$8 vs $45 LAO & ISAAN FOOD! (NY TIMES BEST RATED)

so many depictions of muay thai in this restaurant because that's how they trying to make you feel when you eat it blows to the dome to the dome in our opinion lao isan food is the most underrated asian cuisine period and although isan is a region in northeast thailand it borders laos and therefore considered essentially the same cuisine so today we are comparing three different price points of lao food low middle and high we're going from a neighborhood spot to a restaurant chain and then ending at a spot with a new york times rated chef let's go first up on our low middle high loud food crawl here in manhattan on one of our favorite streets of all time grand street island larb coming in at the low price point sector now this spot is classified as a thai restaurant but more specifically it's a north eastern isan thai spot from what i heard the food in northeastern thailand and the food in lao sandra is 80 similar coming in at the one dollar sign our first spot land larva i want to eat as many nissan northeastern lao dishes as i can [Music] and we are sitting in front of an isan lao feast right now at the low end here at landlar all right guys i gotta come clean it's it's not exactly as cheap as it would be in queens yes we get it when we say low price we just mean for manhattan issan lao sausage man i just think what makes it special is definitely eating it with the fresh ginger and garlic there's that amount of spice that after kick that just comes in it's like oh that wasn't enough spice for you some people like to cook everything in and some people like to give it to you on the side to eat along with it fresh but i feel like the herbs that are usually in it are more green herbs but here i'm talking about garlic and ginger i think this stuff has to be raw a lot of other ones will have more herbs but this one is not short of flavor i'm telling you the issan sausage was only eight dollars totally worth it we are moving on to two lao favorites andrew these are national dishes yes larb is a national dish this one right here is duck larv this is sam tum uh better known as a papaya salad and of course andrew we got the lao sticky rice let's get it out man oh it's real hot in my hand duck larp larb is essentially a minced meat salad southeast asian salads are not like sweet greens bro they're super citrusy often very spicy but at the same time very refreshing andrew did you know that loud people invented the papaya salad of the sauce okay so the chef back there was warning john behind the camera while he was filming about the spiciness of this fermented crab flavor is strong yeah i'm going into oh you just need to chase if if it ever gets too hot just throw in a clump of uh sticky rice oh my goodness yo my mouth is on fire this is i'm really feeling the sauce that to me is a little bit sweeter more accessible you know fish sauce i feel like i could take this juice here and put it on anything ooball noodle soup from isaan man this was a very rich pork broth this tastes like a little bit like something dad would make i have got to say andrew i believe we found a sleeper dish that we've never had before was one of the most satisfying pork based noodle soups i've had in a long time it wasn't too salty it wasn't too fatty it was very porky has that little nice thick like kind of bone flavor isaan udon is a five out of five oh loud chicken soup oh it's a little pungent and spicy similar to like a korean almost kimchi jigae from my research andrew which i do extensive i spend a lot of time on core tycoon high end was a group of people that lived in yunnan but all the way up to really like sichuan when the han came down from the north they sort of ended up moving way down lower if you really look at it a few thousand years ago a lot of different groups that have since dispersed actually originate on what is currently in 2020 chinese territory there was a couple deep cut dishes andrew that i do not expect to see at the spots that cater to a wider audience i know mr mongol muscles over here does have a soft spot in his heart for southeast asia so good got to get everything on him man gotta get everything barb i've never had lard before and that's refreshing on to our next spot somtam dura in the east village which is our mid-tier northeastern lao spot let's go [Music] you guys describe the difference because i know there is many similarities between isan and lao food right but is there a slight differences yes lao food is like a little bit same the similar layer not the taste that the spicy the salt is going to be dropped then with some food okay so a little bit less of the punch right that thai food yeah actually andrew we're at some time in red hook and we're at the mid tier obviously you expect to see different things at different tiers low mid high i mean i can tell by the detail obviously uh there's a lot of ingredients i think the presentation they spend a little bit more time on but and i didn't realize but actually that's a chain from thailand that is known for serving isan food in bangkok and they have locations all over the world down andrew first i think i'm going to start off with the moo ping okay so he told me to put the grill pork on first i'm going to do it the wrong way and then i'm going to stab my fork and then i'm going to have the whole ball and i'm just going to dip it i don't know if this is the right way either but man that was so good i like how the pork was really thin david that did remind me i think i might have to have another piece yo this vermicelli was soft as hell too so you know thai food it gives you all different flavors at the end you kind of have this creamy sweet kick this is the ison salted egg papaya salad a little bit more of a fusion dish i like that a lot because that salted egg yolk got mashed