Is This The BEST CHINESE TAKEOUT In the USA?

this is fascinating this is a new dish so real oranges made with real orange sauce oranges [Music] and we might be standing in front of what is the best american chinese takeout in the world right now whoa a few months ago we made a video about how a lot of chinese restaurants in america are closing down particularly the ones who focus on american chinese cuisine such as orange chicken general so between the older generation retiring and the younger generation moving into the professional field and not wanting to take those businesses over there's a void in the market so here in new york city the people of june's kitchen have come up with nice day chinese takeout which is trying to save the american chinese cuisine while refreshing it all right you guys we are going to be heading in and talking to the ownership what their vision is trying all the dishes and see how they're bringing orange chicken and general sounds into 2020. let's go [Music] i can tell you that they got a modern design that still pays homage to the old school american chinese takeout let's go into the back we're gonna go talk to the head chef lucas yo what's good what's up man what's up how's it going what are we looking at man this is a cuisine that we're all familiar with but as particularly chinese americans we find it hard to voice that that's the issue right why shouldn't they be ashamed okay here's the thing right i start really really trying to think of chinese food as something that is worth studying and worth respecting even if everyone thinks that chinese food is not delicious that's like totally not true american chinese food is regional chinese cuisine and is as authentic as any chinese food is supposed to be whoa that's coming from a chinese chef that's a hot taste american chinese food is its own province it should be considered a provincial cuisine regional cuisine regional chinese cuisine man anthony i love this dominican deli and they had the crispy rice like a bow tie vine so they eat the bottom of the crispy rice kind of like how cantonese also eat bozai pot which is out of the clay pot and the rice is crispy on the edge aren't you guys we are here looking at round one at nice day chinese takeout these are all very classic right classic the way they're supposed to be there are thousands and thousands of chinese families that have been making this food for hundreds of years you don't want to disrespect it you know trying to learn this stuff figure it out trying to get people like pay attention chinese american food is awesome and the prices here are not crazy not overpriced american chinese food this is doing it justice i noticed that we don't have a place we're eating out of chinese boxes but i am fanning mine out like a plate i know you see on the internet i haven't seen anywhere else you haven't seen it in person all right you can see the food better so yeah so we got vegan spring rolls you say vegan yeah they're vegan this is good what goes into a good spring roll onion celery carrots a little bit of glass noodle for texture that's it use proper ingredients and fry it fresh it's not that you're reinventing american chinese food you're just doing it the right way yeah that's it i think the glass noodles is the only ingredient here that i probably wouldn't find in a regular spring roll real quick what's the difference between a spring roll and egg roll egg rolls are bigger and usually egg rolls have meat in it these are appetizers and shake shake shrimp i guess that's the one that needs a little bit of action this is what the internet is going crazy for a lot of the times when you get fried food delivered it's just not crispy by the time it gets to your door and it's because they dress it in sauce so what we like to do is we like to serve the shrimp as is fried sauce on the side pour the sauce in shake it up all the flavors there it's crispy by the time it gets into your mouth shake shake shrimp this is a new dish at first i was like what you got walnut shrimp but it's not that is a good dish so only difference real oranges made with real orange sauce oranges it has a really nice tang to it wow sweet and sour a little bit tang a little bit of sweetness that's what this dish is all about um we got some vegetable dumplings over here um with mushroom and glass noodles so that doesn't have meat either that doesn't have meat okay steamed veggie dumplings i want to say these look a little bit more authentic than average we have really great friends over in new jersey that make our dumplings for us and they make it with a really really nice fresh skin i like that sauce what's that sauce yo these dumplings are good considering they have no meat it's only what glass noodles and beer mushrooms yeah with your mushrooms what are your mushrooms in shiitake that's it we got chicken wings extra large chicken wings onto something that really makes this an american chinese spot which is the chicken wings look at this xl wing the crust is super crispy this matters stays crispier longer than most other bathrooms xl chicken wings [Music] it definitely does still remind you of those chinese american spots you just want to do the chicken wings that they always