The Best Asian Food On the East Coast! (Philly Vietnamese!)

This is my first time trying it because, you know, I didn't want to try the ops for a long time. Yo, I like this part of the pork right here. That looks like that meat's going to come off real nicely and it did. That's the oof right there. I think it has the best pho broth, chicken and beef that I've maybe ever had. Little known fact, Philadelphia has the largest amount of Vietnamese outside of California and which means the pho has to be banging and the Asian parties are super lit. So let's see how much better this Philly pho is than New York City. Welcome everybody to an episode of Phong Bro's Food. We're here out in Philly today helping host a book event for our guy, Simu Liu. But before we go to that event, I'm out here with the Via Plug AB. What's good? And we are going to be going to the most iconic Vietnamese shops in all of Philly. All right. You guys have come from New York. You guys have been talking about Philly pho for a minute. It's been a long time since you've been in the city. I'm going to take you guys to the top four spots in Philadelphia. All right. Is one of the spots going to be your parent's shop? Of course. All right. But first, before that, we got to check out Pho 75. Hey, what's going on everybody? Thanks for clicking on this video. I want to give a huge shout out to our sponsor, Helix. You heard me talk about them a month ago, but I'm here to give you an update to let you know how I'm sleeping. Now, let me get back to you in a month to update you on how I'm sleeping. But if you don't know, they are a premium mattress in a box company that matches your unique needs with the right type of mattress using their very simple but accurate sleep quiz. And right now, they are giving you up to $200 off your Helix mattress purchase, plus two free pillows if you go to helixsleep.com. I went to their site and took the quiz. They ended up matching me with a queen size Dawn Luxe. 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When I travel now, I literally miss my bed. So again, go to helixsleep.com slash foam bros for $200 off and two free pillows. Okay, now back to the video. All right, AB, what is the must get order here? You definitely get the foam balled or any type of beef that you like if you don't like doing all the tripe and everything, but you definitely gotta get the hangzum and the nuoc beo, which is like the fatty scallion oil and then the vinegar onions. Still to the brim. Okay, so the food's arrived and this looks like delicious pho, but it looks like pho, but these two things, we got to talk about this, AB. All right, we got the nuoc beo right here, which is the fat skimmed from the top of the broth, melted down with some scallion tips. Just drop that into your pho. Hangzum right here, which is vinegar onions. Oh, okay, so these are like pickled onions. You can throw it right in the bowl. With the nuoc beo, do I just pour it all in? Just pour a bit in, you know what I mean? You don't want your cholesterol going too high. Okay, throw the scallion. Pho at $4.75. That is beefy and oily. Wow. See, I didn't even think about the sriracha or the hoisin yet. Guys, I'm telling you, for the price and it being in the city, plus the nuoc beo, the oil on top, I got to give this a five out of five. You know what it is? It tastes like the broth could almost just be sold on its own as a beef soup. Hey, and you know it's good because it's cash on. The second spot in the plaza is Pho Ga Tan Tan. Now, pho ga is not popular in every city. For example, in New York, you can't find a good chicken pho, but out in Philly, you really can. I think it's all about the ingredients. There's a lot of poultry shops that sell live chicken here. So, you know, that's where we get it. That's where we source our meat. All right, let's go. All right, what did you just order? So I ordered two plain pho small and a half a chicken. That's how you're supposed to do it. You know, you get the chicken on the side, kind of pick at it and put it in your bowl. Okay, so I saw that they also, what is that, the chicken liver on top, like the brown pieces? Yeah, you'll get some organs. You'll get liver, heart, gizzard as well. Is this pho ga? How does it match up to your parents' spot, Hang Long? Yo, this is my first time trying it because, you know, I didn't want to try the opps for a long time. See that yellow skin? You see that yellow skin? Not all chicken come out like that. All right, AB, we got to be honest that you didn't want to try this spot because for a long time, they were the direct competitor to one of your parents' spots. They were right across the street. You know, I had my own chicken pho and I just didn't want to go over there. All right, all right, all right. So I need you to give an oath real quick that you are going to give your most honest opinion. And if it is better than your parents' spot, if it happens to be, then you're going to say it. I'm an honest guy. You know what, I'm going to try it right now. So this style is not going to be familiar to a lot of people outside of a Vietnamese area because you have a plain