Vietnamese Food YOU'VE NEVER SEEN! Catfish, scallops etc.

Yo, the crunch is like lechon. Oh my gosh, that is steaming, bro. Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to a very special Seattle episode of Phone Bros Food. David Andrew from the Phone Bros. We're here with Richie Lee, Tan Tang, you guys. We are about to try what is maybe considered the best Vietnamese catfish in America. Sir, you want to talk about hype. This is hyped right here. We're here at Rainier BBQ Restaurant in Seattle on Martin Luther King Way. Anthony Bourdain, RIP, he ate here. He bigged up it. Yeah. And this is like an amazing Vietnamese restaurant. This is not pho. Growing up in Seattle, there wasn't that many known restaurants. Like there were spots that people knew, right? Yeah. This place, Rainier BBQ, has sort of leapfrogged its way into the tier one. When it comes to Vietnamese food, I think of pho. A lot of people think of pho. This is on another tier. We're about to eat some dishes I never had before. Milky Sea Snails. There's fried frog legs. I heard you like those. I'm a frog guy. I've only had Vietnamese catfish one other time in my life. I'm mad excited. This is a seven pound California catfish right in front of us. So, how we're going to eat this is with the rice wrap right here. We're going to dip this in the warm water with the vermicelli noodles. You've got the garnishes. Is this a special occasion food, an everyday food? Oh, definitely. This is a special occasion. The fact that you've got to call hours prior to your event, I mean, that's a special event. Yo, it kind of reminds me of like a lechon. Yo, Tim, that is a good point. The crunch is like a lechon, aka the Filipino crisp pig. The skin, the skin. Oh my gosh, that is steaming, bro. You can smell the fish. It's got the garnishes, the scallions on top mixed with the fried garlic. This is almost like the Peking duck of catfish. I was just going to say, when I first saw this entree, I didn't know it was a catfish. So, I actually had my birthday here as a surprise. How many did we order? I think we ordered six. If you don't got six of them for a special occasion, I don't know what you're doing. Special occasion. Here we got the manager. Lisa, thank you so much. Can you quickly show us how to wrap the catfish? So, there's a technique that I usually do, but everyone has their own technique. We have this cool rice holder. You just roll it like a wheel. You actually leave it on the edge of the plate so you can have leverage. And then, usually, I start off with the lettuce because the lettuce acts like a blanket to wrap it up. We are the only one that has the green sour. Tastes like green apple. This one right here? Yes, taste it. Because you like apples. Green apple. Oh my god. It really does. Whoa. No, it's fantastic. So, we're the only one that has it. This tastes like a green apple. That is bursting with flavor. We use a little bit of noodle and a little bit of vermicelli. So, this is the skin. It's like the roasted pig. This is roasted pig, Peking duck, something in between. But this is the best part where the fatty part is. Oh, the fin? Okay. Yeah, the fin right here. You want to grab it like this. Grab, tuck, roll. Grab, tuck, and roll. Guys, I'm not gonna lie. She said that's the best part is the fin. Yeah. I want to call dibs. Get me the fin, Rich. Oh, it has like a pork rind texture. Is that the pork belly of the fish? That might be. That might be a good comparison. Oh my gosh. Watch out for bones, all right? Thank you, sir. Hey, Tan, if it's bones, I'm eating through it. I'm working through the bones. Okay. I'm a big fan of chilies lately, so I'm gonna go with some chilies in here. Tuck, roll. I might need a little kick too, man. I've been on the Sichuan wave recently. Catfish spring roll. Oh my goodness. I'm excited for this pineapple anchovy sauce right here. Oh man. I've never had anything like this. Bursting with flavor. Garnish, perfect with the garnish. You cannot imagine how meaty and fatty fish is. Yeah. This wasn't a fish that was doing laps or something. This is like the pig of the water, you know what I'm saying? This fish was chilling, marinating for us. Yo, the crunch of the skin was incredible right here. Rich, dog, are you serious? Look at that. Wow. Look at that. I didn't know catfish skin was so fatty. All right, we got another dish coming through. What is this right here? Whoa. So this is the anchovy salad. We can't park our anchovy. And then the beef, we use tenderloin. So this is one of the dishes that Anthony Bourdain got when he ate here. Big pile of fresh raw anchovy. Anchovy, if you guys don't know, it's a very popular like Asian and Southeast Asian vegetable. That's a big salad. I've done it before for my mom, all right? You know, it's not easy. It's not easy as you think. You see all the curls and everything? They take technique to get a pile like this. Anchovy beef salad. There