- Alright, check it out guys, it's Trevor James.
We are back in Chengdu, China, our home base.
And today is a super special occasion.
We are gonna be eating at one of the oldest,
most traditional fly restaurants in Chengdu.
This is Taishisai.
We're gonna to have a beautiful feast,
do a quick update about our
two million subscribers giveaway,
and update you guys about our future plans.
Check it out.
(upbeat music)
And the laoban here is so friendly.
And look at this, it's in an old, traditional,
Chinese-style home and it's tons of delicious food
right here.
Look at this, guys.
We've got--
- Look at this, guys.
So it all starts right here.
This is all the leung tai, the cold vegetables,
some of them pickled, lots of them are in a spicy chili oil.
We've got lotus root, we've got green beans,
couple types of green beans here.
We've got delicious bitter melon.
We've got smoked tofu.
We've got cold cucumbers, that's in a delicious sesame oil
and we've got some carrot here.
And then, over here, we've got eggplant in a thick, thick
chili oil.
Here's these little bowls of chili oil, here.
They put broad bean paste in there, chili oil
and green onions and they serve that with dòuhua,
the silken tofu.
And zhou laoban over here is just so friendly, she'll just
give you a feast.
- Unbelievable.
- [Trevor] And then look at this, this is the hóngshāoròu,
red-braised, fatty pig feet.
That is a amazing.
- [Trevor] And then that's the red-braised fatty pork.
- [Trevor] This the numbing tofu, spicy numbing tofu,
and she's just plating.
- [Trevor] And as soon as you walk in, they just start
feeding you here.
It's so amazing.
- There is just so much food here.
And then, look at this.
We've got beautiful dòuhua.
This is silken tofu.
They serve it to you with a really thick chili paste.
We've got -
- [Trevor] Duck blood and then we've got delicious-
- [Trevor] So that is braised pork with potato.
Amazing.
- Amazing.
Oh yeah, look at this.
This is just truly amazing, guys.
Look at this old, traditional style Szechuan feast
in the oldest, most beautiful, traditional-style home
here in Chengdu.
We've got so much food.
We're going to do a quick update for you guys,
tell you about your two million subscribers giveaway.
We're giving away two tickets to come to Guangzhou
in the south of China with us and we're going to update
you guys about our current plans, what we're going to do
with this channel.
Look at this - red braised pork.
That is actually extremely fatty.
You can see there's this layer of pork belly here
that is pure fat and a lot of people here like that.
They love the fatty layer mixed with the lean layer.
That should be slightly sweet and slightly spicy.
And over here, look at this, guys - traditional mapo doufu.
Look at that.
So, this should have a lot of Szechuan peppercorn
which is going to numb your mouth off.
It's really soft tofu, and it's super, super fragrant
and spicy.
And look at this beautiful hui guo rou, here.
This is twice-cooked fatty pork.
Looks like they put a little bit of tofu in there,
and green peppers.
This is Hong Shao Pai Gu with tudòu, so red-braised
spare ribs with potato.
And, look at this guys.
This is one of the best dishes in the whole joint.
This is táng cù ǒu, sweet and sour lotus root.
And, then we've got a beautiful lo bao hada tāng, here.
So, this is radish with seaweed soup and it's just
a perfect, beautiful selection.
Let's go right in.
I just want to try a little bit of this mapo doufu,
one of the iconic Szechuan dishes.
It's so good to be back here in Chengdu.
Oh yeah, oh wow.
Soft tofu.
Slightly numbing.
One of the best things about mapo doufu is that it is
actually quite ma sometimes, quite numbing.
It literally makes your tongue feel like there's
electricity on it.
Let's try some of this hong shao rou.
Oh wow.
Wow that is real Szechuan food.
That fat is so gelatinous.
It really has this unique texture in your mouth.
Combined with that sweet, slightly spicy hong shao
flavor and the lean pork, it's really nice over top
of your rice.
So, I really want to give you guys an update
about what we're doing right now.
We're back in Chengdu.
This is our home base.
We actually rent an apartment here, it's a good base.
We fly in and out of here.
It's about $200 a month to rent an apartment.
Laoban here is just so friendly.
- [Trevor] So the goal here guys, is to create lots
of useful, fun content for you, to help you find
delicious places when you travel and we're going to start
out here at our home base in Chengdu creating a map
that you guys can follow on your trip here and we're going
to visit a lot of different cities.
We're going to start out here in Chengdu.
We're going to probably spend a month or two in each city,
create a list and a map of delicious food spots that you
can visit and here is the first place in Chengdu.
Let's try this delicious ou.
Oh yeah.
Oh it's perfect.
That is delicious, crunchy, sweet and sour lotus root.
It's got this vinegary, sweet, slightly spicy crunch to it.
Perfect.
So, this is going to be the next step for us, creating
resources for you guys, finding delicious food,
because we get asked so many questions:
Where is the location?
So, I'm going to be creating a lot of posts, guides,
and maps pinning each location that we visit on a map
for you on our website thefoodranger.com and I feel like
that is going to be super useful for you when you come
to these locations.
Oh, that is amazing.
That is the soul of spicy Szechuan, right there.
Fatty pork, lean pork, it's all about the broad bean paste.
Spicy, fragrant, it's smokey.
They've added this smoked tofu in here which gives it
a smokey flavor all throughout and there is just so much
in there.
So, for the next location we're going to be going -
first we're going to start here in Chengdu and each
destination we do we're probably going to be one or
two months in each place.
So, we'll be in Chengdu for a couple months, and after
that we're looking at a few of the cities we've already
visited.
Jakarta.
Kuala Lumpur.
We're going to go to the Philippines and Taiwan
and we're also looking at some new places, too.
We want to go to Pakistan.
We want to go to Sri Lanka.
And, each time we visit, it's going to be a bit longer,
so there's going to be more content for each place
and it's going to be more methodical.
We're going to be pinning each place on a map
and helping you find them, as well, on blog posts.
This is going to be the first spot we're pinning.
We're going to drop a pin down.
It's going to be blue for good, red for excellent,
and tan and for gold ten out of ten ranger ratings.
And the next thing guys, is that we are so pumped to
be announcing a two million subscriber sweepstakes
giveaway.
We're going to be flying two lucky rangers out
to Guangzhou where Ting is from, take you for delicious
dim sum.
It's going to be amazing.
We did this for one million subscribers, as well, last year
now we're going to do it for two and we're going to do it
for every million subscribers that we get because we
want to give back to you, take you for delicious food,
delicious Cantonese food in Guangzhou for this giveaway.
So, all you've got to do to enter is follow our
Instagram, follow all our social media, create a post
with the hashtag two million rangers.
It can be a video, a photo, put some information in there,
why you would like to come.
If you want to create a video, if you want to create a
photo about your favorite food, about why you would
love to come to China, anything you want to say is
perfect and then we're going to choose one of you
within about a month and then we'll fly you out
whenever you have time, whenever we have time,
we'll arrange it together.
So, I hope you guys are as excited as I am
about the upcoming series, all of the videos from
Chengdu and the cities we visit in the future, and for
our two million rangers giveaway.
Make sure you're following along on Instagram,
create a hashtag with two million rangers, explain why
you'd like to come and we might choose one of you
guys to come to Guangzhou.
Thanks so much for watching guys and I would love to hear
from you in the comments below.