BEST Cheap Eats & HIDDEN GEMS in NEW YORK Pt. 8 VIII (Chinatown)

The most random purchase of maybe all the Chinatown Cheap Eats. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Wenzhou. Oh, okay. Alright, guys, come to Supreme. Come see her from Wenzhou. Alright. Damn it. Welcome to part eight of our Chinatown series. We're hoping this is accomplishing our original goals of showing you some hidden gems, inviting people back to Chinatown, and showing off the personalities and humanity behind all this ridiculously cheap and delicious food. In this episode, we got for you a Supreme xiaolongbao battle, secret Cajun seafood boils, fluffy cake dessert alley, and the most hyped of hyped roast meats. So hit that like button and let us know in the comments down below if we should continue this series. Chinatown part eight, New York, let's go. But real quick, I gotta give a big shout out to our sponsor of the video, Bokksu. It is the most traditional, rare, and I think the best Japanese snack box subscription you can get. Let's look inside. So coming straight to your doorstep from Osaka, Japan, it's a very nicely packaged box. Discover Japan through snacks. Each month has a different theme. So this theme is mochi. Look at all these snacks here. You know, I took a trip to Tokyo like a few years ago and I didn't see any of this. And if you are interested in Bokksu, make sure you use FUNBROS10 to get 10% off your own snack box and save up to $47. And Bokksu is the only Japanese snack box that partners with 100-year-old Japanese businesses. So if you are interested, if you're an otaku or a weeaboo, or you're just looking for some rare Japanese snacks that you cannot find at your regular Asian supermarket, definitely check out Bokksu at the link down below. All right, enjoy the rest of this video. All right, you guys, we have the showdown of the cheap Chinatown, Shanghainese spots. I didn't know that there was like 10 of them in Chinatown. There's like Shanghai 21, there's Joe's Ginger's, Joe's Shanghai, Supreme. There is a lot of xiaolongbaos. In this video, we gotta find out which ones are the best. All right, so we are just actually getting the standard pork xiaolongbao everywhere we go. This is the New York style. It's gigantic. I wouldn't say that this is the biggest I've seen though. Immediately, Andrew, what are your thoughts on Joe's Ginger? It looks a little smaller. It is holding pretty well. It looks pretty thin. Actually, I'm pretty excited. I've never had Joe's Ginger. I would say this looks similar to the ones that you would get in Shanghai. We are judging the pork xiaolongbao, Joe's Ginger. Overall, pretty solid. That's my initial feeling. I've gotta go in for my second one. You know, this is the first xiaolongbaos of the day, but it's not the last. I'm gonna go ahead and give this one a 3.8 out of five. I was gonna say a solid 3.75. Filling was definitely enjoyable. There was nothing bad about that xiaolongbao, but since we're gonna be trying so many guys, I have to leave some room for improvement, okay? Joe's Ginger's xiaolongbao, 3.75. Damn, when was the last time you had one of these? Probably shooting with you guys. However you want, man. I'm just gonna eat it whole. All right, you guys, I just ordered the pork xiaolongbaos from Joe's Shanghai. This is probably the most famous spot in the city to get the gigantic New York-style XLB xiaolongbaos. Let's see how they compare. All right, you guys, we've got Joe's Shanghai on the left side. We've got Shanghai Asian Cuisine on the right side. What a name. Wow, Shanghai Asian Cuisine. We're on the alleyway that connects Elizabeth and Bowery right now. Very famous, low-key food alley because New West Malaysia also a banger of bangers. Maybe a 4.5 out of 5 type spot on this street. So you actually have outdoor dining built up inside of this alleyway. Joe's Shanghai, $10, guys. Every spot has been about $10. Wow, the amount of soup inside of Joe's soup dumplings are incredible. I gotta say, these are some of the biggest xiaolongbaos you can even have. What I would say that I like really about Joe's Shanghai is that the skin is really thin, but it's big. But it doesn't break either. Yeah, it doesn't break, but it's thin. So that's important. All right, here we go. This is Shanghai Asian Cuisine. The amount of soup. It looks like a- It looks different, it looks different. It looks like a perfect bowl. Looks more of a Disney-like. Yeah. Guys, it is interesting to see the difference in xiaolongbaos. Joe's has some really good pork flavor. I'm torn. All three spots that we've been to, Joe's Ginger, Joe's Shanghai, and Shanghai Asian Cuisine, Andrew, were all good at different things. I can see why Joe's Shanghai won overall. Joe's- It just eked it out, though. Man, that pork broth flavor is so strong. Joe's Shanghai, it still might be number one. Anyways, guys, we're outside of Supreme Restaurant. So this spot used to be called Shanghai Dumpling for many years, and that's why it has over 2,000 reviews on Yelp. But recently, they changed their name. Maybe it was a change of ownership. We gotta check out Shanghai He Ping right next door, too. You guys, they're going head to head. Guys, if there are two Shanghainese spots next to each other, what makes you