NEW ASIAN Food You Must Try In New York! ($19 KOBE BEEF)

It's actually like oddly nostalgic. I never personally actually got an opportunity to work in a kitchen. You know, that's just not how my life played out, but I get to do it right now. You are not getting a U.S. Kobe beef mix for $20. And I think this is the best one I've ever had. This food is going to be very, very different than anything I've had before. Asian food keeps getting better and better in New York City from late night omurice to Japanese steak to the next gen of Chino Latino food to what might just be the best midnight ramen. This is a video you do not want to miss. So please hit that like button and let's go. First up, we've got Kura Ramen, guys. This is a chain from Asia. They've got 120 locations over there, and now they are expanding all across North America. They've got nine alone in New York City. I mean, there might be one opening nearby you. Guys, we're talking about omurice, rice burgers, ramen. We got like a mixture between Japanese and Taiwanese influences. I mean, it's just a really cool spot that appeals to everybody. It is really just delivering high quality foods. Man, whether you're a young hype beast or an old Asian traditionalist, when it comes to being a foodie, they got something for you. Let's check it out. And why does everybody come to Kura Ramen to get the omurice? I'm about to show you why real quick into the kitchen. All right, I'm here with Sifu Wen. Wen is going to teach me how to cook omurice. This is the first time I've ever done it. It takes a lot of mastery and a lot of practice. A big yellow pillow that we know as omurice. Oh, I'm not going to lie. Wen made it look easy. Oh, that's the shot. You know, going into making my first omurice, to be honest, man, I get the general movements. You know, I have decent motor skills. I'm not going to say that it's going to be as good as hers. I got to turn it on, too. I stir, I start stirring it a little bit. I start breaking it up in the middle. Shoot, it's getting a little too cooked. OK, I'm trying to flip it over. Is this servable? All right, I'm eating it. Oh, it's not the worst moment of truth, guys. Aren't you guys? We are going to be learning how to make two different types of ramen. One is a black garlic. Number two, we're going to be making a kimchi ramen here at Kura Ramen. Big old chopstick. Big old chopstick is the key. There's a lot of work that goes into even one bowl of ramen. You see the work, guys. I can't fake this. Oh, char siu. The blowtorch. And they sear it for you. It smells incredible. First off, I'm going with bamboo shoots. Maybe maybe a little extra kimchi, a little more kimchi. I never personally actually got an opportunity to work in a kitchen. You know, that's just not how my life played out. But I'm going to do it right now. Aren't you guys? We've got the three items that we help make here at Kura Ramen, as well as some of their new ones. This is a omurice. Of course, Andrew, this is not the one you made, but it's the one Chef Wen made. A black tonkatsu right here. And we've also got a kimchi tonkatsu. Oh, look at this kimchi ramen. Nice. David, nice job roasting the pork. Omurice. Black garlic ramen. Like we said, guys, they're always bringing over cool concepts from Japan. This is a rice burger. You know what I love about this rice burger is that the buns are so dense and sticky together with the sticky rice that it really holds. In a way, a lot of rice burgers fall apart. Yeah. You guys, I'm telling you, Kura Ramen is so unique because it's got the fun vibes of like a diner or a burger shop on the western side. But the food is way more like a ramen shop or a izakaya. Or even like a Taiwanese popcorn chicken spot. I'm telling you, no matter what you like, there is something for you here. I just see all types of people here getting ramen and the omurice and all these dishes. And it's honestly just a cool spot. I would say check out one of the locations that's opening up near you. This is Agedashi Tofu. Alright, our next new Asian concept is Chino Grande, guys. It is started by our friend Josh, who's also from Winsun, a famous Taiwanese spot over here in Brooklyn. This spot, it is hard to describe, kind of like a Peruvian new American fusion. And Peruvian is already a fusion. So it's like a fusion of a fusion. Let's go check it out, man. Brooklyn always got some things. Man, I'm just really excited. This food is going to be very, very different than anything I've had before. OK, starting off, we got the little gem salad. I've never seen a salad that