we're in Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan and we're going to go on a
massive food hunt and show you the best food this place has to offer
we're food hunting in Kaohsiung this sleepy port city has some
mouth-watering food worth hunting down we go after the best food the city has
to offer, watch out for rustic soup dumplings
flavour packed braised duck, a delicious pork belly bun and loads more, get ready
for some amazing food
I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate
we hope you're hungry, let's eat!
we're starting our Kaohsiung
street food tour with a local Taiwanese breakfast from this restaurant behind me
and the place is pumping so let's get in line
this place is humming we joined the queue and we loaded up our tray with a
tonne of food we've got our traditional Taiwanese breakfast here so we're
starting with a bowl of this xian dou jiang which is salty soy milk and to
go with it we've got a you tiao which is a fried dough stick and then two fluffy
dumplings look at them, whoa they looked packed with filling
I've got to start
with this bowl of salty soy milk I love this stuff, it is like liquid
gold so I'm gonna move this dough fritter aside and you can see here that it's really
frothy on the top so it's basically just soy milk and then they add a coagulant
which is vinegar so it creates all these curdles look at that so it's
filled with almost like air bubbles and these curds of soy milk and she's got a
big pot of the soy milk up the front and when you order a bowl
she grabs a bowl and loads it up with ingredients, so sesame oil,
spring onions, tiny little shrimp, pours in the salty soy milk and then drizzles
some chilli oil over the top, I'm gonna mix it up and get all those ingredients
together, look at that, whoa, so you can see the spring onions there's chilli flakes in
there, the little pickles
let's just try it
it looks so good
mmmmm ohhhh
it's so savoury, it's so full of flavor and even though it's all curdled it's
very creamy, it doesn't have an overly strong soy flavour
it's just the rest of the ingredients that really sing so the spicy heat of the
chilli oil and the crunch from the spring onions and those pickles ohhh
I gotta try some more
mmmm
it's so good
the perfect accompaniment to soy milk has got to be you tiao or fried
dough fritters and I have got a giant one here
I'm just gonna rip it open and you can just see it's
literally a fried dough stick that's been lightly salted it looks pretty oily
and what I'm gonna do is just dunk it in my soy milk
so this is a hot bowl of salty soy milk
and even though it's a really hot day it sorta cools you down in a way
oh yeah
it's really oily, it's chewy and just goes perfectly with that creamy
soy milk
now we've got these dumplings to try and these things are massive we've got two
varieties here so you can see they look slightly different to go with them we
have this massive pile of chives and the chives are all swimming in some dark
vinegar and a whole lot of chilli so all the vinegar has disappeared under the
dumplings and been soaked up so these are steamed but then also baked so they
have a slightly crispy bottom let's try this one first it looks like it might be
full of chives
whoa
Wow
it is packed with those chives, look how many there are in there and it's also
filled with glass noodles and it looks like some pickled vege as well it's got a
little bit of a tang the taste, the the umm the outside the casing is nice and soft
and where it's been fried on the bottom it's gone soggy because of all that
vinegar's lapped up into it but it's got a tiny crunch and then the top
bit's a little bit soft because that's been steamed, let's try this other one this
is probably a pork one, whoa look at the size of this thing it's sucked up lots of
that vinegar on the bottom
whoa
hmmm
Wow that is a flavour sensation
it's filled with pickled cabbage so it's got real crunch and it's got a little
tang from all the pickle and there's little bits of pork in there as well I'm
gonna load this one up with these garlic chives so I want to get a bunch
of those chives in there all that chilli, all right that is going to be a mouthful
and a half
oh my god Wow
the chives have really taken on the vinegar so that
had a very tangy sour taste from the vinegar, the cabbage inside is super crunchy and
a little bit tangy too, the casing on this one is really fluffy, much fluffier than
the first one that is incredible out of those two that
one there that cabbage with that little bit of pork it is unreal it's so good
what an incredible start to our Kaohsiung food tour onwards to the next snack
xiao long bao or soup dumplings are really popular here in Taiwan and this little
place in the lane behind me does an amazing versions so let's go and grab
some
we've ordered two trays of these dumplings so you can see them sitting in
the steamer, beautiful little morsels so they, they roll out the dumpling skin
which is a wheat flour skin and then they put a pork mixture inside and
inside that pork mixture is the soup but it's gelatinous so it's hard when they
put it in but when they steam the dumplings, the soup turns to liquid
so now there will be a liquid, very hot soup sitting in the bottom of these
dumplings and to go with these we have some thinly sliced julienned ginger and
some dark vinegar so I'm just gonna soak the ginger in that vinegar, grab a spoon
soup dumping now you gotta be a bit careful with these because you do not want
to pop that skin because then all your soap is gonna fall out, grab a whole lot
of ginger soaked in that vinegar I love the strong sharp flavour of the
ginger so I'm gonna put a lot of that on top now this might be really hot but I'm
gonna go for all one go
mmmm
oh
the soup exploded out of that luckily it wasn't too hot because sometimes it can
scald your mouth but they're not too bad but the skin on the dumpling is a little
bit thick maybe a little bit too sturdy but the filling is super beautiful the
pork was really lean and the soup had a really clean flavor let's dunk another
one straight into this vinegar mix get it really coated so it's nice and tangy
from the vinegar now sometimes how I said these are super duper hot these
ones aren't so it doesn't matter but you can bite a little hole in the top to
let the steam out but what you don't want to do is break it so the soup comes
out you need that soup to be inside the dumpling let's go for another whole one
mmmmh, oh
there's some chives in there as well, there's a little bit of fresh crunch from
that and then the pork mixture is just really soft and subtle it's not chunky
it's not gritty, I love how they're just one little mouthful, sitting here in
this lane with them being all made behind us they are an incredibly good snack
food hunting continues and we've come to this local institution to try their
braised duck, cannot wait!
