Hey everyone hope you're having an amazing day. It's mark wiens, i'm in arcadia in the san gabriel valley, in the greater los angeles area home to one of the biggest and most vibrant asian, especially chinese communities in the united states. Today, i'm gon na meet up with my friend jing. I think it's the platonic ideal of jenna noodles she's, originally from chengdu in sichuan and she's, just a lot of fun to hang out and eat with.

So we're going to take you on a chinese food tour. We're going to eat sichuan food, it's perfect, 10 out of 10.! I want to just melt in my cherry we're going to eat some amazing spicy noodles we're going to have a unique hot pot wow that chili oil. It's just going to be a lot of fun. A lot of delicious chinese food and i'm going to share it all with you right now in this video, so we met up with my friend and we were just remembering we had originally met.

I think we met the first time at one of jeffrey's events for extreme foodies in london about 10 years ago about 10 years ago and then in singapore. I think at that time you were living in chengdu, yeah or shanghai or traveling around yeah yeah, but you got me so interested and so excited about sichuan, food and cuisine and telling me about the chili oils and telling me about the sichuan, pepper and spices. So from that time that we met, i remembered that i was like i have to go to chengdu, oh yeah. We still need to make that happen.

Yes, well, you've been i've, been you've been yes, but we still got ta go yes, yes also. I wan na say that um we met ten years ago, but we both, i think, look exactly the same since we've last met. I think jing has done so many cool things. I mean you've promoted sichuan, food and culture.

You write, you've been in videos, you've been in documentaries and tv, and now i have a hot sauce. You can have your own hot sauce company fly by jing yeah chili oil, also open to restaurants and two restaurants in shanghai. You know i was born in chengdu, but i grew up in like eight countries across europe and canada, and so it wasn't until i was in my twenties and i moved to china that i realized how disconnected i had become wasn't until i was in china that I realized like in my 20s, that i realized how much of myself and my identity i'd, also suppress right. Just in order to you know um to to kind of please everyone else right and so um.

The food thing really began as a way for me to reconnect with my roots, but then the more i was doing it. The more i wanted. I realized like how little people outside of china knew about chinese food and this culture and the cuisine and the 5 000 year heritage. So it started fly by jiang, which you know jing, my name obviously, but fly is actually a reference to a type of restaurant.

In chengdu called fly, restaurants, which these are hole in the walls that are so delicious that they are said to attract people like flies anyway, so long story launched the kickstarter, and that year i moved to l.a left behind my life in shanghai, where i was for Almost 10 years and started fly beijing as a sauce company, so love. What jing is doing and looks like the first dish has arrived: yeah chandu impression, yes, which is where we're at. Do you come here? This is my favorite. Oh okay! Fun! Restaurant! Quite you know! It's like upscale right, but the flavors are just so on point and this dish is an appetizer.

It's um, ah like a spicy mung bean, noodle appetizers well feel free to like mix it up all together: okay, yeah man, you feel how light and delicate? Oh yes did. I splatter you, no, no you're good, you're drinking again. Okay - oh that chili oil is so incredibly well. They don't keep these white tablecloths white for very long yeah.

You can smell the vinegar in there. It says the chili oil that is even the whooshing sound of those noodles being the balance right wow and they just kind of melt in your mouth totally exactly this one um, you just you know, take one of those little flat, flatbreads take a little flatbread and Stuff it with stuff yeah, and so is that is that chicken on the bottom there it's it's beef with like tripe and wow, and some chinese celery wow then, like paper thin slices of beef stripe in there there's peanuts. In there you see chili oil sesame seeds. Oh i'm gon na stop yeah! Okay, you even stuff like everything in there wow yeah oops.

Sorry, no problem too excited yes. So this is so good. Oh, my god! Oh wow wow the flavor like it looks the same as that, but it tastes completely different right. Totally different, it's more nutty yeah! It's it's got like this more herbaly taste from the braised uh beef.

