This is me at a five-star restaurant getting free food because everyone here thinks I'm a food critic. but I'm not really a food critic, and here's how I did it. Alright guys, as you guys all know, today I'm pretending to be a food critic in hopes of getting to the back kitchen where I can learn a little more about how chefs actually make food. We got our... ...food critic notebook. And we're going to be heading over to the first restaurant. The boys are at home right now, and I'm f***ing freezing. Today, my name is gonna be Mikael. Because Mike sounds too plain. My plan today is literally just to go in and start writing in my notebook. Thank you. Let's get started with some... F***, I don't know how to pronounce it. I look really stupid if I pronounce wrong. So why am I doing all of this? Well, a month ago, we tried to impress Uncle Roger, the world's toughest food critic, and we failed miserably. No, not gonna eat that, not gonna eat that. But it did make me want to become a better chef. And since I'm too cheap to pay for real cooking lessons, I thought of pretending to be a food critic, since food critics usually get special treatment from restaurants. So if I pretend to be one, then maybe I can get the chance to talk to the chefs themselves, and learn a few things in hopes of becoming a better chef. Ultimately to impress Uncle Roger. Is there anything on the menu that you recommend? That's a must-try here? So that's all the specials that we have. Mhm. This is beautiful. Yeah. Grilled octopus. The pasta comes with Italian sausage and truffles. Can I actually just start with the octopus? To give that a shot? Thank you. Service was good. Service is good? Yeah. Wow, thank you. At this point, it seemed like everybody is ignoring me. I mean, do I actually not look like a food critic? There's only one way to find out. How are we doing? Great, great. Out of curiosity... Oh shoot. Do you know who I am? No. Oh really? Oh. Sorry, I come from Shanghai. And then we do a magazine. Have you heard of it? It's a food magazine. It's called the Yeet Hay Magazine, and it does a lot of food catalogues. So I actually came here to try a lot of the food here in Toronto. Yeah, we don't have a lot of Italian there. So it is very good. You like it? Yeah, it's very very very good. Tell me if you're ready for the mains. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. They had no idea who I was. You didn't believe me for a second that I was a food critic, right? No, I did. That was an epic fail. On paper, it seems a lot easier than it is. As soon as I got the menu, I realised that I looked dumb as f*** because I didn't know what any of the ingredients are called. I didn't even know how to pronounce them. Secondly, I look really weird coming alone with a cameraman sitting across the table, so it looks like one big f***ing joke. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna regroup a bit, and I think... I might need the help of Sheldon and Edward for the next one. I need to bring them in, because I realised that me sitting there talking about all the food myself is not good enough. And plus Edward knows a lot of different languages. And Sheldon actually is a pretty big foodie, so actually he eats a lot of these Michelin star meals, so he knows what to expect. So I'm gonna need the help from the boys for the next one. Going in alone was kind of hard, man. We're back home now, and we're with the boys. He wrote "service was good, bread is soft, water is very still." Okay, number one is that I went in, and I didn't know how to pronounce any of the ingredients. Wait, what kind of restaurant was this? It was an Italian place. I need your help, because I know that Edward knows how to pronounce these words that I don't know how to pronounce. Okay. And then I know Sheldon... Sheldon is good at... Look at his glasses, man. He looks like a food critic. I look smart. Everybody needs an alias. It means that you need a name that's not yours. So today, for mine, it's Mikael. How is a guy from Shanghai named Mikael? Everybody needs an alias. What's your alias? It's obviously Eduardo. Eduardo DiVicenzi. I like that, okay. What's yours? Sherman. What? No... Come on. Come on, Sherman is good. Come on, you gotta be a little more creative. Oh! Shermano. Shermano, okay. And then we three are gonna be writing for the Yeet Hay magazine as a food critic. If we don't get to the back of the kitchen, I don't know how the f*** we're gonna become great chefs. Okay? We need to know the inner workings of what the restaurants do, you know? We gotta care about this, okay? How do you... What do you call a raw beef? That beef dish? Carpaccio. See? Exactly. Carpaccio. Oh dude, we're not actually Italian on that level, come on. Ready to go in, guys? Remember, we got one shot at this. If we look stupid... We can't look stupid, okay? We're serious, serious, serious food critics, okay? Is Mikael actually Italian? I'm French. [French] My name is Shermano. I think I look the most mature, I should say it. I think I look the most mature, I should say it. [French] Hi, we have