What Makes Cantonese Food So Good? (Chinese Food Tour)

Oh, oh, we getting that dim sum. What the hell? David, you know I love myself some zhajiangmian. No butter, all flavor. There's a reason why this was $80. Cantonese food is the most ubiquitous style of Chinese food globally, with probably the most dishes to its name. While it's known for never getting too extreme in either direction of flavor, it is still many people's favorite genre. We'll delve into the different subgroups of Southern Chinese that influence the cuisine, such as tuishan, hakka, qiujiao, gongzhao, and even just the diaspora in general. They each contribute their own flavors to create the ever so iconic and gigantic 200 item menus that you find at Cantonese restaurants. This video is going to hit home with us because our father is Cantonese, and our earliest memories of being a young foodie come from our trips to Chinatown and Hong Kong. You are definitely going to want to get some Canto food after this. So hit that like button, and let's go. All right, David, we're here at a very, very popular Cantonese restaurant called August Gatherings. Now, it is traditional, but they're kind of doing some modern twists on things. For sure, I mean, you are looking, Andrew, at a black truffle siu op. So this is black truffle roast duck. Clearly, you know, a little bit modernized, but the chefs are young guys, hungry guys from actually high-end hotels in Guangzhou. David, another classic dish is the jiu pai gai, and this is kind of like your house special chicken. It always looks like this. Well, jiu pai means special, so this is a special house chicken. They had a regular bak chit gai without as much germ chung, Andrew, on it, but I know you, you just had to go for this one. The heaps of scallion are calling my name. Generally, for myself, if I get the chance to get the house special versus just like a regular bak chit gai, I'm going to go with the special. These are salt-baked clams, Andrew, and man, it's really interesting because they put some of the garlic in the jiu pai on it, and like we said, every Cantonese kitchen does have peppers on it, but they use them very sparingly. So the peppers are there, but they hardly ever use them. Maybe like 10% of the dish, or 5% of what they would in a Sichuan dish. So good. What the hell? And David, I know this soup is very traditional because dad actually makes this soup at home. Andrew, usually the squids that you use in the bao yu gai tong, it's more of like a dried squid, like a cuttlefish. Bro, this is a big shout out to dad because this is my favorite soup that he makes. Here we have the lap yuk, which is kind of like a dried Chinese bacon that's very, very popular in the South. And then you have the cauliflower, which is called Toisan cauliflower. All right, you guys, this is the black truffle roast duck, and you know, the name in Cantonese was very complicated that they told me, but I think it's interesting to see, you know, such a cheap dish. You can get it at Wafeng for like $5, but you know, there's no limit to the elevation. It definitely adds like, almost like a darker roux type of vibe to it. It's very difficult to describe, but I definitely recommend you try other types of roast duck than the one you're just used to. All right, you guys, this is XO fried rice. XO is probably one of the most defining Cantonese sauces. I believe there are like 10 different things in it, and it can be very, very expensive depending on what grade out of like 10 of XO sauce you go with. This is XO fried rice. That tub was like $32, so it's about like double price from a regular restaurant. That is chock full of different mushrooms, scallops, definitely more layers than you would, you know, at half price. Here we got these scallops with the vermicelli. Like we said, in Guangdong or Southern China in general, anywhere along the coastal areas, you can get these. I mean, I think this is pan Chinese at this point. Like we said, gingers, scallions, soy, giang cong, garlic. Let's go. The seafood dishes here have been the highlight. I mean, is this much more expensive than it is in, you know, a Guangzhou street dai pai dong? Yes. But is it also more refined? Yes. You know, here at August gatherings, they really go above and beyond now. You don't usually see this many dishes with this much scallions on top, but you know, more people should, not only for the aesthetic reason, but the amount of flavor that it provides. I mean, look at that. You could put that on top of