Taste Buds: Vietnamese Comfort Food and Asian Grocery Tour

I want chopsticks, but I'm not good with chopsticks. There you go, I can feed you. That's not good. It's amazing. Yeah, it's good, then. You just can keep feeding me, I'm all about it. Yum. What are we making first? Mmm. Hup, hup, hup, hup, hup, hup. Are you ready for it, taste buds? Let's go. Taste buds, I cannot wait for you to go with me to Myung Kitchen. You're going to meet my friend Tracy. I first saw her on Instagram and she was welcoming people into her restaurant, opening the door and saying, my home is your home. Come into my restaurant. And I really sat and thought about that and thought, yeah, when you bring someone into your restaurant, it is like inviting them into your home. And I was just so moved by Tracy's hospitality and I wanted to meet her and find out like. What is she making over there? Turns out she's making a lot of delicious Vietnamese food. She's gonna show us egg rolls and her famous noodle salad. Then we're gonna meet Tracy's nephew, Lenny, who happens to own Shuang Her. It is an Asian grocery store that has tons of new things for you to experience. They introduced me to this amazing strawberry ice cream. Look at this. It's encased in like a... Chocolate coating, like a white chocolate coating. There's so many unique new things that you're gonna experience in this episode. I'm gonna make you my coconut soup, which is full of chicken, very delicious. We've got a great episode all about hospitality and inviting people into your kitchen, your home, your restaurant. Are you ready for it, taste buds? Let's go. Hi, Taste Buds. I'm here with my friend Tracy, and it is Mai Hong Kitchen, which is the name of this restaurant. And we are learning a lot about Vietnamese cuisine. But I first learned about Tracy the way many people in the state of Minnesota or Minneapolis learned about Tracy. It was unfortunately during a time of great unrest when we had Operation Metro Surge. It was an immigration enforcement that came to Minneapolis. Thank What I noticed on Instagram was this lady that was standing at her restaurant door opening it and telling people, come in, come in, come in. She's feeding people soup. She's helping them get the tear gas out of their eyes. And I just remembered thinking, who is this lady that is this like bright shining light amongst all of this tragedy? you. And it was you. So I'm so glad to finally meet you. Thank you so much. Yes. Me, I am so grateful. I'm happy. I'm so happy what I do. All right, Tracy, it is time to make the famous egg rolls. Yeah. You start with the vermicelli noodles. In theory, you're going to reconstitute or rehydrate the noodles, right? Yeah, for three minutes. Okay. 120 degrees. Yeah, they're like glass. We cut out like this and cut it about one inch short. And then we have? Black. Is fungus different than a mushroom? I don't think it is. Is it fungi? It's fungi, but it's the same black mushroom. We have cabbage here. Carrots. Carrots. And we do have onion too. Oh. Look, onion. Yeah. And then how much meat? One and a half pound ground pork, black pepper, and two egg yolks. Okay. I love it. And sugar. See? Garlic powder. Okay. Salt. Yeah, we need a little salt. Then you mix all these ingredients, salt, sugar, egg yolk, garlic powder, make them together. Powder, make them together. My mom used to be do like this all the time. You mix it, mix it, mix it, good, well, so that all the meat and the vegetables stick together. And you told me earlier you have, is it nine brothers and sisters? I have five sisters and three brothers. And you started doing the family cooking at 11. 11 years old, and I love it. Yeah. What is the wrapper? I got it from Shanghai Market. Spring roll wrapper, all right, rice flour. Did you see that I cut out here a little bit? Okay. So later on you seal it, it's easier, more tight. So that way the oil don't go inside the egg roll. Okay. Rubbing the top with egg white. Your hand. Okay. Making like a little baton. Okay. And go this way like this. Yes. And kind of tucking and rolling. And here, right here. Rolling in, yup. and go here and this one have to be gold you see yep like an envelope yes tucking and rolling rolling and have to be tight in a little bit okay tight like a cigar exactly oh that's pretty good okay we're gonna do one together are you ready this much i'm trying to you can do any side or whatever side you like at home it's okay to any side everybody likes a good okay you have to be You have to