a reservation under Mikael. Sheldon, if you're not gonna be up for this, please stay on the side, because we're very serious. Okay, okay. I just wrote Donatello on my paper. So my take is that there are a lot of bubbles in the water. Pourquoi non ask him? Why we don't just ask him what are you recommends for the day? The question is what if he recommends a really expensive dish? What do we do? This is more like it. With the boys executing their roles perfectly, there is no way we don't get to the back kitchen. I have a salad. I have a arugula prosciutto salad. Baby arugula salad comes with olive oil and balsamic, prosciutto and [inaudible]. Another salad is a herbal salad. This comes with tomato, bocconcini, cucumber, red onion. Comes with olive oil and basil sauce. I think we should try the Carpaccio because this is the one dish... Yeah, it's a very simple dish. Like a raw meat. Yeah. And top of the arugula salad... We know what a carpaccio is. I know all about this food. Yeah. He's explaining what kind of shrimp they have but does he not know we're food critics? Yeah. Alright, what kind of notes have you guys taken down so far? Well, I wrote down the restaurant name. And then my pen ran out of ink. Edward? Eduardo. Chicken scratch. He drew a fish. Food critics... We write with sophistication. I gotta say my back has never been more straight my entire life. My back is literally straightest it has ever been. If you film from the side, I haven't slouched a single bit. Despite my minor scoliosis. My back is misery. It's been extremely painful. It's straight the whole time. Complimentary on the house. Oh, thank you. Salami and bruschetta. Holy s***, they just gave us free food for doing absolutely nothing So I guess this is actually working. After this, we'll say this is a delicious meal. We kind of want to meet the chef if you know, it's possible. Shake his hand. Give me a guide on how he makes food. And get some tutorials. Why do we ask right now if we can go watch the chef make it? That is a good idea. I see. Just a quick question. If the chef is able to do that, are we able to go back and see how the process is? I have to ask. Okay, yeah, yeah, of course. I know, chefs sometimes have their secret ingredients where they need that space. I'm gonna talk to my... Okay. If he can, that would be great. I would love to take a look at the process. See this? My fingers are crossed. He said okay? Yeah. You wanna come now? Yes, I just want to see the process of how they make the pasta. Hello, nice to meet you, I'm Mike. And we got it. We were able to get into the back kitchen and actually learn from the head chef himself. Holy s***, bro, I can't believe it actually worked. How do you know when it's ready and not overcooked? Oh, normally we cook the pasta a little al dente. A little al dente. When we put on the sauce, it's completely cooked. Oh, I see, I see. So you cook it prior beforehand. Yeah. So the smoked salmon is still a little bit cold? Or that heats up with the... Oh, it heats up. It heats up in the sauce. But it still maintains the texture. You have to sauté with green onion. That gives you more flavour. Well, it's a pleasure to see an artist at work. Thank you, thank you. So we met many chefs. You know Gordon Ramsay? Oh yeah! We actually met with him. Oh yeah? Yeah. That's nice. Yeah, he was doing some kitchen products, and then we were kind of helping him test that. Okay. And also... I watch his show most of the time. He's a good friend of ours. And also Nigel. You know Nigel Ng? Oh, Nigel, yeah. Nigel Ng? Yeah, he's a very popular food critic who does a lot of stuff like this. But yeah, we'll have a taste. But thank you so much for bringing us to the back of the kitchen. Thank you. Thank you. Although we did learn some cooking techniques from head chef, there was one thing that he didn't teach us. Teamwork. And in order to do that, we needed to go to a restaurant with more chefs in the back kitchen. We learned a lot. We'll share what we learned in a bit, but there's still more to learn, alright? We only learned this one dish. The secrets to this one dish. I cooked some shrimps. You shouldn't have. Man, huge shout out to Donatello restaurant. They were so convinced that we were food critics that they gave us free food. Thank you again. Thank you very much. I actually think that I'm a food critic. Wait, but honestly, most important thing, what did you learn? Let's not talk about the ingredients and stuff like that. I think it's the mentality of the chef. Yeah. you could tell he loves what he does. He loves cooking. He loves putting flavours together. He's almost like an artist. Well, I noticed that everything was really organised in there. Yeah. It was very organised and clean. Yeah. As opposed to when we do things, it's very very nice. Yeah. I feel like you learned a lot about the passion behind the food, but you didn't learn that much about the techniques. I need to go... we need to go somewhere that is a little more busy. Like a lot...a few more chefs in the kitchen to see how they actually work together as a