics in Malaysia. He kept referring to the indegenius tribe of Iban as "Malay".

FYI:

Malay
1) is the largest ethnic population in Malaysia (51%)
2) 100% muslim (thus, not eating pork, or drink rice wine, or worship spirits as depicted in the show)
3) Doesn't live in longhouses in the jungle

Iban
1) Indegenious people of a state called Sarawak (less than 3% of Malaysian population)
2) Christians and animism
3) Is not MALAY!

At first I thought he wanted to refer to them as "Malaysian" (although we have lots of ethnics and races here, as a whole we are MALAYSIAN)but that still doesn't sound right..

Urgh, I guess what they say is true - for white people, we asian all look alike :P

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He also refers to that Central Asian Guy as a "Russian" even though Zamir is clearly not of Russian ethnicity.

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I always assumed that calling Zamir "Russian" means he is a citizen of the Russian Federation, regardless of his ethnicity. In the Russian Orthodox parish I grew up in, along with many others in this country, we all call ourselves "Russian", even though we are mostly Ukranian, Belorussian, and Russo-Carpathian, with very few Great Russians (which is what I assume you mean by "Russian ethnicity"). It's just easier that way, because otherwise you have to try to explain to people what a "Russo-Carpathian" actually is, and I don't even know that for sure myself. I don't know what Zamir's ethnic background is; "Zamir" is usually a Jewish name, I think, and they've never told his last name as far as I can remember. Still, I have no doubt that Zamir is a real Russian, in the same way the Obama is a real American.
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Currently watching: Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre World - Florida
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"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."

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I've lived in New York City most of my life and never knew about a lot of the places he's covered here over the years, including the Egyptian restaurant that he and Andrew Zimmern went to in Astoria which is less than 5 miles from my own house. I loved the Disappearing New York show and he's right. Those "old New York" places, which used to be so plentiful only 10 to 20 years ago, are fast being eaten up by an economy which prizes the quantity of covers over the quality of them unless your customers are paying over $120 a head.

I've since visited a lot of those places and will continue to do so, just to do my bit to help keep that precious part of New York alive.

He left out a bunch of places in each of the New York shows but how much can one person cover in a few days of shooting and then condense that down to one hour? And let's not forget that more than likely, it's not him doing the actual research, essentially, he's a tourist for each of these shows...granted he's better informed about the locale in question than most tourists are, but the people who are offended about him incorrectly identifying ethnicities, need to remember that he's a tourist, not a documentarian, not a news reporter, and I'll bet this isn't the first time a tourist has made those mistakes...he just happened to make his on national TV.

Besides, he's usually accompanied by someone who is of those ethnicities or is so knowledgable on the areas he's visiting that they should know these things, why didn't THEY correct him?

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The Hawaii episode wasted a lot of time on crap like Tiki bars and Trader Joe's-type crap, Spam (OK, the fact that locals love Spam is 100% true), and so on. But the segment on the Big Island guy who lived way out on the lava, and the shots of the lava overflowing the road and stuff, were cool. (I live on the Big Island, on the side of the island where the volcano and lava flows are.) I even sent the YouTube of that segment to a friend.
.

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I didn't like the Baltimore episode. All he wanted to do was pretend he was on the Wire. That's it, essentially. He talked to a cop about the crime rate and poverty, ate a bunch of pulled pork, then talked to a cast member about the crime rate, ate a bunch of mac and cheese and fried stuff and then peaced out, all the while acting like he was in a third-world country. He completely passed over any area of the city that wasn't in or next to the worst parts.

He didn't even eat a crab. :/

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense."

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Washington, DC.
It wasn't the most amazing episode, but I'm greatful he touched on DC not just being the typical city most people assume it is. He talked about the city most of us experience--the racial tension that almost seems invisible ("they work together, but they don't play together."), the gentrification on Columbia Heights, the spy situation which is right under our noses here. Plus, Ben's Chili Bowl and Pollo Rico are possibly two of my favorites. Ben's is a DC landmark, but Pollo Rico I had no idea was so well-known (I thought I was one of the few that really dug it). It was all pretty spot on.

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I'm sorry, but San Francisco was a total FAIL. There's a whole list of places that he could have gone to but didn't (he should have gone into the Ferry building instead of to the farmer's market out front, where most people don't actually shop, since they either buy online/at the store, or they make the trek into Berkeley and shop at Berkeley Bowl, and wold it have killed him to stop by Taylor's Refresher or The Slanted Door while he was there?). Since he went into Oakland, he should have gotten something truly original to Oakland, like Spettro's peanut butter pizza, instead of a freakin' taco truck. I could b**ch more, but the short of it is: Anthony, REDO SAN FRANCISCO!!!!!

"I wanna, I gotta be adored."

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His entire No Reservations Episode for San Francisco was like a juvenile protest of hipsters, hippies and vegans.

The San Francisco episode of Anthony Bourdain's show "The Layover" was much better. He went to Tornado for beer, mentioned Zeitgeist, had what looked like really good Korean restaurant in the Richmond.

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His ten minute spot on Denver was pretty weak. I hate how he gave the Denver food scene a bad name and continued to constantly talk **** about it after walking down a street and not seeing anything he liked in 2002. He should maybe have done a little research first, or at least toned down his stereotype of Denver food since he had no idea what he was talking about.

As for the spot in the episode "America's Heartland", instead of eating our regional dishes, he ate some blood sausages at some weird place. At least he ate some local meats in the form of bratwursts at Biker Jims.

He needs to come back here and eat some Southwestern food and steaks. He should also go to White Fence Farm in Lakewood. They have some of the best fried chicken I've ever had anywhere and their t-bone's are so tender the meat falls right off the bone, you don't need a knife.

Only giving the Wall Street of the West a 10 minute spot while giving Montana a full episode is very confusing to me...

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S you in your A's Don't wear a C and J all over your B's

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They've never come to my hometown, the closest they ever came was Boston, which was too much focused on the Southie culture. I have family in Kansas City and points north, and I was disappointed by how the Kansas City episode focused mostly on Zamir doing a "what a country!" schtick. They did a pretty good survey of the barbecue places and the history of organized crime, but not much else that I recognized. I was hoping that they'd shoot some footage of the Liberty Memorial with Bourdain making snarky comments about what it resembles, because EVerybody does, but that didn't happen. (Google it if you want to know what I mean. )

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"Oh, well" said Zanoni, "to pour pure water in the muddy well does but disturb the mud !"

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He obviously drove through Tucson on his way from Phoenix to Green Valley. He even would have had to go back through Tucson to get back on I-10 to go to Hatch, NM. But they didn't stop and film anything in Tucson. Pretty sure I even saw Picacho Peak in the B roll.

The thing about the Titan Missile Museum was all right, but there's no food involved. I did like that he had both Alice Cooper and Ted Nugent in that episode. However, even Rachel Ray did a show in Tucson!

The people you idolize wouldn't like you.

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