looked like this. I mean, they have furikake and a special cream on top and just like full pieces of lettuce right here. Let's just bite into it. Yo, there's hazelnut, there's furikake, and it definitely reminds me of kind of one of those chicken, bacon, ranch salads you get at a steakhouse. Brand new way to eat salad. I've never had a salad that tastes like this before. You just got to come and try this. All right, right here, we got the Grande fries. This is their signature fries. They have their special sauce on top, of course, furikake. Furikake is making all this food taste so unique because it's combining with other elements that I've never had furikake with. So, man, pretty crazy. All right, guys, coming in with more Japanese influence. We have these roasted cabbage skewers. This is yakitori style. Each leaf of cabbage is stuck onto it. So, you know, I mean, I've had roasted cabbage before at Japanese spots, but not like this. Who would have thought cabbage would feel like meat? You know, everything so far has looked kind of familiar, but just tasted a little bit more different than I thought. All right, guys, here's their chicken thigh skewer. And no, that is not scallions, but those are chives. Let's try this. With the oyster sauce and the chive, it kind of tastes almost like it's leaning in towards the filling of a dumpling, but then it backs out and says, no, no, no, no, no. I'm a chicken thigh yakitori. We got the veggie fried rice. I've never seen fried rice like this. It kind of looks like a salad. So it has yu choy. It has daomio, which is a pea vine shoots right here. Has a little bit of eggs. It is kind of similar to something you've had before. It's just got a little twist. So, you know, it's going to be refreshing. We got the fried chicken. It is sprinkled with some spicy chilies on top. And this is a coconut ranch sauce dipping in the coconut ranch. All right. So after having some dishes here at Chino Grande, I would describe it as kind of a fresh, refreshing, kind of veggie forward, more Japanese leaning, Peruvian, new American spot. Man, it's pretty good. And guys, Brooklyn always got some new concepts. Gotta come to Brooklyn more, man. Guys, you know, the Brooklyn crowd, you know, it's very eccentric, eclectic. It's hard to describe this spot. And sometimes it's hard to describe people in Brooklyn, too. What you guys are looking at is the fourth generation U scooter, guys. After using the brand new GT Sport, I got to tell you, it is the fastest and it has the smoothest takeoff. But, you know, I still like the GT SE as well. But both of these have 700 watt motors. And then if you want something a lot smaller, but still very quick, this one has 500 watt motor. This is the booster V, and it is super light. So you know what? U scooters is just giving you options. I honestly think that anybody who lives in a big city will have their life changed by buying one of these. Ready to go anywhere. All right, everybody, I'm here at the Boba guys over in Nolita. You know, it's right next to Ame Leon Dore. You know, it's kind of got that more street prep vibe where a lot of people are buying streetwear and also come in here. So here I got the Ube Latte and then here I got the strawberry rice milk as well. So let me try this Ube Latte. Light Ube flavor, a little spicy chai, it's good. Whoa. The guys being a success out here just goes to tell me that, you know, a lot of people of all different types of backgrounds do enjoy products from Asia. However, you know, sometimes they just need the branding to be a little different, the vibe to be a little different and it to be in their zone. All right, you guys, we're at Coney Shack. This is a crazy concept. Southeast Asian inspired hot dogs, man. Tell us what we're looking at. Well, this one is the Mock Dog. So the Mock Dog, it always starts with a potato bun. Most of our hot dogs, we like to put meat on top of meat. We'll have a beer batter, crunchy fish right on top of a natural skin casing hot dog. Yeah, so this one is the garlic lemongrass chicken taco, Malaysian coconut butter shrimp. We got the Vietnamese garlic pork belly taco right here. The most popular item was a beer batter, crunchy fish. We got the five spice calamari and we got the popcorn oyster mushroom taco. Oh, and this one is our new item, which is the vermicelli bowl. We got the garlic lemongrass chicken, but we don't put a lot of fresh ingredients. You know who doesn't like eating hot dogs, right? But just to incorporate like like all these great, awesome ingredients. Yeah, you're going to try it. And