up and it kind of adds to like this creaminess that this has it came at you from more different directions and i would say that almost tastes more like an entree than an appetizer some tum durs raw crab papaya salad oh yeah so what ends up categorizing sometimes there is a mid-tier spot is because everything is about the same price but everything's like tapas style and the sizing is much smaller so therefore you would have to order more dishes to get the same amount of food there's definitely less crab meat but there's a sweet smokiness that came through um man that has a lot of kick though so if you're looking for like a real interesting flavor i would definitely say get the raw crab papaya salad here isaan bamboo salad mmm you talking about kirby i think it's difficult the only reason it's difficult to describe guys is because there's a lot of herbs that i've never had before real that is super herbaceous that the main difference between isaan food and lao food is that isaan food is even a little bit more pungent has a little bit more spicy kick this is sun-dried beef right here andrew let's look at this uh very similar to a loud dish uh like we said there's a lot of crossover in that region actually some people from east san andre consider themselves to be lowland lao you see those little balls of pepper that are sitting on top they literally burst in your mouth and there's like extra flavor after you eat them here we have the grilled sticky rice just gonna eat the grilled sticky rice get the beef under the grilled sticky rice right here that's really good this kind of reminds me of the time we did the episode with uh benson in thai town and me and him were eating the uh grilled uh banana rice mmm no it was very authentic that was like we're sweating and we're outside eating thai food it feels like i'm back in thailand bro next up andrew we've got the duck larv i wanted to get all the larp so we can compare but this is the one thing we missed out on at land larv i'm really excited to try this with the sticky rice you know what's great about this duck lard they still give you pieces of crispy pork on the side too it's kind of your classic northeastern isan lao you know chilies and herbs to be honest and you know what i love about isaan food they had six different types of carbs and each type of carb was supposed to go with the specific meat and we have arrived at our soup section at some time dirt is on pork soup we had this at landlord wow lots of lemongrass lots of basil lots of spice more like a tom yum than the previous pork soup easily here's that chicken soup somewhat more of a saltiness less than savoriness it's not as thick as the pork bone soup at landlarb but it's actually really enjoyable man i love the ingredients here and i'm loving the vegetables i i like this one better than the spicy chicken soup at landlar but i still think that pork bone soup at landlarb is one of the best things i've eaten in a long time we got to see if the catfish takes cake because it doesn't hit in as hard in one direction as landlord but let me tell you the complexity of flavor is super high here in every spoonful i swear to god there's at least seven to eight different things i don't know this is a lemon this is a sugar cane lemongrass drink and i think i needed this at about a ten out of ten level i know issan pad thai the noodles have about two to three hundred percent the amount of flavor they have in a normal bangkok style which is not supposed to be orange um this is orange but it's not because of ketchup or peanut butter it's orange because of the chilies there is so much egg woven into those noodles every bite you're getting a lot of flavor ison is actually landmass wise the largest region in thailand and a lot of people consider it like the true thailand because it's not as uh international i guess as bangkok but either way guys issan flavors kick you so hard and maybe that's why they have so many depictions of muay thai in this restaurant because that's how they trying to make you feel when you eat it just blows to the dome to the dome john's time mongol muscles man he's stretching look at him liver guy this is literally single-handedly the thing i'm most excited for hold on it's just nothing like it man you can't get this anymore you can't try this on a daily basis but that's why i gotta be that's why you gotta grow the liver if you can every level of anything has its own merit oftentimes you get what you pay for i got to say they did a great job here at samtum dur i can co-sign it all right if you guys are excited about this video and you're ready to see the different levels of isan and lao food keep watching hit the like button click subscribe and turn on your notifications [Music] andrew we are looking at our spread here at keo this is probably the most expensive lao restaurant in america you know if you type in laotian in yelp there's only a few restaurants that open up where the only description is like right it's not loud top thing that i want to start off with andrew are the lavia dishes right so basically if you know about where laos is it borders vietnam to the right it borders thailand to the south so it's really like a hybrid and hence fourth why there is a loud viet but me and there is a lao pho wow heavy bone broth a few things i noticed immediately to make it different it's more medicinal and it's more sour and it's got more of those mountainous herbs i love fried onions man i love fried shallots i think it adds such a nice little texture and a nice little kick this is a loud bun me crispy pork belly uh vntn obviously also colonized by the french so that's where they got the baguette that pork belly is incredible you guys look at that we have crispy pork belly we have again the julian carrots daikon cilantro i like the baguette here it's very very light