Henan Food: Best Chinese Hand Pulled Noodles!

You can really wear it. Really? You can wear it in the thinnest possible way. Really? And then you brought me here. I brought you here. And I lived in this neighborhood for, I don't know, six, seven, eight years. Right. And I'm like, I never came here. Right. And I took you here. I was hooked. And now I come here more than you. You do? Man. You never discover places? We have a rule with him where any place that he discovers, we can't go to. Because I failed a lot of times. You failed. You only get like so many chances before we cannot take your recommendations anymore. So we're here at Uncle Joe Restaurant in Elmhurst. And this is by far my favorite place to get noodles in New York City. I have to say, the whole New York City. Whole New York City. This beats out Flushing. Absolutely. This beats out Chinatown. Yes. This beats out Chinatown Brooklyn. Yes. I always crave these noodles. Yes. Like at least once a week. Also, if you're not familiar, which a lot of people might not be, with Henan cuisine. Henan. Not Hunan. Right. Yeah. And Henan is located kind of in the central of China. Central east. Yeah. And Henan cuisine is called Yu Cai. The specialty about Yu Cai is that it doesn't shift to any sort of flavor in particular. Yeah. Like Sichuan is spicy. Shanghai is more sweet. It's mild. Yeah. It's very much in the middle. Right. Because Henan used to be a transportation or commercial hub. Yeah. So they have people coming from all directions and all different tastes. So they had to make sure like everybody kind of could accept the cuisine. Right. So the flavor is very neutral. It doesn't mean it's bland. Right. It just means that it satisfies people from everywhere. There's another interesting thing we found about Henan just now is that famous painting. There's a famous painting in China. It's compared to like the Mona Lisa of China. The title is Along the River During the Qiming Festival. This is actually located in Henan. Yep. You know what is also located in Henan? What's that? Shaolin. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Shaolin. Didn't know that. Dude, so Henan's pretty cool. Absolutely. And today we're going to introduce you to some of the most popular dishes in Henan. Yeah, we're going to get a treat actually here. Oh, yeah. Oh, check this out. Oh, my gosh. This is a really popular dish, Henan, traditional Henan dish. Holy cow. Oh, man. This is, if you look at it at first, it kind of resembles the, you know, the- The squirrel fish. Squirrel fish. But not. But it's not. It's clearly different. Right. This, look at it. Oh, my gosh. Look at this. Oh, wow. This dish is called sweet and sour or sweet and vinegary fish with huimin on top. Fried huimin. Yeah. Look at this, guys. This is not store-bought. No. This is hand-pulled noodles. And if you don't believe us, watch what we're going to show you. Yeah. I remember when we went to Flushing and you were telling me about like, oh, look at these thin dragon beard noodles. Yeah, it wasn't that thin. It wasn't that thin. No. These are the thinnest noodles I've ever seen. And these noodles, if you look at the way they pull it, it's different than what you might see in other places. The way they pull it is the traditional way of pulling the noodles. Yeah. And you can see in our footage, it just gets thinner and thinner until it becomes this. And this is very thin. You could put this through a needle. A needle. And then what they do is right after they pull it, they threw it into a vat of oil. For just a few seconds. Yeah. So it holds its shape. Right. Yeah. And this fish is traditional Henan cuisine. Yeah. It's sweet. It's sour. It's crispy. The fish looks like a work of art. You know what it is? It's like a fish wearing a blonde wig. Okay. So we're going to try this. Okay. And so excited. Oh my goodness. So excited. Let's cover it back up because we want it to get cold. So just like literally just like. We're going to go in. This is insane. I'm going to poke a hole through here. Here it is. Here's my bite. Oh my god. Yeah. These noodles just melted in my mouth, bro. I'm ordering this every single time when I come back. Every single time. This is another dish you might, you'll find in every single Americanized Chinese restaurant. But don't you dare compare it to this. Don't you dare. First of all, this is not a pancake where you smother it with the sauce. Right. And all you can taste is the sauce. This is traditional Mushu pork. And this dish was originated from the Henan area. So it's got egg, bamboo shoots. Yes. Pork, obviously. And pork. And I got to say the knife skills is apparent because you see like all this. It's all the same size. Consistence. Consistency is the key, right? It's all the same size. And so any bite you get, you're not going to get a piece that's too big or too small. I just want to say this is my first time actually eating traditional Mushu pork. That's amazing. You know, it definitely reminds me of what you were saying. That's amazing. It's not bland. It's just the flavor is subtle, but it's so fresh. And it's very savory too. I love it. This Mushu pork is beyond amazing. Beyond