anything and it would just be good. Guys, here we have the garlic scallion shrimp over vermicelli. When it comes to cooked shrimp, I like to eat everything. Where is Cecilia Chung and Edison at right now? Are you on TVB? Oh my God. The way the garlic and scallion oils is going through the shrimp and onto the vermicelli and flavoring it. This might just be peak Cantonese eating right here. Peak Cantonese living right here. Overall guys, August gatherings is pretty pricey, but you do pay for the quality. And I've got to say, Andrew, the Hong Kong style or Guangzhou style dai pai dong seafood dishes, I think we're the best. This is a very authentic experience because we are across the world from Hong Kong right now. Now you can't talk about Cantonese food without mentioning Toisan or Taishan and the Sejup Han Chinese people that they come from. It also includes Kaiping, Xinhui, Anping and Heshan. Now Toisan in particular is a famous region, not necessarily because of the place itself, but what the people from their diaspora accomplished. They are the earliest Chinese in America working on railroads and building Chinatowns. And traditionally speaking, they made up 30% of Hong Kong's earlier Chinese population during British colonial rule. Now a lot of Cantonese cuisine we know in America is influenced by Hong Kong, but who influenced HK food? The truth is a lot of different groups of people. Hence why Canton food is so good. All right, you guys, we are at a classic Hong Kong ming zhuk din, which means pretty much they serve noodles and congee. So let's check it out. Another aspect of Cantonese food in America is gonna be your Chinatown Cantonese food. This type of food has kind of been around for decades now, maybe 50, 60, up to 70 years. But outside I'm here at some of the classic spots, Wahop and Hop Kee in Chinatown. These spots typify this type of food. They're gonna have a range of a little bit more authentic dishes, but also they're gonna be serving your lemon chicken, almond chicken, all those types of things. What you are looking at is one of the most classic Hong Kong lunch slash, you know, quick dinner dishes in the entire world. This is called ao lam ho fun. And what we have is that we have a beef brisket, as you can see, very fatty, very tender. And we have the wide ho fun rice noodles. If we were living in Hong Kong right now, this would easily be one of the things that you most consume throughout a week. Now, is this as good as some of the famous spots I've been in, you know, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong? No, but is it the closest I've had in America? It's up there. Looking at this dish, this is gai lan with the yau choy and the hou yau. Hou yau is oyster sauce and these are just different types of greens. Of course, over here, we've got the ao lam won ton lo min, lo min. And it's actually got the chou min underneath. Chou min is actually the thicker won ton noodle instead of the thin one. I actually much prefer this one. I think some people don't think it really makes a big difference, but to me, it's gigantic. We are looking at some, like, some so-called Wong Kok street foods right now. Maybe some part of TST team's out there. But listen, guys, this is just incredibly HK. Yo, this really reminds me of one of those little cafes, Kowloon side. But like, you know, that is very popular and well-respected in the Cantonese cuisine. Andrew, you are looking at a joke, but not just any regular congee. We are looking at the best congee in New York City, possibly. Yeah, I saw that they put drizzled, like, a little bit of, like, I don't want to say chicken oil, but seasoning up on the top. And of course, Andrew, we've got the lo mein. These are just stewed animal innards. This is something that is incredibly HK. Hey, I think mixing this in with some of the other dishes makes a lot of sense, but they look very tender. All right, man. We are going in here on the lo mein. Starting off my meal with some jok. This is literally on Hong Kong level. Yeah. The same level. Not every dish here is the same as Hong Kong. The satin kai jok, it is. David, you know, I love myself some zha jiang mian, but this is the zha jiong mein. I think growing up, half Northern, half Southern, I did not have the Southern derivative of zha jiang mian until I was, like, way older. Yeah. Actually, this is not the most popular version of zha jiang mian around China, for sure. But this, hey, every region has its version. David, when it comes to the noodle