We all like Chinese food, but the thing is that the foods we get back in our home countries
are really different from the foods that we get in China, so what is Chinese food actually
like?
Well, let’s talk about it.
In this video, I’m gonna share with you my top five favorite foods here in China.
Some of them are local to Sichuan, and some of them can be found all over China.
Sorry, I got too excited.
I gotta shout someone out first.
This is a very large collab involving a bunch of different creators around China, so I want
to take a second to shout out Alex Absolute, who’s making his own video about his top
five foods in China, probably some of which are local to where he’s living.
So, yeah - as you go through all the different creators, check out what they like and see
if anything is shared between all of us or see what’s different, and you’ll get a
really good idea of what really great foods you can try when you come to Chi na.
I’m going to start off with one that can be found all over China - a very common food
- it is called baozi.
Baozi are basically little buns that you can get that are stuffed with different things.
There can be meat, there can be beans, there can be cabbage.
Pretty much whatever you can think of that you would cook in a dish - you can put it
in there.
It’s sort of like a self-contained sandwich.
It’s a little pocket of steamed bread with all the vegetables and seasonings and meat
and stuff inside it.
One thing I really like about baozi is that you can eat them on the go.
And I pretty much always do.
I’ve always got them if I’m out walking around if I’m not on keto or some other
diet.
And one I thing I like - take a look right here - you see one has a carrot here and one
doesn’t on the top, and they do that because it’s an easy way for them to tell which
kind of baozi is which, because you can’t look inside them, right?
So this one with the carrot is actually a vegetarian one - cabbage, carrots, and mushrooms
in it.
It’s probably my favorite one.
I’ve got another one with just pork.
So we’re gonna go with the pork one.
Mmm.
It’s juicy.
Man, freshly steamed bread - they make them every single morning.
It’s nothing like the frozen ones you can get back in the USA or whatever.
Everything is super fresh every day.
It’s a really nice savory thing because they use salt and soy sauce and they might
put a couple of green onions in the meat.
Oh, wonderful.
Very, very simple.
No BS.
Just good.
And then my favorite.
Yeah.
There’s cabbage - you can see a little bit of carrot in there.
I don’t know if you can see any mushrooms, but they’re in there.
You can certainly taste them.
It’s a little self-contained meal.
You can eat in on the go.
Brilliant.
What an innovation.
Can’t get enough.
And that’s why it’s the first one on my list.
If you want to know what I’m eating, you’ve got to wait until the last one.
But let’s have a bit of real talk.
Real talk?
Chinese food is super diverse and it’s super regional.
There’s so many things that you can find around China that only exist in the city that
you happen to live in or only in the province that you live in.
You can’t find them anywhere else.
Even if you can - even if you can - they’re going to be completely different.
Kind of like these.
It’s sort of unfair to come up with a list of top five Chinese foods because Chinese
food doesn’t exist.
It’s a whole family of different food groups all smashed in together.
There’s so many different schools of cooking and eating here - it’s like - there are
eight or nine?
Food on one end of the country is completely unrecognizable from food on the other end
of the country.
So I’ve chosen some regional things and I’ve chosen some things that you can find
all over China.
But let’s get to it.
The second one that I want to talk about might be my overall favorite and this is a Sichuanese
specialty.
This is called Guo Kui.
And Guo Kui - there’s two types of Guo Kui - one is a sandwich-y kind, but the other
one.
The other one is what I want to talk about.
So I’m at this place that is near the university I used to work at.
This is a night market, but I’m here during the day.
And we’re going to go right up here and get them.
You will always see these in these little - little red cases under a little heat lamp
if they’ve been sitting out for a while.
But yeah, let’s go ahead and get one.
You’ll see them kind of rolling out this dough.
It’ll be in a long, thin strip like this.
And then they will sprinkle in spices, along with little bits of ground pork or ground
beef.
They roll it up into a fat - almost like a cinnamon roll - and then they squish it.
And so it traps all that meat and spices into the dough.
And then they deep fry it.
Deep fried bread with meat?
Uhhh, sign me up!
Speaking Chinese.
I’ve got my Guo Kui right here.
They’ve always got little sesame seeds right there in the middle.
And this is sort of the pocket where most of the meat is going to be.
So yeah - it’s not all that thick.
I don’t even know if you could hear that.
A lot of people don’t like mouth noises, but um - yeah, there we go.
There’s a little cross section.
There’s some meat here, here, here - it’s kind of all spread throughout.
Even if it’s not a particularly good Guo Kui, it’s always good.
It’s sorta like pizza.
All pizza is good pizza.
Even bad pizza is good pizza.
And you can see all of the little layers in it.
It’s all sort of layered like this.
And that’s really great because it’s super crunchy, the inside is super soft.
Savory, a little spicy, got a little bit of huajiao, which is a numbing spice.
Wonderful.
Maybe my all-time favorite Chinese food.