broth pho, right? And then you have the chicken on the side and we're going to be dipping the chicken in this sauce right here with the chilies and what, salt and lime? Yep, lemon pepper. Oh man, it's different. It's definitely different from my mom's. It's way lighter. Grab this piece right here. You got the breast meat. I got a thigh piece. Okay. You got to dip it in the lemon pepper right here. They like to call it the crack sauce. Okay. All right, AB. So your initial thoughts, which one is better? My mom's spot's better, man. Come on. This one's pretty good though. It's good. No, it's delicious, man. Yo, we're going to try Tang Long at the end of this video. When you guys order pho gai in other cities, it will not come like this. The chicken will be like chicken breast pieces in here. Basically, if the spot doesn't focus on pho gai, it's not going to be good. I'm going to give it a 4.75 out of five. I'm going to leave a little bit of room for the five, but this chicken is delicious. That's good. I'm going to give it a 4.5 out of five, especially once you dip the chicken in the crack sauce and then some of the crack sauce gets in the pho. Definitely a 4.5 out of five. All right. So we just left pho gai Tan Tan, and I'm going to say, I'm going to bump them up another 0.25 for how many ABGs were in there eating pho. There's a lot of shorties in South Philly, man. More people come out here than Kensington. All right. So we ate at two spots already. I need to take a break. I need some refreshing fruit tea. Let's go into Mr. Wish right here. Have a drink, make a wish. Look how murky that is. I like that. That's how you know there's a lot of fruit. I have not had a drink like this since the Shilin Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan. Bro, Mr. Wish is from Taiwan, so you know they're giving you authentic buy. All right. Our third spot is Cafe Nan. What are we going to get here, AB? I get the Bun Bo Hue, fried chicken, and the beef pho. Thanks, bro. Appreciate that. I get the Bun Bo Hue up there with the pig feet and everything, chicken wings, and the bok with the bone. Yo, I like this part of the pork right here. That looks like that meat's gonna come off real nicely, and it did. That's the oof right there. All right. This is the Bun Bo Hue here. I'm gonna go in. First thing I'm gonna do is taste the broth. It's spicy, man. You can get it spicier, too. You ask for the hot peppers. Lots of kick. Just want to kick you. Cafe Nan. That is really good. I'm telling you, this is one of the most hearty beef phos in the city. Like this will have you full for most of the day. You know, sometimes you eat pho, you get hungry later on. The broth here is really like husky, so. All right. Personally, guys, all the pho I've had in this video is delicious so far, but I'm gonna say that this gets the edge over pho 75, man. This is so beefy. There's a little bit of oil on top. Like you said, it hits hard. That broth is husky. I love it. Guys, I mean, this broth is so rich. It really feels like I'm eating like a tonkatsu ramen or, you know, I'm going to a really rich, fatty Chinese beef noodle soup spot, the Neuroman. And I'm just gonna tell you this, man. This might not be for everybody, but this bowl of pho is for me. I have two other iconic dishes here at Cafe Nan. You got the Vietnamese chicken wings right here. Let me break that open for you. As you know, I'm a chicken wing fiend. There's a scallion, there's a fried shrimp already, and then it's wrapped in a wonton skin. I'm gonna eat this first, man. All right, go for it. Because I've had Vietnamese like shrimp rolls before, but not like this. Wings, no sauce. Your fingers are burning, aren't they? Yeah, it's worth it. It's worth the burn. It's worth the burn. But you guys, taking a quick break from pho spots here in Philadelphia, we're in South Philly right now. AB, tell us where we're at. We're at P's and Q's. Let's check it out. Let's get you fitted for the scene event tonight. All right. All right, we're with the owners of P's and Q's, Rick and Key. What's up? Yo, man, tell us about your guys' shop. P's and Q's, it's not just a clothing store. We feel like we're more of a community-based shop that kind of really focused on like the creative vibes for Philadelphia. Yeah, and we've been here for almost 10 years now, so we are happy to, excited to serve the community. Yeah, this one is dope. Probably grab a pair of short suit. What do you think of this? Yeah, yeah. This is the Rick set. You got to grab this. He actually designed it himself right here. You know, I heard Deodora is local to Philly now. As far as their American headquarters, I got to get a pair of those. Yeah, this is tough, man, with the aged midsole made in Italia. Oh, man, I love it right now. This is so in right now, and I love that everything's in-house too. This is the P's and Q's in-house brand. I think you need a rose cap. Oh, man, this is dope. What is this based off of? This rose cap, so if you see on the side, we originally came from Chinatown, Philly, actually. So it says Chinatown in Chinese. Right, it says Tongyang Gaya. Finished. There you go. Yo. Aren't