be up here a little bit and give a little bit too much, it won't bear too much. You remind me of cooking with my daughter Ellie. We're going to cross over. Yeah and pull it a little bit. Pull in tightening. And roll it. Go here. Boom. Okay. There you go. Just right here. Yep. Boom. Yep. Okay. And roll it. Okay. Boom. Got it. You see that? That's pretty good for number one. Number one. Very good. Excellent. Wow. Very good. You want to try one more time? I do, but now you can't help me, because then we're gonna judge it. Okay. I gotta make sure I get the right amount of filling and not too much. And then I come over once. Good. I roll a little till I get the excess edge and I go boom. Yeah. And fold it over. Boom, boom. Yes. Fold it over. Roll, roll it. And then I keep rolling. Tight, tight, tight, tight in a little bit. Like, yeah, you're doing very good. It's all love. All love, and oh, you talk about love. It's really, you have to, anything that you cook, cook with love. How am I doing? You can do that. How am I doing? Oh, actually not bad. No, but you did it really good already, Stephanie. All right, Tracy. Seriously. Hooray, I passed the egg roll test. I give you 98%, it's not bad. We're gonna try an egg roll. I want chopsticks, but I'm not good with chopsticks. Sure, okay, then you can use your hands. Because that's how you're supposed to do it, right? Yes, there you go, I can feed you. That's not good. It's amazing, love. Yeah, me too. You just can keep feeding me, I'm all about it. I really do love an egg roll. It's crispy, you can taste the sweet. I could eat egg rolls every day. Yeah, actually, it's really good. Okay, Tracy, we're moving on to your famous noodle salad. Noodle salad that in our restaurant, a lot of people, they love it. Romaine lettuce, cucumber, mint, basil, carrot. You can put any kind of protein, chicken, tofu. What is this one? Is this tofu? Tofu and I have a relationship that's not great. People never say that I don't like tofu. After they try my tofu, they really like it. Oh it is really good. Yum that was delicious. Then see this how the our noodle salad like that then I put the topping. Okay. Then you can put the fish sauce in there and add it. Okay. Stephanie this is for you my dear. Thank you so much to come to my kitchen. I am so grateful that you're here. I'm grateful to be here and also grateful that you brought me a fork Pork. because my chopstick skills were a little sad. Stephanie I make one for you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Can you please make me one, see how you do? And now... So romaine, bamboo shoots. No, that's not bamboo shoot, that's bean sprout. Bean sprout. Noodles. Yeah. Over here, there you go. There you go. Okay, then you had mint, and you had a big portion of mint. Sure, go ahead. Yeah. You look like you're unsure. And carrot. Carrot. Yeah, and cucumber. Okay, I feel like. Yeah, very good. And the protein. It's a tofu. Tofu for you, okay. Tofu, it comes with a vegetarian sauce. It's not fish sauce. You have to mix it. Okay. Mix it, okay. It's like I'm at an Italian restaurant eating a bowl of spaghetti. I love spaghetti, too. Mmm. So fresh. A lot of mint. I love the peanut. This is my favorite thing to order at a Vietnamese restaurant. Tracy, it has been an absolute blast. Thank you for having us in your kitchen today. You've just been a delight. Thank you so much, my dear Stephanie. Everyone's going to come in here now and they're going to say, where's Tracy? And when you come in, I want you to tell Tracy I can already see that you're a taste bud Because then she'll know that you came from watching the show. Then I have a gift for you. You know, all my customers come in here. I always have something for them. A drink, a gift, a cookie. She'll give you a hug. Or whatever. I always have something to give. Thanks for everything you've done for the city of Minneapolis. Also, just thanks for shining the light and being a nice person and helping people in need. Stephanie, it's my pleasure. I love you all. Thank you so much, my friend, all everybody for supporting me. Wow. We had such a great time with Tracy, and now we're at Shuang He, which is Tracy's family's grocery store. And we are here to get ingredients for the chicken soup that I'm gonna make. I love going to Asian grocery stores. I love going to grocery stores that I've not been in before. There's so much to discover. Let's go meet Lenny, the store manager. I want to make sure I say it right. I've been practicing. Okay. Shuang