Anthony Bourdain comes to Pittsburgh (Braddock, Penn: condos, neighborhood, movies)

[gg]

It aired tonight, but is on a midnight on CNN if you want to record it or watch it.

I haven't seen it yet, but wanted to check it out. I suspect it won't be very good as Bourdain is kind of an ass IMHO although I loved it when he went to Burgundy France, where they serve wine to the truck drivers at a truck stop. How cool is that!

Anyone see the Pittsburgh one?

[tyovan4]

I watched it tonight.
I was impressed and thought it was a balanced, accurate representation of Pittsburgh - not one of the fluff pieces that we get so much of, and not undeservedly critical either. Balanced and accurate in my opinion.

[UKyank]

I normally love Bordain but the episode basically showed Pittsburgh as kind of a terrible place with some random wrestling & demolition derby action thrown in. Not sure what I was expecting though as most of his shows are pretty uninteresting when he’s covering a US city but entertaining when he’s not.

[Plink]

I watched it. Spoilers okay?

[ny789987]

Bourdain and Fake News hate western Pennsylvania. They rightfully see it as one of the areas that took the blue wall away from Hillary. We are all a bunch of knucklehead mouth breathers to them.

[Plink]

Originally Posted by tyovan4

I watched it tonight.
I was impressed and thought it was a balanced, accurate representation of Pittsburgh - not one of the fluff pieces that we get so much of, and not undeservedly critical either. Balanced and accurate in my opinion.

Bourdain’s shows are increasingly political but the negativity always seems offset by the food industry locals on the show. Mostly not the case here. Severino rips on the people in his neighborhood and says his restaurants are basically ego trips while Borges is anxious about her techie customers and doesn’t know if it’s a good thing. Got to admire their honesty, I guess. Maybe their good comments were left at the editing console. The Sala Udin segment is nothing to argue with...it’s all true. On the other hand, Sousa, Franco, and Fetterman offered some optimism, however measured it was. Then there was the focus on wrestling and ending the show with a demo derby 30 miles from here. Utterly bizarre.

On a technical note, I saw the show as mostly an incoherent mess. Maybe that because of my bias. Wonder how non Pittsburghers see it?

[tyovan4]

This article gives a nice recap of the episode: Bourdain's 'Parts Unknown Pittsburgh' dwells on city's past and problems to come | TribLIVE

[PghYinzer]

It followed the same manual that everything follows when they do something on Pittsburgh. Start out with steel, then the downfall of steel, next cue up the octogenarians doing something old timey and folksy, rip on tech, show some great chefs with a segment about how this used to be a food wasteland and how people are just shocked we don't eat canned meats everyday, Hill District/Civic Arena, and wrap it up with Braddock. I know the show is not as food based as his other shows, but this one barely had any food at all. They showed choppy shots of food, but mostly just had conversations about what was and the soon to come robot wars that are destroying Pittsburgh.


I thought the wrestling was a cool aspect that I knew nothing about, but I have no idea why they drove out to New Alec to show demolition derby. I guess that is an unknown part of Pittsburgh, well probably because it is not part of Pittsburgh. I am just thankful they didn't stop at the "iconic" sandwich shop.

[Lost_In_Translation]

It was incoherent and mostly biased to the problems of PGH rather than any possibility of the future. He didn't even talk with anyone from the tech sector that is so reviled. Does that feel balanced? Most of his "yinzer" interviews were confusing and honestly they looked like confused old men that were angry but without focus. The civic center was a travesty for the hill, but that was what, 50 years ago? What is going on now? Could have atleast discussed Penn Plaza if we're going to have that discussion. And wrestling and demo derby are NOT uniquely Pittsburgh. They exist in every city across America. If he was trying to define PGH with something unique, maybe he could have talked about something that really defined the city, like all the churches converted to other uses (restaurants, venues, condos). Whoever produced this made like two phone calls, flew Bourdain in to Allegheny County Airport and had him out in 24 hours before the stink of the area got to him or something. Atrocious.

[Enough_Already]

Originally Posted by tyovan4

I watched it tonight.
I was impressed and thought it was a balanced, accurate representation of Pittsburgh - not one of the fluff pieces that we get so much of, and not undeservedly critical either. Balanced and accurate in my opinion.

I don't know what you were watching but this episode did not represent Pittsburgh at all. It showed a couple restaurants most people in Pittsburgh will never visit and the wrestling and demolitions derby are things most people in Pittsburgh will never do. Watching this episode left me in doubt in any episode done by Bourdain was a good representation of any area.