you guys, we're going to do a quick tour of P's and Q's, man. What are we looking at? This section here, there used to be a map behind here. It didn't work out for us. We put a whole bunch of wood on there, sat some book bags, some travel goods. Over here is our particular section, the local section. So anything that's local brand Philadelphia is all right here in this whole section. I think it's really important that we bring in local brands because a lot of the young kids, they're trying to start up a brand and they need a platform. So we offer them one of our platforms to sell their stuff here. They keep all the profits and everything themselves. And it's really awesome that you have real estate in the store when you have a brand. Next up, AB, where are we going? Going to home base, Kensington, Tan Long. Let's go. The Dragon. All right. So for our last and final Vietnamese spot, we have made it to North Philly. We're in Kensington and we are at your family spot, Tan Long. Can you tell me what it means? Tan Long used to be the old name of Hanoi before it changed to Hanoi. And Tan Long means like rising dragon. Let's go inside. Right. Actually, like six years ago, we filmed that episode of our TV show, Broke Bites, What the Phung here. And I mean, that was cool. It was a long time ago, man. But now we're back and we're doing a YouTube style. Let's go in the back. Can I ask you what makes your guys' chicken pho so good? Sauce. The sauce is the money. The lemon grass dipping sauce with the pepper. All right. Our fourth and final spot, man, we're here at your family spot, Tan Long. The food has came out. Now you guys have actually won an award for the beef pho. We got recognized by the newspaper. Yeah. The newspaper said the beef pho was the one. But you would say that the chicken pho is the one. Yeah, because we have the chicken shop right next door to live poultry shop. So it's as fresh as it gets. They're literally just plucking right next door. We got to start off with the chicken. Yellow skin, of course, looking very juicy. Going to dip it in the sauce right here. I'm going to get that lemon pepper. Maybe the chicken that pho got, tan tan, was very comparable. But I think your guys' broth is way better. Hey, man, that's your opinion. I already said I like my mom's pho. I'm already biased. That's true. But no, honestly, that was really good, man. And we ate here before six years ago, but I thought it was the best pho I've ever had. And I would still say it still ranks up there. Compare this to pho got, tan tan. Tang Lung's broth for the chicken is way stronger. I think the chicken is comparable. I think the chicken gives a slight notch. I will give, maybe, just a shout out to pho got, tan tan. I like their crack sauce a lot, a lot. But in terms of where you guys need to go in Philly to get chicken pho, let me get a dark meat piece right here. Come to Tang Lung. Tang Lung, I'm not just saying this because AB's behind the camera, is the best overall pho got I've had in America. It's almost like it has its own chicken note meal on top, which is like chicken oil and chicken essence. All right, you guys, like we said, Tang Lung, best chicken pho in Philly. However, you got to get into their beef because they won an award for the beef too. There's a couple of spots in New York I got a shout out to one spot in Chinatown, Pho Bang. It does taste like Philly level. That's the new standard. It's Philly. Hold on, hold on. A lot of ginger. Very Hanoi style. Wow. No, your guys' broth is crazy too. You know what I noticed about this? Is that I almost have a reverse vibe from Cafe Nan. Cafe Nan did not have a lot of ginger and it had a ton of the fatty vibe. This has very little oil on top and a ton of ginger. All right, so the Bun Cha Hanoi is pretty much like a Bun Thit Nuong. So it's like pork belly. But then the difference is the way it's set up. So you see it's marinating in the fish sauce. You get the meatball right here too, which is my favorite. Meatball, I got the carrots and whatnot. Do I need any extra sauce? Up to you. And then I just eat it like that? Yeah, just eat it. It's almost, yeah, it is a deconstructed vermicelli bowl right here. Let's go in. All right, Bun Cha Hanoi. You guys' spot overall, beef, chicken, Bun Cha Hanoi. It's crazy, man. I hope you're not just saying that to hype me up because we homies. I'm really not. I'm really not, man. That is one of the best Bun Cha Hanois I've ever had. Of course, we saw Vientiane. Sunny, this is your restaurant. This is the first loud spot in Philly, right? Yeah. My parents started it in 2002. Okay, and then when you took over, did you try to like switch things up and update it? How much of the same did you keep? I kept it by like 80% the same and then 20% is my little twist to it. All right, tell us about what we're looking at because this is like a pretty fancy presentation. Thank you. I try. So the first one we have is, we actually call it Sai Gaw in Lao. I know some places call it Sai Oa. Pretty much the same thing. The difference is Sai Oa is more fermented, so it has a little sourness to it. This is the Sai Fok, which is