pasta relationship, I think this is one of those dishes that really feels like a spaghetti. Yeah, that one's like the Cantonese spaghetti right there. Andrew, this is incredibly Hong Kong right here. These are dried and fried fish skins. You know, this is a very modern style, guys. This is what they're eating in Guangdong, in Hong Kong, in 2022. All right, Dave, I have the au chap yip. This is a plate full of intestines and livers and tripe and basically all the least favorable cuts of a cow. You know, some people go to a cha cha tang and get a mixed grill plate. This is a mixed, like, dill plate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people will just eat this straight up. Well, I'm gonna dip it in my satin gai jok, so. Whoa! That's a lot of innards for one bite, but it's not bad here. Still not my favorite. Andrew, you are looking at a clay pot rice, a pho dai fan with lap may on top. So that's lap yip, lap churn, all types of laps. By the way, Dominicans also eat their version of the crispy rice, too. A lot of different cultures do, surprisingly. All right, hey, we're here with chef and owner Chris from East Wind Snacks. Cantonese food comes from the original subsection, and that's Toisan. So it all comes from the Toisan, which is the area, the countryside area of Guangdong. And then they took all those chefs from Guangdong and moved them to Hong Kong, and then the movement came to America, to New York and San Francisco. But it all came down from the home countryside food of Toisan. This, this is, like, pretty traditional lunch food right here. Oh, somebody who's, like, 85 years old would go for this, but obviously at the cha cha tangs, that's probably for really, like, 50 or 40 and under. And honestly, I would say bo cai fan is one of the dishes that really also kind of symbolize Southern cuisine, particularly, possibly from, like, the Toisan Guangzhou region. And this is really that dish, man, bo cai fan. All right, you guys, we have to take a quick break from Noodle Village because, Andrew, right next to Noodle Village is Hop Kee. And Hop Kee, Andrew, actually has a lot of things on the menu from 60, 70, 80 years ago, when, like, Chinese immigrants first came to America. Yes, I would classify this food as particularly very Cantonese American. I think a lot of those restaurants that have been around for decades, they were probably started by Cantonese people. I would call this, in my opinion, Retro Panda Express. All right, these are the dishes I have. I have pineapple duck, something I've never had before. And then I have your egg foo young with shrimp and mushroom with the brown gravy. So I'm gonna pour on the pineapple sauce with the gravy, David. Partake. Not that there is no original root of this, but it's just not in this form. Yes. Egg foo young, this is a dish that has probably been around in America for at least 60 years. Chinese food has taken so many different forms and has taken on so many different cultures and mixed it in at different times in history in different places. So almost everybody has their own definition or image of Chinese food in their mind. This is Chinese food. That is Chinese food. And in fact, you can make an argument these are both very Cantonese dishes too. All right, you guys, we are looking at some deep cut Guangzhou dishes right now. Like we said, the Cantonese cuisine is made up mostly of regular Cantonese, Hakka Chew Chow. This is a Gai Bow. This is excellent. It shows the clay pot cooking. Here, we've got the Zha Dou Fu. And this is a very special one with shrimp in the middle. Some people imitate this on a more Western level with like shrimp toast, but this is the original, the fried tofu. You guys, this is the true school Canto version. Maybe the Hakka Chew Chow way would have more peppers, chilies, preserved flavors on it to kick it up a notch. But listen guys, in terms of true school Canto, even the amount of soy sauce I put on there was a little much. It's designed to allow the natural flavors to shine. You guys, meat off the bone, undisputably tastes better. However, for different people, it takes more or less effort and it may or may not be worth it. So you tell me, eating stuff from the clay pot is like eating things fresh out of a seasoned wok. You know, I do like Ta Tan Tang, like Western British-ized Canto food, but sometimes you gotta go back straight to the country, straight back to the village. This steamed Dungeness crab over sticky rice is so symbolic of your Cantonese seafood