think we're not gonna compare the two? All right, you guys, the XLB wars continue. We are at Supreme Restaurant on Mott Street. Like I said, guys, there are so many soup dumpling spots. I hesitate to call them full Shanghainese spots because they're not fully authentic, but they are serving the Shanghainese xiaolongbaos. I'm not gonna lie, guys. Might be pushing my number one. That's the most balanced one I had so far today in terms of balance between the flavor, the amount of juice, the skin. Maybe my only complaint is that the skin was a little thick, but as far as Supreme Restaurant goes, let me tell you guys, that's a good xiaolongbao in terms of balance. Thick skin, okay, I'm just gonna eat it first. It might be the best one, man. That Supreme's XLB ranked number one in every category, but you gotta look at an overall aggregate score. I'm not gonna say anything until we try Shanghai He Ping. They've been in business for 10 years. Woo! Okay, these were only $6.95, though. That's super cheap. That is dumb cheap. Shanghai He Ping, aka Shanghai Peace. Not bad, $6.95. I don't know. For me, I'm going with Supreme. Really good for $6.95. Wow, I gotta say, for sub $7, that was a good deal. But if I was going to just compare on just taste, Supreme Restaurant is pretty good, man. I would say the skin is a little thick. Yeah, the skin is a little thick. That's what I said in my review. However, I will say that the meat is not grainy, and the grainy meat is a huge knock. Are you guys from Shanghai? I'm very close to Shanghai, but I'm not from Shanghai. Oh, but you're from that area? Yeah, very close, yes. What, Suzhou, Hangzhou? Wenzhou. Wenzhou, oh, okay. All right, guys, come to Supreme. Come see her from Wenzhou. All right, guys, I'm on Pell Street, and I'm here at Vegetarian Dim Sum House. As you guys know, there are a lot of Chinese vegetarian spots in Chinatown that you can choose from, but this spot specializes in dim sum, so I've actually never had vegetarian dim sum. All right, guys, here we are starting off with Vegetarian Dim Sum House. This is the Pell Street trifecta right here. Here are the fried taro balls. So this originally doesn't even have meat, but this is one of the best dishes. Mm, yeah, I can see why that's one of the best dishes. Honestly, I was very impressed. If you told me that that was real char siu with just a little bit less flavor, I would believe you. David, here is one of my favorite dim sum dishes, the Xin Jiakun. This is the bean curd and pork roll. Obviously, the vegetarian version. Vegetarian version. David, for me personally, this reminds me of that dish that mom and dad would make, the vegetarian char siu bao. They make their char siu look like meat. This one's not bad. It's easy to eat. I wouldn't say it quite tastes like meat. All right, you guys, as far as Buddhist cuisine goes in terms of vegetarian dim sum, I'm gonna go ahead and give this place, oh, surprising four out of five because aesthetically, I'm not gonna lie, some of the other vegetarian spots, they seem a little bit more high-end. This spot was just bringing the flavor. 4.25. That spot was good. You know, for the younger generation, Andrew, it's definitely desserts, boba shops, sneaker drops, Supreme drops. It creates this type of hype, but for the older generation here in Chinatown, it's gotta be char siu. Yo, I have not seen a roast meat spot be so hyped to have such a long line, to have such a long wait, but it's hei hei roasted meat. I think that this kind of signals that even the char siu spots are becoming more modern and stuff, so I'm really excited to see how it tastes. I don't know. Maybe it's gonna taste really traditional. Maybe it's gonna taste updated. All right, so we made it to Columbus Park. We got our hei hei roast meats, and man, between just the packaging and everything, the cleanliness, David, this is looking different than any other spot in Chinatown. So basically, the owner is a young Chinese Malaysian, and their goal is to kind of have something for 2021 that really shows the new modern age that they wanna see Chinatown enter. And everything here was pretty much under $10. Even this was $10. That was $10.75. Yeah, it was $10.75 with the additional $3 chicken leg. Over here, Andrew, you've got more of your stewed chicken leg, your roast duck, and shoyu. People love boxes of meat and rice so much in Chinatown. I almost wanna say, could you say it's number one? Bro, I mean, this is what Chinatown is known for. It is the roast meats. All right, so I would say there's not that much duck pieces, but the duck pieces that are there look great. Let's do it. Is hei hei bringing the best roast meats in Chinatown in 2021? All right, right now- Is he bringing Chinatown into 2021? Yo, straight up, let me tell you that. That was fire. Moving on. Oh my gosh, look at this. Guys, as you can see, the shoyu is falling apart. Little crispy skin on top. Let's get it. I got a lot of seasoning on the inside of the pig where they rub it a lot. Not bad at all, but a little salty. Stewed chicken. It's good. I'm not saying it's the best, but straight up, after having those three, it's up there. Ginger scallion. All right, Andrew. Andrew, as somebody who probably likes ginger scallion chicken even more than me, I