Authentic CHINESE FOOD in the TEA CAPITAL OF CHINA + Lingyin Temple | Hangzhou, China

Look at that, look at all the juices flowing. So you got sake, you have all the fat. It is the best pork belly of all time, of all time. Mm. What's up everyone, this is David Hoffman from David's Been Here coming at you live from Hangzhou, China. One of the most beautiful places in China is the capital of the Zhejiang. Zhejiang province. I'm here with my guide Charlie, and right now we're gonna go eat some delicious Hangzhou food, which is very basic, basic ingredients, almost no spice, and we're going to a restaurant called the Green Tea Restaurant, which is inside a green tea plantation, and that's like in the mountains west of West Lake. And I gotta say, this city is incredible. The West Lake's beautiful, the food's insanely good, like so good. We have a downtown area, we have an old town, and we have the mountains. Are you ready, my friend? Yeah, of course, come on, try the Hangzhou cuisine. And then after the food, we're gonna go explore a temple, let's go. This restaurant is so sick, it's like located on top of a pond, like a little island. Wow, it's gonna be a long line. Hello. Two? Okay. 88. But it was done in two minutes. Sit down, please. Thank you. Yeah, you just use your WeChat to scan the block in here, then automatically coming out with the menu. So you can order here, then put it into your cart, then you can order, then the kitchen will receive our order and come automatically. You're very beautiful. Thank you. Obviously we got green tea because we're inside the Green Tea Restaurant, and I love this, they use WeChat. You don't even use a menu, but do they have a menu if you need it? Like if I need it? Maybe. Usually people come here with guides, so they can help, like he's gonna order and I just pay him back. If you like pork, this is very good. Yeah. Okay, got one pork. So if you like it, just put it into your cart. Yeah. Perfect. This restaurant is beautiful, like it's a traditional house, you can see long corridor, everybody's separated though, so you're not like right next to anybody. So us, it's like we have the corridor here where people pay right there, and then over here we have a view, view of the pond, beautiful view. I mean, this is like really authentic restaurant, right? And we get the green tea, green tea at the Green Tea Restaurant. Mm, that's really good. And it's actually not too hot, it's a little cold. Mm, this green tea is the best green tea I've ever had. And I love how they give it to you like this, so you have a huge amount of green tea in the middle, and the hot water under it. So we have pork, we have... This restaurant is truly unique. I mean, so incredible. Right here we have the kitchen, right? The kitchen, as you can see, they have these huge pots like boiling, I don't know what that is, probably fish. They have some rice dishes here. They have ginormous pork belly right here. And they keep coming out, they just keep coming out, because this restaurant is packed. It's a giant restaurant. Over here, as you can see, there's a huge room, dining room. Over here we have another one. I mean, it just keeps going around, and then we have in the middle, we have like the pond, and we have like some traditional boats, just like parked there. This is like, I'm so happy we came to this restaurant. He was telling me, he's like, you're gonna love this restaurant. You're really gonna love it. It's so amazing, and I can't wait to eat. Let's go back to the table and eat some food. This pork is very famous in Hangzhou. It's called Dongpo pork. Dongpo actually is a name, a famous scholar, also a governor of Hangzhou 1,000 years ago. And he like to eat pork, so he tried to cook him pork a special way with a local sake, you know, the rice wine, to cook with the pork. So that makes the pork, although it's a little bit fat, but tastes very tender, because all the fats are being absorbed by the rice sake. And with this gravy. Looks so good. So it's like five layers, right? Like pork, it's the pork belly with pork fat. Pork belly with the sake and the soy sauce and the sugar. Diving into the pork belly, wow, wow. Look at that, look at all the juices flowing. So you got sake, you have all the fat. It is the best pork belly of all time, of all time. The flavors, the fat, the juiciness. I'm so happy how big it is too, you know, like they give you a real big portion here. It literally just like falls apart in your mouth, like butter, it truly is like butter. And the fat, just the fat and the juices and the crispness on top is like caramelized. What a dish. It tastes a little sweet and sour, and the fish is sliced into small pieces inside. Mushroom with bamboo shoots. All right, so this is the Song Sisters fish soup. So it looks a little slimy, it's sour, there's mushrooms, it's a little hot. Yeah, oh, a nice ginger too. Ginger gives it a little kick. Bamboo shoots, a little crunch. This