hey guys we're eating chinatown for real
first up breakfast at sponges let's go
got our sponge cakes they are fresh out of the oven so super warm and ready to eat we're
at spongy's cafe which specializes in hong kong style sponge cakes look at these they're so cute
this place actually opened not long ago right november 2020 but fernando has been working on
his craft for over three decades so he knows what he's doing these little babies take stewie that
case is perfect but we actually have a variety of stuff here we have the hong kong sponge cake
the hot thai tea and a vietnamese coffee it's a pretty good breakfast spot
so light so fluffy i like the little bit of crust on the outside and inside is like melts in your
mouth i don't know what's more fun and easy to eat than this yeah through that it's a very strong
sweet egg taste to it last bite of this wonderful cloud of a cake cheers cheers
is it true that all the sponges are made fresh yes we bake early morning we're starting like 5 20
in the morning until that depends how busy we are that's how we bake in the cake every day we try to
make it the most longer fresh we can that's how we do the quality is the most important for whatever
any kind of food any any pastries you do is kind of the quality is very important
for everything what you do is and your ingredients and your stuff and you got to put
extra from your size not only the ingredients whatever kind of job you like you love to do
is do it you don't like it's better than do because that's not going to coming right
that's the most important things in this this business thank you fernando you're
awesome you're welcome to stop by the sponge's cafe yes you guys very well
all right shout out to the og baker fernando for those awesome sponge cakes and now we're
here at a t-shirt that opened seven months ago in chinatown this news tea shop let's check it out
all right i was working hard filming what did we get we got two hand-hit lemon cheese here passion
fruit and one job one job we got the passion fruit we got the red dragon fruit here hot and warm
we're in mystery's tea shop and they're known for their signature hand-hit lemon teas which we got
if you wonder what the stew looks like that's what the stew looks like right here
i gotta say classic straws makes the experience better
and it's got bubbles yeah it's so good
me was gonna pick some crazy tofu drink what nah just go with the signature
i mean they sell cheese here but not tofu real natural color no food 100 natural fruity
this is good so you don't have to feel guilty when you're drinking something sweet for these
hand-hit lemon tea they have a special technique to make the lemon not too sour
with their won't stick with the ice and the layers and eyes chemistry all that stuff this
one i think all these drink place is getting so popular and there's so many there's actually not
enough it's like eating out for a day you kind of have to grab one and go try yours oh yeah you can
a good sour it tastes like how this cup is designed i think i might get
a hot drink one of these days yeah one of these days this dude's second tea
shop is coming in the springtime in flushing keep on the lookout
you know it'll be great in this cold weather how about some hot pot let's go
before you start your hot pot experience always make your own sauces at the customize your own
sauce station look there's so many sauces here there's over 20 different sauces to choose from
to combine and make your own i like mine very salty so that's what i'm going to go for
i'm also getting the sauces is one of the most exciting part about hot pot
it gets you really ready because you know me the for the treats people the
sacha is always the go-to we have to have this a lot of it
so we got a trio pot here with three different suitcases but there's actually
eight spaces to choose from
hey everyone we're here at hometown hot pot and bbq as you can see we got the hot pot today the
steam is perfect for a snowy day in new york city honestly i don't even know where to start
this is freaking crazy you know we always start with a meat according to my mom she said so with
it the veggies up the stomach but i don't buy that because you want to fill up yourself with some
good selfies that's what i'm gonna do today sorry mom i'm gonna put a few in each soup face yes
so this is a traditional chinese and the curry sauce is heavily malaysian of course yes there are
hints of malaysian influences in this hot pot yeah and this whole place there's no typical chipotle
spot it's actually got a lot of full exposed break every panel in here is actually pretty
well designed you can fit about 180 patrons here 180 yeah 180. it's huge there's two two floors
this whole load was like whoa when i came down like wow yeah it's nice but it's not like a busy
wow the spicy one's very spicy i'm not even going to try to name the flavors when it comes
to hot pot there's so many in the sauces but yeah the beef this is the staple that you must have
i remember growing up in everyone's just like eat plates
they place an amazing place to be one after another it's kind of scary but they
even open a lot of pop shops right across the street from like slaughterhouses
all right so we have some chicken and pork here
should i put them all in or that's to build things let's do all of it all of it all right yeah spicy
hurry up thank you this is a herbal drink that it's a staple when you have hot pot
yeah it's made popular since my childhood mine too but now this is like a healthier alternative
everyone could be a chef when it comes to hotpot but there's also a lot to learn like chicken takes
a little longer to cook than the other meat yes the beef cooks so quick like 30 seconds
oh thank you okay so we got a watermelon and lychee blended ice here
if it's too spicy this is a great drink yeah i'm gonna try to get this chicken now
a lot of asian families every holiday they have hot pot
this sugar is really good i love it good job chef thanks wow i'm like eating it
without sauce because it's so tender yes and the broth is so good the chicken is so oh
as soon as you see them boiling you know it's almost ready when i told my dad
we're gonna have hot pot today he gave me a whole story of his childhood
his dad my grandpa back then he didn't have a hot pot pot so they just built their own brick oven
in like the village oh that's how they did it yeah so one way you notice it's done
like a fish looks like it's cooked yeah and this one's a little curled up so you know it's done
i'm a little iffy about these cooking times yeah exactly you could do that my favorite base so far
is the curry wow hurry actually cooked it through yes so fast too usually other
places don't offer like curry hop outfits right i usually go for the tomato base
everything tastes cooked perfectly yeah it's very easy to not undercook it but it's very hard
to not overcook it i'm gonna put the next one in i'm gonna drop the two corn in first curry
all right the curry's been winning right now it's cooking everything faster oh did we say this place