got to get your opinion because you put more focus on this dish than I do. The flavor is as deep and strong as any other chicken I've had in Chinatown. I could see some people thinking it's a little bit too salty. If you want to talk about flavor, they got it here at hei hei. Char siu here. I'm not going to lie, it doesn't look that amazing, but I got to try it. Middle tier on char siu, middle. Barbecue pork scrambled egg. Okay. Are you impressed at how much they were able to make this taste like authentic fast food back in China? It's really crazy how much it tastes like I've just been transported to Guangzhou. David, this looks like we got this out of the steamer at 7-Eleven, man. Wow, easy to pull back. So this is not moo choy, kao yuk. This is just- No, because there's no moo choy. This is just kao yuk, some style. Some Cantonese kao yuk. Braised, they call this braised Guangzhou style. Oh my God. Look at this jiggling. Oh, like some collagen. Andrew, I also was recommended this tofu. Oh, this looks good. This garlic tofu. Look at how much color this has. I think hei hei is a spot you have to check out because it is doing things differently. It's delivering a different style of food, fast food style. It's sealed. It probably carries well. The roast meats are good, particularly the chicken and the duck, but man, it was all pretty fairly priced. Yo, for me overall, I'm gonna go ahead and give hei hei roasted meats a 4.5 out of five. I was gonna say 4.5 out of five, guys. This is a must try Chinatown cheap eat. It's new, it's clean. They're doing things differently. Way to start off 2021 with a banger. Bro, are they bringing Chinatown into 2021? I don't wanna just give them all the credit. Obviously, it's the people, it's the thinking, it's everything. But man, I think this spot has set a new standard. All right, right next to Vegetarian Dim Sum House, you got Mee Sum Cafe. This is a classic spot. Also on Pell Street, Ronnie Chang just filmed a movie here as well, but this is a classic spot. It's really gonna give you those old school cafe vibes. David, we have Mee Sum Cafe, 52 years in Chinatown. 52 years. Five, two. Detective Jackie, you was filmed here. Shout out to Ronnie Chang. Okay, Andrew, you ordered a ham and egg sandwich. Now that's different because the egg is a kind of over easy egg or over medium egg. It looks more Western. Yeah, as opposed to a kind of like a scrambled egg. And then we have this really tasty looking shrimp and egg. And I like it because if you look at that shrimp, look at how that's cooked right there. That's extra flavor, baby. Chicago, boom. This was the one that caught my eye. Do it, do it, just do it. Every ingredient is way more American. The ham is more American and the egg is more American. Tastes way more homemade than a lot of spots. I'm really excited about this because it has my two favorite types of onion, purple onion and green onion. Man, I would say everything tastes really, really homemade. Yeah. Dude, this Mee Sum Cafe, might as well call that homemade cafe. Okay, mixed combination, guys. David, you're a Zongzi guy. This is freshly steamed mixed combination, boom. You know that I know about Zongzi because I have a favorite part of the Zongzi. Zongzi's here at Mee Sum. Everything tastes like a grandma at church made it. Yo, man, I don't know if there's anything more traditional than Mee Sum. Even the name is like, I feel like every, there's always a spot called a Mee Sum. It might not be my like favorite of favorite in terms of flavor wise. I think it's good. But in terms of tasting homemade with very little oil, very little, you know, MSG, sodium, Mee Sum has got to take the cake. Man, if you want to kind of take a break from the Chinatown food style, which is a little bit saltier, Mee Sum Cafe. And not only that, you probably can't even make this for as cheap as they cook it for. My next spot is Foodhouse. Shout out to them for snagging this name. I mean, it's pretty generic, but just Foodhouse. Shout out to them. They have 6.99 double chicken drumsticks with rice. They also have a 6.99 pork chop with rice. To me, I've never had, I don't really know what a double chicken drumstick is. So I'm going to try it. I'll let you guys know if it's any good. This is Foodhouse on Eldridge. Here, I just got a pound of Cajun shrimp here at Foodhouse. It was unexpected. I saw this sign. It's just like Boiling Crab or The Boil or wherever else you want to call it. They got it here randomly. All right, guys, moving down Eldridge Street. I'm here at 3AA Cafe and Deli. I have no idea what they serve, but I'm going to go check it out. Let's see. What's up? Okay, thank you. Hey, what's your name? Kenny. Kenny from Hong Kong, man. Where in Hong Kong are you from? Kowloon side. Which MTR stop? I just know stuff by MTRs. MTR? Yeah. My stop is... Pete's Arbor. Prince Edward. Oh, Prince Edward. Oh, okay. I heard of it. Yeah, Prince Edward. Okay, Kenny, this is some... Malaysian and then Hong Kong style, the sandwich. So you will like it. All right, Kenny. Bye. Thank you. Okay. Happy New Year. Thank you. Oh, hey. The Two Bridges area, you know, Fourside, Division Street, right next to the train. Shout out to 3AA Cafe and my man Kenny from Hong Kong. All right. I had no idea that this was a hidden gem. Peep that. Guys, this is a part of a balanced Hong Kong breakfast. Shout out to Kenny. I'm not gonna lie. That essentially did taste kind of like a Hong Kong version of a sausage, egg and cheese from McDonald's. So I liked it. