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When Anthony Bourdain and his film crew arrived in Houston this summer to film an episode for the currently airing eighth season of Parts Unknown, it was no secret. Locals stalked his journey on social media, culinary blogs exhausted the possibilities, and local bars and restaurants hosted watch parties. But until the episode aired last Sunday night on CNN, it wasn’t clear exactly which neighborhoods in Clutch City would make the cut.
Here are all of the neighborhoods highlighted in Parts Unknown: Houston.
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1. Little India. On Hillcroft Ave, tucked into the triangle angling westward from the divergence of Westpark Tollway from I-59, Keemat Grocers host an Indian dance party and pani puri eating contest for the cameras. The MC was Sunil Thakkar, owner of Masala Radio, who opens with the proclamation, “I think this the best little India in all of USA, right?” The crowd cheers in agreement. As Thakkar says over a meal at Himalaya, a restaurant Bourdain rightly called beloved, Houston is home to more than 200,000 Indians. South Asians as a demographic have been on the rise dramatically in the Houston area, though most are buying affordable single family homes in Fort Bend County. “I see so many homes, new homes, new subdivisions, and people just buy them up,” Thakkar says. “On my street, eighteen homes, twelve out of them are from other countries. India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia. And once you live together, you just sort of become family.”
2. Pasadena. At Acapulco Ballroom, a local 15-year-old gets quite a spotlight on her quinceañera, a rite of passage for many Mexican-American girls but especially in Houston, say owners Elizabeth and Ezequiel Ortuño. “The quinceañera business is a multi-million dollar industry around here,” says Bourdain, over footage of many local businesses catering to it.
3. Woodlake/Briar Meadow. At Robert E. Lee High School, now Margaret Long Wisdom High School, Principal Jonathan Trinh welcomes Bourdain to show him the most ethnically diverse school in the city, where about 80% of attendees’ first language is not English. “In the city of Houston and the surrounding suburban area it’s very well integrated,” Trinh says. The “strong economic base here...allows for immigrants, families to come over and build a nest egg to own their own home or go to a better neighborhood.” As we’ve said before, there are many benefits to investing in Houston, especially for EB-5 visa seekers.
4. Pearland, “the quintessential sprawl of suburban Americana,” Bourdain says. There, Mr. Trinh and his wife and their immediate family welcome Bourdain to a backyard cookout sprawling with food from all of their cultures: El Salvador, Vietnam, and the U.S. Bourdain asks, “So if you have a big holiday, how many people are coming over?” The table laughs together, and guesses, “40, 50 people?” The big back yard behind them could comfortably fit as many.
5. South Central/MacGregor Park. Bourdain invites rapper Slim Thug to introduce viewers to slab culture at MacGregor Park, which borders the University of Houston, Old Spanish Trail, and Texas Spur 5.
6. Acres Homes. Many pioneers of slab culture are from this working class, African American neighborhood on the Northwest side of Houston and north of Garden Oaks, but Bourdain was there mainly to revisit Burns BBQ, famous for its ribs, brisket, and sausage.
8. Montrose and Southwest Houston are home to the farm plots of local nonprofit, Plant it Forward. Congolese refugees cook a meal from produce grown just steps away from the cook site, right here in Houston.
9. Richmond. At Sardar Patel Stadium, Bourdain asks League President of the Houston Indian Cricket Club and former cricket star, Kuldeep Patel, to demo the sport and talk about his community in Houston. Over post-game eats of tandoori chicken, curry goat, and potato dosa, cricket players who moved to Houston at various times over the last few decades tell Bourdain: “This is the best place to dream and achieve the dream.”
In a neat 45 minutes of airtime, Bourdain demolishes any stereotypes about Houston viewers might have had. He closes the episode with a welcome to everyone, saying America is “great because your grandfather and my grandfather and just about everybody’s damn grandfather or great-grandfather crammed themselves, snuck, bought their way, or was dragged onto a boat and one way or another allowed themselves eventually to dream. You can. There’s still room. And in some places in America, apparently, you’re still welcome. Welcome, stranger. This land is your land.”
We couldn't agree more.
* Honorable mention: Palacios, definitely not in Houston, but a fishing town 90-minute drive south along the coast. Thousands of Vietnamese entered Texas through this port in the late 1970s, and Bourdain ate with Yen and Brian Tran, owners of The Point, local market, bait and tackle, Viet-Mexican restaurant all in one.