amazing. One other thing I want to point out. The egg. It's so easy to overdo egg, but these eggs are like puffy clouds. And the flavor to this, there's some distinct flavor to this. It is. It's like a savoriness that you can't explain. I can't explain it. It's just so good. You ever have something you're just like, I don't know what this is, but it's so delicious. Bro, bro. I want to eat some more fish. Alright, this dish just arrived. And this is another very traditional Henan dish. Eggplant. Eggplant, but fried. And you can see, I've never seen eggplant like this. Normally it's just sauteed. And you can literally see that it's been breaded and fried. And I can already tell I'm going to like this a lot more. Alright, let's give it a shot. Wow. Oh my god. Let me start, because I normally don't like vegetables that much. This batter, I don't know what it is about the batter. It's so savory and delicious. And also the sauce is incredible. Look at the sauce. This might be the best eggplant dish I've had. I'm not kidding you guys. When people go to other Chinese restaurants, they get a lot of sauce. But that sauce is just generic sauce. This is like a really- It's garlicky. I see a little bit of the little pepper. You see that? It's a little tomatoey. The flavor is like savory. The flavor is insane. It's not very sweet, which is great. These fresh bamboo. Oh, these are so good. The green peppers. Oh man. And garlic. I mean, it's got the best combination of everything. This is so delicious. So good. But this is not on the menu, so you guys can't get this. Another important dish in Henan is the noodles. And this is probably one of the most famous. It's huimin. So huimin is one of my favorite things on this planet. It's thick. It's wide. The texture is much more chewy than your normal noodles. It doesn't get soggy easily. And this is my favorite way to eat huimin. It's not soup. I don't like it in soup. I like it dry. This is a famous dish called youpuo mian. On top of the noodles is a layer of fried hot oil. And garlic. And some scallions. And bok choy. So look at this. So the sauce is on the bottom. We've got some bean sprouts in there. And this is going to have a very vinegary, very slightly spicy taste. I'm going to make it really spicy because I love hot oil. But this noodle texture is my favorite. This is hand-pulled noodles. And every bite, it's so nice and spongy and chewy. I love this. Oh, the smell. You don't know what it's like to smell fried hot oil on the garlic. It's like the best smell ever. Like when they bring these out, you can smell the oil, the garlic paste, and the scallions all reacting together. And basically, we've got a noodle party. We want to show you all the different kinds. This is the la mian. La mian is thinner. It also has a very spongy, nice consistency. And remember our video that we showed you in the beginning with the guys hand-pulling? This is how you get the noodles. Sometimes you can make it so thin like what we have on the fish. But this is like normal-sized hand-pulled noodles. And this is really interesting. This is dao xiao mian. The consistency of these noodles here is a little thicker than your typical hui mian. And it's much shorter because typically what the chefs do is they put the block of flour on top of their head. And they use this curved, metal, sharp knife. And they just slice it like that into the pot. So it goes in like this. Hence the name knife. Dao xiao, like knife-sliced noodles. So we're going to have a ball trying to eat all these. It is actually like this and hui mian look similar, but they actually have very different mouthfeels. Yeah, when you bite it, you're going to feel the difference. You like that? Oh, man. Yeah? This is why I come here every week. This is my favorite. There's the flavor. And, of course, it's not just the hot oil. There's some dark vinegar in there. And the combination of that is like the best taste on earth. One time Dan challenged me to eat four bowls of these, and I did it. It was more like you ate, off the bat, Mike ate two. He just comes in, they know to bring two out. Then there was like, I couldn't finish some of mine, so he ate that. And I'm like, I bet you can't eat another one. And your girlfriend couldn't finish hers, so I ate that. Yeah, so you finished both of ours. So that was like combining one bowl. Yeah, and I thought that was done. So then I was like, you know what, Mike? I bet you couldn't eat another one. And if you do, I'll pay for that one. And he paid for that one. Yeah. But you were full though afterwards. I was full. But yeah, guys. And of course, here they have so many different kinds of noodles. You know, in soup, not in soup. So try different ones. But this one happens to be our favorite. Right. And trust us, this is the best noodle place in New York City. So you're going to really love it when you come here. So that concludes our adventure in Hunan food. Because we have still some eating to do here. Absolutely. All right, guys. Again, the location of this place is in our description box below. Tell them we sent you if you ever come here and try this place out. All right, guys. We'll see you later. Peace.