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. All right. So I got the sandwich and this Cha Kway Teow for only $11. Guys, I can smell more of that funk, that fish sauce, that, you know, that Malaysian style. This is not like your regular Cantonese Gong Cheng Oh Ho. This is Cha Kway Teow, hawker stall style, man. Clean tasting. Like I got it from a hawker stall in the mall. Have a seafood boil, the most random purchase of maybe all the Chinatown cheap eats. Most random. This is $15 a pound. And for me, usually I like to go eat the whole thing, but for this sake, you know, I might have to peel it for you guys. Food house. I'm just eating the whole shrimp, man. I'm not gonna lie, guys. This is how I eat my Cajun boils. So comparing it to places like The Boil or Boiling Crab, it's definitely a little bit less buttery and a little bit less oily. A little bit more towards the traditional Cajun style, which is more like heavily Old Bay seasoning. But man, just to get it on Eldridge Street, that is a deal. $15, one pound of shrimp. All right, here we got a $6.99 double chicken drumstick over rice. If you're on Eldridge and you want a bunch of chicken and rice, go to Food House. All right, our next spot here on the Chinatown cheap eats crawl is on Essex Street. It's called Taco Recipes. And you guys, it's a Tex-Mex spot ran by a Chinese family. Is it authentic traditional Mexican food? I mean, it is Tex-Mex, and Tex-Mex is kind of like Chinese-American food, a version of Mexican food that is legit, even though it's from essentially Texas. But guys, Essex Street. I mean, we're talking about Mexican food cooked by Chinese people. Let's go. I have a question. Why are you guys... Are you Fujian people? Oh, okay. What make you guys cook Mexican food? Okay. All right, everybody. So I got to talk to the lady working there real quick, and I wanted to know the story on why they're serving Tex-Mex. And it was actually because they learned Tex-Mex here in America, and they were kind of talking about how like Fujianese food doesn't sell as well to like, you know, the Westerners, but Mexican food does. And here I got the three tacos. Each taco is about $3, but it depends on what I got inside. Obviously, the chicken and shrimp one are a little bit more expensive than the chili one. Shrimp taco, 360. That was actually pretty tasty. The shrimp had a really nice char to it. Chicken crispy taco. Food here is very healthy tasting, actually. It's very clean. All right, next for $5, I have a chicken quesadilla. All right, nice little single serving here. Quesadilla tastes healthy. Probably doesn't have the most flavor. It maybe doesn't taste like it was like cooked on the street, but nonetheless, very solid. All right, next. This is my last item here at Taco Recipes. Guys, this is the one y'all been waiting for. This is the chicken and steak combo plate. $9, $8.99. This is good. I recommend, this is a must cop. Guys, $8.99. You get freshly grilled chicken. You got freshly grilled steak. It's in its own lane and it's good. All right, we're here at Reception Bar on Orchard Street, but there's a Round K Cafe pop-up that's serving all the brunch food during the day. Here, we have each item that's about $10. So it fits in. It's barely in there. It's barely in there, guys. But you gotta look at what you're getting for the $10. Dude, it's like I said with cream, guys, it's a value. All right, talk about it. You guys, this is kimchi butter eggs croissant BLT. Take a look at this. It's a kimchi butter BLT. Guys, I mean, you have a thick cut bacon. You got fresh eggs. You have a lot of avocado. I mean, by all means, these are not the cheapest ingredients. So, yes. Over here, we have a ube boat toast for $10. Okay, let me just- Aesthetically beautiful. Wow, I'm just gonna cut this in half for you guys to see. Andrew, this is a kimchi wrapped piece of bacon. So the bacon is cooked with kimchi cheese thrown with avocado on a roll, $10. I mean, dude- I think it's really cool to see more Korean stuff in Chinatown. Yeah, especially, I mean, this is definitely on the exterior of Chinatown. But man, I mean, like we said, Chinatown is always very welcoming of all different businesses. Reception bar. Brunch sandwiches. Look how crispy this is. Kimchi butter, kimchi mayo, wrapped up with the thick cut, almost like more Canadian bacon, more than American bacon. I could easily see that being $15 or $16 somewhere else. All right, guys. The kimchi cooked bacon is fire. The bacon hot dog sandwich, or whatever you want to call this, get this one here. This is different. Last but not least, Andrew, we've got the ube boat cake. Wow, it's decadent. Wow. Round K was a hipster Korean cafe in the Lower East Side that closed down due to the pandemic, but they kind of moved here and took over the lunch service at reception bar. Nighttime, they're doing soju cocktails, like this one right here. Daytime, you've got some borderline, but very good Chinatown Cheap Eats. All right, guys. On to the next spot. All