He. Yes. Oh, great. I got it right. First try. Lenny, it's nice to meet you. Yes, it's nice to meet you too, Stephanie. So you are Tracy's nephew. Yes. And you run this store, Shuang He, and there's a St. Paul location. Yep. And Minneapolis, we're in St. Paul. Yes, exactly. This is a real family business. Yep. Only family here. Tell me a little bit about the store and what your place in the market is. We've... Our ethnic grocery store, Oriental Market, we've been open for 30 years. We source a lot of exotic fruits, we have a lot of imported candies, cookies, drinks, and then we bring in a lot of fun, unique grocery. Are you ready to just go shopping and let's talk about some fun stuff? For sure. Okay, so I'm a gardener and we have the baby bok choy here, which is used in a lot of Asian stir fries and soups. Just everything. You guys, but look at this. This is basil. It is Thai basil. This whole thing is $2.30. Yes. Like, I don't even think you could grow it for that inexpensive. And this entire pile of mint is $1.98. So again, I'm growing this in my garden. I couldn't even grow it for that cheap. So many great things here. Yes. But I do need cilantro, so I'm going to grab that. And then I also need some green onions. Green onions right next to it. Here we go. Those are Japanese. Green onions, and then we have regular ones on the bottom. I think I like these ones. Can you eat this part? Yes, of course. Okay. I just like that they're bigger. Bigger is better, right? Uh-huh. And they taste better in stir-fry. Okay. There you go. You get more of a bite to it. Here. Okay. All right. Careful. Careful. Ooh, this one's not going to fit, but that's okay. Let's keep going. So many great things. I just had to imitate the largemouth bass. Okay, ready? Look at how much fish you have! Yes. You have perch, snapper, sole. Sole's hard to find. Yes. Oh, and periwinkles! I haven't seen those since France. Yes, we sell a lot of those. Yes! They come fresh every week. And there's always cute, fresh, fun snacks like, I don't know... Lime-flavored Lay's? Yeah, so those are delicious. Seaweed chips. Yep. They're actually very good. Delicious. Great on a plane ride. Oh! I personally enjoy mochi. I do too. Mochi candies. So we have like little mochis that come in a box. They're great snacks on the go. Okay. And then they're soft, they're chewy with a little bit sweetness. Let's get them. And then a really fun one that I love is honey butter chips. This is sweet, salty, a little creamy with crunch to it. So it's kind of like a salted caramel. This is like a personal bag. I will help myself. They're like a buttery salted caramel potato chip, almost like caramel corny. Yes. Love these. Okay, I probably should stop eating my chips and get serious. Oh, my chicken. I put my chips down long enough to grab some chicken breasts for our soup. Okay, these are fun. These are the drinks with the, is it chia seed inside here? Basil seeds. Basil seeds. I like a chia seed. Oh, it's all texture. Sure. Mm-hmm. They have, like, a viscosity to them that's, like, almost like, um... Kind of like a jello. Yeah, like a chia seed. Keeps your tongue entertained. Really, Lenny? That's funny. Ginger's here. Look at all that. That's two bucks. Some lemongrass is, like, more green. Some is more brown. Is it just how old or is it different varieties? I believe it's different varieties. Okay. Lenny, we have three rows of instant noodles. This is my college dream. It's one of those quick and easy meals. It's cheap and inexpensive, and it's a way to bring yourself back home without needing to go there. One of my favorites would definitely be a Korean one. This is jjajangmyeon, which is a black bean noodle. It's one of those actually stir-fried noodles. So you wouldn't actually make it into a soup. What you would do is you cook the noodles in hot water and then you pour the sauce over it. I'm gonna grab those for my daughter. She likes noodles. This is what I used to survive college, our buldak noodles. Okay. So these were very popular for a while for being very spicy noodles. These are not for the faint of heart. They're very very spicy. Like how spicy? Uh not for the faint of heart. That one is already very spicy for me. Okay. And then they even have a two times spicy. Holy cow. This one is for For the adventurous, this is maybe like I lost a bet kind of food. Okay, Lenny, that is probably not for me. If I had to recommend one for you, Stephanie, I would recommend the carbonara. It's sweet, it's