love but do it properly all right lucas here's an idea fried chicken feet i'm gonna have to think about that one all right part two round one lucas what are we looking at we got kung fu chicken chicken and broccoli classic different styles chicken in the sweet sour chicken wow pouring the sweet sour sauce over you take inspiration from those sort of like original chinese recipes in order to learn how to make this american chinese sweet and sour chicken a little bit better you make it a little bit tastier sweet and sour chicken and the best part is actually the onions and the peppers on top they're using chicken thigh and not just breast meat we know the chicken die is better it's better better we always want to see what the customer says we want to get the customer feedback because if they tell us that hey you know what i grew up in this neighborhood and i actually had chinese food that was like this that helps us inform the next iteration of these dishes right okay let's get into this general souls no spot really makes general sounds the same whoa i see why the sauce is proprietary yeah savory little garlicky very garlicky awesome one week we had ordered 12 different versions of general sound chicken from just to figure out what the commonality is what was the commonality the best ones always had a really nice fry on the chicken that wasn't too thick of course it's being soggy right exactly all right at the tail end of round one this chicken broccoli looks different this kung pao looks more like kung pao this looks different there's chinese american kung pao chicken and then there's the sichuan version of kung pao chicken right more brown and that's what people think of like the authentic version when you're designing the dish the question is like how do you bring both of them together the good parts of both and then make a dish that everyone's going to be happy with this is not going about eating this is just kung pao you can't even say it in chinese don't say it with the correct pronunciation oh man this actually looks so the deep flavor i feel like is a little bit more authentic and then the cuts of chicken are more authentic as in diced chicken thigh but it still kind of has this sweetness that is more of the american chinese it's not about replacing what was before it's about like evolving it you know this is what i had for lunch before you guys go here before you guys found it necessary to have this discussion of the evolution of american chinese food who was having it 1983 panda express 1993 pf changs those are the people that brought chinese food to all over the world including all over the us and they show people what the standard right right i don't know i love panda express here's the thing chinese american food didn't really need chains for a long time because there's chinese places everywhere and you can get very similar sesame chicken in arizona as you do in new york got to preserve that heritage right the stories are good the food is delicious you just have you have to honor that tradition last but not least for round one we got chicken and brock chicken thigh is more flavorful it absorbs marinade in in a more delicious way and i think it cooks better chicken broth so good with the chicken dog so juicy right people who order chicken broccoli they know what they want you want to screw it up for them so how were you guys able to recreate the umami with high quality dark soy sauce and just like a proper cooking and the proper thickening of the sauce what was your favorite chicken dish it was the general sauce wow hey 50 iterations in what i mean what gotta get right there probably my team all right so for me it was definitely i would say sweet and sour chicken and then the kung pao ji ding i can't wait to get around too all right round two here at nice day chinese take out mapo tofu shrimp with lobster sauce mongolian beef shrimp fried rice chicken chow mein beef lemonade wow okay tell us about this fried rice it's really simple it doesn't have soy sauce nothing like nothing extra in here it's just rice aromatics and a little bit of egg lucas how is it like cooking fried rice on a flat pan versus the wok so this is called golden fried rice the type of fried rice that's really good for cooking on the flat top you can still get that water feeling because of how hot the griddle is right i just gotta cook at a very high temperature fried rice often isn't just eaten alone right it's like the backbone to like your savory entrees so you kind of want it to be like nice and simple but so flavorful okay good it's dry i see what you're saying about just being able to be a house stuffed put over there yeah so this mapo is a hybrid you got a sichuan version you got a cantonese version so we had to design the maple tofu that was in between that was got a little bit of that sichuan spice but has the savory notes of the cantonese version so you're trying to satisfy the two different styles of maple exactly by giving them the in-between i love mapo tofu i love how it's misunderstood not too spicy a little bit of cake armappo is mostly savory it's not too spicy it doesn't have that layer of oil over the top it's also vegan so it doesn't have any like minced beef or anything