That is unbelievable. I want to swim in that chili oil bath and even the texture of the bread is perfect. Somehow it holds up with the liquid, although it's happening all right. Appetizer platter do a little we'll go with the figure.

Oh wow, the flavor is amazing. Oh yeah yeah, like that depth of braising herbs and soy sauce been paired with that dry rub chili mm-hmm. All the ears are wonderful too. That dry rub is so good, so good.

I think it's actually the combination of the two, because these the salty meats, mm-hmm plus that dry rub that just yeah like it's a harmony altogether once in your mouth and we're just getting started. This is the definition of happiness on a table right frog in like a kind of like a sour and hot broth. The flavor profile of this one has it features like ginger, so it's like ginger and some fermented chilies as you can see here, uh-huh and so that's like the dominant profile, dino bone dynamite, yeah foreign. This is uh fermented, mustard, green uh, sliced fish and also the vermicelli is like a great heart at the end you know so much flavor yeah i mean you can, if you want to, but it would get salty yeah.

It would get salty. So mainly mainly, you take like a little bit like sauce, but you don't really drink the soup, you kind of like re-dip. You can re-hype it's the ultimate in rehydration and you see the sichuan peppercorn swimming around in there as well. It's so good! Unbelievably good again.

It's like melt in your mouth, it's so delicate, so delicate, there's so much flavor that acidity the pickled chili's in there too. Yes, just a few of them so rich. You know the fishy broth that brightness of the sichuan peppercorns yup and the noodles the quality of that mm-hmm wow. That is stunning.

I can't wait to try that frog. He said: there's ginger in here, there's the pickled, chilies and again, of course, sichuan chili, sichuan peppercorns. In here as well, look at that chunkiness yeah well, another award-winning, frog, dish, wow and then you got little bits of like skin meat loaded out with sichuan, pepper crunch, and then here we have kung pao shrimp and kung pao like actual sichuan. Kung pao is very, very different from like the kung pao in the u.s right.

This is like the sichuan's like original style of kung pao right, so you'll see not that much sauce. It's basically a balance of like soy, sauce, vinegar, some sugar, chili oil, sweet but balanced, and you really get that scorched chili flavor, so they would put in oil they'd. Let that smoke out and then the dry chili's good, so that just infuses the flavor. Oh yes, my favorite, that's my favorite room.

I said that yeah. You said that about at least six things on the table, but don't worry i don't blame you at all spicy. Thank you. Numbing spicy yeah man.

Not only is it one of my favorite sichuan dishes, it's one of my favorite dishes in the world in the world of all time, yeah of all time, but it has to be a good version. It has to be good. The bad version is bad. There's many bad versions: yes and a bad version is bad, and so what makes a map great is the sauce right, and so the the foundation of the sauce is, which is fermented fava bean paste all right, all right and the best.

That's what gives it that depth of flavor right because it's been fermented. It's been fermented in these like clay urns for sometimes up to years right, so you know, you've got layers of garlic, doughbanjang, chili, oil, sichuan, pepper, and then usually it's like you know, a stock that goes into it. I think i judge a sichuan restaurant based on its maple tofu yeah. I i would fully fully agree because it's something that every every restaurant has yeah, but not even close to everyone.

Exactly. Okay, oh my god. It's perfect, 10 out of 10., i'm going to just melt in my chair. That is what other strive to be exactly even in sichuan.

You know you don't get this level and it's like such a simple dish right. It's just tofu and a little bit of like beef, it's just tofus, but the flavor is in the domain jam right. If you've got nobody, that's been fermenting for years, then that's how you get that yeah. So this is lots of classic sichuan dish.

It is like chili, pepper, um, chicken mmm, oh, that one that light batter on it and it's been sitting here for a little bit, but it's still crispy on the outside and tender that is fragrant, nutty and the flavor and crispy. This is dan dan noodles yeah. So dun dun noodles is really like characterized by the sauce once again and then there's a preserved vegetable that they have in it called yaa tai, and this preserved vegetable again is adds so much depth of flavor. You know if a danda noodle does not have it in there.