the crispy pork which is probably the most you know lao component was incredible there's definitely more citrus and more sour notes man it almost tastes like mountainous via food or something it's like pretty interesting and why does it look like this is a seth rogen movie right here pineapple the lao express leading into a loud dish that we've never had before these are crisp fried coconut rice balls with lao sausage this is one of the main dishes that they're actually known for here at kyo so sweet but sweet with heat i've never had anything like that wow it's super crispy on the outside has a spicy kick on the inside i mean it's essentially like rice and sausage but in a way different form we got two very very traditional loud dishes here we have the beef jerky and then we have the eggplant and bang bang sauce sticky rice papaya salad and grilled meats the sticky rice the cow meow and the loud jerky was a five out of five if you guys know the history of a lot of the thai kadai people allow being one of the major groups of tai kadai they came from what is now modern day china and they sort of moved to a different geography but to this day you can find some ethnic minority groups andrew in china that maintains speaking the lao thai language i'll tell you this the main component that is held true at all three spots of isa and lao spots is my face at some point feels like it's melting off yeah an amount of thai food in my life i've been to some pretty expensive thai restaurants i think laos does sticky rice the best when it's just just the rice itself and the dip and the eggplant and the chilies i mean well you never thought that just rice with some sauces could be an entree that's like a dish on its own man and it's vegetarian all right now we have arrived to our dinner menu here at kyo earlier we had the lunch menu it's a different menu here that's how nice restaurants do it the dak rib a woman [Music] i thought i was full has this funky umami flavor from the badak but it's kind of sweet very salty at the same time i've never had this flavor on a pork rib before i'll tell you this guys yeah this is my hot take on the deck there's something about it that when you smell that on your hands it's like bad but when you eat it you just have to keep eating it you know what has the same elements that you're talking about is durian durian's very very stinky but when you eat it you don't really get to stink as much chicken lap tama so here in one hand i had the soup that it came with the lemongrass and cherry tomatoes and then here i got the lap that almost reminds me more of like hmong food yo i gotta say they're loud classics here like the tomacoon between the jerky and the sticky rice all five out of five i thought that larp was actually gonna hit me from way more angles kind of crept up on me from the underground as far as like best larb david which one are you taking oh man i think uh man for me i'm going with sometime dirt all right for me my favorite uh my favorite larb was the one at land larp overall i really recommend everybody come to kyo and definitely try the more traditional dishes in my opinion yeah which spot do you think was the overall best value experience quality flavor tradition all right if you're not loud you got to go to lower mid but honestly i think that if you're allowed you actually have to come here to kyo maybe my favorite dish that i had at all three spots was maybe the sticky rice and the jerky here at kyo i'ma roll with something dirt okay some some door was pretty damn good man i think everything no because they had a little bit more of the trendy stuff that was popping in thailand in 2012 no and trust me i have both keo and landlar dude if you're into lao food specifically lao food you have to come to kyo so you might see all right how about this go to kiyo and go to samtam der but if you want to see the foam rose or see me i'mma be at landlord if that makes any sense all right everybody thank you so much for watching the video and i know that you saw us try isan and lao food and kind of use it interchangeably um i don't want to say they're exactly the same but obviously those two regions are there's a lot of history the brothers it shows that they're brothers and they're very close together so obviously there's a lot of crossover but i will say lao food i've had it a few times and it's definitely a little bit different so if you guys get the chance i say check out all those spots especially when you if you're in new york support local businesses everybody at each respective restaurant is working their butts off all right guys in the comments down below you let us know what your favorite lao or isan dish is that you might have had and also let us know what other cuisine you'd like us to do this have a video with all right everybody thank you so much for watching if you liked that video give us a thumbs up click subscribe and turn on your notifications until next time we out peace oh man am i excited damn yo that's way more flavor than i thought there was going to be inside of that it tastes more like meaty than than like vietnamese pho oh the sticky rice because you just saw us do it all the dark chili i don't know if i'm trying to die though i feel like i'm back in southeast asia

Channel: FUNG BROS.

Views: 100,970

Rating: 4.9393511 out of 5

Keywords: fung brothers, fung bros, Andrew Fung, David Fung, andrewjfung, davidbfung, asian american, Wong fu, sneakerheads, basketball, on the street, asian identity, let’s talk, streetwear, fun bros tech, music videos, lao food, laotion food, issan, isaan, isan, isaan food, isan food, worth it, worth it buzzfeed food, new york times, nyt cooking, lao and isaan food, larb, sticky rice, pork sticky rice, khe yo

Id: MQzf14T91rY

Length: 19min 22sec (1162 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020