is all you can eat that means you pay one fee and you can order whatever you want some spots they
actually skim out and stuff or they don't have a lot of ingredients they play tricks right they'll
come slower they wait till you're full like oh where's the thing i really wonder oh you still
want it right now we're good oh yes true yeah but this place seems to have everything looks great
all the meats are great this place is outdoing themselves with the extra flavors let's put those
meatballs in we spice some meatballs there's four of everything but i'm putting two of each in the
curry oh my done look my stomach is experiencing the extreme it's very cold it's very oh
yeah you know some people say that you shouldn't do the cold hot thing because it confuses your
stomach like they think that the meal is done when you drink the cold and then i'm gonna start
digesting now and then you confuse it by eating more warm stuff and they're like huh when do i
digest you know every chinese household has to have a hot pot at home it's as simple as having
a rice cooker at home it's either like a butane gas power or electric power the next time you're
like oh why do you have this big metal pie in your house that's what it's for thank you very
much this curry flavor is malaysian influence what about the spicy ones the spicy one is from
the chongqing sichuan area the spicy eating people in that region they like to eat spicy food because
it takes out the moisture from their bodies it's like painfully spicy sometimes oh my gosh i don't
even enjoy that but they eat that all right let the other ones cook but all this is from the curry
it's kind of scary to find out how many calories you eat during a hot meal you never want to know
how to say though it's a very balanced meal a lot of veggies a lot of meat even seafood oh there's
also carbs at the end that's how you finish off with the remaining broth with all the they call it
all yeah like after you cook everything all the good stuff gets left behind in the broth you don't
just throw that away that's like one of the best parts because all the ingredients the taste from
these ingredients cooked in there gets into that broth and then you just cook noodles with it or
some sort of carbs with it either drink it don't waste it all right here comes the fastest cooked
thing on the table all right i gotta be quick on my toes then the perfect tripe
having clams and mussels really makes it fancy i think seafood makes it super fancy
yeah really elevates experience you cook the muscles so well i did thanks oh yeah
look at that oh it's a lot of meat eat it while it's popping hot that's the way to go
yo i don't know how we're gonna eat dinner after this no we're not i think this is it
24 hours but the hot pot is lunch and dinner how is this not three meals fry beet curdle
oh my it cooks so fast i'm salty like this it's like this cool clear pink tasting according to the
overfolks these are really good for you so what measures do they have to prevent people from just
ordering a lot of food nothing after your meal if for every pound of food that you don't eat we're
gonna charge 13.99 per pound so order what you can eat i should rain curdle i'm full and it's
still good all right veggie time we gotta put all the veggies in damn that's a lot give me that one
oh man the taro i'm putting it in now
i know you're getting faces behind me what is she doing it's veggies it doesn't feel good what the
hell is she doing it doesn't fill you up bro she's gonna eat that herself it's not gonna fill you up
oh really all right here you go it was a whole two minute montage i'll be just putting more stuff in
yeah
here we have soft tofu we have firm tofu put in this one
we got this we can do this you can do this wow this is like dinner and lunch the sun has set
outside already and you added a whole hot pot full of vegetables vegetables don't fill you up
that's what your mom says all right boy all right she said i can't leave without eating my veggies
oh look at that spoon my cameras don't smell like hot pot oh yes eat your vegetables hmm the more
vegetables i eat the less full i get oh sure wink you guys didn't know but mine could eat she could
eat your crab ton not as much as you it's true it depends on if i like the food or not before
we were dating we had a little eating competition applebee's back in college and she what was it
like a whole plate of pasta and a bunch of entrees i don't know and a bunch of appetizers yeah
and he murdered it and i was like wow no girl was able to eat like that and then you fell in
love i got scared that's what i did wow wow all i could say is hometown hot pot that's pretty legit
all right finish your veggies so we head on to the next spot anytime now bro you're rushing me
one of my favorite hot pot experiences ever ready to eat again yeah let's go one more time
yo me what are you going for who got you smiling like that we just met songbrothers like you showed
them the picture andrew and david right there we got a selfie that's us wait hold on there it is
yeah super cool because they said they watched us stuff before they gave us tips and advice to keep
this youtube up yeah nice little chat shout out to farm bros how about something like for dinner
i can't tell if it's a camera angle or just from all the food we ate today we look
freaking all right what do we have here all right we have a sweet tofu pudding and
grass jelly yeah this is our light dinner slash dessert let's try it oh this one's hot
nice and way to put syrup on it but it's just filled to the brim right now yeah so in china
this would be like a light afternoon dessert right it's so good and it doesn't make you feel guilty
i remember as a kid they would have these ladies that they carry what is that thing called like the
bamboo with the two baskets yeah i don't know what that's called the carrier on the shoulders all the
tofu yeah one is the tofu and one is the jelly oh my and they'll come to the store fronts because
we had a storefront in china hey what do you want anything and we'll bring our bowls from the back
fill it up that's sustainable juan yuen oh wow nice i'm gonna put the syrup on now i need it
so i guess that's how they do it now back then was actual white sugar
that's more like it so fang on is new york city's oldest tofu shop
since 1933 yeah that's older than some shops in china yeah imagine chinatown in 1933.
raw so it's still family owned it's just very modern now really nice interior exterior sign is
so pretty let's try this let's try the grass jelly this is like the venom from venom oh goodness yeah
but this is i love this you know the one you drink
from this oh really i think so yeah it's a grass jelly herbal drink
oh my i love this so much it's plant-based this is actually really healthy in the summertime they eat
this for a reason so yeah this is perfect for the summer these two desserts really applies
to my sweet tooth and nostalgia nostalgic af hey ben what we're going home for real
you