The MOST Popular Chinese Food! (Sichuan, Chongqing Explained)

We had what, like seven dishes? Not one disappointed. That's adding a whole nother vibe. It's super soft, all the collagen is melting in my mouth. This is good. I was sleeping on sui zhu niu. And I will tell you, nothing can save you. Not the yogurt, not the coconut milk. Now, Yanni, all these foods are from like Chengdu, Sichuan, right? I just kicked my ass just now that it's spiced. Sichuan, it's the hottest style of Chinese food in the world, both by popularity and spices. Known for its distinct dried fried chili peppers, its intoxicating numbing peppercorns, and its overall just very red color. This has been the trendiest style of Chinese food for more than a decade in America and across the globe as well. It's got the whole world hooked. In this video, we'll include Chongqing, because even though it's split from the Sichuan province back in 1997, culturally, the two share so much. We'll talk about the ingredients, food, culture, and maybe why so many Chinese rappers are coming out of Sichuan. First up is Sichuan Mountain House with our friend Marco. Hit that like button and let's go. That is delicious. All right, everybody, I got to stop you there, because I got a word from our sponsor, Cominteer. I've been drinking coffee in the morning for the past two years, and they are a game changer. Cominteer is the best way to get specialty coffee without leaving your home. This is not just your regular old instant coffee of the past. This is actually coffee extract from single origin roasters. All the flavor is packed into these aluminum capsules, never dried, never evaporated. This is, again, not dried instant coffee. This just fuels really fast for you because Cominteer did all the hard work. So if you're just a person who's trying to get into specialty coffee or you're a coffee snob that wants to know more about the process, go to their website. Guys, check out Cominteer. They are changing the game for coffee at home. So get 30% off your first order and free shipping when you use the link Cominteer.com slash Fungbros. Click on that description link down below. All right, you guys, kicking off our exploration of the Sichuan cuisine, we are in front of Sichuan Mountain Heights. Quite possibly, I heard the most authentic Sichuan restaurant that Manhattan's ever seen. Joining me today, I got special guest, Marco. Yo, what's up, everybody? What do you know about Sichuan food? Well, I do know it's very spicy, and I only had Sichuan food in Chinatown, but I heard this spot is the authentic, so I'm sure it's gonna be very, very spicy. All right, man, let's check it out. All right, you guys, we're moving on to our new Sichuan section. Like we said, there's this crazy cooking renaissance going on in Chengdu right now. All around the Sichuan region. You know, the old chefs, they're kind of beefing with the young chefs, but kind of in a friendly way. All right, you guys, we're getting into our two seafood new Sichuan dishes right here. This is called a lobster mapo tofu or longxia mapo tofu. This is supposed to be like a white face of an auntie with like little pimples on it. Kind of looks like my aunt, not gonna lie. Kind of resembles her a little bit. I mean, I would kind of say, and I want to get an Italian opinion on this, Marco, Sichuan food almost kind of reminds you of Italian food. It does, especially this dish right here. I swear, I told you before, I thought that was best of all. Lobster mapo tofu. Yeah, they got the little peppercorns on there. Yeah, I never had anything that was just spicy and flavorful at the same time. All right, this is a garlic teppan with some red and green chilies on here. Oh my goodness, they're not playing around. Guys, this is better than Benihana's. I can't even peel it. I can't bring myself to do it. I'm just gonna eat it with the shell. So I heard traditionally in old school Sichuan cuisine, only three out of ten dishes are supposed to be like super mala and spicy, but they said nowadays like eight or nine out of ten. Eight or nine, yeah. All right, Marco, what are we looking at over here? We got the pesto with the enoki. No, I'm just kidding. We got the teng jiao ji. It's teng jiao ji. Teng jiao ji. This is teng jiao ji. The green though, you're right, it does look like it's pesto and almost looks like a verde sauce or something like this, but this is actually ground up green chili peppers. It's balanced like the other dishes. This is more of like a sweeter taste, I would say. Yeah, it's a sweeter hot, right? I mean, green peppers, I would say, archetypically are known to be less hot than red peppers, right? All right, you guys, we are looking at the pepper lover chicken. What do you think, Marco? This just looks like a bunch of peppers diced up, which it almost looks like something you find in Nevada, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Santa Fe. It's a very colorful dish, and I would not think this would be the spiciest one, to be honest with you. Pepper lover's chicken. Here we go. It's a big spoonful though. You know what? YOLO. What do you know about Sichuan food? Well, I do know it's very spicy. Very spicy. It's hot. Yo, that just kicked