- We're in Taiwan!
We're back with a three-part mini-series.
Joining us on all of our episodes,
our friend, translator,
- [Andrew] Fellow Buzzfeed producer,
- Inga Lam!
- Taipei! (laughing)
- We're seeing some great modes of transportation,
some fun games, some tricks, some treats,
and some delights.
You know how you know we're in Taiwan?
The beautiful 101 Tower.
And because it's steamy,
which is perfect for the first food
that we're doing in our trip: dumplings,
a food that's often cooked with steam.
- Great transition.
Today on Worth It, we're gonna be trying three dumplings
at three drastically different price points to find out
which one is the most worth it at its price.
- I am so excited to do dumplings.
- So excited!
- I feel like we've been talking about this episode
since season one.
- One of my goals this trip is to brush up on my Mandarin
because I have the Mandarin skills of a four-year-old.
(Andrew chuckling)
My goal is to get it to a five-year-old
by the end of this trip.
- That's a very good goal.
- Thank you. - Yeah.
Dumpling Number One.
- We're going to see Ms. Liu in her restaurant
- [Woman] (foreign language)
- [Steven] (foreign language)
How's that? - Is that good?
- Good! - We're gonna get some
fifty-cent pan-fried dumplings.
And it's-- - Have we ever had a price
so low on Worth It?
- No, we haven't!
That is a drastic price point.
(Andrew laughing)
(high-spirited piano music)
- You've been making dumplings for 30 years.
I'm just curious what you think makes the perfect dumpling.
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- What types of buns do you serve here?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- And which one is your favorite?
- (in foreign language)
(laughing)
(in foreign language)
- We've heard that the dough of your buns is very delicious.
What makes it so special?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- [Andrew] How many should we have?
- (foreign language)
(Inga laughing) - Oh, three?
- (in foreign language)
- You know how you're actually in Taiwan?
- How?
- Dumplings.
- And motor scooter sounds.
- [Steven] It's a beautiful noise.
- So, not only are we having dumplings,
but we're also having...
- Soy milk.
[Steven] So, we noticed you're actually making
your own soy milk here.
Can you tell us about how you guys make that?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- Cheers.
- Oh!
Jeez! - What?
I didn't know that's what soy milk's supposed to taste like.
Kinda like a peanut butter drink.
- Uh-huh. - Like that's how nutty
it tastes to me.
Inga, how's the soy milk?
- I'm like almost done with it. (laughing)
- Oh my gosh. - Really?
- I really like soy milk.
This is really good.
- It's like the first time I had full-fat milk.
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - You know?
Adam, try some soy milk.
(laughing)
- Yeah. - Okay.
- Let's get to the buns. - Let's get to the buns.
Pork, cabbage, chive.
Look at the bottom crust.
It's like a little, "Hi! I'm crispy."
(Steven laughing)
Cheers.
(groovy music)
(Steven laughing)
The dough is so good.
What was the term for chewy?
- QQ.
- QQ? - QQ?
- Is that an actual term?
- Yeah.
- This is so QQ. (Inga laughing)
- I don't know how to describe the weight of it but...
- It's pleasantly plump.
- Pleasantly plump.
- Okay, the pork bun.
(Steven chuckling)
(groovy music)
Oh.
- Whoa!
- That's my favorite.
Adam, you wanna take a bite?
- You know my problem with burgers?
- [Adam] Oh!
(Steven and Andrew laughing)
- You're playing a game of, like, Jenga and Tetris
as you're biting into it.
With the bun, you're not losing anything.
- Lastly, the cabbage.
I love the shape of this one.
It looks like a clam.
- This is 50 cents.
We just ate three dollars of food, by the way.
- Okay, this one might actually be my favorite.
Dammit!
(Steven laughing)
I don't live in Taiwan!
50 cents?
I don't even have to be hungry.
(Steven laughing) It's just,
it'll be foolish not to.
- The pleasure you get out of chewing really good
- Good dough. - Bread.
- Yeah.
- Oh my gosh.
- QQ!
I think you need to open this in America.
I can give you my address, just open up shop next to me
'cause I need to eat this on my way to work, please.