there's this brilliant open kitchen and all the braised ducks are lined up, can't wait to get in
check out this spread how good does it look? So we've got a plate of the braised
duck and it's been served with a heap of shredded ginger and then we each ordered
a bowl of this rice so this is lu rou fan which is braised pork on rice and
you can see these little tiny cubes of pork belly but then as well as the pork
belly it's got slices of the braised duck
it looks insanely good and then to go with it all we've got some plum sauce
for the duck as well as some cabbage
I've got to get in and try some of this
duck so I'm going to try it without the sauce but I'm gonna put a bit of ginger
to go with it and let's see what it tastes like
mmmh!
mmmm oh bones
Wow, mmmmm
the meat has so much flavour the ginger adds a really sort of tang
to meat, to that bite because it's raw and then that meat, it's
got a really strong duck flavour obviously so the spices that's been
marinated in or braised in are really mild so the overriding flavour is the
flavour of the meat which is awesome and it's got a real chew to it so there's still a lot
of texture it's not like really soft or melt your mouth it's just a
beautiful meaty almost gamey flavour I've got to get into this rice though it
is calling out my name, so that rice is just covered in that almost fatty, oh it is
fatty braised pork sauce so let's just get a big
that wasn't even big oh my gosh
mmmmm, the rice
it's so oily and the tiny cubes of pork belly just melt in your mouth
the fat just disappears the second it hits your mouth
this rice is so insane super
mmmmmh it's just super fatty
and then it works really well with the sliced braised duck because that is
really fresh with that raw ginger oh such a good meal
now we've grabbed a gua bao from this place behind me this thing is boiling
hot though so we're gonna let it cool down and find somewhere to eat it
I've just unwrapped this bao so this is a steamed pork belly bun so you can see
the huge steamed bun which is absolutely massive, huge piece of pork belly on
there, ohh the smell I just got, so it's from this, this is a sweetened peanut mixture
and that is super strong and in its scent and then we've got some pickled cabbage
which has some chilli and stuff in there this thing is ridiculously hefty whoa I'm
gonna go for this corner here cause look it's got a ton of that cabbage
mmmm, mmmmh
oh man
whoa, that was a big bite
mmmm
mmm, mmm the pork, is unreal
pork is so soft it just broke apart and the cabbage
has a great crunch a little bit tangy cause it's pickled but the chilli was
really spicy, I thought it wasn't gonna be hot like chilli spicy and hot at all but
it's actually got a great spice and then the peanut flavor just comes through
just a hint of those peanuts and the sweetness from the, there's a sugar
mixture in with the, with the peanuts I think so the sweetness from the sugar is
a stronger flavour than the peanuts themselves so look at that piece of pork
it's absolutely huge but it is so soft still, now apparently this is a real
locals favourite where we got this from and I can see why this is absolutely delicious
Oh man, it's really good, so soft the pork, the bun is really really soft really
easy to eat and the peanut flavour's actually coming on stronger as all the
other flavours die away, the spice from the chilli and the tanginess of that
cabbage and the pork itself the richness the peanut flavour actually comes on
stronger which I love, that is an awesome awesome pork bun
I'm just down the bottom
of the bun and I had to show you guys this fat so look at that, the layer with the
skin and the huge stack of fat in there, let's get that down
oh man
that is JUICY
so juicy
and lots of that peanut mixture down there and a lot of sugar actually in
that particular bite so really sweet from the sugar and beautiful rich
juiciness from the fat ohhh yea
it's stinking hot in Kaohsiung today so we are going to go to this stall behind
us and grab bao bing or a shaved ice to cool us down
"one baobing"
"sure"
taro
okay
boba
okay
and grass jelly
thank you
shaved ice is a really popular snack in Taiwan and often you'll find that
they'll be tricked up with things like ice cream and pudding but this stall serves
a really traditional version and doesn't it just look like the perfect thing to
cool us down on this hot, hot day so at the front there's a huge counter and there
are lots of different bowls of um toppings that you can put into your
shaved ice, so there was taro, there was grass jelly, tapioca bubbles, fruit all
sorts and then what she did was loaded the bowl up with the toppings and
then added a huge pile of shaved ice and there's some sugar syrup over the shaved
ice, so you can see down here that brown colour is the sugar syrup that sort of
drenched that ice and underneath the ice are all of those goodies so heaps of
different things let me just try and get a huge spoonful so I can show you what I
got, alright so you can see the grass jelly
there, there's and some sort of red jelly but I'm not really sure what it
what it is, some tapioca bubbles and then a little block of taro there
okay
mmmm, mmm, mmm, mmmmm
ohhhh it is so cooling, so refreshing and there are
so many different textures going on I think that's what makes this dish super fun
so you've got those bouncy tapioca bubble then that soft earthy taro
which is quite flavoursome and then she also put
some pineapple in there so there was a little bit of
pineapple and then some kind of syrup so it's quite sweet
I'm gonna go again
so I'm just gonna mush some of that ice up and then get a big spoonful and you can see
there oh there's some white two balls in there as well which I think might be
glutinous rice
yep so it's like a sticky rice ball and there was
a bit of a grass jelly in there as well which was a little bit bitter
oh this is just heaven
that was a great day of food hunting here in Kaohsiung, we love this city it is such a
great place and so much good food here thank you so much for watching we really
hope you enjoyed this one, remember to hit that subscribe button we've got a
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