My favorite episodes of Bourdain’s "Parts Unknown"

Here are my choices for the best 12 episodes of "Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown":

1. Detroit (S2E9). Perhaps the most poignant, this episode so intensely dwells in the undergrowth—and all therein and in between—that burst following the city’s collapse. It is seeing Detroit so distantly even from within. While gazing at a skyline of abandoned skyscrapers and feasting on homecooked cuisine, Tony explores the hopes of Detroiters.
2. Quebec (S1E4). I think this is one of the two most delightful episodes (Lyon being the other). In freezing Quebec, Tony and two of North America’s best chefs go ice fishing on St. Lawrence, cook dinuguang beaver, suck maple syrup on popsicle stick, and play hockey and then eat some more.
3. Tangier (S1E5). I think the Tangier episode is quite autobiographical for Tony—and I have a feeling that this was among his favorites. Beat Geneneration figure W.S. Burroughs is heavily referenced here, an aspect which sharply allows the requisite darkness of the episode. This is also a highly sensory episode.
4. Lyon (S3E4). This is another episode of delight and, perhaps, another favorite of Tony’s. Here, he goes nouvelle cuisine with Daniel Boulod, the Troigrois brothers, and best of all, Paul Bocuse. Tony obviously goes fanboying here, romancing his moments with legendary Monsieur Bocuse. Who wouldn’t?
5. Missisipi Delta (S3E7). This one, much like the Tangier episode, is a cultural and literary pilgrimage as Tony goes to the birthplace of American blues and William Faulkner. Tastes, as usual, are a preface to deeper conversations and inquiries on many things—history, food, society, literature, diaspora, among others.
6. Tokyo (S2E8). It’s as if Tony wanted this episode to present everything in flashes, maybe because here, we see the Japanese capital in its dark, fixated, bizarre, off-center qualities, cultures and subcultures.
7. Pilipinas (S7E2). Yes, I wept watching this episode. Maybe because I’m a Pinoy. Or maybe I still would even if I were not one. In this episode, Tony is on a quest of looking for a person, a quest that opens a probe of the contemporary Filipino diaspora (and aspirations), a probe that, subtly, opens an exploration of Filipino taste. Rodger and Hammerstein’s "Edelweiss" has never been as heartbreaking as how it is sung in the episode. This is the only episode with a translated Parts Unknown theme song.
8. Borneo (S6E7). This one is an exotic episode. Tony goes on an adventure into the lush rainforest of Borneo as a fulfillment of a promise. Here he gets wasted the Dayaks as he celebrates with them the Harvest Festival, Gawai, in the Dayak Iban longhouse.
9. Russia (S3E6). The most political episode which takes place just before the Sochi Winter Olympics. Here Tony pontificates the most, and is without restraint in his criticism of Putin, on a series of meals and sprees with like-minded locals and his travel partner Zamir Gotta.
10. Congo (S1E8). Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness pervades in the narrative of this episode. Like Conrad’s Marlow, Tony shifts from one story to another—from colonial past to current state—as he goes deeper into the Congo river.