Is This the FUTURE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN FOOD? (Thai and Viet)

Who made this sandwich? You make this sandwich? It's a good sandwich. I'd come over, I'm like, Julie, where's Richie? He's like, oh, he's downstairs making rap music. Yeah. Vietnamese and Thai food are the most widely eaten Southeast Asian cuisines in America. With nearly 15,000 restaurants across the nation, ranging from hole in the wall authentic spots to Michelin star winners, we're hitting up three places that are putting their own spin on Viet and Thai food. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to a very special New York episode of Beyond Pho, where we're gonna be covering the Vietnamese food boom in the city. We're here with special guest, Richie Lee. What's up? Richie, there has been probably 20 modern Vietnamese spots that have opened up in New York City over the past two years. Crazy. I remember just like two to three years ago, we went and there was like one maybe? I think two foods that really started to become more popular in the West Coast that have infiltrated New York City would be Vietnamese and the other one being Mexican. So I started to see the more elevated versions creep in and behind us is one of our favorites. So today we're gonna be eating through the menu at Saigon Social. It is a mixture of traditional. It's a mixture of modern. It is probably something that you have never seen before. Let's go. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for clicking on that video, but real quick, I gotta give a big shout out to our sponsor, Statmask. I know a lot of people in the comments on our Instagram and on YouTube wondering where we get these masks. You can get them at thestatmask.com. They have three layers of medical grade material. They have a static charge, just like the N95 filter. And honestly, they look cool. You guys know us. We moved to New York during the pandemic, which meant we had to be careful and cautious. So we needed top-level face mask protection. The Statmask has made us feel confident and comfortable to go around the city doing what we need to do. They come in a whole bunch of different colors. They come in three different sizes. And honestly, they are our favorite mask. If you guys are interested, thestatmask.com. Check them out. Made right here in Brooklyn. All right, you guys, we are sitting here with Helen Nguyen of Saigon Social. What does it mean to throw your name into the hat of this whole larger movement, right? When I started cooking professionally, people were always asking me, so how do you explain your food? Is it modern? Is it traditional? Is it fine dining? Is it casual? You have to be one or the other. It's like, why do I have to be that? I'm not trying to conform. I'm just trying to offer a piece of my life and my culture. Guys, we are starting off our meal here at Saigon Social with two dishes that are extremely tasty. We've got lobster garlic noodles. Look at the burntness right there from the wok. We would call it wok hay, but just flavor of the wok. And then here you have your brisket, oxtail, French dip sandwich, fried crispy basil leaves on top of onions, on top of brisket, basil aioli. Then you have your little nice fatty pho broth to dip it in. Lobster garlic noodles. What I really love about these noodles is that it's actually a really simple flavor. It's just like your scallion oil. You have a lot of salt and pepper. It's just stir fried. A little bit of charredness on certain noodles. Yeah, definitely really easy to eat. Exactly. I love these noodles. They do kind of feel like pasta in the sense they have a lot of flavor themselves. I think they're egg noodles. So, you know. I got to say egg noodles over any other noodles. Over rice noodles? For sure, for sure. I might do something a little crazy right now. I'm a, you know. Oh, the sauce. Yes. I like that, Rich. All right, so our next dish here that we got to eat right away is the brisket oxtail French dip sandwich. There's a lot of fusion spots and fusion sandwiches in 2020, but to actually hit the right sweet spot and have it taste good and look good, that's a whole nother thing. This is so good. I'm speechless. Yo, is this a French dip or a French drip? All right, so off camera, I was like kind of dissecting it a little more. And then I had asked Helen, what is going on with the mayo? Cause I was like, what is it about this sandwich? She said she actually puts a little bit of basil in the mayo and beef fat. Cause I was like, what is it about this sandwich that tastes so crazy? And it's the mayo like brings it all together. That's crazy. All right, the next round here at Saigon Social, we have the pho, dry aged ribeye right here. And then you got your brisket pho right there. My mind is blown at the idea of dry aged ribeye pho that we just cooked in the broth. Yes. Rich, what's your feeling on dry aged beef? Is that the new vintage? Cause it's like