restaurants where for lunch, you can get a $6 bowl of Wonton Mien or you can get like a $7 Sam Ping Fon, three treasure meat over rice. And then on the same menu, you can buy an $80 steamed crab, literally 10X the price. What other restaurants are gonna have that? This is crazy. And I think it just goes to show you the range that Cantonese food has. Look, the steamed crab, you can see they broke it off in the middle. You can smell the little crab juices inside. Let's pull up to this Lo Mai Fun. Listen, I don't know what's going on with our younger generation, but if you have not even tried this, you are really missing out, young kids. When someone asked me, how does crab brain taste? It definitely has like this kind of rich, I would say a little bit livery, umami flavor, but it's way easier to eat than liver. I don't know. It's definitely something that you gotta try a couple of times. I know when I was a kid, it did not look appealing to me, but as I grew older, guys, my taste buds advanced. No butter, all flavor. There's a reason why this was 80 bucks. As much as Cantonese food has changed over the years and added dishes and added elements from this and that, you know, sometimes it's cool to just bring it back to the core. Stuff like this. This is very, very Cantonese. All right, everybody. So for our Chiu Chow section of this Cantonese episode, we had to go all the way down to Southern California in the San Gabriel Valley, aka the 626, where the Chiu Chow diaspora is super, super strong. Now, the 626, particularly West 626, is well-known for a lot of its Chinese-Vietnamese and Chinese-Cambodian food, which is primarily based in, you know, the Chiu Chow diaspora. But this spot behind me is purely from Chau Chow. And if you're of Chiu Chow background, you already know the phrase kaki nang, aka Tzu Chi Run, meaning that, you know, we are all of the same people. All right, so coming here at Chau Wei Chu, you'll notice that the Chiu Chow tea is very, very famous in Chau Chow. And I think this might be the Chiu Chow style of a teapot right here. Even just judging by the menu, you can actually see how similar it is to the Chiu Chow diaspora in the Southeast Asian areas, you know, such as, like, the Chinese-Vietnamese. But, for example, you have, like, your oyster pancake here. Obviously, that's very, that's seen in all different places. And that actually might even come from its proximity with food jam. If you know Cantonese food, you know Chiu Chow flavors have influenced it immensely. So first off, this is the most Southern big beef rib I've ever seen, because usually when you're eating beef ribs, you're thinking of something of, you know, from Dongbei or Mongolia, or even at least Western China, like Xinjiang. But here, guys, this is a big beef rib from the South. Chiu Chow is also very famous for a beef hot pot, so it does not surprise me that they have a big beef rib. Mm, they got beef in Chiu Chow. Here, I got this fish cake platter right here. Now, Chiu Chow food is actually really, really popular in Shenzhen, but in America, you only know Chow Chow food through the diaspora, such as your Chinese-Vietnamese spots or Chinese-Cambodian spots. But, mm. Another thing that Chiu Chow people are famous for are the Dai Pai Dongs in Hong Kong that are actually going away with time. You know, they're closing a lot of them down, but that is considered some of the most flavorful food in Hong Kong to this day. Here, we have the sauces. Of course, the sa cha, but AKA the satay. You have your garlic chili, and then you have your chili sauce. Now, these chilies are gonna provide a kick that a lot of other Cantonese foods not, to be honest. So that's why I think I gotta give Chiu Chow people credit for adding so much flavor to the Cantonese cuisine. Oyster omelet with the chili on it. Mm. This is a great way to try all the chilies right here. A thousand years ago, Hakka, Cantonese people and Chiu Chow people were all considered separate groups. But nowadays, they're kind of all united under the larger umbrella of Southern Chinese. I'm so glad because, honestly, Chiu Chow food is one of my favorite. This is so good. Let me show you, let me show you what I do. See, look, you got the little tripe, the beef, a little bit of this chili oil. Delicious. Oh, you gawgy non-food. All right, real quick, taking it out of the restaurant. We had to try some Hakka dishes. Now, this is from Kanji Village, and Hakka food is another kind of cuisine that's been incorporated under the