right, guys. This is Chinatown Cheap Eats part eight. You know we got to take it to places that you've never seen before. We are on Rutgers and Henry in the Lower East Side, more of the Two Bridges area. And guys, I know this is outside of Chinatown, but this is absolutely a hidden gem and a cheap eat. I'm talking about Forever Taste. It's actually one of the places I personally like to go to. I'm going to show you what's up. All right, guys. I just got my food from Forever Taste. All this for $24. So the interesting thing about Forever Taste is that it's a Fujianese family, but the husband learned how to cook Shanxi food when he got to Chinatown. So that's why there's some very Shanxi dishes here that are even hard to find in other parts of Chinatown. So this is the You Po Mian. I've eaten this dish in Beijing. I've loved it. This is only $7. Simple dish, lots of veggies, no meat, vegetarian. Personally, this is my favorite dish to get here at Forever Taste. This is the Fan Chieh Chow Dan, which is the tomato egg. Woo! Yo Dan, you smell that? I requested to get a little bit spicy. Look, come on, you got bok choy, you got tomatoes, you got eggs. I mean, I know this is a very homestyle dish for a lot of people, but this is the one here. This is a must get here at Forever Taste. And just like a lot of spots out here, this is on Rutgers Street, and it serves all types of people. So you know they gotta have their Chinese American classics, but I wanted to try this one because they said this is really good. This is one of their specialties. This is beef with orange peel. And you guys, I'm not gonna lie. Look, legit. They're not lying about that orange peel. Look, my stamp of approval. This tastes like restaurant quality. Like, all right, guys, of course it would not be a Chinatown Cheap Eats if I didn't try the dumplings here. Very cheap, great deal. Let me just squeeze some of this. This is not a spot that a lot of people are gonna talk about. I think you're really gonna appreciate it if you live in this area. Is it a place that I would recommend you, you know, going off the beaten path just to try? I mean, I think it's really solid. So if you live around the area, you can get pretty much all the different types of noodles that you want here. All right, you guys, Noodle Village. I'm excited. Famous for their joke. Probably, honestly, some of the best joke in Chinatown. How much was the joke? All right, so the jokes were about $10 each. All right, you guys, right next to Noodle Village is Wok Wok. This is one of the best Chinese Malaysian spots around. However, the reason that we were kind of holding off on putting it in Cheap Eats is they are more like towards the $20 range. But for lunch menu, lunch special, you know, they do have some cheaper sub $10 items. So we're gonna check those out. All right, you guys, two of the better and newer restaurants in Chinatown, NYC are Noodle Village and Wok Wok. You have Hainan Chicken, $10. Crispy Garlic Chicken over Rice, $10. Roti Cheese Telur, which is $6. Hokkien Hakka Tak Tak Mee. So that's for the Wok Wok Malaysian side, okay? And Noodle Village is known for a lot of things. They're known for being really solid at everything, but their best things are their jokes. This is a Yupin joke, but with real fish pieces. These are not frozen. This is a Sateen Chicken Kanji, Sateen Kai joke. All right, you guys, like we said, Noodle Village, Wok Wok, same space. I love the collaboration. They're getting along with each other. Not seeing each other as rivals, but rather collaborators. All right, you guys, we have the Hainan Chicken right here. $9.95 over Rice. Boom, boom. The flavor is there in the sauces. Next up, we've got the Crispy Garlic Chicken. I was surprised to see this for $9.95 over Rice. Normally I would say Hainan. Here at Wok Wok, get the Garlic Crispy Chicken. This is Cheese Roti Quesadilla with a Chicken Curry Dip. So this was only like $7. This was a good-ass deal. Andrew, I think we're onto something here. That's a winner. This is a winner. Last but not least, here at Wok Wok, we got the Tok Tok Mee. I don't think a lot of people know about these like Hakka noodles. Andrew, the wonton mee comes pre-soy sauce. Everything's already set, but you know what? They give you this dish of garnishes on the side, and I just, boom, Tok Tok at Wok Wok. Andrew, I love this at Bok Hee. I love it here. This might be the most underrated dish in the Chinese diaspora. All right, you guys, you gotta try out these jooks. I know a lot of people like to get the preserved egg and the pork, but this is a European jook. This is a real fresh fish slice. I got some fish skins right here. I might just eat that with that. What? Honestly, the way Noodle Village does their congees or their jooks, they are very comparable to something you can get in Hong Kong. Listen, guys, one pro tip is to check out the cheaper dishes that more expensive restaurants have, because sometimes that same quality and attention to care transfers over to even their stuff that's $10 and under. I'm here at Banh Mi Co Oop, and they are serving authentic Vietnamese food. Okay, come on. Come on. Okay, trying the pho. Wow, straight up, that is actually really beefy pho. It's got heavy cinnamon. The tendon is soft. And