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In this video, I'll attempt to spend over $100 on Chinese street food here in New York City's Chinatown. People here are willing to spend $3,000 a month to live in a shoebox while having this city crush their dreams. It's sad. Do you know what's happy? Chinese food. And Chinatown is the best place to find it and a lot of it can be found at reasonable prices. It's about twice the size of what I expected to get. It's gigantic. So I want to see, will a full day of eating like a madman barely break the bank or leave me bankrupt? I was supposed to get the duck, but instead what happened is she didn't put duck in it. What the duck? Let's find out. We have come to our first location right behind me, the Chong Fun Cart. This place is fun. It's not really a street food stall. It's not a food truck. It's something in between. It is a wheelie cart. Every morning, early in the day, they wheel the cart here. They sell as many rice rolls as they can and then they wheel it away. This is a small cart, but inside, big flavors. They have a menu. Let's go take a look. On the top here, we've got the steamed rice rolls. This is what they do, and they do it well. But you can get many flavors. They have pork or ham, chicken, beef, dry shrimp, fresh shrimp, barbecue pork, or only rice if you're vegan. I'm not sure who's getting that. Could I please have... Let's do pork. This is the interior of the cart, quite small. Right down here, you can see this big beautiful bucket of rice flour batter. She hits the tray with the batter. She moves around the batter, making it spread all around the tray, combines it with the protein. Then that slides into a steaming cabinet. It's done steaming, she pulls it out, and that's when the rolling happens. She rolls it up, puts it in the container, and she hits it with a little bit of soy sauce and hot sauce. Alright folks, we have our first Chinese food of the day. This is what you get for $3.50. It is so much more food than I expected. It's gigantic. Now, before I enjoy this, I want to introduce you to our special guest, Robert. Hello, everybody. Robert, can you tell me a little bit more about what I'm eating here? So that's a typical Cantonese street food, cheong fun. It's rolled up with whatever protein you prefer, and then add sweet soy sauce. You've got sriracha there, too. Enjoy. Oh my god, look how long and gummy and delicious this looks. Let's give it a shot. That's one hell of a breakfast. Those rice sheets absolutely soak up that sweet soy sauce, and then I'm getting a hit of the sriracha, a little spice to wake you up in the morning. Very nice. Protein-wise, maybe it's on the bottom. You know, like when you get a yogurt cup. Oh, that might be protein. There we go. Mmm. Oh, that's really nice. I don't know if this is on purpose, but the pork actually tastes like Italian sausage. It tastes delicious. It's a wonderful breakfast. Listen, Chinatown is a legendary place. In fact, I believe it was a couple decades ago that they created Chinatown. The concept was so popular, they made a whole country out of it, and they're doing very well over there, I heard. Is that true? Yes, I agree. This is location one. We have a lot to go if we're gonna spend $100. Surely, this is gonna be the cheapest thing we find, but let's see. Let's keep moving. One of the things that makes Chinatown unique is these open-air markets, especially where they're selling different types of produce, because this produce is not from here. It's imported. Let's take a look at some of what they got here. This is called longan. You crack those open, and you eat them with fruit. Right here, guava. Thanks. Also a fruit. What I really want to show you is what's down here. This is the king of fruits. These are durian, so this is known as the world's smelliest fruit. These don't grow in the USA, and usually these would have to be imported from Southeast Asia. So these are already kind of expensive in Southeast Asia. When they get here, even more expensive, and also not that fresh. Oh my god, it hurts so bad. Do you see how sharp these are? If this fell on your head, instant death. How much is this? $5 a pound. But how many pounds is it? Oh, yeah, that's a better way to hold it, I guess. I'm just curious how much that could possibly cost. It's $5 a pound. It's seven pounds. It's $150. That's crazy. Wait, hold on. I failed college three times. Give me a break. Here, we have some of the durian that's already been taken out. Sir, how much is this one? $100. So I'm gonna buy this for... That doesn't make sense. This is $35, but just these two pods is $20? Best I can do is $5. 