- (in foreign language)
(Inga laughing)
- (in foreign language)
(Inga laughing) - (in foreign language)
- That was a dumpling.
Well, it's actually a bao, but bao's a dumpling.
- QQ is my new favorite food terminology.
It's quite warm here in Taiwan.
- It's very warm. - So, I think before
we have our next dumpling, we need a refreshing treat.
We're in Taiwan.
What kind of treat should we have?
- Shaved ice!
- We're going to Showa Ice.
- [Steven] The Chinese name is
- (in foreign language)
- (in foreign language) - (in foreign language)
(cheerful music)
- This was awesome.
This is one of your favorite desserts, right?
- Not this specifically, - Yeah.
- But shaved ice in general. - Shaved ice generally.
- [Woman] So, there's two types of shaved ice here,
the classing mango chunks on top of milk shaved ice
and then chocolate shaved ice with whiskey.
It's really good, but it tastes really different.
- Ooh. - I'm going full mango.
- Oh, wow.
This texture is very surprising.
- Oh, the mango!
Inga, get in here and try this mango.
This is like Garden of Eden mango right here.
- This is so sweet.
(cheerful jazz music)
- Of course that tastes good.
You drink whiskey with ice?
- Yeah. - And chocolate.
Chocolate works.
We're eating a food that's cooked with steam,
and now we're eating ice.
So, we're just exploring all the,
I'm gonna call that the states of matter.
- Yeah. - Do we have any chemists
in the room? - Oh, excuse me.
- All right, chemist.
- Give me a fact!
- Dumpling fact!
It's not a dumpling fact.
- Oh?
- It's related to dumplings though.
Dumpling-related fact.
- Dumpling-related fact.
- Because most foods humans eat are soft,
the body and brain have learned to like the novelty
of an opposing texture, like crunch.
Even after all that effort to make a perfectly QQ dough,
it's still worth it to add the crunch on the bottom.
- Back to the perfect food, man.
- All right, we're off to our next dumpling spot.
- We're gonna see Mr. Chen
in his steamed dumpling restaurant.
Inga, what's the name of it?
- (in foreign language)
- [Inga] (in foreign language) - (in foreign language)
- Good work!
- Nice!
(lively piano music)
- How many dumplings do you think
your restaurant makes per day?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- Wow. - A day.
- 5,000 a day.
- And they're all made by hand.
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- [Andrew] What makes a really great dumpling?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- When customers come here, are they only eating dumplings
or are they ordering other things as well?
- (in foreign language)
- [Woman] (in foreign language)
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- So, we should order a few more things as well?
- (in foreign language) (laughing)
(in foreign language)
- [Andrew] That's right.
(cash register dinging)
We've built out our meal with some extra stuff here.
- We have. - Let's dumpling it up.
- They make 5,000 of these,
a literal army of dumplings
in one day. - Yeah.
- It feels like I'm fighting an army of dumplings
with my mouth.
- Boom.
Dip.
(string music)
- That's incredible.
- Oh, wow.
- Dumplings I've had in the past,
once it's steamed, it becomes loose around the filling.
- Yeah.
- But these are tight and dense and still juicy inside.
- So juicy.
- Let's do a side dish break.
- I vote century egg tofu madness.
- Yeah.
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- (in foreign language)
(laughing)
- Wow!
- Whoa. - Wow!
- That's not what I was gonna do.
- Wow! (laughing)
- Okay.
- Yay! - [Andrew] Okay.
- Wow, (in foreign language).
- Do you know what I realized? - Yeah.
- Egg natures dumpling.
(Steven laughing)
- [Andrew] Wow. - [Steven] Whoo!
- Cheers, Steve. - Cheers.
To a hundred years.
Oh, yeah.
Hold that up, hold that up!
- Yeah, that's what the egg--
- This is egg and you can see through it.
- It's very jelly.
- [Steven] All right, so, here we have
the vegetable dumpling.
- Watching them make these dumplings
was like magic.
They closed their hands and when they open it,
there's a dumpling.
It's really like someone's doing a card trick
in front of your eyes.
- Fun fact.
This is actually Inga's grandmother's suggestion
of where to eat. - Really?