general Cantonese cuisine umbrella. Hakka people, they don't have a region of their own. If you guys know the story, they've moved around a lot, so a lot of the food is very fragrant. There's a lot of preserved veggies, but it's actually really, really tasty. Hakka dishes are generally considered to be kind of salty, not too spicy, very umami. This didn't look like much, but with its soy sauce and a little bit of these preserved garnishes, this was packing a lot of flavor. Now, we have two other dishes here. They're not necessarily Hakka, but here I have an egg drop soup, and then also we have this sampan chok. This one, though, in particular, has a little bit of the kind of pork livers and stuff, which I could see some people not really liking, especially if you're not into that, but this is actually really, really tasty. Oftentimes, when you say Cantonese food, a lot of people actually are just imagining dim sum. Yes, it is one of the most popular things to eat on a Sunday or Saturday morning. We're outside of Tim Ho Wan. They won a Michelin star. When they did, they were considered the most affordable Michelin star restaurant ever, so let's go have dim sum the way it's supposed to be had. All right, you guys, Tim Ho Wan is a chain originally from Hong Kong. Interestingly enough, Andrew, it got bought out by Jollibee for multinational expansion. I mean, dim sum actually has a really, really long history. It really is just referring to small Chinese dishes eaten for brunch, so it could date back as far as the Silk Road, but obviously, they weren't eating necessarily these dishes that you see in front of us. David, when I look at all the dim sum on the table and how much work went into making every single dish, I think it really just goes to show you how seriously Cantonese people take food and how much it's just a part of their life. Oh, shit, oh, shit, we're getting dim sum. So, Andrew, about 150 years ago in the Guangdong province, the concept of dim sum ended up exploding after they closed down all the opium dens. Andrew, you have probably the most popular dim sum dish with you, which is a char siu bao, although you do have a little bit more modernized, candied, snow-topped version, and then I actually probably have one of the best low-key dishes, which is actually a shrimp ball on top of a piece of eggplant. Yo, man, I love the eggplant and pork mixture or fish mixture, whatever it is. That is a fire dish. So, that's a char siu bao, and I think this is a ha gau ke ji, shrimp and eggplant, guys. It's a home-run combination that you would not think of. Aren't you guys, I am getting the sweet soy sauce placed on top of the pai kwet. The one on the table, Andrew, interestingly enough, is not the house-made soy sauce. It's a salty one, but you can special request the team CL, the sweet soy sauce. David, I have probably the most classic dim sum dish right here. This is the siu mai, and you know, even though this dish is obviously very well-associated with dim sum, there's actually thousands of dishes you can eat during dim sum because, honestly, it's just about the portion and the time of the day that you're eating it at, essentially. Oh, that is good. Yeah? Wow. Yo, the siu mai is a favorite. Yo, actually, guys, I don't even know if you think that the quality at Tim Ho Wan went down over the years. I think their siu mai is one of the best. All right, so I tried to take care of two dishes in one. This is a pai kwet feng chou. Feng chou is the chicken foot. I didn't want to order a whole plate of it. And the pai kwet is right here. It's a black bean spare rib, but you can put it over cheung fun. This one happens to be over rice with the sweet soy sauce. All right, you guys, I'm going in on the hak jiu pai kwet. And, of course, I got to kick it off with west side till I die. Are you really eating dim sum if you're not eating ha gow? Or, as they would spell it in the west, har gow. Yo, I'm not going to lie, Andrew. It looks like Tim Ho Wan, you know, they are a chain from Hong Kong, obviously bought out now by the Philippines. I would say they got the hak gow and siu mai down. David, this is probably my least favorite, but most popular dim sum dish. These are the meatballs with Worcestershire sauce. So Worcestershire sauce is kind of like, it's the bulldog sauce. It's going to be a little bit sour, has a little bit of vinegar, but like barbecue flavoring inside. It's a Japanese sauce. And this really gives you that tang. It's like tangy beef balls. Andrew, you've