the pork belly. Yeah, it's filling. It's a load of hot dog. But, you know, it's in all levels. People love it. Lemongrass chicken taco, guys, Vietnamese inspired. That's like your favorite lemongrass chicken bun meat, but with way less carbs. This is a Vietnamese pork belly taco. Oh, my goodness. Washing it down with a mango lemonade. This is a way to enter the consciousness of the Americana Jersey shore crowd. Never seen a hot dog like this before. This is beer battered fish on top of a hot dog, on top of scallion oil with mozzarella cheese. Fish and a hot dog. That's a new type of surf and turf. Shrimp tacos are really trendy. Well, this is the coconut Malaysian curry shrimp. You have never had a five spice calamari taco until now, of course. I like that one a lot more than I thought. I'm not going to lie. That was unexpected. Fish taco. Popcorn oyster mushroom taco, guys. Wow. This is the vermicelli bowl, of course, inspired by the Vietnamese vermicelli bowl, but this one has a lot more Western elements like tomatoes and stuff like that feels kind of like a salad. Oh, OK. Here at Cody Shack, I think the things that stood out to me was the mushroom taco, the calamari taco. And actually, they're a holy food hot dog. But you guys also don't just have this. You also have a ramen spot right next to here, right? You guys are doing some cool things with that. If you have not had a garlic kudo black ramen before, you are missing out, guys. I'm telling you, it's 2022. This might be the best ramen in the game right now. You see that? That's a black garlic. Listen, guys, food courts are stepping their game up to have this level of quality not cooked by Japanese is very 2022. I think previously people were very skeptical of ramen spots that weren't Japanese owned. But honestly, I've been to enough nowadays that if you just put the work in and you study it, you can still make a good bowl. You know, it's pretty cool here at Senshi Ramen. They do keep it very traditional with sukemen and all types of dipping ramens, but obviously over at their other concept, they're doing Vietnamese hot dogs, which is like super hyperfusion. As far as new concepts go, you will rarely ever find something as deep cut as sukemen served at like a ramen stall for the lunch office crowd. But I'm telling you, they're doing a good job here at Senshi. Of course, to wash it all down, you've got to use some sparklers, you've got to use some lemonade. And for me, I like them both, but I'm going to go with the yuzu lemonade. Oh, my goodness. Not only that, they got all the ramen. They got bento boxes, man. Let us know what we're looking at. So we have fried lotus root. We have pumpkin here. We have sweet potato, cauliflower. We have karaage chicken. We have a masago spicy mayo sauce with roasted sesame, nori flakes on white rice, seaweed salad, a sesame dressing salad right here, tomatoes. Hey, what are they eating in Japan for lunch? Bento boxes all day. Quick to go. That's the best. Oh, that's good. You guys, this fried tempura is not something you normally see at like a quick service stall. Like we said, deep cut Japanese items here. Aren't you guys? Our next new Asian concept is not new. It's been around for 10 years, but it's probably new to you. We are at Ichiban Steakhouse right now. It's 2 a.m., guys. The owners are from Kumamoto, Japan. It's southern Japan. We're talking about Kyushu, Fukuoka. And this is a blue fin grilled tuna steak at 2 a.m. in the morning. And this is a ichibante steak right here. You've got garlic chips. I've got sauces. I've got salt. And of course, we've got the kitsune udon, which is a fried sweet tofu pocket right here. Of course, look at this super soft egg, guys. New York does not have a J-Town. 9th Street and 10th Street sort of serve as like a substitute for that. And like I said, guys, this is super late at night to shoku diner food. This is like Denny's, but from Japan, and it's way better than Denny's. Twenty five bucks, seven ounce steak, guys. Japanese are really good at making tasty teriyaki flavored steaks for cheap. And of course, you guys know about this salad. You can't beat this salad. Meguro steak, grilled blue fin tuna, guys. Of course, this would be like diner food in Japan, gourmet to the rest of us. Of course, last but not least, we've got kitsune udon. Kitsune are these fried tofu pockets right here. We're going to get into it. Of course, we've got the egg right here. We're going to break that up. Like I said, guys, you can get this until 3 a.m. in New York City. Last but not least, of course, in Japan, it