guys, I gotta say that this is definitely one of the more tastier phos in Chinatown. All right, you guys, we are looking at two dessert spots owned by the same company, Taiyaki Dough Club. We've filmed here before, Andrew, but since then, Taiyaki has obviously added the Japanese souffle pancakes. These are actually, you know, you gotta be pretty patient to cook these. Yo, I love how Taiyaki and them are always innovating and bringing the new things that are trendy, even if they are high labor, and it's a lot of trouble to cook. I mean, they're putting in that work. Look at that. So fluffy, ah, wah, ha. Japanese souffle pancakes from Taiyaki. You know, interestingly enough, it actually does kind of have somewhat of the texture of a sponge cake. The dalgona coffee, this is like the trendy new Asian way to drink coffee. Guys, dalgona coffee's really good. If you've never had it, it's a different texture. It's like whipped coffee. One of these is ube-flavored and one of these is churro-flavored. Light, chewy, almost like a chewy ube beignet. Of course, you guys, you have the classic mochi donuts. You know, this kind of blew up recently, I wanna say two years ago. Only the good spots are still around. Wow, that one's good. Oh, are these better than the last time I had them? Yeah, super good for sharing, too. This is fire. Very light, everything. Dough Club, Chinatown, NYC. All right, David, here we have three of the sponge cakes from Cam Heng Bakery. That is the classic spot across the street, but they have some new flavors that you didn't cover. All right, guys, so man, shout out to Cam Heng, the OG. And you know, they always make them shaped like boats, they were saying. It's just their distinct shape. So this is a strawberry one. Never had it before. It's good. This is good. I think this one's pandan. That's not green tea, that's pandan. I'm gonna give it to strawberry. You were right. Strawberry. All right, everybody, time for a quick boba break. We're on this kind of like part of Canal Street right now that's like kind of sort of cut off and split off by the bridge, but we're on Canal and Eldridge. This is Moge tea. And this is actually a chain from Guangzhou and has hundreds of locations worldwide, but just 20 in America and four to five in New York alone. Moge tea, not Moge. Woo! All right, we got the Moge tea. Everything here was about $17. So, you know, it's not the cheapest drinks, but they boast the high quality with the black grape cheese foam. Let me just pop the top. If you just eat that straight up, it might be a little too creamy and salty. Blended black grape, the juices at the bottom, nice little salty, creamy topping, creme brulee, uji matcha. You guys know uji matcha, top quality matcha here. That's decadent, bro. This is super smooth. And it's got all this creme brulee cream right here, man. I don't even know how many calories this is, but I don't even care. Yifeng fruit tea, as of right now, the ones that I've had, that's probably the best fruit tea, okay? But let me try the Moge, Moge tea. It's pretty good. I give it a four out of five. Guys, if you want to get really good cheese foam and fruit tea somewhere, you can get this. Does it beat Yifeng? Maybe not, maybe not. It doesn't edge it out, but shout out to Moge tea, guys. Chinatown, Cheap Eats part eight. I've been looking for this dish since part six. It's the elusive chicken mushroom dish from 57 Bayard. We got to see if they have it. Let me ask one more time. I don't know if I'm too late. Buckwheat chicken rice. It's like it's sold out? What time? Damn it. All right, guys, you know what? I didn't get the dish that I wanted, so I didn't even take a bite yet. I'm going to give this away to somebody who probably needs it, so. We do give a lot of our food away, by the way. We either eat it, we keep it, or we give it away to somebody. Okay, we are outside of Audrey Bakery here on Bowery, and of all the bakeries that we've been to in Chinatown that are Chinese-owned, this one definitely stands out being a little bit more aesthetically focused. The owner is Fujianese. The main chef of all the bakery items is Taiwanese, and then you got a Chinese-Cambodian guy working at the counter. Guys, I'm not going to lie. I ended up spending $25 here. Look at this roll. There's corn, there's yok sung, which is the pork sung, sprinkled with a little seaweed on top. Whoa. Very interesting, David. I think you're going to like this. Next item is the tuna sandwich for $4.75. Not super cheap, but it looks high quality. Has a little tangy kick. Very solid and healthy tasting. I rock with it. Mixed nut bread, perfect for the holidays. Ooh, it's a little chewy, crispy, crunchy. Giving me some holiday fruitcake vibes, but on bread, not bad. Last but not least, we got the ham croissant, tomatoes, lettuce. Very high quality looking fruit. Audrey Bakery, not bad. I do think it's representative of where a lot of the bakeries in Chinatown are moving, especially ones that can appeal to a different audience. As you can see, there was all types of people in there. All right, everybody. We are at Two Le Jours again on Division Street. I know this is like our third time here, but I just have to tell you, they're always doing different things, man. And it is a little