vintage beef. No, one thing I gotta say is I appreciate this right now because following Helen's like culinary journey the past couple of years, I know she's serious about the meats. Cause some of those photos that she posts on her Facebook are crazy. So I know this is gonna taste good because she's been studying like the science behind dry aged beef and like different cuts and whatnot. A lot of people like eating their pho with raw meat and it's usually beef. My round, I add mine with dry aged beef. And I think it really just enhances the beef flavor to the whole pho experience. Dry aged ribeye pho. No sriracha, no hoisin. Oh my God. Just straight pho here. Super tender. I'm surprised. Oh my gosh. What? There's a smokiness to the beef. Almost like, what are those boards with the cheese and the meat? Charcuterie. Charcuterie? It kind of gave me that feeling. That is often how people describe dry aged beef. Really? A creaminess. This is a whole nother experience. Man, I ain't never had anything like that in my life. Brisket pho. Honestly, this is one of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants in the world, man. They just do everything how you would expect, but then also different. This is nice if you like wanna go for something that you're familiar with, but they do it like their own way. So this is my bun rieu. It's crab and shrimp tomato noodle soup. It's served with a side of fermented shrimp paste. It's very pungent and a lot of people refer to it as the stinky sauce, but this is where the umami comes from. It's fermented shrimp. You'll notice and taste the difference. It's like an umami bomb. Bun rieu. Wow. Lots of flavor. I went straight in to put in a ton of chilies. That got a kick. Yeah. Definitely with the chilies and the shrimp paste. One of my favorite bun rieu's I ever had too. All right, Helen, you gotta explain to us the bun mee burger, because this is one of my favorite items here. It's kind of like a burger meets a traditional Vietnamese sandwich. When you look at it, it obviously looks like a regular burger, but when you bite into it, you taste all of the different components to a traditional bun mee. I made an eight ounce dry-aged patty. It's a combination of short rib, dry-aged ribeye, and then I lather it with some mayo and some pate, and then it gets the patty. And then I made a oxtail Maggi gravy. So basically, yeah. That's the key. I'm telling you. That's the, you laying the secret out, but I'm just, it is what it is. People know. It's fine. Between the pate and the Maggi gravy, my God. I feel like you just turnt everything up in a regular bun mee. Like everything is to another level. With the boom of Vietnamese restaurants in New York, which we can agree that there seems to be an uptick, obviously, than a few years ago, is it kind of this collective that's coming up? I think so. I think most importantly, we're all very different individuals in the way that we think, the way that we do business, the way that we cook, our flavor profiles. And I think it's amazing. You know, if you walk around any, you know, regular New York street block, you'll see that there's many pizzerias. I think it would be amazing that one of these days we can do the same where you walk down the street and it's like, wow, you can go this place for pho, this place for rice noodles. And what are some things about Vietnamese food that you wanted to keep and maintain and then some aspects that you wanted to break? I'd say it's a combination of traditional and modern. You know, to say that, oh, I want to do something very traditional or I want to do something very modern. It's never, it's a either or for me. I think it's an, because who I am as a person is just a combination of the traditional values. And then also like, you know, the more modern values. Cause I was born and raised in the States, but I'm very much a Vietnamese person in the way my soul is. You're not like picking and choosing. You're just combining. There's certain things that I do not mess around with. All of my broths and my soups are exactly how I grew up eating. My mom will beat me if I change too many things, right? But I wanted people to taste that, you know, when they take that first sip of the soup, it brings them back. Aren't you guys, we just finished up our meal at Saigon Social. Like I said, they got some crazy stuff on the menu. I think immediately to me, the thing today that stands out the most, the dry aged ribeye pho. Yeah. I have to go with the burger at the end. I like it. You know, I had to do the Machado dance. That's how crazy that burger was. That was insane. I would say the Bun Rieu. I thought, you know, I haven't had a good Bun Rieu in a while and not all spots do it well and you can just taste the care. It was a very rich broth and man, I enjoyed it. All right, Richie, our next location is Thai Diner here on Kenmare. And it's like the perfect example of blending an American platform and