is not impolite to slurp your noodles. To get this tier of quality of Teishoku, Japanese like diner comfort home style food at 2 a.m., at 3 a.m. in the East Village, guys. Listen, you could go to Goren, you could go to here, but it's like southern Japan and NYC. What I love about these Japanese spots on the East Village is that a lot of them are from the island of Kyushu, right? We talk about Teishoku, that's home style food. But obviously, homes are different across the country. So, you know, maybe in Kumamoto, they have more steak or they have more blue fin. You know, it's in the south tip of Japan. So I don't know. But all I can tell you is that these greens are fresh. This fried garlic is delicious. And this steak is crazy for 25 bucks. What a deal. Guys, there's a spot in Little Tokyo, L.A. and a lot of spots in Seattle that I kind of miss because they kind of had more like the teriyaki shop vibes. And this is actually giving me that vibe right now. So it's actually like oddly nostalgic. All right, so our next Asian concept in New York City is probably the best ramen you can get at 2 a.m. in maybe the entire country. We're here at Goren Ramen and you are looking at the third style of ramen. Now there's hikata, which a lot of people know. And then there's sopporo. And then this is Kitakata ramen. It's a chicken broth, OK? And it has a little bit of dashi and some shoyu. This one has karaage in it, of course. Generous amounts of onions and bamboos. I love that. And then this is their spicy one right here with, of course, chashu. And this is also still chicken broth. And I like chicken broth a lot better than tonkatsu at this point in my life. Obviously, a good tonkatsu is hard to beat and everybody loves that. But man, I love the chicken broth. So I'm going to go with this. By the way, this style of chicken ramen broth is actually in Japan, not necessarily that much less popular than tonkatsu. But tonkatsu in America, obviously, is the go to, you know, but there's like shoyu, there's the salt one. And, you know, there's all different types of ramen. So check this out. It's 1 a.m., by the way, and I'm eating a mixture of dashi and shoyu all in the same bowl, you know, in a chicken based broth. Guys, even the way that this spot is designed, it's giving you authentic Japanese vibes, you know, like on our last trip to Tokyo or Yokohama. And I got to say, honestly, I feel like the broth has not really been Americanized or they're not doing any super anything that stands out to be American. So it seems pretty authentic to me. Although I do know ramen chefs, they do have a lot of liberties with ramen. So, you know, you're bound to do something a little different. But this is so good right now. This next one is the spicy karaka, but it has nicely roasted chashu and with the spicy sauce. So let's check this out. Tons of sprouts. Very, very generous. Thank you very much. Oh, it's got a little minced meat in there, too. Let's check it out. Super tender chashu from 1am, are you kidding me? I really like this one, but I think I'm rolling with the spicy. So if you come to Gorin, this one's going to be hitting. I mean, guys, let's say you're out late. You're coming to Gorin ramen. You don't want something too heavy like a tonkatsu, but you get the chicken broth. And even though this obviously has some oil, it does feel a lot lighter. So I definitely recommend it. If you're on 14th, you know, I'm talking about that's lower Manhattan. That's right on the line. So definitely check it out. Gorin ramen. Check out this gyudon, lots of grilled onions to a crisp. Let's check it out. All right, here's the gyoza. I'm super satisfied. I believe in Japanese they say something like monjuku desu ka? Or if not that, I'm walking out of here. I'm definitely saying arigato gozaimasu. All right, here they got their cucumber salad. Obviously, you know, I always the Chinese one is very, very popular. So let's try the Japanese version. More nutty, more sesame oil. Not as vinegary and pickled flavor, but still very, very refreshing. I like it's a nice little switch up. Continuing our late night Japanese series. It just keeps on going. We're here at Yakiniku West in the East Village. This is the unofficial J-Town here in New York City in lower Manhattan. Look, I'm telling you guys, these spots are pretty cheap. Look at that. You are not getting a U.S. Kobe beef mix for $20. We ordered two of these. You can get Atlantic salmon, sushi, salmon belly. My God. This is a salmon toro, four pieces, ten bucks. Definitely a late night cheap eat. At Yakiniku West, they