not fermented. It's gonna be a pork lemongrass sausage. So my twist will be the ginger habanero sauce. Every family have their own version and my version of the sauce is a different one. Okay. Here is my mom's recipe of the beef jerky called Xin Heng. It's gonna be paired with my mom's sauce here. It's a chili paste with a little bit of peanut in there and soy sauce. It's called Nem Khao with the cured pork and this is a lettuce wrap. This is the most popular like party food in the Lao culture and this is my twist right here. Binh Gai or Thot Binh Gai, which is fried chicken wings. Chili oil that I developed during the pandemic. Sold online and also at some local markets. Yep, local markets, online and this is you with your hands. Yep, all right. My hands are clean. We got it going with Sai Fok. All right, Sai Fok. Roasted green chili pepper. We call this the Dao. Eat this. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I just ate a bunch of Vietnamese food but I got a second win. My other stomach opened up. All right, what are we eating? This is the Xin Heng, which is a beef jerky. And this one here is the crowd favorite. It's like sweet. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers to Lao. It's crispy, sweet, like a crispy sweet fried rice with a little bit of coconut in there. Next up we got the wings. Binh Gai. One biter, okay. Good. I love Lao food. And of course here we got the Lao papaya salad to end it off. Cool, minty, sweet, a little bit of spice. You know what I like about this one? Sometimes in the papaya salad you don't really get much greens but this one got a pretty good amount of greens. Go to Thang Long and go to Vietnam, North Philly, Kensington. Boom. Everybody, that wraps up our Vietnamese crawl through Philly. AB, why do you think the Vietnamese food in Philly is considered so good though? Like is there some historical context maybe? Yeah, like there's been a lot of immigrants from the 80s. I heard even some from the 50s that came over here. So there's a large Vietnamese presence here. So when immigrants come, they're going to bring their food with them. Philadelphia has the best Vietnamese food on the east coast. Now I do need to spend a little bit more time in Boston. I heard Boston's pretty good, you know. But I know that compared to New York, dollar for dollar, Philly's got it. All right you guys, we are here for Simu Liu's book launch in of his book, We Were Dreamers. It's his autobiography. We are going to be moderating tonight. So it's really cool to see everybody in line. Like take a look. All right you guys, we are headed to the green room right now. It's up to Simu. These are two pretty incredible friends of mine. They've been, you know, in the YouTube game for something like 10 years. And, you know, they've been kind of rocking with Asian American culture, talking about food, talking about, you know, politics and identity and all that. Over 2 million YouTube subscribers there. They're really great friends of mine today. I walk with them every day at the basketball court. So please guys, put your hands together for the Fun Bros. It's called We Were Dreamers. That's past-fantasy. What happened? Where's your dreams at, man? Did you achieve them all? We were dreamers. It just sounds so good. I feel like that's almost exactly why it's so important to kind of coax it out of them, because they really are these incredible stories of inspiration, of sacrifice, of perseverance. I think it's this. Even though I wanted to rebel against my parents' expectations of me, I was so, like their influence of like success, the definition of success, was so pervasive that it affected, like I was completely unable to imagine a pathway outside of the one that they expected. All right, everybody. So we didn't have time to go get Philly cheesesteaks in Philly. I know there's a lot of great spots, not Pat's and Gino's only, but De Los Andros, there's Angelo's, there's Jack's, there's Max's. However, I'm getting the most authentic cheesesteaks at Shorty's in New York City. They bring their bread in from Philly every day and they bake it here fresh. Guys, this is the original Philly cheesesteak, with whiz, with onions. Let me try this out. That bread is really good and the whiz is flowing out. And I got to say, man, maybe, maybe the Philly cheesesteak is the precursor to the chopped cheese. I mean, I know the chopped cheese is kind of like a cheeseburger, but it's kind of like a Philly too. So I don't know, maybe it's like a cross between, but this is pretty good. It's juicy. The broccoli rabe is hitting. Wow. Wow. Hey, I know not everybody has time to go to Philly. And sometimes when you are in Philly, you're too busy to go get the cheesesteaks, but I would say Shorty's is a pretty good, you know, representation of it. I would say my first choice is definitely the original with whiz and with onions. And then I would say that roast pork sandwich is pretty good too. But you know what? You don't have to take my word for it because I know I'm not a Philly food expert, but you know, you check out the reviews for Shorty's and you know, come check it out in New York.