bit more expensive than other bakeries, but they're always innovating. Listen, they have this cream puff pastry right here. I'm going to show you. I mean, this is just so fluffy. All right, guys, here I have macaroons. They're $2.25 each. Not super cheap, but obviously with the quality and flavor, guys, come on. This is a birthday cake one. This is a cookies and cream one. It's a tough call, but I'm going to roll with the birthday cake one just because I love birthday cake. This is West New Malaysia, aren't you guys? New West Malaysia is inside this tiny alleyway here in Chinatown. They are basically serving Cantonese Malaysian food. So if you guys don't know, Malaysia has a gigantic Chinese population. This is a prawn noodle using egg noodles, but these are not egg, you know, toh min. This is a Hainan curry haw fun. Haw fun are these rice noodles right here. Andrew, they have the patty of fried chicken. This is sort of based off a Thai Chinese style. They do have a little bit of Thai Chinese influence here. It tastes like Thai fried chicken presented in a different format and maybe a 25% different spice recipe. Okay, so overall, the flavor of this curry is really on point. I can see for some people it being a little light. Last but not least, we've got the prawn noodle here, the Penang prawn noodle. All right, so everything here at New West Malaysia was impressive. I'm going to have to go with the Hainan curry noodle, man, because I think that that eatability while maintaining the flavor was a rare balance. All right, you guys, we are on Canal Street. Kind of crazy right now. I'm seeing all types of stimulus happen around me. We are at An Pan Man Bakery. Okay, as you can see, they've got the whole menu here. $1, $1.25, obviously used to be 80 cents. Can we get the bolo yao? Looking at a fresh bolo yao. Andrew, this was special request by you. She heated it up, sliced the butter. I wanted to try this red bean bun because it looks crazy. It's like the shape of a bagel. It's all right. I mean, it's more for looks, but you get the bolo yao, butter and bolo bao. Let's go. All right, you guys, I would say that Nanya has a lot of dishes that are outside of the $10 range, but if you wanna come for lunch or dinner and get the rice dishes, you can get a Hainan chicken with rice for $10. You can get a curry chicken with bone for $10 and a curry beef with rice for $11. Overall, guys, I'm gonna give this $10 chicken rice from Nanya a 4.5 out of five. A less common dish, but one that people order a lot for $10 is the curry chicken. I might just have to go ahead and upgrade this to a 4.75 out of five. That's how close it is. Okay, we got to turn the tables because I'm a huge fan of this beef curry. It does remind me of beef rendang, even though I can't say it's the same recipe, but it does kind of have that deep Malaysian, Indonesian kind of curry spice. All right, so a reason why we'd never filmed at Nanya is because it is not a hidden gem, but it is definitely on the tier of a cheap eat and it's so versatile. You can take a date here. You could be here by yourself. You can go here with your bros. It really fits all different occasions. And I mean, that's it. I mean, that's how good of a spot this is. M&W Bakery, East Broadway. All right, you guys, there are so many bakeries. They're so low key, but I'm super excited. This one actually has some unique items. You guys, they've got the lemon pie. Definitely worth $1.75. All right, everybody. I am outside of Shing Wong BBQ over here on East Broadway. It's a very low key spot and they actually have a lot of stuff on the menu. I could have gotten a number of items over rice. For $8, I got two types of chicken and of course duck. This is a pretty decent spot right here. All right, you guys, we're at Chiu Hong Bakery on Mott. One thing that's very interesting about here is they actually have chocolate cookies. You guys, what makes Chiu Hong special is they actually have traditional things like mooncakes, but they also have Italian things because Mott Street is a hybrid between a Chinese street and Italian street. You would not expect to find chocolate madeleines at a Chinese bakery, but not bad. If you want a chocolate finger cooked by a Chinese person, I mean, this is the way you gotta go. Moving on to more Italian things that the Chinese bakery has. This is a Neapolitan. It tastes half Italian, half Chinese. So that's the Chinese Neapolitan. Last but not least, they have two mochi balls for $1. These are 50 cents a pop. Come get this peanut filled snowball mochi and get the Neapolitan. Cheap. All right, you guys, last but not least, wrapping up Cheap Chinatown Eats Part Eight. Andrew, we are at a brand new spot called Prince Tea House. It went from Queens, flushing into the city. Very rare to make that borough to the city transition. Usually it's, you know, urban city brand going into the borough. What do you think this represents? I mean, I think this represents kind of how the Asian enclaves are growing. And this spot is not just in Chinatown. They actually have a location in East Village for there to be a very heavily Asian dessert spot that is in kind of non-Asian zones and introducing this type of Japanese French inspired dessert cafes to the rest of the