my... It's just now that spice. This is the fuji feipian, and this is a mixture of, you know, you got intestines and stomach lining and flank. But that's awesome. So we're eating the food that they ate thousands of years ago. Yeah, this is hundreds of years old. Hundreds and hundreds. Fuji feipian. I actually loved all these dishes at Sichuan Mountain House round one, but I'm gonna go with the teng jiao ji. I'm gonna say I'm a shrimp snob, so I'm gonna say the garlic shrimp is very good. It balanced it really well with the peppers in there. Wasn't too spicy, but very, very, very, very solid. All right, you guys, we are looking at some Sichuan chili peppercorn stir-fried pig intestines. Oh my goodness. Dude, just the amount of chilies. Sichuan pig intestines. Here we go. We're almost gonna taste just like a crackling pig skin. Yeah. You know what? The look's very deceiving because it looks so, so, so spicy, but it's really not spicy. All right, you guys, this is a green chili and leek Sichuan river fish. I've never had this fish with this many leeks on it before in my life. Sichuan leek fish. All right, Marco, we are looking at the mao xue wang. He said this dish is hundreds of years old, and they pretty much kept it the same. So we had fried pig intestines. Now we're having, I guess, bloody pig intestines now. Yo, I think that this might have been the ancient root of spam right here. Like this might have been like spam before spam. Mao xue wang. I really like trying like the, I guess, Westerner would call the exotic parts of the animal. So I went for the pig intestine, and I love that chewiness taste of it, which probably people wouldn't like. But it kind of reminds me of tripe, actually. That's why I really like that taste. All right, you guys, last but not least, we have the only dish I believe we had today with absolutely zero peppers in it. Sichuan pig feet soup. And Marco, you're not letting your grams down. Always with the pig feet. Always. Yo, grandma, this is for you. All right, you guys, we're here with our favorites from round two at Sichuan Mountain House. I picked the leek steamed fish. And, you know, surprisingly, this reminded me of a Cantonese fish. And Sichuan and Guangdong are pretty far from each other. But they are both in the south part of China. So for me, I had to go nostalgic in my household. So I went with the pig feet soup. And that diced chicken with the peppers were absolutely amazing. Those are my favorites. All right, Marco, any takeaways from, you know, this feast that we had here? Yeah, so I would say that Sichuan cuisine is definitely more than just being spicy. Because, you know, from eating this pretty authentic Sichuan, there's so many different dynamics and flavors. By the way, you say Sejuan or Sichuan? Is it spelled S-Z-E or with the S-I? So for most earlier Sichuan restaurants in America, it was spelled with a Z and pronounced oftentimes as Sejuan by Westerners. And, of course, Rick and Morty. This was based off of the pre-1950s postal romanization decided on in China. However, the more updated way to spell it is S-I-C-H-U-A-N, based off the official Hanyu opinion, which is used today. And it's also pronounced Sichuan. Next up is the famous and very authentic hot pot chain from Chengdu, Dalongyi. All right, everybody, we are here at Dalongyi. This is probably the most famous and highest quality hot pot chain from Chengdu to make it in America. And, you know, to be honest, really authentic Sichuan hot pot chains probably didn't even come to America until about five or six years ago. We're starting off our triple threat. We got the Sichuan beef talon. This is kind of your classic spicy Sichuan chili pot. And then over here, we have another very, very traditional Sichuan style one that's not spicy. This is the pork feet. And, of course, we have the mushroom soup, which is not as traditionally Sichuan, but a lot of people really like this. It's very popular. It's also one of my favorite hot pot flavors. So, you know, we had to get it. So what's really cool about Dalongyi is that they use a lot of traditional Sichuan flavors, but they even come up with their own new dishes using those flavors. So this one is a pork paste. This is the ultra spicy beef platter here. You have spicy beef here. You have spicy ribeye bits and they're marinated and you're supposed to cook it in the hot pot. I'm probably going to put it in the spicy one here. I have a very traditional spicy marinated bird gizzards that you actually cook into the skewer. So I'm just going to dunk these into the hot pot and let it sit and then I can pull it out and eat it. Here we got some fresh sliced beef that's actually marinated and spiced. Now, the way they marinate it and put the chilies on top is not fully authentic slash traditional. But, you know, like we said, Dalongyi is taking its liberty to, you know, do some new things with traditional flavors. Here we have a really cool dish. This is pork paste with the thousand-year-old duck egg, aka the pidan with green roasted chilies on top. There's this saying that while you're eating hot pot, you'll only need to dip your meat seven times in the water before you can eat it. The oil plate, this one's the dry plate