is like the best egg drop soup. We have pieces of fish throughout. The fish taste inside, right? It's like a slimy, fishy soup. This is really good fish soup. I'm all about Chinese soups. All right, I'm gonna hold off on that. I'm gonna have some of the cabbage. You got a little bit of those peppers, right? Yeah, if you like peppers. I'm all about peppers. Chilies. It's a dry pot cabbage. It's a dry pot. It's not dry. It's not dry, yeah. It's made for dry pot. Mm-hmm, yeah, so they have a fire under it, so it keeps it- Keeps it warm, so it's getting dry. Yeah, it's very warm. It's not like a cold start at all. A little bit of spice, not too bad. Yeah, very refreshing, product cleanser. This is the game changer here. It is way too good. Flavor with other spice, but it give you the original taste of the shrimp. Normally, we use a little vinegar. Is that vinegar? That's vinegar. I think it's vinegar. And that's it. It's good. Remember, never use your hands. So good. Very fresh. It also has another slimy sauce on it. I don't know what that is. It's almost like a honey, but not honey, a little slimy than honey. You dip it in the vinegar, and bam, you get another one. All right, so I'm gonna dip it in the tea water. Here we go. I mean, I like it. It's very plain, but at the same time, it's very healthy, you know, so they don't go crazy with the sauces. Green tea, for the green tea restaurant. Mm, the green tea is amazing. Charlie was telling me to eat the pork belly and then chase it down with some green tea, so it's a great combination. It's too buttery. I mean, the best pork belly of all time and the best green tea I ever had. This is like the winning combo right here. And unfortunately, our pork dish has come to an end. This dish is very popular in this restaurant since about 10 years ago. And what is it? We call it bread temptation. Small, take a little bit, then dip a little bit like this. That's it? The ice cream's been there for a while because it sort of like seeped into the bread. I don't have a sweet tooth, but this is amazing. Like, mm, mm, I can't even get anything. More than good, fantastic. Normally, bread is Western. We do, but not like this. My last bite. This food was so good, so good. Thank you, so good, so good. And I mean, the setting can't be better. I mean, right here on the tea plantation in the middle of the pond. They actually have a little boat you can eat in. I mean, I think it's like reservation only. You probably have to pay a little more to sit there, but it's pretty cool. I mean, because you eat like in a little boat on the water. Just look at this, and so many koi fish. The total bill is 245, which is basically around $40, $42. And I mean, it's really affordable for the setting, you know, the atmosphere, the food quality. Being in the green tea restaurant next to the green tea plantation. I mean, dude, this is amazing. And having green tea shrimp, that was so cool. I've never had that before. This is the most famous green tea in China called Dragon Well Green Tea, was produced in Hangzhou. And now is the picking season, the harvest season, April. So the ladies were picking the very top part, the youngest, the gentle part of the bud, just for the top quality green tea in Hangzhou. China is the capital of tea in the world, and Hangzhou is the capital of tea in China. That's right. So this is the place to drink green tea all day long. Yeah, that's right. Green tea is most popular here because I think 70% of the output of the Chinese tea is green tea. Most of the Chinese people like drinking green tea. I like it more. Yeah, green tea is fresh tea, and black tea is preserved, fermented tea. The reason why the British people drinking more black tea since two centuries before, because at that time, it's difficult to shipping green tea through the humid weather or long journey back to UK to keep the quality. So that they have to shipping black tea back. This temple name is Soul Retreat. Soul Retreat. And it's one of the biggest Buddhist temples in Southern China. So we're basically entering the temple area. We parked, and then we're walking through this like, I guess it's like a tourist spot where there's like restaurants, hotels. Yeah, there's a lot of tourists here. There's actually six temples in the area, but we're going to the most famous and the biggest. And what was the reason why they built this? You were telling me? This temple now we visit is built 1,600 years ago by a monk from India, because Buddhism is original from India to China. The earliest temple they built is around 2,000 years ago. So this temple in Hangzhou is one of the earliest period when the real Buddhist monk from India come to preaching their doctrine, built up the temple. And we believe this monk who found this temple, they say when the Buddha is alive, sometimes you can't see him. He was betrayed by his soul. So we just entered the Soul Retreat Temple. Yeah, that's right. So we got