Then it's, i think it's not a done ending okay and you think this is like really a good representation of what panda needle noodles should be. I think it's the platonic ideal of doneness ideal mm-hmm. Oh, when you take your first first bite, you don't think it's going to be that flavorful and it's not over peanutty. It's not sometimes.

Sometimes they can be over peanut yeah. Those are like variations, but the chundu style doesn't have that much yeah. I've had versions that are way too sweet too yeah. Everything is just a snack, you know, oh, it's delicious, it's extraordinary and the garlic in there i tasted garlic too.

This is beautiful. Look at that chunk - and this should be also dipped in - looks like a similar dry rub to the pig ears yep. Oh wow, that's just melting your mouth oozing from the fat and with that dry rub you can just squeeze juice out of it. Do one more dip here you can never have enough of that dry rub.

Oh man, the light cumin in that drive up. You could not ask for anything more or less in this maple tofu. It's everything you could possibly want not only in a mapo tofu, but everything you want in life is right here in this pool. Comfort, satisfaction, happiness, joy, rice, oh man, as you dig down into that maple tofu, the more the more of the fermented bean paste.

You can taste unbelievable. The restaurant is called chundu impression, there's some similar names throughout la, but this one is specifically chandu impression: sichuan cuisine that was an extraordinary meal. My mouth is tingling, i'm like at the happiness peak of my life at the moment from here we're gon na go to the next place for a bowl of noodles. Next, stop on this food tour is chongqing's special noodle chongqing is, is it a province or is it a city, so chongqing used to be part of citron province and then they broke it off as its own municipality? So you know how shanghai is actually its own city state city, state, okay, so chongqing became like that and it's a huge city.

I think the population is somewhere around 30 million. The flavors of chongqing cuisine would be similar to sichuan similar, i would say, there's definitely things that characterize it like it's got more of like a heat to it, whereas chengdu is more about like balance and restraint. Sometimes, but chongqing is like the fiery. You know heat.

We have a lot of dishes here. One of my favorites is like a hot and noodle, which again is very different from hot and sour that we think of in the u.s right. But it's like sichuan style, hot and sour, which is usually like a bone broth with copious amounts of chili oil and vinegar. So it's like super balanced and then the noodle in it is usually a sweet potato noodle.

Try to get some of this. This pickled greens is really nice. Oh, it can actually shower yeah yeah and are they oh, these are not peanuts. These are like these little soybeans yeah soybeans and crunchy wow.

That's sour! Look you're! Not expecting it to be that sour acidity from the fermented vegetables. The crispiness of the soy beans, the flavor, is like a punch amazing show the face they're so good. In a great way. Your mouth starts, tingling a little bit from the sichuan pepper, condensed, flavor all right wow, you can smell the shrimp pepper.

Yes, what type of meat would that be? On top there, that should be pork, pork with fried egg. On top some some bok choy yeah wow. These are long, tangly, noodles, yeah long and tangly. Look at the size of these noodles a whole meal.

You know it's like with the egg: it's a complete breakfast yup, you know, and then you do taste that, like almost citrusiness from the dishwasher yeah the dried chili in there yeah and the pickled greens, oh man, it's really really good texture on the noodles. It's not over really good, very chewy. I love just how tangly and long these noodles are as well. Mommy yeah the noodle here the texture is very nice mommy.

I can't see usually this noodle, whenever i've had it even in chongqing, is like overcooked and soft, but this one's perfect and the key to this chongqing noodles is keep on stirring. It don't take the bite off the top, because all that all the flavor seeps below to the bottom so keep every bite, stir that give it a nice sterling stirring, whirl and grab off the bottom. When it's juicy yep and then your lips technique, your lips will appreciate you on on fizziness, that's delicious. With every bite you crave more.

You can see why people in chongqing have that every day yeah yep breakfast i can. I think i would be happy to eat a bowl of noodles like this, for breakfast lunch and dinner again, what other bowls of noodles strive to have that much flavor and that flavor just builds your tongue starts to tingle. Your face starts to tingle. This was also a noodle place that was highly favored and loved by jonathan gold and man.

