LITTLE TOKYO FOOD CRAWL w/ YUSUKE & NARISA - Fung Bros Food

Do you guys know that Japanese are kind of crazy? You're calling me crazy? Today I'm in Los Angeles' historic and very vibrant Little Tokyo, a.k.a. Japantown. This place has a very deep history and is one of the country's most significant Asian neighborhoods to date. And joining with me today is Kawaii Japanese TV show host in LA and actress, Norissa. Hello! Konnichiwa! And one of the rising stars of the new hit Netflix show Terrace House, Eden Kai, a.k.a. Yusuke. Konnichiwa. Hey. And he's also a really, really good ukulele player. So we're going to hit up some of the most symbolic Little Tokyo restaurants. We're going to eat some food. We're going to talk about Japan. How do I say Little Tokyo food crawl in Japanese? Little Tokyo taberuki! It's like the intro to a Japanese TV show. Los Angeles' Little Tokyo is actually only one of three current Japantowns existing in the United States right now. On to our first stop of the Little Tokyo food crawl. The most special udon place in LA, Marugame Monzo. This is one of the most special spots in LA because they make fresh udon and they're cutting it right there. Eden, you're also known as Yusuke on a TV show called Terrace House. It's like the real world on MTV. In most American reality TV shows, we like a lot of scandalous things. But Terrace House, if you see it, you're just seeing people live their lives. There's no script. It's literally filming people as is. And I also have to say they pick very, very good-looking people. Not me, not me, not me. The food has arrived. This is the dashi sauce. Sesame. That's a pretty cool grinder. Sugoi. Sugoi. Sugoi. You got the cold sour plum udon. I have the mentai squid butter udon. You have the classic uni cream udon. Meccha umai. Too much, too much. This is something that you don't see at a lot of spots. This is a soft-boiled tempura egg. Letting you guys know that I'm not a udon master. But an average person, this is pretty good. It's pretty amazing. This is really good for summer because it's really cold and refreshing. And it has a punch or kicks of like plum. Alright, that was just our first stop on the Little Tokyo Food Crawl. And we gotta get moving to the next spot. Our next stop on our Little Tokyo Food Crawl is a spot that's been here for over 45 years. I'm talking about Sohiro Cafe. We are here at Sohiro Cafe. This is actually one of my favorite and one of the few late night spots in Little Tokyo. At night time, there are a lot of young people here. Especially after 2am because it's open until 3am. It's like a Japanese Denny's. So this one is hayashi rice. The beef hayashi is like a Japanese take on a red wine beef stew over rice. I want to use a spoon. But what if I didn't want to use chopsticks? Look at how much I got with the chopsticks. You doubted. Very deep beefy flavor. I like that. Look at this bite. It's got egg, onions, pork katsu. All in one. I feel like even if you didn't grow up Japanese, you still feel the home style cooking. And what are you trying to do nowadays? I'm just suing up music. You're looking to be a pro ukulele guitar player. Plus singer song writer. You're just like, yo, I'm a cool musician guy. Look at that smug face. That's how you get the check in Japanese. So we just had some home style Japanese food. But we are going to take it up a notch to get some kind of fancy Japanese food here at Gazen. Let's go! Starting off, everybody. We have to try the fresh tofu sampler plate. This has 3 tofus. So this one is black sesame. And you can enjoy with soy sauce. And this one is yose tofu. This is the homemade. This is probably your plain regular tofu. This one is dashi. Creamy tofu. Roasted green tea salt here. I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of this green tea salt on it. Black sesame. It's a little bit crunchy, right? It has that spiciness from the wasabi. The saltiness from the soy sauce. It blends in perfectly. It tastes like ice cream a little bit. So here we have some fresh fried garlic shrimp. That is not your average garlic shrimp. No, no, no, no. Yo, we just found out. That one of the secret ingredients to this garlic shrimp. What is it? It's orange juice. You're joking, right? That's why it