style with authentic Southeast Asian flavors. Exactly. And aesthetically, I just checked it out. It looks like a traditional American diner with a lot of Thai influences from the decor, materials, even down to the plants. And let me tell you this, they are doing Thai food very differently. One of the chefs is American and then one of the chefs is born in Thailand. So it is truly that perfect mix right there. I mean, look at it. You have the Thai flag and the American flag. It doesn't get more literal than that. I say we go check it out, man. Thai Diner, let's go. Yo, Richie, the food is arriving. We got a lot of dishes. We got a couple of drinks. Let's just talk about the drinks real quick. The beverages. All right, so here I have a Milo, okay, which is a popular drink mix to have in Asia. You got the hot pandan buttered rum. It's aged rum, pandan and coconut butter served with hot whipped cream. Just a hint of rum to give you that alcoholic feel. This is nice. You know how people like just want the flavor? You know, like those chocolates with the rum on side? Drink form of the chocolates with the rum inside. But right here, I got the disco fries with the massaman curry. And then you've got coconut crema on top as well. Crinkle cut fries. Here, I have one of their most inventive dishes. It's a breakfast sandwich made with a roti. And then you have this Isan sausage, which is like the Lao sausage. Thai egg sandwich. The sauce stood out to me almost the most. Egg, cheese and the meat thing, that is really like a diner element. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right, so moving on to the fries. Having fries here, clearly that is the American element. Any sort of sauce dish on any carb is always gonna work out. Crispy with your sauciness. That is good. Whoa, that got a kick to it too. All right, our next dish is here. I have a shredded chicken sandwich with banana blossom. And then I got a toast right here with Thai tea butter, which is crazy. Dragon fruits right here. And then the condensed milk with salt and sugar. The Thai tea butter sneaks on you. That is insanely good. This is a must get here, trust me. This is a five out of five. Let's go in. It really does taste like the chicken sandwiches that you had growing up. But just with a slight Thai kick. The main chef of Thai diner is half Irish and half Thai. So of course, there is some really cool implementations of Irish food. And this is the stuffed cabbage right here. Turkey is perfectly cooked. Whatever sauce this is, this would be the perfect, perfect dish with some white fluffy rice. This is actually the most surprising dish to me because I did not think it was gonna be that good. But let me tell you this, the people here, they put in a lot of thought into exactly how to kind of fuse things and which pieces they wanna take from different cultures. And obviously the flavor here is a little bit more Thai, but the form is so Irish. All right, so right here we got a whiskey lemongrass, obviously whiskey being from Ireland. This is definitely really Irish inspired, but we're drinking out of a lemongrass straw. Wow, this is really refreshing. Lemongrass with whiskey, who would've thought? We got these Thai beignets brushed with a little bit of coconut powder. Here you have this guava dip, you have the pandan. And then you have these ginger snap cookies, but it's using kind of like the Thai ginger. That is good. These dishes that we had, you always hear like negative stereotypes about fusion foods, but these two restaurants that we've showed in today's video killed them. Identity food is one of those interesting things where it's like sometimes their identity is so hard to explain that it's almost easier to explain through their dishes, right? Dishes and the food tells the story that maybe they can't, maybe they're not writers, but they know how to cook it. I have a new appreciation for traditional foods redefined. All right, everybody. So we just went to a modern Vietnamese spot. We went to a modern Thai spot and for our third and final place, ginger and lemongrass is actually a fusion between Thai and Vietnamese flavors. I wish Richard could be here, but he had to catch a flight. You know what's really interesting about this spot is that it's actually owned by people from the Czech Republic, but they have a very deep appreciation for Viet and Thai food. And somehow they were able to fuse it to the point where it's even Asian approved. Now, David, we're in the Lower East Side, but their first location for ginger lemongrass is actually in Queens. And the first people to tell us about it are actually our Asian friends from Queens. So it might not be 100% authentic or Asian owned, but they've gotta be doing something right because of the glowing reviews. Let's check it out. All right, you guys, we are looking at a fusion between the Thai cuisine and the Vietnamese cuisine. This is gonna be really interesting. It's very