He knew his food. He promoted amazing small businesses like this great place in san gabriel valley. Okay, we've got one more place to go today and we're gon na finish with hot pot, we're in downtown pasadena and we're gon na go to a place that serves chongqing variation of hot pot. Oh man, this place is great.

They have a number of different soup bases, but the traditional chongqing soup base and you can choose mild medium and extra spicy. Of course, when you see extra spicy on the menu, you choose the extra spicy, so i'm gon na do half of that and half miso base and then from there you just check mark all the toppings and ingredients and addings that you want. Oh, thank you very much. One of the great things about hotpot is building your own sauce man.

I tend to go a little overboard on the sauces, so i might ask her oftentimes. They have like one special sauce i tend to like put in like 12 things, but i'm gon na ask maybe if they have a specialty, chongqing sauce. Oh thank you: okay, garlic, green onions, oh sure, sure, okay, oh oyster, sauce and then sesame oil. Okay.

So that combination and a little bit of salt, okay, okay, thank you very much. The spicy uh! Thank you a little more chilies to this. So we got the spicy soup base and we got the miso soup base on this side. Uh bean curd skin yeah.

This is the which one uh the marble: beef; okay, oh nice, the marble, beef, the marbled beef, but it's nice and naturally quite lean a little bit, marbled sliced thin rolled up and then we've also got some of the angus ribeye, which also looks really good and Cooks within seconds, oh man, i cannot wait, it does have some good spice to it. Can you really taste the citrusy poppiness, the vibrancy of the sichuan peppercorn and then immediately tingle on my tongue? Oh, that's what i love! Oh that's, spectacular! Wow that suit base is so good. You don't even need the dipping sauce. Of course, dipping sauce never hurt anything.

Oh wow. That is incredibly good man that beef just absorbs that hot pot broth and that beef just melts in your mouth, so tender hot pot is one of the great meals of the world, just so soothing, so fun and so delicious. All at the same time. For this one, i will do a dip in the sauce few extra chilies in there, some of that sesame oil - that's just the layering of flavors sesame oil, there's like encapsulates all of that flavor throw in some vegetables.

Cooked lettuce is one of the most under rated vegetables: okay, not totally sure yeah, okay, just okay, i'm pretty sure this is lettuce right here, lettuce, it really wilts down. Oh, oh, that is hot. Oh man and you just breathe in the chili oil yeah that spice build. If you are the extra spicy here man, it is perfect.

A perfect level of spice going back to the rib eye. Gon na do a dip. I'm gon na dip in the ying sauce ying sauce is more vinegar based. I think she only mostly added vinegar and all the chunky, delicious ingredients like sesame, seeds, chilies and green onions, oh yeah, with the vinegar, it's amazing too, but i think it's best just straight out of the soup.

Then you've got the full flavor, the full spice, because actually, when you, when you dip your meat into the sauce, it kind of wipes off some of that chili oil man when you're taking this straight out of that pot. That spice builds tingles, your taste buds and just like awakens you man, that's good, and it will clear out your nostrils. That's without a doubt: i've always loved bean curd. I love that chewy texture wow that chili oil, so hot so good.

It was so good. My breath is still like. I can feel the hot oil on my breath as i speak. Oh, what a hot pot oh yeah, and that completes.

That was an amazing food tour today and i want to say a huge thank you to my friend jing, for showing us around for hanging out today, she's a lot of fun to eat with and she's so knowledgeable about sichuan cuisine. All i mean all of chinese food, but especially sichuan cuisine, the ingredients that go into it, the foundation of it and how it relates to culture and yeah. I love what she's doing her sauce company fly by jing, but she's doing really cool things and always good to hang out. So.

Thank you very much for watching. Please remember to give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, leave a comment below and also make sure you subscribe for lots more food and travel videos thanks again for watching goodbye from we're in pasadena. Right now see you on the next video.