tastes kind of sour. And I think there's some spices too. Was this even better than the garlic shrimp on Tara's house? Don't get mad, but yeah, this is better. So we got the triple salmon. I love that onion sauce that's on it. Oh, wasabi. I snuck it in there for you. You didn't notice. My bad. It was on accident. I'll put more wasabi. Is that okay? I'll do it. Let me help you. I can take it. Oh, okay. Pretty sure about that. I just filled it all the way up. It went all the way up. So now, we gotta head over to the famous Japanese Village Plaza. Because that's probably one of the biggest attractions in Little Tokyo. Let's go. This is our first stop in the Japanese Village Plaza. Nerissa, where are we at? Mitsuru Cafe. We've been in business for almost 50 years. And what we're known for is the red bean cakes. These are the Imagawa Yakis. Good? It's hot. I know it's hot. That's why you don't want to eat it. It's really good. Really fluffy. We're already snacking, but let's keep it moving. Our next stop is the company that's responsible for probably blowing up this item to the globe, which is Mikawaya Mochi Ice Cream. Let's go. Three of your classic flavors, and then three more newer, experimental flavors. Here we got seven delicious mochi ice cream flavors. Now, mochi ice cream is actually an American invention by Japanese-Americans. I have a green tea, black sesame, strawberry, plum wine, cookies and cream, butter pecan, and mango. It's good. I like it. I might have to say this plum wine is pretty good. Remember we had that plum wine udon earlier? What's your favorite one? Honestly, plum wine too. Plum wine was kind of cool, right? Cookies and cream. Not mad at it. We're making our way through the Japanese Village Plaza. Let's keep on moving. It wouldn't be a complete food crawl if we didn't hit up the Nijiya Market. Let's go. Do you guys know that Japanese are kind of crazy? You're calling me crazy? They come up with really interesting... I think they just think very differently. Oh, this is the... We're going to call this the Miso Museum. Miso Museum. All the different misos. Japanese drink section. I grew up drinking this a lot. Somebody sweat. If you call something sweat, that's not appealing, that's not a drink you want to have. It's the original name for cow piss. Yeah, cow piss. If you were a Japanese chicken, how would you sound? The Nijiya Market was dope, but we gotta keep on moving. Oh, this is Japanese? I've never tried that before. Yeah, you got it, you got it. I have just bumped into Roy, who is the owner and founder of Japanese LA streetwear brand that's based out in Little Tokyo. Japangelus, yo. Oh my god. It has Nihon, Japan, in Chinese character. Because that's kanji, right? Yeah, they have different colors going on. Nice. If you ever come to Little Tokyo in LA, you should definitely check out the Japanese Village Plaza. And maybe it's a good place to take someone out on a date. So for the last stop in our Little Tokyo food crawl, we are hitting up Weller Court for Midori Matcha. Get your matcha on. Right now I have the matcha coconut drink, I have the matcha latte, and we got the matcha croissant, the matcha eclair, natcha Napoleon, why is that so hard? Napoleon, and then we got the matcha puff. So the thing is, about the matcha that they use here, this is like top grade, like ceremonial matcha. Wow, this is really good. It's not too sweet. It's perfect. Matcha cream. Yo, how's that Napoleon? Napoleon literally tastes matcha. Much, much matcha. Much matcha. It's a lot of green tea cream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is coconut green tea. It tastes like organic. It is organic. It's like when you drink this, you feel like, I'm so healthy. Taste healthy and refreshing. Got it. The matcha movement. Okay, everybody, that wraps up our L.A. Little Tokyo, a.k.a. Japan Town food crawl. In the comments below, please let us know if you want to come to Little Tokyo, and which spots you would hit up after watching this video. Alright, everybody check out Eden Kai, he's also a really good ukulele player, and he's on Terra's House, and we got Narissa Suzuki, and how we're gonna say bye in Japanese is da-ne! Until next time, we out, peace! Oh my. Oh, don't slow it down on us.