do have daily specials. So for Wednesday, we got the short rib, the finger and the inside skirt. So Yakiniku actually originates from Korea. This is a Japanese version. They've had it for about seven years. As you can see, the main defining feature of Yakiniku is the grill that sucks the smoke downwards. This was actually invented in 1980 by a company in Japan called the Shinpoko. Yo, I'm telling you guys, this amount of USA Kobe grade beef for 20 bucks on a Wednesday. Are you serious? Aren't you guys? We got some different dipping sauces here. It's about kind of like Worcester. I'm not sure. It's good. Aren't you guys into the Kobe rib finger? There's definitely a lot less sauce than Korean barbecue, but the beef quality is still there, but definitely way less marinade. Actually, I miss it, but it's still good. Are you guys got some of the garlic shrimp we're about to put on there? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You know, you definitely do not smell very much here, but there is less side dishes that they give you for free and there is less flavor. So it really depends on what vibe you're looking for. This is way more chill. I see a lot of tables not drinking any alcohol at all. That is very different from K-Town Korean barbecue. Of course, we had to order lettuce. This was five dollars. It would have been free at Korean barbecue. So yakiniku, it's way more a la carte if you want to break it up, but it could add up as well. So. Aren't you guys, we're opening up our foil purse of mushrooms we've been working on this whole time, it almost formed like its own little mini oven inside of the foil. If you guys have never had yakiniku before, the Japanese version of Korean barbecue, definitely check it out. The fundamental basis is pretty cheap. And once you do all the add ons, it could get, you know, kind of pricey depending on what you want, but definitely worth the shot. It's a different energy, a different vibe. Check it out, see for yourself. Aren't you guys? We are at my favorite late night izakaya here in New York City. Oh, Taisho, super affordable, super deep cut izakaya. Late night eats. You've got chazuke right here. Cha means tea in Chinese and Japanese and Korean. Zuke means submerged. This is just green tea, dashi, salmon, wasabi. Boom. We've got to just mix this all up. And it's almost like a congee in a way. But the rice is not like really like melted to the point where it's this like soggy thing. I mean, this is just real fresh. This is absolutely one of my favorite clean snacks. There's very little oil in it. And this is just something you could make at home. But it's pretty cheap here, too. This is chikuwa cheese. I've actually never had this dish before. It's the Japanese fisticks stuffed with cheese and then grilled. And then you've got some seaweed flakes on top. Of course, you've got the QP mayo chikuwa cheese. Come here and discover some Japanese street food that you never had before in your life. All right, everybody. Here we have one of my favorite dishes here at Yakitori Otaisho. This is called the buta to inoki no scramble egg. It just means buta is pork. Obviously, inoki is the mushrooms there. And then it says no scramble egg, but it's a scramble. And what I like about it is that it's kind of messy, but it's got a lot of flavor and it's easy to eat and you just can throw it over rice. Man, it's got everything I love, man. I love inoki and I love the sauce on it. It's one of those wet scrambles. It's eggy. It's kind of sweet. Honestly, this is like a dish you probably cannot find anywhere else. They might have just created it here. All right, here we are with a salmon cream yaki soba. Of course, you guys know yaki means grilled. Soba means noodle made out of buckwheat. But this has salmon in it. And I feel like it does have a little bit of the mentaiko roe eggs, but not too much because it might boost the price. But this one is really delicious because it kind of tastes like a creamy salmon pasta. But with yaki soba noodles, I might even hit it with a little chili. Nanami chili. I mean, honestly, I just like it here. I just like it how, you know, this spot serves so many dishes that are a little bit like off the menu dishes at other spots, you know? I mean, a lot of spots are going to serve your oyakodons, you know, your kind of standard dishes. But here they're bringing you all these obscure, maybe like brand new dishes. I mean, maybe some of them they made up and some of them obviously do come from Japan, maybe things that you might more find in maybe Osaka, you know, or