- Yeah, my grandma was the one
who recommended this place to me.
- [Andrew] Good recommendation.
- It's so QQ.
(Andrew chuckling)
- Think about the amount of work
that's put into these dumplings and how cheap it is.
That is the ultimate magic trick.
(Inga laughing)
- My mouth's so full!
- That pork dumpling.
- Like a Korean spa.
- Like a dry-cleaned shirt
steamed to perfection. - Steamed to perfection.
- Our next dumpling is also going to be steamed.
We're having the soup dumpling.
- The Xiao Long Bao.
- That's right.
But before we do that, we're going to have
another Taiwanese dessert treat.
- SunnyHills Pineapple Cake.
It's one of my, oh my God,
it's one of my favorite places.
(playful piano music)
- (in foreign language) - Please enjoy.
- So, every time you come here,
even if you don't buy anything,
they will give this to you, like a pineapple cake
with oolong tea.
- That's confidence.
That's, like, we know how good it is
because you're definitely gonna get it.
- Yes, and you will.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- Cheers.
(playful piano music)
Ooh-long, right? - Yeah, right?
(laughing) - Golly.
- Pineapple cakes are really good.
Buttery and flaky on the outside,
and then you get that really fresh pineapple sweetness
and tartness.
- [Steven] Iconic.
- [Inga] Iconic.
- New York and cheesecakes.
Taiwan and pineapple cake.
- Yes, yes. - Or something like that?
- Yes.
Smell it.
- Hmm.
- Right?
- Hmm, okay, I see.
I get it, yeah.
I've never had pineapple jam-ified like this.
- So, you just pop the rest?
- Well, you might want to save to enjoy it
while you listen to this.
Dumpling fact!
(Steven laughing) Sorry.
- What is fact in Mandarin?
- Oh!
(in foreign language) - Could you say
"dumpling fact"?
- (in foreign language)
Doesn't Andrew do language better?
- Say that again?
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- (in foreign language)
(bleep)
- (in foreign language)
(Andrew loudly laughing)
- In 2013 and 2014, chef-turned-writer
Christopher St. Cavish created a soup dumpling index,
measuring the thickness of the dough,
the soup volume, and the total weight of each individual
xiao long bao at 52 different restaurants.
This data was then calculated with the formula,
filling plus soup divided by thickness of skin
times a hundred to assign a score representing
the quality of structural engineering in xiao long bao.
- Look, quadratic formula was already hard enough.
All right, next stop.
We're going to a soup-er star--
(Andrew laughing) - [Inga] Oh!
- Soup dumpling spot, Din Tai Fung.
We're going to meet the bossman Mr. Yang.
It originated here in Taiwan.
They, right now, at this very moment,
have 164 locations worldwide.
That's at this moment.
- That's wild.
- By tomorrow, there might be 180.
(Andrew laughing) We don't know.
We're gonna go eat their Truffle Soup Dumpling.
Truffle.
Have you had it before?
- Not truffle.
I'm not boujee. (Andrew chuckling)
- I'm just gonna walk away from that comment.
(heavy bass music)
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- Was it always soup dumplings?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- How do you get the soup inside the dumpling?
- Yeah. - (in foreign language)
(laughing)
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- So, when it's steamed, it becomes liquidy?
- [Inga] (in foreign language) - (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- What's important about that pleating process?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- How do you maintain such high quality around the world?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
- This is the Taiho IPA,
It's locally brewed,
and it has a really strong flavor of fruits.
- Oh, the logo is great.
It's a tiger.
Cheers, Steven.
- Cheers.
- That's good. - That's, like,
almost cider.
- So, then, for the pork xiao long bao,
the most important part is the soup inside.
It's sort of, like, the soul of the xiao long bao.
So, we lift it up from the top,
we place it at the back-- (Steven and Andrew hollering)
of the spoon-- - So, you had the bottom
just sag down in a very satisfying way.
- Yeah. - We poke a little hole inside
to let the broth come out.
- Oh, okay. - Okay.
- And then please take a sip.
- You're gonna wait for me or
just eat alone?
Okay, great.