7, 8, 9, 10, 16. All right, we'll do 15. All right, guys, our second meal of the day. Immediately after taking off the lid, it released its aroma. You can see it's a little watery, and that's because it's probably a bit overripe. But here's the thing. Durian's already smelly, so as it gets older, it just gets better. Oh god, it's so gooey. Give it a shot. It's a bit rancid. It's on the sour side, so it's kind of decomposing. It's like it has some of that familiar durian flavor, but man, give this five more days, and it's gonna turn into alcohol. In the end, is it delicious? Eh, it's okay. But when it comes to durian, in general, the fresher, the better. Let's keep moving. Boom! We found another mini cart. Look how small this one is. It's smaller than the last one. Meanwhile, inside, still two people. This cart is called Xiong Mini Cake, and let me tell you, that's exactly what they're making. I want to tell you, let's take a look at the menu. The whole cart is the menu. Right here, you have your base cake. From there, it's all about the different types of toppings that you want to put on your cake. Everything from caramel, to peach, to strawberry, to chocolate, and nuts. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna be ordering this. It has chocolate, condensed milk, and peanuts. Let's give it a shot. It all starts over here. He takes the iron. He slathers it with a paintbrush full of oil. Next, that mini cake batter, heading into the tin here. Time has passed. He removes the top iron. And boom! There it is. The mini cakes descend into the mini pan. Now, he's gonna break them all apart, going from one large cake conglomeration, being broken up into smaller cakes. Ooh! Hot, steamy, and smelling delicious. From there, he hits it with a little bit of chocolate. Perhaps a lot of chocolate. Okay, that's good. From here, the condensed milk goes in. Finally, he hits it with some crushed peanuts, and it's ready to go. Thank you. All right, folks. Right here, we have our mini cakes coming in at $4. These are definitely mini cakes. I put a toothpick in. I pick one up. Very light, also. It weighs almost nothing. Robert, Xi'an mini cakes. Where are these from? Well, they said they originated from Hong Kong. It's very popular. I've been to Hong Kong. I'm not sure that I've seen this before. Let's go for it. Light, sweet, airy. This is not the type of cake that will fill you up. Oh, sorry. The cake doesn't have a strong flavor whatsoever, so the key here is the toppings. I love the peanuts. Chocolate, I'm okay with, but condensed milk. To me, condensed milk is like third-world frosting. Nobody eats it in the USA. In Southeast Asia, they love it. Condensed milk in the coffee in Vietnam, delicious. Even if you go to Indonesia, the murtabak covered in chocolate and condensed milk is delicious. Here, the same vibe, but a bit lighter. For $4, a light, delicious snack, but when I think Chinese food, I usually don't think cake. I usually think delicious meats or noodles. We have graduated from the food courts to a food court. Right behind me, Mott Street Eatery. This place inside kind of reminds me of a Singaporean hawker center. There's a bunch of the greatest hits of Asia, tons of vendors, and they're all selling different types of Asian food, especially Chinese food, and it looks delicious. Let's go inside and take a look. We have come to our first stall. Right behind me, the name of it is 北方老味道. Nice. It just really rolls off the tongue. What that translates to is flavors from the north. So there's a lot of Beijing food here. Let's take a look at the menu. You can see here, braised pork head. I think that's literally a snout right there. Braised pigs, trotters, pig ears. Beyond that, they have beef and egg noodle soup, fresh pork wonton, but what I'm here for is the homemade Chinese pancakes. Let's head inside and see how that's made. This is the first step. She takes a big blob of batter and she puts that on the flat top. It's so thick, she can barely scrape it around. Now, I'm told this contains 13 different types of flour. From here, she cracks an egg. She smoothly spreads the entire egg over the whole thing. From here, we're going for scallions. Then she puts in some pickled mustard greens, and then some seasoning, then some sweet paste, and a little bit of cabbage next, then a little bit of shredded radish, and finally, she peels the entire thing from off the flat top and she begins to roll it like a burrito. She puts some of these crispy fried crackers inside to make it even more crunchy. She folds it, cuts it in half, and that is ready to eat. Thank you. Today, the toughest choice I have to make is what to order next. But if life hits you with a much bigger problem, like an injury caused by someone else, well, that's where Morgan & Morgan comes in. Morgan & Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. Not largest in a mysterious billboard way, largest in scale, in reach, in actual humans whose full-time job is to handle injury cases across all 50 states. When you get injured, it can feel overwhelming. 