TRYING 10 GREAT MEXICAN AMERICAN FOOD DISHES | Fung Bros

Basically, when you see red and green in something, that it's going to be good. That's a national color, so that's good. Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to a special episode of Fun Grows Food. And I'm here with L.A. native Nelson Chan from Hoopin' Life and Mexican foodie Chris Ortiz. In case you guys didn't know, there are a lot of different types of Mexican food. We got North, South, East, West, Caribbean, Inland, all the way up to your Taco Bell, Chipotle, and all that good stuff. So this spot, Pepe's, behind me is a late night staple in this area. The food originates from Mexico City, but it has a California twist, so I'm pretty excited, guys. You ready for this? Hell yeah! This is Mexicali food. Let's go! Okay. All right, all right, man. Nelson, you went to elementary across the street from here. Yup. Shout out to Ramona Elementary. Been eating here since sixth grade. I used to get the chili cheese fries. They used to be $3.33. I will always remember that number. As a kid, I didn't really have much money, so I had to save up for the week in order to get myself some chili cheese fries. Real quick, man, what drinks are we looking at? All right, so we got your hibiscus, jamaica, and then you got your horchata, and of course, your classic staple, pineapple. Horchata, kind of a cinnamon milk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How would you describe hibiscus to people? Hibiscus is kind of like sweet, but sour kind of plant. Kind of flowery, right? A floral taste. I'm not gonna lie, man, every time I drink a horchata, it's kind of like dessert first, because it's so creamy, but it's really good if I'm gonna eat a lot of spicy food, because all that cream is gonna pack it down. All right, man, you guys ready for round one? I can't wait. This is what we got. Look at that cheese. The color, that looks like a flag. We'll start from here. This is just round one. Here we have the carne asada fries. This is probably their most famous dish. Big scoop of guac here. Oh, God, it's so good. You got melted cheese. So good. Sour cream. So good and tasty. You got your pico de gallo right here. The chili cheese fries was a 3-series, and then the asada fries is an M3, is what it is. This is probably the most, I would say, accessible Mexican food. Carne asada fries. The asada fries is good. The chili cheese fries has a special place in my heart. This has a lot going on from the pico de gallo, the sour cream, the guac, the asada. This is more Tex-Mex because of the cheddar cheese, the sour cream. Mexicans really don't do sour cream. I love sour cream, man. Four out of five. Wow, yo, these got me shook at first. Late night sharing. I mean, look at how much you're getting. I like the colors. I eat with my eyes. I'm gonna have to give it a three out of five. I'm also gonna have to give it a three out of five. One of the things that Pepe's is famous for is the taquitos with guacamole. Guacamole, I heard, was something that came from more the Mexican colonial days. So guacamole's been around for a minute. We call them taquitos here in SoCal, but they're actually flautas. So this is covered in guac. Some other late night Mexican spots, their guac is a little bit more watery, but this one's real chunky. That's a whole lot of guac, man. Taquitos, but I mean flautas. Flautas. Even though I'm allergic to avocados, it's still good, though. Was it worth it? Worth it. What's gonna happen? My tongue started getting itchy. Even if I hit it with a little verde sauce, a little green. Green on green crime. It's letting the carnitas shine. There's not a lot of sour cream and cheese. I like sour cream and cheese, but this is kept a little bit more simple. Oh, man. Mexican approved. I gotta give the taquitos a 4 out of 5. The simplicity of it, the flavor, it just pops. I would give it a 4 out of 5, but I'm actually gonna give it a 3.5 out of 5 because I felt like the meat was a tad dry. That chicken was dry. Real dry. I'm gonna give it a 4 out of 5. Right here we got your taco con queso, your typical tachuga, tomate, the classical staple of Mexican dishes, on a hard-shell taco. Hard-shell taco or soft-shell taco? Soft-shell taco all the time. What do you mean? I'm mad. I've gotta say that is one loaded taco right there. That is packed, bro. All right, guys. Hard-shell taco. This is not your Taco Bell hard-shell taco. Let's bite into it. No sauce first. Hard-shell tacos. One more bite with some red sauce. Rojo. Eating tacos was a little interesting because you get certain bites of a lot of meat and then you get certain bites that it's just veggie. The art of eating a taco is to get everything in one bite. I don't know if my mouth's big enough for that. It's a mouthful. Also, the thing about hard-shell tacos, it kind of has this tendency to crack. Man, this is good. I mean, look how much cheese is on top. It's almost like it's got like a baffro of cheese. I'm actually not a fan of the cheese, so I took it off. It was too much. Man, I'm gonna eat this. No cheese. The Nelly Customs. You know what? Let me get a little custom there, too. I'm gonna take some of this guac that's