got the shin juk yun right here, which is actually a bean curd tofu fried wrap with pork and other things in it. A lot of wood ears, bamboo shoots. Mom and dad love to make that at home. And I'll say this, guys, this is probably one of the most underrated dishes in terms of popularity. Not that it's my favorite, but just for the older crowd that's Cantonese, Andrew, they might wake up every morning and have this one of these plain chow means with no protein. Guys, each dim sum dish literally is a work of art on its own. And I think Cantonese chefs and food in general is so underappreciated. Put some respect on our men. Andrew, this is the churn fun section. I actually have a pork churn fun and you actually just have the churn churn fun. Ooh, this is the scallion churn fun. Very classic, has a little bit of the sweet soy sauce. Not just regular soy sauce, sweet. Actually, you know what the interesting thing about Cantonese people is they love churn fun, but when they want to call somebody useless, like this guy's like a klutz, like a bum, they call him churn fun. Kind of like calling somebody a burger. People do that? It's so crazy because essentially what you're eating is sweet soy sauce, rice and onions, but it's just in a whole different form and form factors do play into texture and taste. This tastes totally different than just rice and sweet soy sauce. All right, onto some rice dishes, David. This is the world famous lo mai gai and it's really like the Chinese zongzi except it's usually a little bit wetter and it doesn't have that egg yolk inside. And this should be a ching bak koo gai, but I think they removed the mushroom from it, so it's just steamed chicken over ginger with the sweet soy sauce. Guys, the lo mai gai, it's gotta be wet, it's gotta be sticky, it's gotta be salty. Oh man. Andrew, you have a char siu churn and I have a ha churn. These are two very types of popular churn or churn fun. Hey guys, you can put anything in churn. Char siu churn, probably one of the most underrated churn funs out there. As you guys know, chook or chow or congee, I mean, this is a popular dish all around Asia. The thing that makes this servable at dim sum is because of the tiny serving size. That's what makes it like a tapas. Essentially, a lot of people compare dim sum to Spanish tapas. Andrew, this blanched lettuce, I gotta call this a papa favorite. Oh man. Because that dad can go ham on a plate of lettuce. Man, you know, this is just really boiled lettuce with soy sauce on top. This is like the simplest dish possible. And I just know that Cantonese people eat it because I don't know, you gotta get your greens in, man. Everybody knows how to stay balanced. All right, you guys, this is a sai dao si. So this is a little bit more of a cha tang teng dish. You know what it is, Andrew? They turned this into like a oba and yaki puck with sai dao si, which is a little bit more of a cha tang teng like cafe dish, which we will get to later. Andrew, they actually stuffed this with a custard. You know what I really love about dim sum, David, is that it is, it does have a long tradition, but actually you can just keep adding dishes. You can keep making up dishes, man. This is kind of like a ever morphing and evolving style of food because, you know, people were not eating all these dishes 150 years ago either. So I really think that dim sum is going to be and will stay probably the most popular aspect of Cantonese cuisine. Cantonese flavors are known to be light, fresh with lots of usage of soy sauce, oyster sauce, scallions, and ginger. Everything from steamed to fried fish, fresh and dried seafood, healthy soups to barbecued meats. The dumplings have thin skin, lots of steamed bouncy rice noodles, and the flavors are somewhat similar to Japanese food flavors, hence why I think a lot of my Canto friends love Japanese food. Many of the dishes are delicately designed with multiple cooking techniques used on one dish. What Cantonese food is not is super spicy, very sweet, very sour, heavy, and hearty. This is not food of nomadic warriors, but more so farmers, fishermen, scholars, and merchants. All right, Andrew, these Hong Kong cha tang teng started really in the 1940s, 50s, 60s. They blew up in the year 2000 in the Asian financial crisis. Ah, man, we are looking at tong sam fun with spam right here. This is a gong xi san men ji, a club sandwich. This is ga le yu dan, it's been fried. And I forgot the name of this, but this is imitation shark fin soup using