called gan dian. That's like the seasoning they put on skewers to grill them with, except with a little bit more mala. That's fire. Guys, this is a little bit of a newer dish that has been introduced to the Sichuan cuisine because, you know, traditionally Sichuan, it is landlocked, so there's no oceans. But this is spicy squid. Dipping this in the gan dian. Chicken gizzard in the gan dian, so Chengdu. There are two very traditional sauce mixtures. This number one has a bunch of cilantro, garlic, sesame oil, and oyster sauce. And this one's really popular, probably the most popular amongst traditional Chengdu people. But this one has a little bit of chili oil, sesame sauce, and oyster sauce. And I might prefer this one better, but I'm also not from Chengdu. Hands down, I have to say that this is probably my favorite way to eat pig's feet. It's gotta be stewing in a Chengdu hot pot. It's super soft. All the collagen is melting in my mouth. This is incredible. Dipping it in the sauces, man. And from the cauldron emerges spiciest beef I've ever seen. I'm glad I got this yogurt on hand. You know, honestly, I am underneath the influence of the Sichuan peppercorn right now. I'm gonna tell you this, guys. We got the extra spicy beef combo cooked in the extra spicy dalongyi mala hot pot. And I will tell you, nothing can save you. Not the yogurt, not the coconut milk. The legend is real. If you wanna feel that sensation, or you wanna feel like you're kind of intoxicated in some way, dalongyi got it for you. All right, everybody. That wraps it up at dalongyi for some authentic Chengdu hot pot. Let me tell you this. The spice, they are not playing around. Like, when they say medium spice or extra spicy, trust me, you better buy a yogurt. Other than that, I don't really know what else is gonna save you, but I might have to go to a East Village spot that actually specializes in Sichuan bingfun, and that's really gonna cool us down. So, all right, everybody. I just had a very traditional bingfun over at dalongyi, but here we got some non-traditional ones. This is the new generation of bingfun coming up. This is the first ever dragon fruit infused Sichuan bingfun right here in the East Village. The innovation nowadays is crazy. In summer, everybody needs it. It's low sugar, low calorie, and very healthy. It's good for winter, right after hot pot during the summer. Whenever you need it, gel and chill is here. They say Sichuan people have such great skin because they're constantly sweating from the spicy food. You'll even see people eating mala hot pot in the middle of summer. We visited Chengdu back in 2017 to meet the Higher Brothers, and I can tell you that red oil is no joke. Next up is a chain from Chengdu that got popular in Fujian and is now in New York City called So Du Fun. All right, you guys. Our next spot is actually an authentic chain from Chengdu, China, but actually mostly got popular in the coastal cities of Hangzhou and Suzhou. It's called So Du Fun. This is a chain from Sichuan. All right, you guys. We are looking at Sui Zhu Yu. This dish originally came from Northern Chongqing. This is probably the most popular dish in all of China right now. This is a bass, guys. As you can see, we got white bass fish, tons of Sichuan peppercorn. Let's check it out. Sui Zhu Yu, Sichuan boiled oil fish. For me, to be honest, guys, my taste buds are a little bit more Southern Chinese, so I can do hot, but I can't do 10 out of 10, and I would say this is like a nice six out of 10. You do have to watch for bones, but that's how you know it's authentic. All right, you guys. We're looking at Teng Jiao Tian Ji right here. This is, Teng Jiao refers to more of the green peppers, I believe, and the Tian Ji, sky chicken, is actually bullfrog. All right, you guys, you know. I'm not too into frog myself, but I've had the French version before and the Chinese version. It's bony, like how a lot of frogs are, but actually, it tastes like chicken. All right, you guys. We have the Sichuan crispy pork strips. This is a popular street snack that I had in Chengdu. Nowadays, it's very tough to tell where dishes came from in terms of where in Sichuan, and I believe the Chongqing noodles are very different than the Sichuan noodles, but as far as some of these other dishes, it's unclear where they came from. This is really good, and it's almost like a popcorn chicken, but a popcorn pork. You guys, I think out of the Sichuan cuisine, this is definitely one that non-Asians could certainly enjoy. Guys, there are certain dishes you are going to see over and over again, whether that's Mapo tofu, or of course, the classic Mao Xue Wang, which came from Chengdu hundreds of years ago. We got a piece of ham that resembles spam, but it's not spam. You've got tripe, stomach, intestine lining. You've got the duck blood. This is a nice addition we didn't have at Sichuan Mountain House. This is a wood ear. All right, you guys, this is the Kung Pao shrimp. Now, a lot of places serve this dish, but they do not serve the authentic version. It's probably wrapped in a sweet and sour spicy sauce. This is Kung Pao Sha Qiu. This is the actual legit version. I'm excited to try it. I don't think I've ever actually had