Food Crawl In New York's NEXT ASIA TOWN! (Long Island City)

Wow, is it my birthday? Man, this is definitely all one noodle man. Look at how much trouble we're having right now But I'm telling you this feels pop Say what's up to him in the back LIC is nice and it's clean. What more do you need to say Thai iced tea? The New York Times just called Long Island City the new Asia town citing the huge Asian population Increase and all the stores and restaurants that opened up in the past few years We had to see what all the hype was about This was our first trip ever to LIC and we're starting off a yumpling a Taiwanese fast casual owned by our friends Chris and Howie That opened up just two years ago, but was a pioneer in the LIC Asian food game Starting off our LIC crawl. We're here at yum plings Yum plings was started by two Taiwanese and a Korean friend. So the three buddies came together. They created this spot It's mostly based around Taiwanese dishes. All right, let's start with the beef noodle soup the mural man. No, that tastes pretty good That's pretty authentic man You know I think a lot of people tend to believe that When spots are started by like Taiwanese Americans or Chinese Americans or Asian Americans is not gonna have the same like authentic flavor But man, this is good. And the beef shank is really soft. Look at that All right. Let's check out their Taiwanese. What's here? Now as you can see guys, maybe the shape looks more like a Chinese style But then the fact that they have all the sauce and the fresh cilantro and onions on top. That's very Taiwanese Taiwanese. What's here? Mmm all the sauce fresh cilantro and onions just like the Taiwanese do here's their fried chicken sandwich They fry it in the Taiwanese manner kind of like a G pie here. You have fresh basil leaves You have a basil aioli and a potato bun man, you know at the end of the day They still are American. So, you know, you want to bring some Americanized items One thing you will notice about a lot of fried Taiwanese chicken sandwiches Is that the chicken patty is way bigger than the bun twice the size Here one of my favorite dishes of all time zha jiang mian, you got a little oil on top I've never met anybody who didn't like the fried sauce noodles aka zha jiang mian You know just like I'm building the Taipei Railroad system here I got the lunchbox fried chicken on top of rice with a little bit of pork meat sauce on the bottom And you know what also goes really well with fried chicken Beer Taiwanese beer great flavor. I've never had this flavor, but I've had Taiwanese beer before It's like 40% grape juice 60% beer I like it dumplings is really cool because you know Unlike it being a chain that is ported over from Taiwan or China, you know This is a homegrown Asian American business and it's still serving pretty authentic recipes And they're making it accessible and appealing to all types of people, you know as I've been in here Obviously Asians have come through but a lot of non Asians have and I think that's really cool You need spots like this and they are securing their spot in the LIC Asian boom. So shout out to them What do you think about LIC kind of becoming this 2022 Chinatown they say you know Yeah, yeah, I've definitely seen the change. I mean it's happening really fast actually like literally over the past year You know just right across the street, you know, there are places popping up all like Asian food drinks desserts But yeah, I mean it's really exciting to see all right guys we got a long LIC video today We're gonna hit up multiple spots So I need a power up and I'm gonna go to tune young which is one of the premier Taiwanese boba brands from Taiwan I'm gonna grab something real quick and then come back toffee cheese cocoa latte Whoa You know that top layer was like this thick cheesy caramel cream and then it hits you with the hotness of like the Cocoa that was a crazy drink. I did not expect that here. I got the tongues of oolong Shanna, I'm sorry. I'm working on my Mandarin, but this is a ginger latte Mmm, very gingery. They told me to turn up the sugar so that it could balance out with the ginger spice Hopefully it wakes me up That's like eating one of those ginger candies that are wrapped up in plastic and you just like stuffed it in a drink Where would you rank chunyang of the boba brands from Taiwan? Like what ranking is it? All right, everybody I got to tell you if you see a chunyang open up in your neighborhood It means that there is a sizable Taiwanese and Chinese population and not just Asian American not just Chinese American Like they're probably from China or Taiwan just because this is a pretty traditional spot. Listen. I got a ginger oolong and I got like a Toffee coca coca latte. All right, this one's pretty traditional. So, you know, it says a lot about LIC and how it's changing aren't you guys I've got to admit Long Island City in some ways and it feels like Asian parts of Like downtown Toronto because we are just in a space right now that you would never get in the city. We're like in a Industrial garage that has been converted into like a noodle craft shop Yeah, and it's gigantic and they actually have a mixture of different styles of like kind of the Chinese diaspora here They have some Singaporean influence Obviously, they have the Lonzo fresh handmade noodles and then you