fen si instead of the actual shark fin, because not only is that illegal, but it's way more expensive. And honestly, the difference between shark fin and fen si, you can't really tell. That's why a lot of the Western ingredients in cha tang tengs are actually out of the can, or they seem like kind of cheap ingredients, because it is born out of making it cheap and affordable for the common person in Hong Kong. So yes, some of the ingredients are kind of cheap, but it's always done with its own type of little flair that really makes it a little bit more flavorful. Oh, Andrew, Cafe de Coral, Fairwood, Maxim's, there's so many mom and pop cha tang tengs in Hong Kong too. Tong sam fun. Tong sam fun is the macaroni. Andrew, this is actually one of the biggest dishes that we disagree on as brothers. I like it. You do not like it. I really see nothing really special about it, guys. I'm not gonna lie. It seems like just something that your parents would whip up when you're sick at home. But I have to say that this is one of the cornerstone dishes of Hong Kong cafes. Probably the most unique. Couple of things you'll notice about all Hong Kong cafes, it's very fast paced. The food comes out quickly. The waiters and waitresses might be a little bit cranky, but that's just part of the culture here. All right, you guys. We are looking at a gong xi salmon chi. This is a club sandwich. So what you're gonna notice about the club sandwich as we hang out at the jockey club, of course, is that there's gonna be thin slices of ham or bacon, but there's also gonna be American cheese. Now, as you can see, all the components of the sandwich are not extremely expensive, but it's done very, very carefully to be very tasty as well. David, when it comes to Hong Kong snacks, there is nothing more better than the curry fish ball. You can get this on the street or you can get this at a cha chaan teng. But trust me, the fish balls, they gotta be fried first, then dumped in the curry. This is imitation shark fin soup, aka gun zai qi. Like we said, you know, people use fen si instead of the actual shark fin. Hey, David, when you wanna talk about making something that's very expensive, affordable, this is making shark fin soup very affordable. And legal. I mean, honestly, guys, I would say an actual bowl of shark fin soup would probably be like $50 for this much. This is like $4. Guys, this is baked pork chop over rice. This is another cornerstone of Hong Kong cafes. And it is based, I believe, off the British casserole. Yeah, and let's be honest, guys. Like we said, this is not some Italian restaurant tomato sauce. I mean, this might've came out of a mix. I don't know. And you know what I noticed is any attempts to like elevate that dish are not necessarily met with like good reactions. Andrew, this is a guk poko cai fan. This is a baked Portuguese rice. Hong Kong is next to Macau. Macau was colonized by the Portuguese. Hong Kong was taken over for 100 years by the British. They gave it back in 97. My only issue is sometimes I think like, I don't know, you know, I don't wanna judge anybody. Everybody's born into a different family, different life situations, different environments, different pathways in life. But like sometimes ABCs are like, this is their only way to like stay close to the culture is eat something that is like them. You know, I think this is a great like point to chill out and place to hang out with your friends after playing basketball. But this is not, there's no real like depth to this cuisine. I think as somebody whose dad is from Hong Kong, it was cool to see growing up that there was a way to mix like Eastern and Western in a way that like was pretty commercially consumable. Andrew, I think that all around Asia, there are these Western cuisines, whether it's the Korean food that uses a ton of cheese influenced by the army, American soldiers, whether it's, you know, Swedish, European, Japanese, Yoshoku cuisine, or British, Cantonese, Cha Cha Tang food. There are so many subsections to the Cantonese cuisine. I think there's particularly a lot in real life, but not only that, due to the immigration waves and the patterns, they are all represented in New York's Chinatown. Let's check out the bakeries. These type of bakeries were incredibly popular in the 1940s in Hong Kong. They continue to be to this day. I will say they have some more modernized things, obviously, Ito and Matcha Japanese Cheesecake Slice. You know, I like to see the more modern stuff personally. That's