LOBSTER PHO & VIETNAMESE Hotpot | LITTLE SAIGON Food Tour!

Good morning. Every time I come to Los Angeles, there's places I have to go. I have to eat my way around the 626, and I have to go to the OC for some of the best Vietnamese food in the country. If you don't know, if you come to Greater Los Angeles, there's the Little Saigon. It's one of the biggest Vietnamese communities in the country. If you can't make it to Vietnam, this is where you want to be. And I come to the OC a lot because I love the food here. I don't think I've really thoroughly explored Little Saigon. I've been to a lot of different places, but never just spent a whole day eating here. Today seemed like a good day for that. And this place I'm at is Hữu Tây Định Nga, and it means the number one hữu tây place. I mean, I'm not an expert on what a good hữu tây is, but I'll let you know. So if you don't know what hữu tây is, hữu tây is usually noodle dish eaten for breakfast. It's usually served with broth or dried. Here, I'm having it dry with a side of broth. It's usually eaten for breakfast, and this is the first meal of the day, so I figured it was pretty fitting. And you can order this with all sorts of different types of noodles. They got clear chewy noodles, rice noodles, egg noodles. And I got egg noodles. So looking at it right now, dried crispy garlic, shrimp, a little bit of crispy pig skin, thin slices of pork. Ooh, this looks like saucy, glistening, thin, wavy egg noodles inside all the ingredients. And this thing looks luminous. It's such a great array of different colors, and I'm sure textures as well. But this just looks like a thing of beauty. Is it me, or does this soup have a creepy smile to it? The fish cake and the egg, those noodles are everything I want it to be. The texture is just off the charts delicious. Ridiculously chewy. It goes down so incredibly smoothly. And as you chew, the aroma of the noodles just releases more and more. And that great flavor just gently coats your tongue. And then you have the bites of the thin slices of fatty pork. Which also melts so splendidly over your taste buds. The only thing I need here, I need a little vinegar. A tiny bit of little vinegar. It's a tiny bit sweet. I just need a little bit of acid to balance it out even more. A little bit of red vinegar. I wish there was some sort of garlic vinegar. There is garlic though. I'm going to add some of this. Oh, this is the garlic vinegar. Little bits of jalapeno as well. Oh, that's satisfying. Noodles with a little vinegar, a little bit of chilies. It's even more scrumptious. Take a slurp of that. Oh, there's such a nice shrimp flavor in the broth. Mmm. This is the kind of breakfast I like. Bacon and eggs are fine. You know, this will wake you up and get you ready for the day. Good start of the day. Let's keep going. One thing I like to take advantage of being in Southern California in the middle of October is as much as I can, grab a tea, sit outside and just relax for a bit. And right now, it's 90 degrees here. Still feels really good. Not a bit of humidity in the sky. It's such a perfect day. It feels great. I mean, I'm wearing long sleeves rolled up, but I don't think 90 degrees ever felt so good. Now, before we head out to the next food spot, a big thank you and shout out to Surfshark VPN for sponsoring this video and continuing to support this channel. As you guys know, nowadays, things are opening up more. Everybody is traveling about. And wherever you go, you're probably connecting to a lot of random Wi-Fi hotspots. These are all really good opportunities for people to access your personal information. And this happened to you, me, everybody. We're searching for a particular product or keyword. We're just talking to our friends about something. All of a sudden, whatever we're talking about, we're typing about. As for that product or something related to that product, just start popping up everywhere. 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And this whole thing is so incredibly affordable. If you want to give it a try, go to my link down below. Use my promo code, Dumpling. You'll get 83% off your order, plus 3 months for free. And you can try it out for 30 days. If you don't like it for whatever reason, get your money back. All right, a little more relaxing. And I'm going to show you guys this Vietnamese restaurant that's supposed to have the best steak and eggs. This place I'm at is called Nip. I think it's a pretty new kind of a fusion, Vietnamese fusion restaurant. What caught my attention was there's things like bone marrow pasta, beef tongue fried rice. Anyway, a lot of interesting dishes on the menu. So there's their version of bone marrow. Vietnamese steak and eggs. So two floaty eggs, cherry tomatoes, steak, some pate, fresh toasty baguette. So this dish is basically breakfast continued. Come and get some of that. The baguette is perfectly toasty. Squeeze some of that cherry tomato juice onto those golden, glorious, creamy eggs. While you're at it, grab onto a piece of that steak. This will satisfy anyone's breakfast craving. You want eggs? Golden, runny, and creamy. You want some steak? Ridiculously flavored and tender. There's nice, tangy juice from the tomatoes to add some balance. You can taste the fresh herbs, the peppers, and that nice smokiness from every single bite of this dish. Pate is so meaty and creamy. A hint of sweetness. There's just something so fundamentally perfect about this. I've said this before, this is the ultimate steak and eggs. This is the ultimate breakfast. If you want something filling, hearty, and out of the ordinary, this is it. I don't want