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They fight to get their clients the compensation they deserve, and their fee is free unless they win. For more information, you can go to forthepeople.com slash foodreview. Now, back to the show. The only thing adding stiffness to this food is that rigid hard cracker she put inside. Now, this rigid hard cracker is going to take a bite. Oh, wow. Immediately, my mind goes to taco salad. The hard cracker on the inside is like a taco bowl, and then there's warm cabbage, there's some sweet flavors and salty flavors. I don't know if it's meant to taste like a Chinese taco bowl, but it does. It's not a crazy amount of flavor, but it's good. It's mild. You can still taste the scallions inside. But really, what I barely even captured at the end is that cracker on the inside. It gives it so much nice texture. Is that cracker part of the traditional recipe? The cracker is the star. It's actually a Chinese fried dough. It's a flat donut. I love it. But then we have this right here. This is braised pig head right there. Skin with some cartilage inside. That's definitely ears. And then just different shaved bits of head. I love it. This is not something that you see every day in the USA. Beyond the meat itself, she's prepared it with some different sauces, some cilantro on here, green peppers, and a load of peanuts too. I'm going to fork up some of these ears, a bit of chin, some snout, and a couple of eyebrows. Oh, that's good. There's some kind of a soy sauce base on there. It's very savory, but it's also a little bit sour too. Beyond that, it tastes like the pig head has been braised in a Chinese five spice. So that's giving it a ton of flavor as well. The main draw for this dish, I would say, is all the textures. The ears, the cartilage is very snappy, very crunchy. Then there's some gooey bits, some fatty bits, some bits that have more protein. What's not to love about that? This is course number four. This right here, $12. Cheaper than that rancid durian. And this was an animal with a name and family. I think I got ripped off. That said, there are about 10 other stalls in here. I want to check out some more Chinese food, so let's keep moving. Boom, we moved on to our second hawker stall within this food court. Here, we're moving from Northern China to Western China. Here, they're serving up a type of cuisine known as Shanxi oil splash noodles. But these are not just any type of noodles. These are hand-pulled noodles. This is something I did not expect to see here in New York City. I thought everything's going to be like factory made or dried and then rehydrated, but no. You can see from this picture, a very traditional man pulling noodles. That's what we're going to see. But the guy has a different haircut, if I'm honest. There's a ton of noodles to choose from. I have my eye on the fatty intestine noodle soup. Let's get to it. So right here, we've come to the noodle station. My man, take it away. It all starts right here. He reaches inside a plastic bag. He discards that plastic bag. He comes back to a different plastic bag. Nope, not that one either. But as we dig, yes, that is the one. Oh, okay. He takes out a little snake-sized piece of dough. He begins flattening them out a little bit. From here, he stretches them out. He puts them in his hand and he starts doubling the length. Boom. He slaps it. He slaps it. Oh my gosh. The sound reminds me of my childhood. From here, those hand-pulled noodles get thrown into this hot water. Next, he throws in some greens and even more noodles. Now, I'm not sure if I'd call these hand-pulled noodles or hand-slapped noodles. Either way, a hand is involved and these noodles have been handled, if you know what I'm saying. From here, he swishes all of that about. Next up, it's broth o'clock. A splash of oil hits the ripping hot wok, ready to receive some veggies. Scallions and garlic go in first, followed by raw onion and tomato. What was this? Beef stock. Then he puts in a little bit of beef stock. Next, a little bit of mystery lamb stock. Now, a flavor avalanche. Sichuan peppercorns, salt and MSG, cumin and white pepper, all loaded into a ladle. And then what was the sauce? Soy sauce and dark vinegar. And soy sauce and dark vinegar. We got to keep up, Robert. Finally, the umami squad. Wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and bean curd skin. This is what I call layers of flavor. He gives it a little bit of a taste and he looks... He does not look pleased. He added some more stock and all those noodles are added to the wok. Oh no, we're missing it. Jesus f***ing Christ. He dumps everything into the bowl, but we're still missing our protein. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Boom. Here, we have that braised fatty intestine and that gets mixed with a little bit of braised beef. She hits it with a little bit of sesame oil, some scallions and cilantro. Oh, and a little bit of chili oil. And that is how you make fatty intestine noodles. Let's go try it out. All right, folks. Right here, we have something very exciting. A type of noodle I've never seen before. This is a Western Chinese noodle from a stall that's only been here for about one week. These guys are brand new. They're proving themselves and they're very kind to let us come into their kitchen and try to capture the tornado of action that took place when making this food. It has 11,000 ingredients. So we have braised beef here and we have fatty intestine, but I have no idea what animal this is from. Pork. That's pork. Fantastic. I probably could have identified it by its smell because it's a strong smell. It's really pungent. We'll build up to those intestines, but first we have some braised beef. Oh yeah. Absolutely delicious. The beef has been braised. It's very soft. It's falling apart every time you take a bite. And then beyond that, it's just absolutely coated with that chili oil, giving it even more