what I'm gonna go for. Oh my goodness. This is a Cheung Tsai Fau. This is an incredible hot dog bun, guys. This is like one of my favorites. This and the ham and the egg. You know, these are some of the more old school Cantonese pastries right here. The Lotus Lopaw Bangs and things like that. Aren't you guys, I have the classic Swiss roll. My parents rarely ever let me get this growing up. It was a little bit more expensive. And obviously, you know, not good for your health. But this isn't good for your health either. This is the coconut cream bun. Ergonomically speaking, it's actually really good to eat it this way. So you eat it from the middle, but let's just rip this open. Dude, mom and dad would never let me get this one either, man. That's butter cream. That's very buttery. Yo Andrew, this is actually a matcha take on mom's favorite sponge cake. Listen, if your parents are from the older generation, I'm telling you, all the other cakes with creams and all that stuff is too sweet. They have to have the sponge cake. The sponge cake has very, very little sugar relative to it being a cake. Europeans couldn't stand it. Let's check it out. I have the taste buds of a fop. Hong Kong bakeries have always been morphing and adding new bakery items over the years. You know, taking influences from all different countries. Of course, the fluffy bun bread, you got to attribute it somewhat to the British because, you know, traditional Chinese bread is not this fluffy. But this pineapple bun, man, the bolo bao, this is probably the most famous and quintessential bun of a Cantonese bakery. But they stuffed it with custard. David, these are kind of like old school powder drinks. I'm pretty sure they've been around for at least 40 years each. And they're kind of your original slim fast mixtures. They kind of praise themselves on probably having some vitamins, some type of protein, but you know, overall it's like a powder drink. Ovaltine Horlicks. It's comparable to like a Milo mixed with a watered down hot chocolate. Three, two, one. I would say Horlicks kind of tastes like a soybean milk vanilla powdered milk flavoring. Cheap tasty dim sum is truly one of the wonders of the world in my opinion. You have 50 different dishes. Each one is prepared with different flavors, different ingredients. Some are braised, some are fried, but they're almost all delicately steamed in bamboo baskets only to charge anywhere from $3 to $6 a dish. Handmade food for that price, honestly, is underrated. You guys, I mean, I don't know who else would eat bitter melon like this with the black bean sauce, but you can just be a survivalist. This is the Chew Chow Fung Kong. And Chew Chow people, they really love the mochi wrapper. This is something that nobody else does that's Cantonese. Not Guangzhou Cantos, not Hakkas. It's called Ham Shui Kong. Also, as you can tell, very Chew Chow looking on the inside and very mochi-like on the outside, but this one's fried additionally. If you ever wondered how they came up with such a gigantic variety of dim sum dishes, it's because they are incorporating many different Southern tribes together as one. These two are Hakka dishes. This is Moo Choy Khao Yok, and this is Tai Ping Mai Fun. And actually, Hakka people led the Tai Ping Revolution, which was actually against the Manchu Qing Dynasty. So that is an interesting thing about Tai Ping. And of course, this is a classic Canto dish. Growing up, our dad is actually more of like a GZ, I guess, like Canto-Canto. So we did not eat a lot of Chew Chow and Hakka food until I moved to Monterey Park, Alhambra area, which has a ton of Chew Chow people and some Hakkas. So there are some dishes that are more popular outside of Hong Kong, more in Guangzhou, or Taishan, or Zhongshan, or different sands. You know, there's sands all over the Guangdong area. And two of them are, I would say, the Chew Yok Beng and this Fu Gua beef. I definitely remember eating this growing up, but I did not really eat too much of this. If you take anything away from this video, just remember that the beloved Cha Cha sauce is from the Chow Chow people. They deserve credit for it. If you ask any true Cantonese foodies, they'll know about Chew Chow food. Everything from Cha Cha sauce to the Dai Pai Dongs. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of Chow Chow restaurants in America right now. You get to try their food mostly by way of the diaspora dishes from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, and so on.