this in its authentic form. Oh my goodness. Yo, I super did not expect it to taste like that. That's adding a whole nother vibe. It actually does taste like sweet and sour shrimp to some extent, but definitely like a more authentic like Qing Chao, which is like a clear wok sear than the other versions you're used to seeing on Americanized Sichuan restaurants. All right, you guys, we are at Blue Willow finishing up our Sichuan crawl. Now, Yani, all these foods are from like Chengdu, Sichuan, right? Yeah. I think a lot of people, they only think there's mala, but there's like suan la, mala, shan la, suan ni la, right? There's a lot of different types of la that people are not familiar with. All right, you guys, this is a Sichuan gan guo. This one has all just the tasty things that I would personally pick in it. This is an incredibly popular lunch right now. It's almost like a dry hot pot. This is Sichuan gan guo. That's almost like if you turn a hot pot into like a heavy gelatin sauce and then heated it up, it gives you everything you want from a Sichuan hot pot, but in a much easier to eat format. As you can see, guys, we've got the chili shrimp with taro slices. I know we do it sometimes out of laziness. I don't think it tastes better all the time. Definitely on the chili shrimp, it does. The skin is so coated with salt. You guys, I'm telling you, there is a reason why Sichuan is one of China's eight great cuisines. All right, you guys, I believe this is a suancai zhurou tang. This is something that's really, really unique, and this is a deeper cut dish because it's actually a soured pickled pork filet with some beef slices. Guys, if you've had your fill of mala, come to the suancai side. This is probably one of the most popular and accessible dishes from the Sichuan cuisine because it's been popularized at other restaurants such as Din Tai Fung. This is a hongyou chaoshou. This is a spicy chili oil wonton. It comes at you from so many angles because it does have the mala, but it actually kicks it off with a lot of sugar. And that's one of the things that really distinguishes Chongqing food from Sichuan food. We are increasingly entering the American Sichuan lexicon here. These are the dan dan mian noodles, or as Americans like to call them, the dan dan noodles. I would say the complexion of this dish is very palatable, you know, especially with that sugar finishing it off. It gives you that like peanut butter vibe. This is the real deal. There definitely is some smoky, you know, peppercorn undertones, but other than that, they're definitely missing that top layer of spiciness. And of course, last but not least, this is an authentic version of the incredibly popular dish, Kung Pao Chicken, Kung Pao Chi Ding. Everybody has their own version of this dish. Even like, you know, Korean Chinese spots have their own version of this. Listen, guys, the food here at Blue Willow is just so amazing. To me, more peppers does not necessarily mean better. Now, I know there's a lot of younger Chinese people who would disagree with me, but that's just my opinion. Like we said, guys, just on this table right here, we've got several different types of la, a smoky la. This is a sour swan la. Of course, you've got ma la. The different types of la wei in the Sichuan cuisine are ma la wei, yu shang wei, kou shui wei, guai wei, swan ni wei, spicy sesame, wine fragrance, and scorched chili. Boom. All right, you guys, you are witnessing Chongqing xiaomian, aka Chongqing little noodles. From the only Chongqing xiaomian spot in all of Manhattan, this is one of the most popular noodles in all of China, but it has yet to become very popular in America. I also got another one with the clear noodle called swan fen. In comparison to Sichuan food, Chongqing food can almost feel like it's cooked with a sense of like butteriness, but I would say that the flavor profiles are about 75% similar. Honestly, guys, this was absolutely a five out of five banger. Trust me. This is almost like a spicy tonkatsu, but with way more diversity in the actual chilies and spices used. You guys are looking at the Chongqing swan fen. As you can see, we have the clear yam noodle right here. This one was much brighter. It also had pork pieces in it, but it was a different kind of pork. It was minced pork and not the pork belly that was in the other Chongqing xiaomian. You guys, Chongqing flavors are so pungent and there's a little bit less mala. Like I tend to think that they use essentially a different ratio of peppers, just the distribution and the ratios could be so different that a whole new flavor could be created. You know, just wrapping up this video, I do think the fragrant numbing spice, frequent communal hot pot and the distance from the central government may all lead people from Sichuan to develop some different personalities. They're known to be very robust, friendly and laid back. For example, this region is known for producing a lot of the most popular rappers in China. So maybe where there's spicy food, there's also spicy personalities. You let us know in the comments down below if you like Sichuan food, maybe you think it's too spicy or it's just one of those experiences you need in your life.