flavor and a little bit of zing. But I'm not just here for the meat. I'm here for those handful noodles. These, he was boiling in hot water for like 10 minutes and still they're extremely firm. They've kept their firmness. Oh my God. The noodle itself, that's very dense, very satisfying. Oh yeah. These are slurping noodles. The broth is outstanding. I can't believe it. It's so flavorful. So rich, fatty. It really pops and it's a really a complex broth. Oh my God. Look at the grease residue left on the spoon. It's very heavy. Look at this sign. It's called oil splashed noodles. When you come here, you can't expect something light. Speaking of not light, this fatty intestine is big. It's jiggly and it is smelly. Wow. The smell is really intimidating, but once you get to know it, pretty good. Kind of like me. I could have been safe. I could have gone with a vegetarian version. I could have just gotten oil with noodles. That would have been boring. But this, this is on another level. So next time you have a hundred dollars burning a hole in your pocket and you come to Chinatown, take a couple risks. You will be rewarded. On to the next food. Our next restaurant is something you would never find unless you had a guy like Robert telling you it was there. It's a dumpling shop that resides in the basement of a mall that's all but abandoned. Somehow in this post-apocalyptic looking building, there is one restaurant still thriving. Let's go take a look. All right, let's head inside. So as soon as you come inside, it's an eerie quiet and some stalls are open, but many are not. This place was bustling before the pandemic, but now, now it's a different story. From here, we descend further into the core of the earth. Creepy. There's no sign of life here until you walk to this place, a little dumpling shop in the middle of nowhere, inside the basement of an abandoned mall. And this place is thriving. So behind me, there's a Fujian style restaurant serving a unique style of fried dumpling. Let's head into the kitchen now and see how it's made. So here they're serving a few different types of buns. First of all, steamed buns. Right here is the steamed bun making station. It starts over here with the dough. She breaks the dough into manageable pieces. Over here, it's all about the filling. We have a pork filling being stuffed inside the dough. It gets crimped up on top and then left here to hang out with his buddies. So I am in the kitchen now in the wok station. Let's see how these dumplings come together. Here we have the dumplings already pre-made in this plastic bag, and those head over to a wok to boil all the way through first. Soon, they're going to fry, but this is a necessary part of the process. And trust me, these guys, they know what they're doing. He turns the fire up on that wok, and these dumplings start to bubble away. From here, the dumplings head out of the boiling water. And actually, I have no idea what's happening. Now it's time for the wok. He fills the wok with plenty of oil. Now those boiled dumplings head into the wok to fry. There is so much oil, it is like a slip and slide in there right now. After a couple of minutes, you can see the dumplings starting to brown around the edges. That means it's almost time. He gives it a little bit of a flip, and you can see that beautiful browning on that one side. He wants to get the other side all fried up too. From here, those head out of the wok into a sieve so the oil can drain. He puts them in the container, and those are ready to eat. Here we are, meal number 17. So here I got two varieties of dumplings. These are the fried ones we just saw, and these are the steamed version. I'm going to end with those, and I'm going to start with these. When you break it open, the filling, it is full of delicious pork and chives. Tons of flavor, tons of juiciness. Let's give it a shot. Oh, that's good. Super crispy, super oily. You get a little flare from the chives. It's very delicious. Meanwhile, here they have what they call an in-house dumpling sauce. Now this is kind of a soy-based sauce with some vinegar inside. That's tasty. It's very sweet. It's a little vinegary, and that's perfect because it cuts through the porkiness of this dumpling. Very good. Before we move on to this dumpling, I want to talk a little bit about this restaurant. This place is very unique because I'm not even sure you can call it a restaurant. Right there is a small kitchen where they operate, and they operate efficiently. Meanwhile, they've got about four tables. It kind of just seems like they're sitting out here in the hallway. This isn't necessarily a designated area for the restaurant. We're just kind of right next to a bunch of other shops. You could look over into another shop where people buy and sell gold and silver, then look over to another shop where they're selling real estate, and then here, boom, dumplings. And that brings me to our next dumpling. Right here, this is the other one we saw being handmade in the kitchen. Oh my lord, wow. This is one of the best steamed buns I've ever had in my life. The thickness of that steamed bun is perfect. It's very thin, but it has a lovely texture. Like, a little bit doughy, a little bit