in here from the flauta, put that on right there. So I'm gonna take some sour cream from the carne asada fries, put that on right there. Muy bien, man. Muy bien. What's a new phrase to say when something's really good? Chingon. Chingon means badass, cool, the best in the world. Chingon. Chingon, homie. Chingon. You know what? I'm sorry. I know you love this, Andrew, but I'm gonna have to give it a 2.5 out of 5, man. The taco itself is too greasy. This is too Tex Mex for you. All right. I'm gonna have to agree with it, man. 2.5 out of 5. I was just like, it was just way too much cheese for me. Look at this. This is like a blob of cheese. I'm gonna give it the 3.5 out of 5. Overall, I would say, you guys gotta try it if you're coming here. This is the carnitas wet burrito. So looking at this with the shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and the cheese, can we rank how authentic this is? Just by the looks of it, the queso looks a little bit Americanized, 3.5 in terms of authenticity. And then I'm excited about this one. This one's the chile relleno. Chile relleno. Relleno. Chile relleno. I'm excited about this one, guys. Oh, my gosh. Look at this. I'm gonna try to spread it. See how far it goes. Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna pull out the Tijuana, baby. Yes. Yes! So this is chile relleno's burrito. This has egg, it has cheese, it has cheese inside of the chile. I got my expectations set high. I don't know why. Oh, there's no meat in this. Nah, it's just egg. Chile relleno. Give me the pops. Yo, for a no-meat dish, tell me that wasn't good. 4.5 out of 5. To me, if it had meat, I would've gave it a 5 out of 5. But just from the egg, from the cheese. This cheese, this white cheese inside. I mean, the egg and the pepper, it was a very unique combination that I've actually never had before. This right here, I'm surprised I haven't eaten this way back. They scoop out all the seeds, it's not as hot, it's not that spicy, but it's still got the great chile pepper outside. I'm gonna have to give this a 4.5 out of 5. Wow! That's actually super, super good. You gotta try the no-meat. 4.5 out of 5, man. Nice. Guys, do not slow down just yet. We got more to go. Here we have a wet burrito, here we got the enchiladas. What's the difference? Enchilada, how come it's not a burrito? It's rolled inside with some cheese in there, and I guess that's what makes it enchilada. Typically, most burritos don't have cheese in them. That's a SoCal thing for sure. Cheese in a burrito is an American thing, just so we know, right? We got rice, we got beans, we got meat. The tortilla is very thick. Thick with double Cs. That's how I like it. We have to acknowledge it is kind of heavy. Now, this is why it's a great late-night food. The wet burrito. Let's try this. Very light in its flavor. I would disagree. You probably ate one with no sauce. I really like the sauce on the wet burrito. Unfortunately, there is beans in it. I'm not a fan of beans, but this wet burrito does taste really good. It's kind of like a light gravy. What really stands out is the refried beans. The picoles, the beans have really good flavor. Usually, beans don't have flavor. And they really made them tasty. Just elevates this dish. Beans does have a lot of flavor. Packing in flavor. When I'm eating this burrito, I taste a lot of the beans. What I disagree is actually I don't like beans. Did this make you like beans momentarily? Like for a second? Yes. The beans do taste really good. I give it a 3.5 out of 5. Based off my bias of beans, 3 out of 5. I'll give it a 3.5. Oh! 3.5. Alright, this is the enchilada. What kind of sauce is on the enchilada? You call it chile de arbol. Chile, the red one. I can't even see the enchilada. Oh my gosh. Is that a chile? Oh! What? That's not even an enchilada. That's not. This is another chile relleno. Oh. My man. Relleno. You're not originally from SoCal. You're originally from El Paso, Texas. That's right. I'm actually from El Paso. And we share a border with Juarez, Mexico. 95% population of Mexicanos. That looks like a really tasty bite. You see how much red sauce there is. You see the chile relleno. You see the carnitas all wrapped up. I kind of got high hopes for this bite. The enchilada. You were locked in on that enchilada. You were speechless for some reason. I don't know. You guys went silent for a straight 30 seconds. What's going on, guys? Tell me. That was good. No bueno. It was way too overwhelming. The cheese was way too much. It was just a cheese overload in my mouth. With the enchilada, I really like how soft the wrap was. Cold tortilla. I can see what Christian is saying about the cheese being a little bit too overwhelming. But I felt like it was a little more well balanced with the other stuff. There was a lot on that plate. And if you eat it all in one bite, it's crazy. It was pretty good. But I'm not a big fan of enchiladas. And even though the chile relleno was there, I gotta give it 3 out of 5. I'm gonna have to give it a 2 out of 5. You're not gonna be allowed at Pepe's anymore. Me, I'll give it 4 out of 5. I feel like it has a really good balance and combination. But everyone, you know, has different tastes. This chile relleno, though, I gotta say, this is the MVP to me so far. They gave me a bunch of those. A little bit charred, too, from the grill. So, in round 2, we got the wet torta. The drowning torta. The torta... Algarra. And then we got the, uh, your favorite. No. Your childhood favorite. Your little friend. Oh! You didn't tell me! Alright, you know what? We'll just trade, y'all. Okay, okay. We'll just trade. Go at it, man. Chili cheese fries, your beloved. Alright, Nelson. You put your pants back on, right? Let's go into these chili cheese fries, man. I don't even gotta eat it, and I know my score already. Give me one bite. Let's go. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Alright. Let me get the jala in there. Yeah, this jalapeno got the seeds in it, yeah. That's a spicy bite. I like the jalapeno. The pork carnitas in here did a great job. Not the type of chile I was expecting. That's a Mexican chile. This is actually the sauce on the wet burrito. But not overbearing like the other dishes. Yeah, right, right. I will give you this. It does taste different. I gotta give it a 4 out of 5. 4 out of 5? Okay. Nelson, you're gonna give me 3.5 out of 5 just because I was expecting chili. Okay, that's not bad. That's not bad. It's a beverage. I mean, you already know. 5 out of 5. Might slightly be overhyping it just a little bit because, you know, when the nostalgia hits. But realistically, at least a 4.5 out of 5 for the general public. But for me, 5 out of 5. We got the wet torta. It's like a sandwich burger, right? It looks like a hamburger. Come to Papi. Papi. Yo, look at this monstrosity. The wet torta. That was a sleeper. And that came in late in the game, you know, when we had eaten a lot. Hunger is the best sauce, so when you're full and something still tastes good, that's when you know it's good. For sure. I'm getting pretty full, but I might have to take another bite real quick. 4.5 out of 5. Not too much cheese, but just enough. Had that nice smear of refried beans on the inside. That was killing it. 4 out of 5 for me. Wow. Being an authentic dish and being that it was represented well, I'm gonna have to give it a 4.5. Yo. Before we get into the last round of burritos, these are not traditional burritos. This is a California style. This is a machaca, and then you got the breakfast burrito here, which is probably not traditional. No, not at all. What's the machaca? It's kind of like a brunch burrito, no? The breakfast, this is the brunch. Dinner burrito. Dinner burrito, because you got fries, carne asada. You don't even have any greens in there. No, I was with the carbon meat, all right? Yeah, all right. Call that the muscle burrito right there. Let's go in. Burritos. If I gotta rank it on the burrito itself, I might give it a 3.5 out of 5, but with the verde sauce, 4 out of 5. I love the verde sauce. I loved it. It has that fresh hotness. The breakfast burrito here is definitely really heavy. They pack in a lot of potatoes in there. Taste-wise, it still tastes pretty good, but I think it just packed way too much potato in there. I'll give it a 3 out of 5. If you take a look at this burrito, there's no greens, there's nothing that really brings out freshness. It's all meat, cheese, and potatoes. That alone, I'm gonna have to give it a 2 out of 5. Super dry. Traditional California burrito has something to bring out the freshness in the meat. Yo, Nelson had to stand up. You can't sit no more. Stop giving up. All right, we'll just do the outro like this. The standouts to me was the chile relleno, surprisingly. I don't even mess with that. My favorite part was definitely the wet tortilla. It was a sleeper. It just blew my mind. That chili sauce they got back there, that is good stuff. One of my favorites was the flautas. Flautas, yeah. It was good, man. It was really simple. It was very simple, but it packed a lot of flavor. I will add on to that list this machaca burrito. I wish I could eat more. You taking that death bite afterwards. Yeah. Of course, chile relleno. I knew that was gonna be good just because I like chiles. Of course, the chile cheese fries came through with a different kind of chile. I thought that was cool, man. My major takeaway is the fact that just because something isn't authentic doesn't mean it's not tasty. There are so many different types of Mexican food here that I never would have known. A lot of Chinese people, when they first came to America, or Asian people, they didn't come over as chefs, but they were the ones who started the restaurant. But in that, you have to cater that food to America in general using American ingredients, so that's how you get Americanized Chinese food or Americanized Mexican food, you know? All right, let us know in the comments below what other types of food you want us to try and rank and look into. Thank you so much for watching that video. And until next time, we out. Peace! The puerco, you know, you got the onions. I feel like you just saw like that girl that you always loved from like 6th grade. My lifetime crush? Yeah, your lifetime crush, and you just saw her again and you can't even really understand what you're saying.