in there this is good this is a very much a chinese takeout plate right now moving up this is a crown jewel right here yeah shrimp with lobster sauce so you see this egg white sort of egg drop inside of there you got the peas nice bright piece like jade and then you got this like beautiful poached shrimp you just gotta try it try it yo you know what the way you talk about american chinese food let me the way he would talk about it lucas i am sick of the disrespect of chinese american food shrimp with the lobster sauce actually i might even like it over the white rice it really lets the shrimp shine yeah shrimp with the lobster sauce that's where it's at when i was growing up i rejected american chinese food but yeah like i've like kind of come back to it over these years they don't serve it at every american chinese restaurant but everyone in the kitchen the whole team here at nice day we love this dish i'm excited to get this chow mein coming first this is the main is the big one all right beef low meat that's good that's good that's a good dog that's good dog it reminds me of the best plate i ever made a mongolian grill but yes again yes i love the beef that you guys are using here it's flank steak you can still see the graininess noodles have to be cooked properly you want nice aromatics so that means that you've got garlic in your scallion and the sauce but you also got like peppers in this case chinese chives and bean sprouts and onions it's just a good medley and everything has to like work together you know you can still see that the noodles nice and bouncy all right guys let's try this uh chow mein i like the italian because it's lighter than lo main you know you kept this pretty true there is some really authentic like chow mein like the breakfast chow mein that you get at the hong kong spots for sure how is this different so the sauce is very similar so you got dark soy sauce you got a little bit of oyster sauce in there the only difference here in the american chinese context is that we add you know chicken we have the vegetables in there so that it becomes a little bit more of an entree so you can eat it on its own american chinese food is authentic it's just not traditional all right mongolian beef mongolian beef man this looks like top quality beef flank steak not over corn starched mongolian beef no this is good there's no sugar in here all the sweetness comes from onions if you cook onions properly chinese chives and all those things you know you can hit the flavor notes without adding you know refined sugar when you don't need to add refined sugar this is one of our most popular dishes here at nice day chinese wow we have the orange chicken the classic and the beef and broccoli it's a baseline dish every chinese american restaurant needs one orange chicken that's what goes in here real oranges there's actually a little bit of bitterness but a lot of sweetness and a lot of citrus the sweetness in this is from oranges and we also throw a little bit of pineapple juice in there and last but not least the classic beef and broccoli i mean if you guys are on a low carb diet you just get the broccoli and chicken or broccoli and beans and that's it beef and brock they have a whole timberland colorway based off beef and brock i noticed the broccoli is not slimy so we're using american broccoli instead of chinese broccoli because it's chinese american food that's our main reference point for me out of round two my favorite was the mapo tofu and the low meaning i did not expect you to say that you didn't expect me to say that i said that i actually i was gonna say orange chicken very addictive here i have to feel like lucas you've thought a lot about chinese food what do you got to say to abc's out there who are kind of like 50 50 on this food you know you are one of the few young people taking it super seriously i'm just the new kid doing this well maybe nice day can be a gateway into people rethinking chinese american food right thinking that this food is worth eating here but it's also worth exploring in your own neighborhood what's one dish you would like to serve in the future hopefully can i throw one out there for you what are you thinking almond chicken whoa almond chicken was designed i believe for a southern market i really like that dish thank you so much for watching this very special episode of fun bros food huge shout out to lucas sin yo thank you thank you thank you for dropping all that knowledge in the comments down below let us know what your favorite chinese american dish is of all time shout out to nice day shout out to lucas and until next time we out peace you guys got to meet my buddy andrew later andrew uh was born in the chinese american restaurant the first time i met his dad he was like talking to me about the need to preserve his general sour sauce god i keep serving chinese food to the americans you got to keep doing it right i was like oh there's so much to learn

Channel: FUNG BROS.

Views: 141,380

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, chinese takeout, chinese american, american chinese, chinese restaurants closing

Id: aCesGflTSNU

Length: 13min 44sec (824 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020