to push that aside, but look at this thing that's sitting in front of me. Bone marrow sitting on top of pasta. The pasta itself already looks really, really good. Bone marrow with a nice toasted outer crust comes right off. I'm thinking just blend it in with the pasta itself. Also, I don't know if this is a good idea. I'm gonna go ahead and just put some of that pasta in the bone marrow. Oh, wow. Like I said, the pasta itself is already good. Extremely al dente. So much flavor. I think there's some kind of cheese sauce, which is amazing on its own. But add some of that bone marrow. The buttery flavor, that aroma, it's just completely amplified. Mmm. Amazing. Blend it into this pasta. I came here, asked them what the two best dishes in this restaurant was. They recommended these two. 100% must try when you come here. Especially if you haven't eaten breakfast yet, or you're a pasta lover, or you're an egg and steak lover, or you're just in general a food lover, this will blow you away. This place for sure. One of the highlight food places of this LA food trip. Take a little break. Have to go back to San Gabriel Valley to try out this noodle place. I have a collab coming tomorrow. I just need to try out one more place to make sure it's good. And they're only available now. So gotta go back to the 626. And then, back here for dinner. Oh, this place is so nice. They just brought over an ice cream, coconut ice cream, lychee jackfruit, and sticky rice on the bottom. Oh, this is just everything Southeast Asian. Sweet sticky rice, the jackfruit, the lychee. Ah, so delicious. Coconut ice cream is so good. Crunchy, sweet, creamy, chewy, fruity. If you're missing Southeast Asian right now, one bite of this takes you right there. Amazing. So I'm looking for a noodle shop to film tomorrow for a collab. This is what I'm thinking. Chongqing special noodles. This is the Chongqing xiao mian, which is Chongqing thin noodles. It's basically a Sichuan dish that is derived from dandan noodles. This is very much a mom and pop shop. And the noodles, ooh, right away you smell that peppercorn and the chilies. The meat is very good. Noodles are nice and spicy and yummy. Broth is delicious. I got two bowls because one of the bowls is made with noodles that was not made here. The other one, this one I'm eating, this is homemade noodles from this place. So same broth, same ingredients, except homemade noodles. This is what I typically do before a collab. Usually before a collab, you think about an idea you want to do. In this case, we're doing two price points in terms of noodles. I already have the expensive noodles picked out. I just need a good inexpensive bowl of noodles. And these are definitely inexpensive. About $8 per bowl of noodles. And you get a hefty bowl. Texture of noodles, extremely bouncy. Broth is numbing and spicy. Minced meat is really, really good. I like these noodles. For $8, pretty good value. Second part of this is asking the owner if I can film here. Which sometimes you would think it's a pretty easy thing to do. It's not. Not always. Actually, this is a pretty worth the bowl of noodles. Alright, eat up. Going back to Orange County. Actually spilled a bunch of sauce on myself. Gonna go back to the hotel, change a shirt. Then off to Orange County. Sunsets are so pretty here in Southern California. And it feels so good. Anyway, about to head into a little Saigon for some food. But I found this place along the way. This is... I think this place has something special. I'll show you. Snack the seat outside in this beautiful evening air. This place, Pho Alley. They actually have a lot of different pho options. Like beef belly, beef shank, and what caught my eye... What's this? Pho Lobster. I mean, I know you don't need lobster to have a good bowl of pho, but... Why the pho not? There's also other stuff I want to get. Like garlic noodles and... Check this out. Oxtail and bone marrow fried rice. Shredded oxtail meat braised for four hours. Combined with bone marrow crispy fried rice on the sunny side of it. That is needed. Like desperately needed. Just got the noodles with the shaken beef and two eggs on top. There are things that smell good. And then there's this. Like, I have to keep swallowing because my mouth is just constantly filling up with saliva. I mean, feast your eyes on this. Garlic noodles with minced garlic and parmesan cheese on top. I mean, tomatoes, alright. Okay, that stuff is here. And on top, the very well sauced up chunks of beef with its own chunks of garlic on top. Two beautifully cooked eggs. Just begging to be poked. Poke. Is that still something people do on Facebook? Poke. Poke. Well, I'm gonna poke this. Woah. Wah, wah, wah. Are you kidding me? Holy moly. This is not for the faint of food hearts. Whole entire lobster sitting inside a bowl of pho. You know, of all the proteins that I've had inside pho, I never even thought about lobster. And that's shame on me. Oh. Oh, yeah. Wow, you guys are just knocking it out of the park with this. Thank you, man. This looks beautiful. I'm just like overwhelmed by so much beauty right now. I am. I'm just like, I'm just holding on to one beautiful thing and another beautiful thing comes out. I appreciate it. Appreciate it, man. Thank you. I hope you enjoy the food. I will. Thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. Pho, beautiful coloring. Oh, that's good broth. I mean, lobster is great and all. If this pho broth is not good, none of this means anything. Apparently, they cook this for about 24 hours. And that's a nice beefy broth. This is so crazy. I have, like, another dish that just came out. I need to get