also have like a lot of Taiwanese have been food So yeah, this is actually a you'll pour me and this is a scallion oil noodle, but I added the shrimp to it So it's almost got some vibes of like more fresh like tons. I mean from Shanghai. Oh, man This is definitely all one noodle man. Look at how much trouble we're having right now. All right guys. I just got to go in At noodle craft, they also have dim sum like we said one of the owners is from Guangzhou So you're seeing more, you know, obviously the Cantonese influence So dim sum laksa and dandan mian and Sichuan noodle man all in the same spot Would you say that appearance wise this almost looks more like a Japanese shumai, which is like lighter color Maybe less pork obviously than the traditional Cantonese one. You're right because enter Japanese They really like seafood their shumais are mostly shrimp and that is a pure shrimp one I hope to see more like authentic like Chinese or a different like, you know origins of Chinese food I feel like it needs more Yes, I want all right One of the things I noticed about being in Long Island City is that a lot of the owners are young whether they're from Asia Or they're Asian American and that just leads it to have a different vibe to be it does it does and you know People love that heritage like rustic vibe that Manhattan has a throwback, but I'm telling you this feels pop Hey, I'm trying to get this mango coconut sago or this matcha red bean or the black tea boba, which one are we getting? I don't know. They all look great All right, guys, we're here at taste cream what they specialize in is mixing Asian flavors with Western items enter That's a lychee rose cake. This is an Earl Grey blueberry one I'll see this is not necessarily Asian in the sense of like it being Earl Grey But the cake is really soft the frosting Andrew Everybody knows Asian frosting has a like lighter weight and lighter density to it and here are the lychee rose Obviously rose is kind of floral fragrant, you know popular in Thailand and Indonesia I'm telling you guys this blueberry Earl Grey is a 10 out of 10 absolute banger come support people who are taking risks Mixing Asian flavors fusing them with Western items over here. We've got a hojicha cookie Andrew You've got a black sesame cookie. These are super soft. The black sesame flavor is super strong in here Imagine a peanut butter cookie, but just flip with black sesame flavoring. That's how good. Oh my gosh. What is this? Because you had the lychee rose cake, oh my gosh, I have the matching drinking cake Wow, is it my birthday? Ooh nice and tart citrusy taste cream. Check it out. LIC Jackson have say what's up to him in the back There's an appeal to a healthy neighborhood is it does have a feel of Manhattan, but it's in Queens too And it's a very nice community Okay All right, you guys we're here with Danny the owner of this location at el milky or I milky I know what makes I milky different because I'm assuming you guys got good milk Yeah, so what makes I milky different from other bubble tea shops is that we use fresh farm milk And also our tea leaves are handpicked and it gets imported from Taiwan. All right, you guys, let's try it out I'm milky LIC is like sort of a brand new part of New York You know what I like is because for me I'm a little bit tiny bit lactose so I got the oat milk option This is good Yeah, I think LIC it's definitely a growing community I'm more modernized flushing for sure However, I do feel like flushing. It's still it's going to be like a Like home, you know what I mean? All right right now We are outside of the newest Asian food hall in Long Island City. It's connected to the five points Condos, and I'm sure you know a lot of the people here who live in this area will come here It's mostly Asian brand-new open up about four months ago. Let's check it out It's kind of like a search one stir-fry a lot of people really like my lash on board even Westerners even non-chinese They like it because it's a little bit less heavy way to get the search one flavor You know, you don't have to have the big Sichuan hot pot with all the oil and stuff like that There's oil but not like a ton. You know here we have a lot of tofu skins We have the deep-fried flash fried potatoes. We have the fish fillet. We have the beef here You got bok choy. You got some enoki mushrooms. You got the spam. Let's go Voila ABC Daniel absolute better cookie mala shangua fish fillet and enoki mushroom Mmm, honestly this little hidden gem that just opened is kind of cool You could come here study get some Sichuan food get some boba get some poke chill out. It's nice. It's clean It's warm blasting seapop. Shout out the ABC eats Andrew the American equivalent of what Chinese people love to eat mala shangua in is people wanting to eat like Texas or Memphis smoked baby back ribs inside of a contemporary modern art museum One thing that makes LIC feel really like a mini city next to the city is the density of high-rises our friend Shandy from Brooklyn now lives in five points So we had to get a tour and hear why he loves living in LIC so much Homie from Grand Street Park Now you're living here in five points this new building. Obviously it replaced the old five points Um, man, what can you tell us about living in LIC? I think it's a nice balance between like not having to live in the