It finally happened. For the first time in over a year living in Asia, I got a bit homesick. Danggit, Anthony Bourdain, if you just weren’t so good at what you do!

The new episode of “No Reservations” on the Travel Channel visited Livingston, Montana aired not long ago. It’s a small town no more than one hundred miles of where I call home. As usual, Mr. Bourdain did a brilliant job of (would “tele-anthropology” be the correct term?) exploring the local culture and cuisine, spotlighting people and their inspirations, as well as the issues and pleasures of their postcard picture surroundings. The “wild west” seems to be gracefully evolving, with a continued sense of rugged character, which drew me there in the first place.

Please excuse my sentimentality; I think it’s time to go call my mom.

Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” starts up its new season (#6 for those who are counting) this Monday, July 13th on the Travel Channel. Tony was in Argentina and Brazil in 2007, and it looks like he’s kicking off the new season by rounding off Southern South America with a trip to Chile, one of my favorite countries in the world.

Not sure what I make of the rest of the season. Thailand should be great, it’s kind of surprising he’s waited this long to go. New York Outer Boroughs will offer quite a few options, but his last New York episode mainly took place in the outer boroughs already, didn’t it? I’m Intrigued by the Rockies choice, my home region, who wants to take bets there are Rocky Mountain Oysters involved here?

• Chile (premieres July 13)
• Australia (premieres July 20)
• Rust Belt (premieres July 27)
• On the Street (premieres August 3)
• San Francisco (premieres August 10)
• Thailand (premieres August 17)
• Rockies (premieres August 24)
• Burning Questions (premieres August 31)
• New York Outer Boroughs (premieres September 7)
• Sardinia (premieres September 14)

Squid balls, pissing shrimp, and pig knuckles: all in a day’s work for Anthony as he stops in at Tung Po Seafood Restaurant, a non-descript, food court style haunt reached via escalator in the heart of Hong Kong. Though I wasn’t expecting it, this turned out to be one of my favorite episodes so far, check it out on Netflix (Season 3, Episode 13).

I’ve been catching up with “No Reservations” the last month or so via Netflix, starting from the beginning, and last night I finally saw the infamous episode in Beirut (Collection 2: Disc 3), and I’ve got to say, if you’re going to watch any travel show, see this one.

It starts off like normal, and Tony and the crew get about a day and a half into shooting, doing their normal shtick (meet up with a local, head to a local dive for traditional comfort fare, eat some street food on the way back from the bar — the somewhat formulaic routine of the show), when all of a sudden, actual shooting begins in the streets around them.

At first everyone doesn’t seem too worried and they attempt to continue on with the show, but as the hours pass, the violence begins to escalate until the airport runway gets bombed out and the crew is left scrambling for somewhere safe to stay until the government can finally boat them out (which finally happens a few days later after being holed up in a hilltop hotel).

Though little of Beirut is actually shown, and you’d be hard-pressed to find much footage that the Beirut Tourism Office would want to include in a promotional video, I think what makes this episode so great is the fact that the events that occurred while they were there forced them to drop their normal formula and create a true travel narrative, with all the drama, uncertainty and realism that occurs when experiencing the real world.

Forget state-sponsored guides and flashy dinners, for once Tony was able to get a rare, honest look at a culture, for better and for worse. He saw life how the Lebanese see life, and he saw the Lebanese living life under extreme duress, and all the good and bad that that can elicit.

Too often, travel shows tend to gloss over the ugly and highlight the pretty, creating the sort of packageable, palatable look at a culture that often results in a bland, forgettable experience (just the opposite of what a a travel show should be doing in my opinion). To me, I’d rather see both sides; it’s more interesting because if’s honest: Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

The best part of the show is Tony’s “Empire Strikes Back”-ish reflection on his travels since he began the show, and what, if anything, he’s learned. I’d like to think that his thoughts were the result of the traumatic experience he just had, and I hope that his doom and gloom has since been proven wrong and that it’s his third-from-last, and not the second-to-last paragraph that has since been proven true as his travels have continued. Here are his parting words:

In the few years since I’ve started to travel this world, I’ve found myself changing. The cramped cynical worldview of a man who’d only seen life through the narrow prism of the restaurant kitchen had altered. I’d been so many places, I’d met so many people from wildly divergent backgrounds, countries, and cultures.

Everywhere I’d been, I’d been, as in Beruit, treated so well. I’d been the recipient of so many random acts of kindness from strangers and I’d begun to think that no matter where I went or who I sat down with, that food and a few drinks seemed always to bring people together. That this planet was filled with basically good and decent people doing the best they could, if frequently under difficult circumstances. That the human animal was perhaps a better and nicer species than I had once thought.

I’d begun to believe that the dinner table was the great leveler, where people from opposite sides of the world could always sit down and talk and eat and drink and if not solve all the worlds problems, at least find, for a time, common ground.

Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe the world’s not like that at all. Maybe in the real world — the one without cameras and happy food and travel shows — everybody, the good and the bad together, are all crushed under some terrible wheel.

I hope, I really hope, that I’m wrong about that.

Don’t ask me why the Travel Channel splits up their seasons using an “A” and “B” instead of just starting with a new number, but I remember Andrew Zimmern mentioning this back at the NYT Travel Show when he was saying that he was either in his sixth or third season, depending on how you looked at it.

So Bourdain’s either closing out his tenth or his fifth season of “No Reservations” this week with his return to Vietnam, home of the Banh Mi, a pate smothered baguette filled with cucumber, egg, ham and mayonnaise. Watch as he digs in, describing the heart-stopping sandwich as a “symphony in a sandwich” (0:55) while standing next to his eerily similar looking travelmate. (Like a Bourdain Mini-Me don’t you think?)

Anthony’s doing No Reservations from the Philippines this week, where, for some reason, he felt compelled to walk the streets of Manila sampling chicken balls (not what you’re thinking) and Pansit (stir-fried noodle dish) while decked in a flowery Aloha shirt. Tony, this is the Philippines. Not Hawaii. Not Kappa Sig’s backyard. Please don’t make this your new thing, like Mario Batali and his Crocs. Sigh.

Check out 0:52 where he tries the amazing looking Taho (tofu with tapioca), a favorite street food in the Philippines.