China Town Street Food in Malaysia!! The Good and the Weird!!

The biggest challenge in my job right now is to not eat every dumpling on this plate. In this video, we're taking on street food in Malaysia's Chinatown. But first, let's back up. Malaysia has a Chinese population of over 22 percent. Chinese folks have a strong culture and especially a strong culinary identity, and that can be seen here and throughout the country. Last time I came here, it was six years ago. At that time, I made a video called five must-try foods of Chinatown, where they really must-try foods? No, they were just the first five places I saw. This time, I'm gonna go to six random places. I hope you're excited. I hope you're ready. Let's check out Chinatown. Random zoom in at the end. Boom, we have come to our first location right here. They are serving porridge and also noodles. This is what I love about Asia. You can have noodles any time of the day. This place is called Yui Ki Chi Chung Fun, and I can't wait to have some fun. Let's go in and see what it's all about. Hi there, my name is Sonny. Are you the owner here? Yes. How long have you had the stall here? 80 years. 80 years? You don't look a day over 70. I mean, from my grandparents' time, I'm the third generation. That makes a lot more sense. Are rice noodles a common breakfast here in Chinatown or in Malaysia? For Chinese, it's considered as a traditional breakfast. Can you tell me how you make it? We serve with gravy or soya sauce. Very simple breakfast. So everything starts right here with the rice noodles. Oh my gosh, and they get chopped up. Chuck those on a plate, and that is our karbi base. From here, they're getting drizzled with garlic and onion oil. Here we have a spicy chili sauce and a signature sweet sauce, pickled green chilies, and finally sesame seeds. Let's go try it out. The only thoughts I have is that it's quite carb heavy. For me, I prefer a few eggs for breakfast. What I like here is it's all about flavor. Obviously, the rice noodles alone have no flavor, but she's put a couple of powerful sauces on here. I'm going to try the pickled pepper first. It's like a Chinese pickled jalapeno. It's got a little bit of heat, but a little bit sweet, a little bit pickle at the same time. From here, we are going to destroy this masterpiece and mix all these elements together. Look how soft and delicate these noodles are. Let's throw it back. Cheers. These are very nice noodles. Immediately, you're hit with this amazing flavor of the sesame seeds. It's toasty and delicious, and then after that, the heat hits you. It's really a straightforward food. I'm sure there are people that come here every day. They get this. They go about their day. Do you have people who get this every day? My sister, my sister. So I pressed her, and she couldn't really think of anybody who comes here every day. Oh, and then she said her sister does. Haha, correct. These are wonderful. This is just the start. Let's keep moving. Aside from noodles, a second favorite breakfast in these parts is porridge. And here, they have every kind of porridge you can imagine, and even a few you could never imagine. Let's go over here and take a look at the menu. First of all, you can just get plain old congee if you want. Nobody would ever do that. Let's go through the congee varieties that they have here. Fresh raw fish porridge. That looks like sashimi. It is, but you can put it inside a porridge too. They have crispy innards porridge. They have homemade pork ball porridge. Tender drumstick, salted egg, century egg, and then this right here. Fresh frog porridge. Let's go in the kitchen and see how it's made. The first thing I see right here is a giant vat of porridge. Look at this big, beautiful cauldron of porridge. That is our canvas, and we're going to build on top of that. Right here, we have our frog in a package. Looks like it's ready to be smuggled across the border or something. So the wok is being fired up immediately. Right here, we have ginger, chili, and she just squirt some oil in there too. Then she's got her package of frog meat. That hits the pan. Give it a little bit of a mix in the wok. Oh wow, that spice. I smell it from here. Right here, we have some fish broth going in. That will pair beautifully with our swimming frog. Here, they have kind of a thick soy sauce and a chili sauce and even more spicy sauce. Look at this. It's getting caramelized and beautiful. It's dark in color. Boom, toss in the spring onion. Alas, she's putting it on our plate. Pair that with some congee, and we're ready to go. Meal number two coming in at $6. Right here, we have the congee with sesame oil on top to give it a little bit of flavor. Over here, we have our frog and a delicious sauce that she's made from a combination of many different ingredients. The woman back there is very charming. She's a nice lady. She seemed like she could speak English well. And then when I asked her some questions, she said, Hi, Vietnamese. You're Vietnamese? Oh, xin chào. I wish I'd learned Vietnamese. I want to try just some of the congee alone. Actually pretty good. Savory, delicious, smoky from that sesame oil. Uh-oh, car. Will they get through? Very nice. I'm very impressed with people's driving skills here. All right, right here, we have our frog. I couldn't clearly see how the frog was sorted out. Like, which pieces of frog do I have? This is probably a pelvis. I'm going to munch a little bit of frog meat on there. It's so soft and tender. It's something between chicken and fish. That's what everybody says. And they say that because it's true. Absolutely delicious. The sauce on here is incredible. It is super salty and very spicy too. So now we're going to take our frog and other accoutrements, move it into the congee, and that's going to flavor that even more. Let's mix that up. Cheers. Oh, it's so good. It's heartwarming. It's full of flavor. If you're somebody