city But at the same time you get the same vibe a lot of folks that are from the same kind of move to LIC I think in the next two years is gonna be a lot of like flushing restaurants here Like the crowd is great. Everybody's like super chill if you want a nice Semi quiet Asian life in the city LIC. There we go All right Shandy behind us is court square diner this sort of represents old LIC, right? This has probably been here for like 50 years all this stuff around us has been here for like five years I mean, what do you know about it? I know this is where everybody usually hang out after like a go party and stuff. Their food is pretty good It's kind of nice It's like got that nostalgia feeling even though I wasn't like living in the 50s But all right, you guys if you can have all those luxury Asian high-rises in LIC, you got to have some kawaii anime Kuroky stuff. Let's check out this test Okay, you guys we've got the Kendrick the Chen Li the Majin Buu the Vegeta for me. I think I got to go with this Chun-Li and the Majin Buu Yo D, what did you get? I'll tell you this that is more Asian than anything in Manhattan All right. I got the Majin Buu ocean bomb peach flavor at the Ken sparkling tea peach flavor It's Chun-Li, right? Oh You're right, man. I had the Chun-Li one. It's an official Asian enclave when there's a Paris back in Seniors don't know for it All right, guys, as you know, we are technically in Queens nearby Elmhurst They actually have a Thai food truck. This is very rare to find especially in the city. You'll never see a Thai food truck Oh my goodness. They're making it fresh. They got the fresh brew Thai iced tea. Okay, so so they have a Pad Kra Pao, you know Thai sausage fried Thai sausage fried rice. Oh I'm tempted but I can't do it. Do you like Long Island City? What do you like about it? People are nice and it's clean, right? Hey you guys heard it here LIC is nice and it's clean. What more do you need to say Thai iced tea? All right. Our next spot in LIC is called Cuckoo Cachew The owners are from China, but they wanted to open a modern chicken spot Now I do think spots like this do kind of exist in the big cities in China like Shanghai, for example So I'm interested to see their twist on Western chicken and waffles chicken and fries chicken sandwiches All right, everybody in my hand. I have their newest item This is the guagua chicken sandwich. I thought gua meant like guabao like something Chinese, but it actually just stands for guacamole So you got guagua, cuckoos, man. That's a lot. That is actually fresh guacamole right there Yeah, I can see those pieces of avocado. All right guys, let's check it out, man This is a Chinese fried chicken sandwich As you can see there is only chicken thigh as it should be with any good chicken sandwich Um, it definitely reminds me of the McDonald's chicken filet sandwich from out there You know because like we always talk about the Asian fast-food chicken sandwiches out there are to be honest better They're tastier. So man, shout out to them and they're doing a whole bunch of other stuff they got like chicken and waffles and all these other dishes and they're just trying to do something new but but uh With a twist if the McShanghai from China could work in the States and blend in even with other flavors and it goes to show you that it can because pretty much they took the Chinese chicken sandwich From McDonald's and then they put on guacamole and it's good. Yo, they got the whole 88 rising playlist Just come out check out cool. In my opinion like this place is like exploding like we're all like doing like Great here. So like this is definitely gonna be a new like Asian town All right, you guys we have to end this edition of our LIC food crawl Andrew at the building Jackson Park It's sort of like I want to say spark this whole Asia boom Asia town boom of LIC I mean once this thing went up and this many Asians moved in guys I think Everybody else knew that they had to open up at least a food cart if not a restaurant and this is one of the food Carts right here one being China's one big it got full on dishes here. We got to do the Peking duck one Andrew look at the photo. No, I actually Can we get one? The cow lung man is a street food from northern China that the first time I had it was in Beijing like Six seven years ago. There's only one or two spots in the US that I've ever seen it at. This is one of them David that's a guanbing. It's like a thin Scallion pancake. It's thin like a jianbing, but maybe material wise more like a scallion pancake. I give it a four Alright overall, we got to see the basis for a modern Asia town 2.0 being laid down I think over the next 5 to 10 to 20 years you're gonna see something really really special come to life and Considering you're only 15 minutes from the city and Brooklyn and 20 minutes from Flushing. It's got the location to grow I mean who knows maybe in a few years when I want to start a family even I moved to LIC What do you think? All right, everybody that wraps it up for our Asian LIC video part one Let us know in the comments down below if you would ever move to LIC and number two Let us know if we missed any spots that we need to hit up next time guys Long Island City It's really my first time going around scooting around checking out the neighborhood. It's cool. I see why people move here