chewy. Beyond that, the meat inside, it is a flavor atomic bomb. The pork in here, absolutely juicy, and it's just swimming in sauce. It's absolutely delicious. Ten out of ten, I would recommend. And the best part is, you could come down here and get kidnapped, and then you have a cool story, too. It's a creepy place. So that's the food. Let's talk about the price. Each of these plates is only five and a half dollars, which for New York City feels like an absolute steal. Even if I was in the middle of South Dakota, five and a half bucks would seem cheap. But here, that seems wildly affordable. So these are our basement eats, but we have one food remaining up on the streets from another street food cart. Let's head outside into the daylight to check it out. Right now, I'm jumping into a one-hour line for one of the most famous roasted meat places you will find here in Chinatown. This is gonna take a while. Robert, we've been waiting in line already half an hour. What is it about this restaurant that people are lining up and willing to wait for so long? Yeah, well, first, cheap eats. Really affordable, but they started way back more than 10 years ago. Just tailored to the local cab drivers, workers, got a quick meal, delicious. Now they're so famous. All right, guys, we're about to head inside, but first I want to point out why this place is so popular. Take a look at this. Your choice of roast pork or chicken on a small rice, $5.75 all day, every day. They actually do have ducks. My man is chopping one up right here. They've got rice, they've got chicken, and they've got pork. It looks amazing. Back in a minute. All right, guys, it is our time. Let's move. Can I get a large char siu? Right here, he takes a bunch of rice, he puts it into a styrofoam container, then he hits it with some cabbage, and then right there, that is that gorgeous roasted, juicy char siu. That goes inside the styrofoam container. Even more char siu. It looks crispy on the edges. Oh, my Lord. He hits it with a little bit of sauce, closes it up, and that is ready to go. I feel like there's a mistake. He said $8. It's so much food. Congratulations. Let's go outside and try it out. All right, folks, this is our final Chinese street food for the day. Let's get into it. What's really remarkable about this place is how affordable it is. For a small portion, it's only $5.75, but when you bump it up to a large, this is $8, and that's plenty of meat on top. What I love to see is these little crisp cheeses. Oh, my God. Is he going to eat it? I thought you were going to eat that. These little bitty black edges, that's full of carcinogens, and it might make you live a shorter life, but it's definitely going to make you live a better life. Let's give it a shot. Warm, juicy. That char siu sauce, it's oily, it's salty, it's sweet. Beyond that, those burnt crispy edges are delectable. Sometimes they even burn because of the sugar. You're almost getting this caramelization effect on the edge of the meat. Oh, that's so good. Even better when you get some fatty bites. Juicy, delicious. If you're a porcophile like me, you're going to love this. Robert, are you a porcophile? I'm going to be after watching you today. Okay, cool. The pig face and then the char siu pork. So what I like is when they put that sauce on here, the sauce drips down into the rice. Perfectly steamed, perfectly delicious. Finally, here we have some cabbage. I'm not going to eat it. I'm just letting you know. So this is our final food, but we have one last thing to do, which is adding up all the prices from every food we ate today. But first, I need to tell you about this guy, Robert. Come here. This guy, his name is Robert. He gives food tours and cultural tours here in Chinatown. Go check out the link down below in the description if you want to have Robert give you a tour next time you come to New York City. The tour is about much more than food. You get to learn about the culture, about the history, and you get access to places you would never find on your own. Robert, thank you so much. Thank you, Simon. You may go. Today, we ate a lot of Chinese food, nine dishes in total. But does the total price of everything we tried break the $100 barrier? In fact, it did not. But we got so close with a final total of $75.50. It would have been over $80 if they put duck inside that Chinese burrito, but what are you going to do? So what does that say about New York? Am I sad that I didn't spend $100? Actually, no. I think what it shows is that you can find remarkable affordable eats here in Chinatown. All you have to do sometimes is wait in line for a whole hour. What was fun about today was finding Chinese food in the USA that I never knew existed here and trying some real authentic traditional flavors that you can't really find anywhere else in the USA. If I had to pick one that was my absolute favorite from today, it would be that steamed dumpling. Absolutely mind-blowingly delicious, but that's just what I think. Let me know what you think downstairs in the comments down below. Which of the foods from today do you wish you could try? Otherwise, that is it for this one. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you next time. Puppies. Bye.