is a crunch. But this is actually cold. It's not a warm dish. Yeah. And I'm fine with that. I'm cool with that. It has a lot of water in it, so it's kind of dissolving in your mouth. And it's not as chewy as I thought it was going to be. That gave me the same feeling the first time I had a chrysanthemum tea leaf salad. You know, the first time I had a chrysanthemum salad, I was like, oh, what is this? This is something totally different. I feel the same way about that. Wow. So that's our dungeon. It's fresh. We do have a tank downstairs with our fresh seafood. That guy's a big guy today. Cheers for you guys. You know, we rich, we crab. You know, we go crabbing. So we're pretty excited because the dungeon is crab. It's not easy to catch in a crab cage. To catch a male, it's very hard. They'll take your fingers off. Let me pop the lid. Pop the top off. So that's how you know by vote who likes the guts. I like the gut. I put my rice in there. I use it as a bowl. Dish out the guts. They call it the butter of the sea. Crab guts is the butter of the sea. I hate to see some people throw it out and it hurts. It pains me to see that. Crab guts. Let's just call it crab insides. And I like it because that's one of the parts of an animal that's actually a little bit bitter, but I still enjoy it. Right. It has like this bitter creaminess. Look at this, man. If you have guts, you'll eat the crab guts. Bigger, bigger bite than that. Come on. You got this. Oh man. Just like a spare rib. This is incredible. You know, usually I would use a napkin to wipe all this stuff off my fingers, but today I'm not going to do that. We're going to lick it off. All right. Today, I don't got time. You just can't waste the flavor. Dude, I got a little bit of crab guts on the leg too, right here on the crown. Yeah, I would say this, these crab shells are relatively easy to crack. Nice and soft. We have the seafood sour soup. And then we also have seafood sour soup. So she said put the chilies with the... Wow. It has like a sweet type of vibe to it. This soup is actually almost as sweet as it is sour. As much as you get that sour like... Would you guys say there's more of a tamarind flavor? All right, you guys, we are not done yet. Everything has been A1. So we have the caramelized and then also some nugget. I saw this on the menu and I thought it was really interesting because I'd never had anything that looked like that. We have pork in it and then also the dried shrimp that we just cook it down, rule it until it caramelized with our sauce. I got you, bro. A little bit soft. Ow, ow. Let me just scoop it onto this thing. I tried to. Yo, I'm going to do an OG style. You know how I'm gonna do it with you. Let's get it. All right. Caramelized vegetable dip. It definitely put the dehydrated shrimp. Kind of has that like peppery taste to it. It's funny because the only other dish that I've had that looks like that is Filipino sisig. Comes on the hot plate, but this is really different. It kind of has that slight caramelized jerky flavor from the pork. I definitely taste something familiar from this dish, but I think the whole way Totally different. I think that I always think that trying new food with your friends, that has got to be one of the best experiences because you guys are going through something together. For sure. For sure. Everybody goes on trips with their friends. You want to experience new things and I think a lot of people underrate how trying a new food and new flavors counts as a new thing. You know, if you look in this restaurant right now, no one's sitting alone and everyone has a buddy or a group. That's a good point. Perfect restaurant to do that. And then this is our quail with the butter. Wait, so make sure you scoop up some of the juice into it. Okay, cool. Yeah. Okay. So just a little opening right here. That's really sweet coconut milk flavor. So you put it in your mouth and then you just suck it out. Okay. All right. Easy. All right. Oh, I got it. It flew in a little mouth. It was like a straw. That's like a sweet coconut milk. Cream is good. Creamy snail. I've never had creamy snails before. If you can't suck it from the front, you try. You suck it from the back, then suck it from the front again. Wait, so what? Did you do it? I sucked from the front. If it doesn't come out. I sucked from the back. It came out. Let me just show you what's inside. That's kind of weird. I took it back out of my mouth, but just for the science of it. This is the snail that's inside. All right, do you hear the ocean with this one, though? No. Quail, it's a small bird. Fried quail. Just look how juicy that is. Quail, I believe, it's similar to a duck in the sense that it's all dark meat. This is our sea snail. It's also called pear wrinkle. Usually, some people like to poke it like this, but you're supposed to go on the side. Kind of rake it out. Spin it out. Some people poke it like that. It's just to only make it go in. Like you're cleaning out some earwax. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. I was almost going to say this looks like something that you have in your house just for the smell. That is true. Sea snails. The sauce is good. Wow, that's super fresh. I didn't know that I would ever say sea snails were refreshing, but I like that more than the other snails. This is a little bit lighter a little cleaner. So this is our scallop. They are not your typical scallop you guys see. And this is our amazing green sauce that we make in-house. It has a Thai chili that is green and also lemon leaves. The bigger and amazing. Scallops. Wow. Yo, the onion flavor with the green onions, the fried shallots, the green onions. That was one of the single best bites I had today. I love green onions to the death. I had this dish once in California. Yeah. It wasn't even close. One more of our dishes is wild beetle leaf with our tenderloin that we cut in cubes. So it's still tender inside. We do it from the wok so it has that smoky aroma. This is a nice alternative to the balut flak. A lot of people, you know, were known for our balut flak, but this is a nice alternative if you want a change. Similar. Betel leaf beef. It's got a nutty taste to it. More like, earthy, more like. A little bit more like you just cut a piece of steak. Oh yeah. I'll tell you one thing. Texture, super easy to eat. I like it. Anytime you can see a new way to do something that I do think caters to a more sophisticated taste palette, I'm all for it. Yo, speaking of uni, how we were talking about uni with the crab guts. Yeah. Right here. The guy, I was scared to eat it because I don't know if y'all remember watching that Jackie Chan movie, but when he beat up that one dude and he fell in the water in the tank with all the uni. Oh, and then the uni sticks to him. It was scary. It was a scary moment, man. Okay, so this is uni freshly from Washington. So it's just coming in season. I feel like I'm shaving off some muscle. Wow. Wow. All right, you guys, what are you guys thinking? Are you going to sauce yours up? Rich said all natural. I'm going to go all natural. I'm going to just appreciate the sea. Yo, this is a huge piece. Uni for dessert. Oh, I see what she's saying with the temperature. Wow. It is cold. Oh, that got, like, I don't know how uni all of a sudden, just because it was cold turned into dessert, but it makes sense. It's almost like a light, less sweetened ice cream. Yeah. Wow. I never realized how buttery uni is. That was clean. It's very buttery. Seafood in Seattle, guys, this confirms it, man. It's the best. That's getting beef in Texas or something. I don't know. Listen, guys, I get it. This is definitely a staple of the community. I mean, I see all types of people in here. The food is legitimate. All right, everybody, that wraps it up here at Rainier Barbecue, one of the best farm-grown foods ever. We can co-sign it. Come here. Anthony Bourdain came here. Really, really proud to say this is from our home area, our hometown. And it confirms that Pacific Northwest seafood is incredible. Yes, sir. The presentation is incredible. We saw it from here. Even the exotic things that you can get here, you can get even crazier than this if you want to get a little weirder, you know. I give this spot a 10 out of 10. This is one of my favorite Seattle restaurants I've ever been to in my entire life. My favorite dish is going to have to be the scallops. I've had scallops with Richie a lot. He loves scallops. They're not prepared the way I had it today. No, this was completely good. And that was completely like a game changer. I don't know if I would ever get that scallop anywhere else. Going between the catfish and the anchovy. I'm gonna go with the catfish. The catfish was fire. Overall, I gotta say it's these three dishes right here, man. The anchovy beef salad, the scallop, and the catfish. I think if you gotta get three dishes, you gotta get those. But everything else was great. The lemongrass snails. I've never actually had snails that I actually really enjoyed, so shout out to those. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for tuning into that very special Seattle episode of Farm Girls Food here at Rainier Barbecue in South Seattle. Huge shout out to Rich, Tan, everybody here, Lisa, Stacey. Come on down. Let us know if there's any other amazing restaurants, particularly seafood restaurants you guys want us to check out. For sure. And until next time, we out. Peace. I think if you come here and you're not a fan of vegetables, for whatever reason, you're going to come here and you're going to enjoy it. For sure. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. Not that many people come by and brag about the leaves that they have at the restaurant. Very true. So I think that's, I mean, Lisa's talking big game and I think it lived up to it. Yeah, for sure.