creamy, it does have a little spice to it. It's pink, too. Yes, and it's very delicious. I like it. Let's get it. What we have here are... Fruit-shaped ice cream, like ice cream. Oh, how cute are those? And then it's mango-flavored as well, with a hard shell. It says it's full of happiness. Yes, it makes me full of happiness. Me too. Lenny, we had such a great day. I've got a whole basket full of stuff. I appreciate you taking me through the store today. Yes, it was amazing to have you here today. It was amazing to have you too, and you did such a great job of helping us discover things that maybe we didn't know about. Thank you. Yeah, TasteBuds, we'll meet you back in my kitchen to cook my coconut soup. Yum. Hey Spuds, what a great day that we had with Tracy at My Hung Kitchen. Just that level of hospitality that she brings to everything she does. I decided I'm going to make her a soup because soup is homey, it's comforting. When we went to Shuang He, I was able to get the lemongrass, I was able to get some ginger. So let's start by cutting two chicken breasts just into smaller, more manageable inch, half inch pieces. All right, we're going to start with some coconut oil. And that is going to give us just a little bit more coconut flavor. We've got onion. I've also got our red jalapeno or Fresno chili. Ginger that I just put into coins. And I've got lemongrass. What I'm doing is taking this lemongrass, it's kind of bunched together, so I'm just kind of taking it in the little sheets just to get more surface area for when we're caramelizing it to release the oils and the lemongrass flavor. All right, this is going to be so fragrant. You're going to let this go for about four to five minutes. I'm going to add the garlic last just because I don't want it to burn. All right, so our onions are all cooked down. We're gonna go ahead and add six cups of chicken broth. Whoa! Of course I'm going to spill half of it. I'm getting a little aggressive here. We're just going to go back through and scrape up the bottom so we get all of those brown bits that are holding all the flavor in the bottom. So we're going to bring this up to a boil and we're going to let it simmer for 30 minutes and you want to leave it uncovered. Okay so 30 minutes and our aromatics have been simmering so they're really infusing that broth with flavor and we're going to strain We're going to leave behind the ginger, the lemongrass, the peppers, the onions, and we're going to put all of that lovely infused broth back into the pot. There's a few little things in there. How did I not see those? Hold on. It's not like the end of the world or anything, but now we have a smooth broth. We're going to add in the coconut milk. And if you've never cooked with coconut milk before, it has like a thick top on it that almost looks like shortening. And you want that thick top and then the liquid that's underneath too. So you kind of poke through there. And all of a sudden you get that delicious liquid. And then we're going to go ahead and add our chicken in. And we're going to cook this all in the pot until our chicken gets cooked through. Probably about 10 minutes. Okay taste buds, our chicken is fully cooked through. I'm going to add a tablespoon of Thai red curry paste. This is going to give it a nice color. We're going to add some lime juice, about three tablespoons. Add our fish sauce, give it a little bit of umami, and we're going to add our red peppers. We're just going to let this go for about three or four minutes until the All the peppers soften up. All right taste buds, most of the work in this soup is the upfront, right? Getting the aromatics going. Then we added the chicken, we added the Thai curry paste, the coconut milk, and our soup is done. Add a little scallion, green onion, add a little cilantro, and a little lime zest, little juice. I think we need to taste test. Yum. Limey, chickeny, salty, sweet. This is super delicious and you could add rice if you want to. Stannie, are you here for some soup? He's like, I'll just stay and eat soup with you, friend. Great episode this week, Taste Buds. I love spending time with Tracy at My Hung Kitchen. And then of course we got to go grocery shopping with the family from Shuang Her and come home and make a delicious, warm, comforting soup that I hope Tracy will love. I feel like it infuses itself with hospitality, just like she did in her restaurant. Thanks for watching Taste Buds. We'll see you next week. Ooh, good soup, don't you think, Sam?