this name because we, everybody believes this is the spiritual area. They can, you cannot see the Buddha, but you can feel the Buddha's souls here. So that's why we call. I like that. And now we're going to go up to a hill where there's actually Buddha carvings. And the reason for the Buddha carvings is because the story goes, there was a monk from India that came here. He saw the hill. The hill looked like a hill from India. So then he told local people, if I find two monkeys in there, then this is from India. So he went in there and started howling, like, oh, or whatever, doing monkey sounds. And then everybody believed that this hill was flown in from India. Here we have the first carvings in the cave. And they date back over 1,000 years, 951 AD. As you can see, it's like three Buddhas. And then we keep walking in. We can see a very nice stone bed. We believe this is a crazy monk's bed because this crazy monk had magical power. Everybody believe if you can touch his bed, then you can have magical power too. So you play casino, you're winning, you buy lottery, you're winning, you play mahjong, you're winning. So according to tradition, for men, use your left hand. For women, use your right hand. As the reason why the women use the right hand in China is because the women always write. So you only can touch three times, not more than three times. Otherwise, you'll be too greedy. You can't get anything. So use your hand to touch it. One, two, three. So after 100 years touch, you can see the stone was so smooth like a marble. So maybe that's the reason people believe it does not belong to here, it's flown in from India. This hill is made of limestone with trees from the rocks. And the other hill in Hangzhou was a sad stone. So maybe that's the reason people believe it's from India. So it's definitely not from China. And here we have like dozens and dozens of small statues. Some of them are missing their heads. Yeah, some of them destroyed in the time when Chinese, some period emperor against the Buddhism. Although Buddhism is a dominated religion in China history, but some emperor don't like it. Yeah, so. Okay. Same size to the human being. Even bigger. Wow. There are 18 of them and all different gesture from Song dynasty. This statue is not the head. This is statue of the donator. So those statues in this hill is all donated by the local people. Some of them looks like a rich people. Here we have the Buddha in the past, the present and the future. As you can see, it's really dark in here. So definitely use your phone to, you know, use the flashlight. There's no other way to see it. You gotta watch your head here. The cave is very low. Wow, a different place. Like the scenery completely changed from rocky. And now we're like in a forest. These six statues are from the founders of the Zen. Zen set of the Chinese Buddhism. Zen set. Zen now in the world is meaning tranquility or sanerity. Zen, yes. Like this peace. Peace. So far, my favorite carving is this Buddha right here. It's up there like 20 feet high and it's massive. They literally just broke off, you know, a piece of that rock, carved into like a little square rectangle and then carved the Buddha. It's massive. It's, this is so cool. This reminds me of a place in Sri Lanka I went to, but this is like way more impressive. I mean, just beautiful, you know, carved out of the rock. And then right here we have something else. So what is this? You can see a stone pagoda. This pagoda, we are supposed to the tomb of the founder, Indian monk. After the monk was passed away, we normally cremate it and bury his ash into a pagoda. Pagoda in India is original from a stupa, which is also for the recreation relics for the Buddha. This statue you see in front of us is actually made by the Mongolians after they conquered. You know, Mongolians were Buddhists, so they didn't destroy anything, but they put their own touch onto it. And it looks a little more wild. Yeah, it looks more like, like tribal in a way. Really cool. This was the best one. You're supposed to rub this guy's foot three times with your left hand if you're a man, three times with your right hand if you're a female. Wow. So one, two, three, done. 389 Buddhas? Yeah. See all these statues from two dynasties, from 1000 to 500 years. So that means spend 500 years to finish all this. And especially the one, now you can see the horses carry sutures. This describe how the Buddhism come to China 2000 years ago. The Buddhism is about 2000 years ago. There are some Indian monks use those horses, carry sutures, cross desert, come to China. They say when they arrive China, occasionally the night before, Chinese emperor have a dream about a Western god coming. So when he wake up in the second morning, asking about what's the meaning of dream, then people report there's a monk from India coming. So Chinese emperor believe those monk are good monk and it's a good sign for his dynasty. So that's why