who wants to expand your food-eating horizon, start with frog legs. It's like an entryway food to get you to more extreme stuff, like how cigarettes are a gateway drop to heroin, I guess. So that is frog porridge. Let's keep moving. Welcome to Nasi Kampung. That means mixed rice. Where's the rice? Ah, so they keep the rice safe back here. Oh my god. What? Look how much rice that is. I mean, there's no room for anything else. I'm going to put that down and get another plate. Let's go through what they have here. First of all, shrimp. We've got a fish head and then fish body parts right here. This is something called ketchup chicken. You may remember last time I worked with Guga from Guga Foods. He dry-aged a steak in ketchup for a month, and it tasted interesting. This, well, it's not exactly the same type of ketchup. It's not exactly dry-aged, but I can't resist something called ketchup chicken. That looks real nice. Right here, we have unripe jackfruit. That is like these big blocky pieces. But then there's also chicken feet in there too. I love this. It's something new and beautiful. Oh man, look at this. The sauces are mingling. It's hard to keep them separated. Okay, I'm back to the rice plate. Right here, they have something called tempeh. This is fermented bean curd. Let's see how fermented it actually tastes. I'm going to take some of that. That should be enough for one round. I hope. How much is all of this? 12. Really? So that's about $2.50 for everything you see here. That's wild. Right here, they brought me some tea. Psych, it's not tea. This is for washing your hands. Nice and clean. Right here, the tempeh. This is fermented bean curd. There's a beautiful red color to it. It looks crazily spiced. And it's not meat. It's vegetarian, folks. Let's try it out. It has a great texture. Wonderful spices and flavor on there. A little bit spicy. It tastes like Korean red chili paste, but very different from a tofu. It has a much meatier texture to it. If for some reason you have to not eat meat, that would be a decent option, at least for a day. So right here, we have our ketchup chicken, but this is not made with tomato ketchup. This is made with a dark soy ketchup. That's what I'm told. I mean, look at the color on there. Wow. It's going to dye my fingers red. Don't put this in your Tupperware. It's going to be stained for life. Let's try it out. It's delicious. It's so greasy. It's super salty and super sweet. Amazing flavor. I'm going to take the rest of this apart, lap it up in that sauce. The chicken is not hot. In fact, all this food is going to hang out here on the sidewalk all day. But since it's been sitting out for a while, the texture is very dense, but I still like it. It's kind of like leftover chicken. You know how leftover food sometimes is even better, especially if you have a hangover? Sadly, I don't have a hangover. Wait, but I could get one tomorrow. Right here, our final food. This is the unripe jackfruit. If you've never seen a jackfruit, this is what a jackfruit looks like. And when it's unripe, you can actually eat everything inside, not just the fruity part. And that's what this is. It's like between a potato and a lotus root. The texture is unlike anything else you've ever had. It's right on the border of being uneatable, but then it's pleasant at the same time. And it's just taking a bath in this coconut sauce. It's so coconut-y, so flavorful. And then right here, look at this. Tragic. Every chicken foot has had a manicure. Oh, wait, not this one. Look, you can still see the toenail there. I mean, you got to clean them real good if you're going to have the toenail still on there. You'd see it, it just comes apart pretty easily. Chicken thumb. I'm being honest here, not a lot of flavor. It's mostly just gelatinous and gooey, all in all. This is a very cool way to experience street food in Malaysia. They have about 25 options there. You just go one by one, pick them out, go to your table, see what you like, see what you don't like. It is perfection. That's course three. Let's keep moving. We have come to our next location. This is Lai Fung Beef Noodle, and it looks amazing. I saw in the back, they have baskets and baskets of beefy ingredients. And right here, they have the menu. Luckily, it's in English. First of all, they have tripe. They have beef balls. They have beef lean meat. What part is that? They have beef leaf tripe noodles. They also have beef tendon, brisket, and then you can just get everything together. And that is what I plan to do right here. Let's go inside and see how it's made. Right here, all these bowls ready to go out. He's making several bowls at one time and then putting in that beautiful beef broth. It looks incredible. They've got like an assembly line going. They're moving so quickly. Hello, ma'am. Could I, oh, hi. Could I order some noodles? Could I please have the wheat noodle? And then all the beef parts. Boom, everything starts right here with the wheat noodle. It looks kind of like spaghetti. It might be spaghetti. Step one, blanch the noodles. Dump it out. Step two, we've got two different types of sauce going in. We've got some meat. He's just heated up. We've got some greens going in too. And then the broth. Oh, that looks glorious. So right here, we have the tripe. And then I believe that is the tendon over there. He's getting piles of that, putting it in the spoon, and he's going to get that hot with the broth. Bring those organs back to life and throw them in the bowl. Now we've got some lean beef meat over here. A couple of meatballs. And that goes in the bowl as well. Look at this bowl. It is just magical. You can just taste it through the camera, I swear. It looks incredible. Let me get some of that broth. Broth is legit. Fatty, savory, salty. Tastes like perhaps there were some boiled bones in there. And MSG too. I like it, but I have to admit, I think I made a mistake with my noodle