- I'm following instructions, Steven.
(Andrew exclaiming)
- Nice?
- Yes, nice.
- And then we can add a little bit of ginger
with the sauce on top,
and then you can enjoy the xiao long bao together.
- All right, together. - I'm gonna wait for you
to drink your--
Yeah.
- I'm not good at-- how did you poke that so well?
(Andrew laughing)
- Would you need some help?
(loudly laughing)
- Cheers, Steven. - Cheers.
(lips smacking)
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah. - That's really good.
- It's almost cloth-like--
- Like a fabric. - The bottom of it.
- The broth has, like, a sweetness to it.
It's so good.
Do people ever eat it in one bite?
- Yes, they do.
But please be careful because it's really hot.
- Right. - Okay.
- Sometimes, you just gotta fly too close
to the sun though, so...
- I feel like I wanna feel it burst into my mouth.
- It is hot.
(laughing)
We've mentioned it so much in this video,
but I really have to bring it back to the QQ.
- Even though the dough is so thin,
it still is very satisfying.
- How do you attain that kind of texture
in, like, a film sheet.
- Adam, can you try this, please?
(laughing)
- Oh, that's good.
- Yeah, it's really good.
- This is our truffle and pork xiao long bao.
- Why do a truffles dumpling?
- (in foreign language)
(in foreign language)
(cash register dings)
- Cleanse my palate.
(perky music)
- Before we get into the eating,
(Andrew laughing)
I do have to point out the pleating
- Yeah. - On this dumpling.
They're beautiful.
- Oh, yes.
(slurping)
Oh!
What?
(Andrew chuckling)
- Boujee cheers!
- Oh, sorry.
(laughing)
These are awesome.
Okay.
Last season, we ate soup that had truffle in it.
We learned that it has to be activated
by heat and fat.
- Right.
- So, the truffle in a soup dumpling totally makes sense.
It really says something about this dough
that even though it's so thin,
you still get that QQ.
- It's impossibly thin.
- Common complaint about our show
is that we always just put truffle in stuff
to make it more expensive.
- And we see you comment section, we see you.
- But these are about three US dollars per dumpling,
which is expensive, but for the taste of truffle,
how nice this is, I'd say that's worth it.
(laughing)
Show title, watch out. (loudly laughing)
- So, doing truffle right.
- Yeah.
They're not doing it wrong.
(Steven laughing)
Adam, you wanna see if they're doing it right?
(laughing)
(Adam chuckling)
- So, we're here at Raohe Night Market
because Inga suggested that we come
and eat their stinky tofu.
- The smell around the stall is quite stinky,
but once it's fried, it is much more subdued.
- Cheers, Steven.
- Cheers.
- So juicy!
Holy crap!
Speaking of soup dumpling, there's a soup tofu.
- Try stinky tofu.
- Okay, so before we get to our Worth It winners,
what was your favorite thing in this episode
that was not a dumpling?
- My favorite thing was the fire hydrant soy milk.
(Andrew laughing)
at the (in foreign language) place.
The visuals of that are just astounding.
- My favorite thing was getting dressed like a scientist
at Din Tai Fung's central kitchen.
We went to this airlock that blew all the dust
and hair off of us.
And we got to see some really cool
behind-the-scenes stuff.
So, Steven, which dumpling was the most worth it to you
at its given price?
- My Worth It winner today goes to the pan-fried dumpling
at (in foreign language).
The value was incredible there.
The dumplings were amazing.
- The cabbage bun at that location was very nearly
my Worth It winner, but I have to give it to the
steamed pork dumplings at Location Two.
Like my fantasy of a dumpling is that dumpling.
Inga, who's your Worth It winner?
- I don't know.
It's so hard.
I wanna say Two because it's my grandma's favorite,
but I think it's honestly One.
- [Andrew] Annie?
(laughing)
Adam says his winner's Din Tai Fung.
Next week, soup.
That's right.
Soup, again.
So soon, you say?
Trust us.
Taiwan may be the perfect place to have soup.
- Yes, so excited.
There's so many soups.
We have so many soups.
It's gonna be great.
So many soups.
(laughing)
(groovy music)