Kyushu, you know, maybe outside of the city. But man, these are great for drinking, too. And they do sell a lot of drinks here. Of course, here at Yakitori Taisho, we had to get the yakitori. I've got asparagus wrapped in bacon. I've got chicken thigh. I've got scallion. I've got chicken skin and I've got beef tongue. If you guys have not had beef tongue or you guys are shying away because this is an unconventional cut, definitely come and get it. This is a five out of five. Listen, guys, the guy who started from Japan, this whole region of East Village, it feels very Japanese, actually is from Kyushu, which is southern Japan. They have their own vibe there. That's a little bit more loose, more fun feeling. And I'm telling you, you feel that vibe here at Otaisho. It is a really fun place to bring your friends, bring a date here. It's open late, it's affordable, probably the most affordable izakaya in all of Manhattan. In fact, I always get the teriyaki tei. This is amazing here. This is, of course, chicken thigh. The only way they like to do it in Japan, you get spaghetti, too. Sort of an Ota, the Yoshoku, sort of Western Japanese fusion dish. Otaisho is a winner. Continuing our late night Japanese concept crawl throughout New York City, we're here at Takaraman, owned by two Japanese guys named Taka. One was from the fashion world. One was from the food world. Guys, they do things a little bit differently. This is a peppery karaage with this dip right here. It is designed to appeal to like Japanese, but also, you know, more Western people. That's why it's not hyper traditional like Goran was, for example. Oh, these are purple yam tempura fries. I have never seen this anywhere else. We've got the wasabi aioli. We've got other dips. I'm gonna just do all three. One, if you look at these Japanese pork sliders, I'm telling you, this piece is super thick, it's gigantic, it's actually a double slice. And yeah, just a little bit different. You know, it's not too different. It's still like sort of what you might have in your city, but just one notch elevated. Honestly, guys, this is the biggest piece of chashu I have ever seen in a Japanese pork bun. This is almost like a big ass piece of Dominican or, you know, Cuban pernil. Guys, I've had a lot of pork belly buns at Japanese ramen spots before, and I think this is the best one I've ever had. The chashu is nicely roasted. I know they flame, they flamed it at the end. And man, it's just delicious, honestly. What you're looking at here is a fish and chicken broth. And then you have grilled pork belly here and then you have minced pork here and then, of course, you have your egg. So you got a lot of stuff going on. Let me taste the broth real quick. Kind of has this dark roasted flavor, dashi, shoyu flavor. It's really good, man. I mean, I remember growing up, really, the only type of ramen broth that I would eat is like tonkatsu, maybe shoyu, maybe miso. But now when you're in a bigger market, a bigger city around so many Japanese people, man, you're going to get all the ramen. And let me tell you, there is like a different style of ramen for almost every different region of Japan. So that's why it's amazing. I mean, that ramen, sugoi! This is the kimchi hayashi chuka. This is obviously a cold ramen that you're going to eat in the summertime. And obviously the kimchi is a more new element. But what I like is that this spot is actually started by, you know, fashion designers and fashion designers. No matter how old they are, they are definitely more on the cutting edge to kind of blend cultures and stuff like that. Obviously, them being from Tokyo matters, too, because maybe if they're from like a smaller region, they might only want to serve that style of ramen, which is totally OK. But when they're from Tokyo, obviously you get that kind of global mixed fusion mindset. So let me try this. Yo, this kimchi version actually kind of tastes like a mixture between soba and the Korean naengmyeon, the cold buckwheat noodles. And that's what I mean, that's pretty cool. So as you guys can see, we've been kind of on this late night Japanese crawl. And I think it's cool because in lower Manhattan, below 14th, you will get a lot of like Japanese spots. Now, you might pay a premium because they're open late. But honestly, the quality is there, like none of these spots are bad at all. And I actually love how they all offer something different. So, man, you guys, again, late night, maybe not super late night, but around 11 p.m., 12, 11, but around 11 p.m., 12 a.m., you still got some Japanese options.