choice. They look slightly like egg noodles. I love egg noodles. These are not egg noodles. These are spaghetti. At the last moment, I asked that lady, I go, wait, is that spaghetti? Oh, it's spaghetti. With the Chinese soup? Why? I mean, to me, the spaghetti noodle just feels a little bit cheap, but it's in this glorious like royal broth. So it's quite a mixture. Let's try it out. It's not quite like an Italian spaghetti. It's got a little more bite to it. I like it. Let's move on to the meat. Let's start with the tripe. It could be glorious or it could be a mouthful of regret. Cheers. It's a pretty good tripe. Clean, slightly bitter, slightly gamey. Right here, that very lean beef. Try that out. Soft, tender, delicious, beautiful. Love it. There's so much in here. Balls. Oh my God. I've never seen beef balls so small. Processed in all the right ways. Very well seasoned. This is what I'm most excited about right here. The beef tendon. I'm a huge fan of beef tendon, unless they haven't cooked it enough. It's gotta be gelatinous. It's gotta be gooey. It's gotta be falling apart in your mouth. And if they don't boil it enough, it's gonna be a little bit hard and kind of like chalky. Let's see which one this is. Right on the edge. I like it when it's boiled a little bit longer. It's a little bit more gooey, but it is some very respectable tendon. Very nice indeed. It's a good bowl of noodles. I'm kind of surprised because that frog porridge was also six bucks. And that was like tiny little pieces of frog. This is a lot of beef. An incredible treat for six bucks and a shining example of what you can get here in Chinatown. I love it. We have reached our next destination right behind me. Me Tarik. Me means noodle and Tarik means pull. It's a pulled noodle shop, but they're doing so much more than that. Let's go inside and I'll show you. Right here we have knife cut noodles. It looks amazing. Look at this. He's got a big glob of floury dough here and then he just goes strand by strand launching them into this hot water below. Right now he's cutting some more dough for hand pulled noodles. You're gonna see it right here. Customers, as they walk in, they can see this show live and in person. Every time he pulls the noodles, it is multiplying them by two. It's eight, then it's 16, then 32. And then I lose track after that. Wow. Amazing skill. They both are so satisfying to watch. I might have to get both. Should I get hand pulled or knife cut? See? He's like, I don't know what the f*** you're saying. Hello, sir. Boom, put her there. I'm very excited to show you the stuff happening in the front of the house here. A giant dumpling cooking machine. Look at these hand crimped dumplings. He's got some over here too. Two flavors, chicken and beef, and they look delicious. Over here they have a large pancake. There are so many options. The smells in here, the aroma. It's amazing. I'm definitely going to get some dumplings too. He just keeps pointing to food and showing me different stuff. Right here, he just cut one in half. This looks like a little stuffed chive pancake. If you hate chives, you will hate this. That's all it is. It's just pure onion-y, chive-y flavor. I love it. All right, guys, I've opted for the knife cut noodles. Right now they are cooking and he's getting ready to pull them out. Here they go in the bowl. Sliding right in. Right here, we have the broth. Beautiful. Boom, some greens go on top. Hit it with a little bit of beef. Then this looks like a chili oil. My God, that could kill an elephant. Yeah, nice and spicy. Guys, this looks incredible. Let's start with the dumplings. These ones are filled with beef. Let's try it out. I'm in heaven, man. It doesn't get better than that. A thick, delicious wrapper on the outside. Crunchy on one side, chewy on the other side. Then just an explosion of greasy, beefy flavor on the inside. Super spiced, but not spicy. If you want the heat, come over here. This is Sichuan pepper chili oil. Very acceptable. Not that brutal. And they've got some vinegar in there, too. Let's move over to the noodles. Right here, that Sichuan chili pepper oil. Knife-cut noodles, beef, and then a delicious broth. Let's try some of that broth. Oh, yeah. Super savory, salty, fatty. Oh, some of that chili oil is leaking in now. I feel like my throat's starting to close. Let's mix this all together. I want to get that chili oil everywhere. Let me hit some of this beef. Cheers. It tastes like brisket, but not smoked. After a couple of minutes, the heat is just like a radiant glow that starts to build up from your core to your extremities. Let's dive in for some of those noodles. I've not had a lot of knife-cut noodles, and I just love the skill of this man chopping away at that big brick of dough. Cheers. It's big. It's thick. There's a lot to it. That noodle's got some bite, that's for sure. Man, the whole dish is just a punch to the face. This is the Mike Tyson of cuisine coming at you with an uppercut. That was amazing. Maybe I should pack it in. I don't think we're going to do better than this. Boom, guys. That is five locations and six foods. We did more foods than last time. I ate so much food, and I was going to eat more food, except I got full. What are you going to do? I got to save room for beer later tonight. Anyways, before we go, I want to say a huge thanks to this guy. This way. A huge thank you to Wyman right here. He has been the man behind the camera, the man orchestrating this whole Malaysia trip for us. You can support Wyman by going to his food truck. It is called... Tangs Laksa. Ever had laksa? I still have never had laksa. Next round, man. Next time. Otherwise, guys, that is it for this one. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next time. Peace. Yeah, I still don't know what it means. Oh, it's like peace out. Oh, okay. Yeah. Why not just say peace out? Oh, yeah. Okay, I'll start doing that. Thanks.