team. Right now we have individual. We have an individual chef. We gotta be working together as a team. Exactly. Again, to impress Uncle Roger. Yeah, we need to know how the team works. So the last restaurant we picked was a five-star Italian restaurant. I know, high stakes. So in order to make things believable, we needed a plan. We're a legit food group today. This is the plan: Sheldon right here is gonna be our pointman. He's a translator. He's gonna do all the talking, because I'm gonna speak zero English. I am a head executive food critic/chef straight from Shanghai. I'm only going to speak Chinese. And Edward here is going to be my scriber, okay? He's gonna take down every note for me to make it more legit. And we also have one of our YouTube friends Hafu coming in which is going to be a food critic intern. So the more the merrier. And of course we have Ronnie here being the cameraman. This place is zero margin for error, okay? This is a very exclusive tight restaurant with a very high level of chefs. Can you tell him... I think his hair looks nice? Executive chef says you have nice hair. Thank you. This is also a type of fish. What type of fish? I paid you $100,000 to translate, and you're trash at it. This is a special Italian fish. Hello. So let me give you guys a bit of context here. So the owner actually came in because he saw cameras, and he wasn't very happy that we were filming at his restaurant. So we had to explain to him that we're actually food critics. Hello. He's from China, we're visiting. We run a big a food astronomy type magazine publishing in China. Shanghai. And so we're visiting and trying out different Toronto cuisine, seeing how that is. And then seeing what you can recommend to our viewers and stuff like that. Okay, but we need to prove this though. Bro, we look so sketchy. Even the owner of the restaurant came to our table and told us not to film. We eventually convinced them to let us, but getting to the back kitchen was gonna be a lot harder than the last restaurant. No, you're fine here. Just don't get these guys there. Okay, of course not. No, we're not. Okay, alright, alright. Yeah, by the way, he's the owner of the restaurant. He's the owner of the restaurant. I see, I see. Gotcha. Are you okay for now? Can I get you a drink to start? A cocktail? Or any drinks? The appetiser. Do you want the [inaudible]? You recommend the grilled calamari? Why don't we start with that? Only one to start with? We'll take it slow. I mean we just want to try that, and then we'll see what else is on the menu. We'll start with that, thank you. By this time, our friend Hafu arrived. And I can't lie, bro, Hafu had no idea what he was in for. He had no idea what was going on. Hello. Hey, sorry we didn't properly introduce ourselves earlier. I'm Sheldon, I'm the translator for our executive chef. How are you? Our food magazine is called Yeet Hay Food Club. Yeah. Don't film. At this point, the restaurant owner really didn't want us to film, but we were already in too deep. Yeah, but there's guys in the kitchen there. They're not okay. You know, anywhere you like, somebody is working, somebody filming somebody, they're not okay. I wish you guys called me, so I'll tell you what time to come in and film. They're not gonna like that. People come in and see a camera, nobody likes that. I'm sorry to cause an inconvenience for you. Yeah. We basically have a feel about what this restaurant is about. Fancy, a little bit rude, decent food. Okay, I just want to clarify the service wasn't bad because we weren't allowed to film. The food just took a really long time to come out, and I felt like the servers were purposely ignoring us. Have you ever heard of the Yeet Hay Food Magazine? Not really, no. Oh, it's one of the world's most premier ones. You tell him that... Who was it? Nigel Ng? Yeah. Nigel Ng, he might have heard of him. We work with...you ever heard of a food critic Nigel Ng? No. Ah. We work really closely with him. He goes by Uncle Roger sometimes. Yeah, he's worked with the likes of Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay... You ever heard of them? He's a food critic. Okay. He's approved their food, and we're his disciples. Oh, so he...you work with him? Yes. We work with him, yeah. Wait, what do you think about this so far? So far it's mid. Because of the service, right? Yeah, the service is quite slow. Especially they weren't very nice to us. Should we ask him if we can go to the back to look at their food after? Yeah, I want to... Despite them being rude to us. I still want to go to the back and check it out. To check it out. Listen, food is not about nicest or not nice. If the food is good, there's something to be learned from everybody. Correct. Wagyu beef meatballs. Did you say it's wagyu? Yes, Australia. I'm talking about my balls... Your penis is this big? I know, I'm talking about my balls. Your penis is... No, like each of my balls. Sheldon, who's the boss? Sheldon Ho, your penis looks more like this. Whatever the boss says is right. Whatever Mike is saying is correct, because he is