they approve them to build up the first temple. It's called White Horse Temple. Now we're entering the third cave. Whoa, there's more in here. Somebody call it a cave of dragon because people looks like a dragon's brow. It's the only female Buddhist temple in Chinese Buddhism. In India Buddhism or in Thai Buddhism or in Mongolia Buddhism, there's no female Buddha. But in Chinese Buddhism, there's only one. It's called Goddess of Mercy. Last cave? Yeah, it's something amazing also here. This cave is called the Cave Goes to the Heaven. Cave that goes to heaven. The reason why we call it because it's actually looks like a seal the cave but actually there's a one small hole goes through the rock to the sky. You can see a one beam of light coming down normally in a bright day. I see it, it's over there. You see it? It's over there, yeah. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. We just show you a lot of the statues but now we wanna show you the best statue was carving from 800 years ago, the laughing Buddha, the big belly Buddha. And once you exit the cave, you walk on this path and along the path, it's like Buddhas, Buddhas, Buddhas, Buddhas, Buddhas everywhere. This is unreal, unreal. What a place. And that is the biggest laughing Buddha in China. Biggest and the best laughing Buddha in China was carving in the Southern Song Dynasty around 800 years ago. Imagine, it's about 300 years older than Michelangelo's Devi. Now that we've seen so many statues, we're gonna finally make our way to the temple and it's right here. Is there something specific about the temple or just this is the reason why the temple is so famous? I think both, both, yeah. Not only just because the temple is older than this. Okay. Yeah, then some of the works are done by the monks. So this temple is over 1,000 years old, 950 something. This temple is 1,600 years ago. This is the oldest statue we can find in this temple. More than 800 years old from the Song Dynasty. Made of one big camphor tree and his arm, his head can be taken apart and reassembled. So in World War II, when Japanese army conquered Hangzhou, they tried to take this back to Japan. Fortunately, the monk would take it apart and hide it in the cave or somewhere, so they cannot find it. So it survived from the war. Just like worshipping, like the smoke can bring information you wish to the Buddha, something like that. Exactly, it's like Catholicism with the candle. Same, similar thing. Like this. You're supposed to go here and bow a few times. You know, one, two, three, and then to the right, to the back, to the left, and then you come in and you leave them here. Now we're getting to the main hall and inside this hall is a huge Buddha, right? Yeah, sitting in the wooden Buddha, one of the biggest. Now the Buddha was doing evening lesson. You can see they're murmuring. Oh, they're murmuring. Sounds like drums right now. As soon as we walked into the temple, we saw some of the monks murmuring, right? So they're like basically humming, hmm, and they have the drums. Everybody's in front like praying. And then once you, you know, pass that, you go to the side, you see these huge Buddhas. And then behind, you see this huge goddess of the mercy, right? And it's like humongous, usually like, I don't know, 30, 40 feet tall. And it's made out of clay. Clay. 150 years ago. So it's all made by clay. So it's very unique in China. And that's it, guys. Well, we had an incredible, incredible lunch. One of my favorite lunches in China. I mean, the green tea house in the middle of the green tea plantation in the green tea capital of China and China's the capital of green tea. So, I mean, it's like the ultimate place to have green tea, right? Ultimate place. I mean, the food was amazing. For sure, my favorite thing was the pork belly. Second was probably the shrimp just because of the green tea. And then seeing the tea plantation, how huge it is. And then coming out here and seeing these remarkable, incredible, mind-blowing carvings of Buddhas all over the place. So many of them. Almost a thousand years old, roughly a little over a thousand years old, most of them. But it took a long time to do them. My favorite was actually not the laughing Buddha. My favorite was the one that's like inside. Like, it's like, yeah, it's like carved out of this hole. I mean, it was gorgeous. Gorgeous. But the laughing Buddha was pretty cool too. And all the caves and then coming here and seeing the monks. I mean, such a great experience. And this is something you guys have to do when you come to Hangzhou. I didn't even know about it until he told me we're going to do this. And I was like, whoa, what is this? Well, yeah, guys, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, give me a thumbs up. Leave me a comment below and subscribe to my channel for more awesome travel content. I'll see you in the next travel food adventure in Hangzhou, China. Where have you been? Peace.