to it because the egg is, like, dying right now. Bone marrow, fried rice with oxtail. Of course, an egg. So, bone marrow. Oh. All marrow goes into the fried rice. Pop that sexy egg that comes with most of their dishes. And just dig in. You can see the bits of the oxtail inside the fried rice. And the fried rice is cooked in a stone bowl. So, on the sides, you're gonna get a lot of crisp, which 100% makes this even better. And I'm saying all this before I've taken a single bite of this fried rice. I'm gonna go back to my lobster pho. Noodles are good. Broth is delicious. Here we go. Dunk the lobster tail. That's delicious. My biggest regret is not asking for more beef in this broth. If I should have got some ribeye or even a beef rib to go with the lobster because I just wasn't thinking. I mean, it's great to have the seafood in the beef broth. But if there was actually beef in the beef broth, that'd be some real surf and turf pho. So far though, sweet lobster meat swimming in that savory beefy broth. That's such a good combination. I've been concentrating on the last two dishes. And I've put the garlic noodles in front of Christine for about, what, five minutes? It's a gone. Are those the best garlic noodles you've ever had? I think those might be the best I've ever had. Those are amazing. So garlicky. And not even... This is the only piece of beef that's left. That's so good too. Whoa. That's my first piece of ribeye. First and last. Yeah, first and last piece of ribeye. So tender with the garlic noodles. 100%. Come here. You must get the garlic noodles. And get it with the ribeye. I wish Panda Express' garlic noodles. Well, come here and take a lesson from these garlic noodles to, you know, learn how to be real garlic noodles. Because these are it. There's enough garlic here to allow you to slay Dracula over Zoom. I don't know why you'd ever be on a Zoom call with Dracula. But if you were, he'd be dead just looking at you. I haven't tried the oxtail bone marrow fried rice yet. Put the eggs in here. This is good. I feel like it needs something. Sriracha and maybe a little lime juice. Just to give it some acid to balance out all that great fatty flavor. Perfect. There's so much yummy, fatty, buttery flavor in all this. What I like is the stone has already been hitting the side of the rice so much that there's a little crispiness. You see here? A little toastiness from the fried rice as well. This is pretty much an oxtail bone marrow claypot rice. And then add some sriracha to kind of offset the fattiness a little bit. Beautiful. I will definitely be coming back here a lot. This is so good, I want to get another order of garlic noodles. You know, if I didn't just eat all day and about to go to a hot pot after this. Last meal of the day here in Little Saigon. Binh Hien. This is such a popular place. It is absolutely hopping here. Wow, this whole restaurant is just full of people. Managed to luckily snag a seat outside. So this is a Vietnamese seafood restaurant. Alright, these baked clams look amazing. Snails look amazing. Clam soup looks amazing. And I'm thinking some Vietnamese hot pot. Thank you. That is just clam soup in its purest form. Look how beautiful this is. Giant clams cooked in its own juice. That is just thriny perfection. And then of course, my favorite of the clam family, the razor clams. If you go to a Vietnamese seafood restaurant, you gotta get these. Razor clams are mind-blowingly good. Covered in scallion, garlic, peanuts. The razor clams are just tremendously juicy and tender. Oh! You saw that juice squirting out of the razor clam? Just dunk it a little bit in the sauce. Oh, that's perfect. There's some jalapeno, some lime in the sauce. Doesn't cover up the delicious flavor of the clams whatsoever. Only enhances it. Wow, this is good. Come here and try this. And I gotta get back to the steamed clams. These all you really need. Dunk it in some of its own juice and slurp it right up. I don't know what sauce this is. They gave it to me to put onto the clams here. Oh, sweet ginger sauce? These two dishes are absolute perfection. Both so fresh, so tender, so juicy. And this broth, it may look simple, but trust me. One slurp, you won't be able to stop. Oh, that is good. Lemongrass and sweet chilies. This is about to get a whole lot of taste here. They brought us veggies and seafood. Mmm. That is good hot pot. Good hot pot, delicious. Different sauce, tons of chili. Oh, my mouth is on fire. Oh, it's so good. I got the Thai seafood hot pot. So every bite you take, you can taste the tom yum flavors, the lemongrass. Mmm. Even the vegetables turns amazing. Fish, I think, is my favorite. I don't know if this is something I'm supposed to do. I'm just gonna dip the noodles in the broth a little bit. Then wrap some fish inside. Oh, that's good. I'll spin the spine to see what other people are doing. So people are putting this into the broth because the broth is so good. Put some noodles inside. Give that a nice boil. Put that in my bowl. Okay. Add some fish, little shrimp, and then just make a noodle soup out of it. Oh, it feels so good. It feels so good. After a day of eating, I am feeling good. I am feeling comforted. I am feeling all toasty inside. This is exactly the way I like to wrap up a good food day. I always wanted to spend more time in little Saigon. Today, I didn't get to spend all my time over here, but this is definitely one of the highlights of the day, especially that bowl of clams. Mind-blowingly good. But as always, all the places I went to are listed down below for you guys. Thank you all so much for watching. And until we eat again, see you later.