the boss. What is this on top? Cheese? Cheese. All cheese? Yeah. Cheese on top. The inside is also cheese. There's no cheese... Let's see if it's raw or not. Bring over the light. I can't lie, man, the meatball is pretty mid. But in order for us to get into the back kitchen, I have to pretend it was the most amazing dish I've ever had. You want to talk to the... Yeah, can I ask or see how they make it? He said he wants to go speak to the chef. Ah, he's busy right now. He's doing the crab. But soon as he's available, I'll let you know. Did you have any questions? You can ask. Hello. This is our executive chef Wu, he's from Shanghai. How are you? Very good? You know Chinese? No, not Chinese. Filipino. Wow, what kind of garbage Mandarin is this? Too bad he doesn't know Cantonese. If he knew how to speak, he could easily leverage his Chinese foundation to easily learn Mandarin. I'm not kidding. Because Cantonese and Mandarin actually have so much in common! Fellow Cantonese friends can check out the videos on our Chinese channel, you'll find out how easy it is to predict the tones and words in Mandarin. To be honest, even if you only speak a little Cantonese, if you're one of those people who can understand but not speak, you can learn to speak conversationally fluent Mandarin in six weeks. This is 10x faster than other learning methods out there, so you don't have to waste your precious time on apps and Chinese school. The Canto to Mando Blueprint has already helped so many different people from different age groups and Cantonese levels. I really recommend this course. If you speak Cantonese, you can learn Mandarin. It will definitely be helpful for you. While learning Mandarin, they also improve their Cantonese. Too bad this guy doesn't speak Cantonese. That's why he can only rely on materials like Duolingo that's designed for white people. He's not like us Cantonese speakers who get a catered course. If anyone watching this video speaks a little Cantonese, you shouldn't waste your advantage. Seriously guys, click on the link down below. First lesson's free. If you've always wanted to learn Mandarin but kept failing over and over again, just check this out, alright? See how it works. Let's get back to the video. Yeah, he says your dish is absolutely amazing. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Wow, his Chinese is really good. You're welcome... [Mandarin] You're welcome. At this point, the chef was giving us a lot of practical advice on cooking that we never knew before. Although we didn't learn much about teamwork, we actually learned something a little more valuable. What's more important? Is it the ingredients that you use or is it more so the technique? I'd say love. Could you tell us a bit about what you mean by love? People can just do this and... Would you say like for young cooks, the most important thing is to do it with passion? Passion. More important than the ingredients? More important than techniques? Everything has to... I mean talent always comes later. It's passion, work hard. Hard work. Hard work. Yeah, people always tend to do shortcuts, and that's when everything falls apart. The domino effect. Something that happens to me a lot. Yeah, because I'm a bad cook. Chef here is a good cook. Very good cook, yes. You have your own place in China. One day I'll go there. And what made you be so interested in just coming over again and just wanting to learn more of the... Is it the culture of the food, or is it the... Actually, there was a really really prominent food critic that came to our restaurant recently. His name is Uncle Roger. Okay. And he was not impressed. We actually ended up chatting quite a while with the chef. And although we didn't get to the back kitchen, He did share a golden nugget with us. You can never ever stop learning. And that's the problem with this generation is because... I go to school, I finish four years, I'm a chef. No. You wash dishes, then you prep, and then you come to be a cook. But we were still curious to see how they operated as a team in the back kitchen. We only have four guys. We do about three to four hundred a night. How many people? Four people. Four people? Yeah. On the real though, bro, with Uncle Roger... With Uncle Roger, we had two people for one person. They have four people for like a hundred people at least. He said two hundred people. And we can't even do a good job. We gotta do better. Second thing on the real though, second thing is that we actually don't have a million. So if you guys want to support us, please buy the Yeet Hay Gang merch, okay? Let me tell you something. Damn, what a day. We were able to infiltrate not one but two restaurants, and speak to the head chefs. And not only were we able to learn cooking techniques, we gain new insight on the art of cooking and what it really takes to be a great chef. Now with that being said, Uncle Roger, we are coming for you. If you guys enjoyed today's video, make sure to click here to watch us attempt to impress Uncle Roger, and click here for a video that YouTube thinks you'll love. Peace.