much fusion, but it doesn't look cringy. It doesn't look weird at all. They definitely worked with a Vietnamese and a Thai chef to kind of come up with this fusion menu. Also, they're obviously their own ideas. Let's go, this is the salmon roll. It's like a salmon fresh roll. There's green tea noodles, daikon, and salmon in there. Hey, it tastes fresh. All right, David, moving on to our steamed bao's right here. This one definitely has the toppings of a bun mee, but there's obviously the Chinese influence with using the steamed bao. Really interesting. I noticed a lot of fusion spots using the steamed bao. Of course, everybody is doing fusion chicken wings, whether it's with milk mom or whether it's with the Thai chilies or you have lotus. This looks like it's some sort of combination of all three things. Everything here is really fresh, man, and nothing really throws me off. There's not some weird sriracha, aioli, or anything like that. That really is one of those markers of a true, true fusion spot. So that's why I appreciate it. This kind of tastes like sort of your typical Thai chili wing except just turned up with the spice. All right, you guys, we are looking at the coconut spicy lemongrass pho, Andrew, a true fusion between Thai and Vietnamese flavors. This is one of my favorite noodle soups in the city. Wow, that's a big statement coming from a guy who runs a channel that eats a lot of Asian food, man. I eat a lot of noodle soups too. I'm a noodle soup guy. Oh my goodness, the poached egg, the bone marrow, the grilled shrimp, the bok choy, the shiitake mushrooms. David, would you say this is like a fusion between tom kha and pho? Yeah, I would say that it's a fusion between tom kha, pho, but possibly the way a Japanese person would do it. Look, I'd say this, there is not many noodle soups in the city that are like this, guys. And there's a lot of good noodle soups out there. Coconut lemongrass pho, that's good, that's good. You know, listen guys, shout out to the Czech Republic. We're just gonna pretend like we don't have a big juicy bone marrow right here, that I'm not just gonna scoop into the noodle soup. Come on, come on, come on. You know what I was saying about this? It tastes like a real dish that's been around for a hundred years. That's how well fused it is. I know what you mean. It doesn't feel like just two things you just threw together. But David, the other home run dish is the pork belly bun mee right here. It does look like a average bun mee, except with just more things, but it has the spicy oil on the inside. It has the house-made chili oil with the pork belly. Just look at how fatty this piece is right here, guys. It's not traditional to put something like pork belly in a bun mee. Some spots do do it, but I just think they do a good job of it here. That's good. You know what they call me, the mixologist. I'm gonna take this coconut lemongrass soup. I'm gonna pour it on my bun mee. Oh no, don't do it to him. Don't do it to him. Yo, this is good. When I dip it in the coconut lemongrass soup, it's good. All right, you guys, that does it. Huge shout out to Richie for being in the video. Let me tell you this, Southeast Asian food, it's on a rocket ship. Oh man, I love seeing it more in the city because for so long it was kind of hard to get good Southeast Asian food in Manhattan. On the topic, David, of kind of non-Asians or not fully-blooded Asians, I guess, doing Asian food and being known for it, what are the issues that they need to address? I think that it just can't be juxtaposed as an upgrade to the authentic. It's totally okay to love fusion foods as much or even more, but probably the person who creates the fusion food shouldn't try to crap on the original that they learned from. Don't do that, and we've seen people do that recently to say, oh, we're cleaning it up. Just don't say that kind of thing. Let's just have respect for the original. You can throw your own twist on it. By all means, make it more progressive, make it more modern, but always respect where it came from. We have a friend who always says, it's appropriate versus appreciate. Always appreciate, and I think here at Ginger Lemongrass and a lot of the other well-known spots out here, I think they do a good job of appreciation. My question is to everybody out there, where do you think this is going? Is this a trend that's gonna continue? I mean, as we know, more authentic and traditional food is also getting more popular, but maybe the fusion food will too. Hey, it is interesting and delicious to speculate about the future of Asian food in the West. All right, you guys, let us know what you think in the comment section below. Make sure you hit that like button, and until next time, we're out. Peace. Yo, let me be real. There's a lot of people out there doing a lot of things, and you won't eat the lobster head guts. I think that's crazy. I'm talking about eating booty. Maybe we'll cut that out.