Only in Sichuan.
Number three - I would be remiss and probably destroyed by my followers and my wife if I
didn’t talk about hot pot.
And it’s good because hot pot is actually on my list.
It’s one of those things that’s just - it’s all over China, it’s super popular.
It is an integral part of Chinese culture.
It is a lifestyle - it’s not just a food.
It’s this boiling pot of soup with different types of seasonings in it.
And you can get really spicy ones, you can get clear soup, you can get duck hot pot,
you can get goose hot pot, you can get mushroom hot pot, you can get tomato hot pot, you can
get tomato hot pot, you can get Tom Yum soup hot pot, you can get just all sorts of things.
And it’s really customizable.
You can order any sort of dish to boil in there.
And it’s a lifestyle - because if you get to Sichuan and Chongqing, if you want to celebrate,
you go out and eat hot pot.
If you’re down in the dumps and really sad, you go eat hotpot.
You go get a new girlfriend or boyfriend, go have hot pot.
You break up, have hot pot.
If you get married, hot pot.
If you do this, this - everything - the solution is hot pot.
And it’s awesome.
I just love it because, again, it’s super customizable because you have a little bowl
here that you put your own dipping sauces into like garlic or hoisin sauce, oyster sauce,
vinegar, salt…I mean, there’s all sorts of combinations to it and I like how you can
customize everything.
So, hot pot is absolutely on my list.
Number four on my list is Lanzhou beef noodles.
Lanzhou beef noodles were a huge part of my life while I was living in Lanzhou.
It’s the capital of Gansu province up in the northwest, if you don’t know.
And Lanzhou beef noodles - they’re called Lanzhou Niu Rou Mian or Lanzhou Lamian - you
can find these all over China.
It’s one of China’s most famous foods here in China, but you gotta go to Lanzhou
because it’s so much better.
There’s just something in the water or something about the meat.
It’s a clear soup - you can add spices onto the top of it.
It’s a clear soup with hand-pulled noodles.
They sprinkle a little bit of beef on top along with green onions or cilantro and they
put in a little - what are those?
Parsnips or turnips?
Turnips!
Turnips.
On top.
And man - it’s just so great.
You have the green, the red, the white, and the brown.
It’s just a visually pleasing food.
It just fills you up from the inside.
It warms you up from the inside, that’s what I mean to say.
It’s super hearty and it’ll put you out.
If you are hungry, just get a bowl of that and you are done.
You don’t need any extra stuff.
And it’s also really customizable because you can get little dishes to add on top of
that.
You can get extra beef, a little cabbage, you can get a little more of those turnips,
you can get a little more of this this that.
Pepper, no pepper, vinegar, no vinegar - you can - it’s just wonderful.
It’s just wonderful.
And it’s something I really want everyone to try when they come to China.
And last but not least, number five is also a regional dish here in Sichuan.
It’s called Guo Ba Tudou, and this thing is from Leshan, which is not far from Chengdu.
It’s basically a potato dish.
I’m going to go up to this little place up here and just let you see it.
It’s potato wedges that are double fried and then they mix them up with sugar and salt
and all these spices and cilantro, and oh - it’s just wonderful.
Lemme show you!
Yeah, there it is - right there - that’s it!
Perfect!
Yeah, there it is.
It’s just - they’re just like potato wedges.
That’s all they are.
Dude.
That’s - that’s what it’s all about, man.
You should kinda start with mixing it up because there’s all these spices that are dumped
on the top here.
You want all the potatoes to get the love.
Everyone’s gotta come to the party, you know?
You gotta share the love.
Sharing is caring!
Yeah, you kinda mix it up and you just go for it.
Go for it!
It’s amazing because the people who make this have just got it down to an art.
It’s an art and a science because it’s always super crunchy on the outside.
Super crispy on the outside.
And it’s just like - as soon as you break the seal on the outside, it just falls apart.
It’s got a little bit of sugar in it.
I always get it without vinegar.
And then it’s got, of course, lots of salt.
It’s got some huajiao, which is Sichuan peppercorn.
And so many other little ingredients.
Every place has their own kind of special blend.
Yeah, I parked beside a delivery driver.
There he goes!
It’s just one of my favorite things, and you can really only get it in Sichuan.
I’ve only ever seen it in Sichuan; only around cities in the Leshan area - like the
Leshan/Chengdu area.
I don’t see it all around Sichuan, so it’s pretty regional.
Let’s take a second and just thank you for watching the video.
And I also want you to go check out Alex Absolute.
Go check out Angelo.
Go check out Straya Guy in China, Snarky Guy, and all the other people who are doing this
collab.
Expat Survival!
There’s so many people who are in on this collab, and the thing is - we’re all over
China, and we’re going to have very different lists.
Because like I said, Chinese food is so regional.
It’s so varied.
So, please - go check them all out.
And once again, thank you all for watching!
I will see you all next time.