population. I mean, I think it's important. And it just goes to show you that something can be successful from the enclave and come back into the city. You guys, we've done eight of these episodes. We've eaten at over 125 spots. One thing I want to say is keep going and supporting these cheap Chinatown businesses, but do not expect them to stay cheap because at the end of the day, a lot of people are actually undervaluing their service and their own work. So if you're a consumer and maybe you haven't been on the other side where you're producing a product or, you know, running a small business, you have to understand that it's great that these places are cheap, especially serving the consumers in the local area. Profit margins are razor thin and in some cases, not even there at all. And it is unlikely that one of these cheap businesses close down and then another cheap business that's the same price will open in its place. So appreciate the cheap businesses while they are here, but do not expect the new modern iterations where people are fairly paying themselves and being fairly compensated for the hard work and how hard they bust their ass to be nearly as cheap. Guys, spend your money just like you spend your money at Western establishments. Let's check out Prince Teahouse. You guys, we are ordering one fruit toast for 10.75. That's about the $10 price range. And we're getting one brown sugar Boba Millie crepe for $10 as well. And you guys, last but not least on this Chinatown Cheap Eats Crawl number eight, we're here at Prince Teahouse straight from Flushing. Andrew, this is $10, this is $11. You know, a little bit pricey. I know that this spot can get pricey, but these totally fit within our range, $10. And I wanna note that obviously it's dessert so you can share it. It's meant to be shared, so you're not paying $11 per person. I would say share this with at least three people. Boba Mill Crepe. This is a French concept where you take a thin slice cream, thin slice cream, you know, all the way up maybe 27 to 35 layers each. Really popularized by Lady M. This is a Taiwanese brick tea toast. And I think the really interesting thing about Prince Teahouse is it's based off of Japanese French cafes. Based their whole aesthetic off France, circa what, like 1830? As far as this Boba Mill Crepe goes, I give it a four out of five. Very solid creme brulee top. They torched it a little bit. I will eat Boba pearls on this cake. I suggest using a knife. It actually tastes better when you cut the slices with a knife versus just attacking it. There is a lot of cream in that, though. But let me just saw it in half. Yo, I actually think that that's why Prince Teahouse has so much appeal. They're basing their whole aesthetic off, like, 1850s France, which I believe is the first time that Japanese sent an envoy to France to learn from them. All right, guys. Brick toast. It's just a nice piece of brick. It's carved up a little bit, buttered, toasted. That's a nice brick. Oh, that's a tasty brick, man. Ooh, let me get some of this brick. You know, I've eaten a lot of food, David. It's all just a blur to me at this point. All right, everybody. So we're gonna wrap it up right here at Prince Teahouse. That was Chinatown Cheap Eats part eight. Thank you so much for watching. If you made it this far and you have not hit that like button, please do so right now. If you haven't clicked subscribe, please do so right now. And please let us know in the comments down below even if there's more spots that we need to check out or even more neighborhoods around the New York area because we are going out to Jersey and Queens a little bit more. Yeah, the reason that we don't every day is because, well, we live right by here, so it makes it a lot easier if we got other stuff to do during the day. But it doesn't mean that we don't come up with a plan we can go execute it. I mean, listen, a lot of people still ask us, hey guys, how many more of these are you gonna do? I'm like, hey, how many more good cheap eats are there in Chinatown? I mean, I think there's still some. We may have to elevate it beyond the $10 range to start covering the other spots because I feel like the spots that serve $20 things, they need love too. That's true. You know what's funny? When we first started the series, it was under $6. Then it was under eight and then we had to bump it up to under 10 just because, I mean, to be honest with you, we're running out of the really cheap spots. But yeah, guys, thank you so much for watching. We enjoy doing this series. Please check out all the other episodes if you have not and please support your local businesses. Thank you for watching and until next time, we out. Peace. All right, everybody, thanks for watching that video and I'm gonna leave it on this note. As hate continues to peer its ugly head out more, you know, resulting in verbal and physical attacks, it's more important than ever to support the community and protect oneself and protect one's family. So below you'll find some links to legitimate organizations and also some resources to report potential hate crimes of those sorts. So stay safe, stay aware, talk to your family, keep them safe. And again, thanks for watching, subscribe. And until next time, we out. Peace.