NOT For Newbies!! The Asian Food You've NEVER SEEN Before!!

it seems like there's a lot in here and actually i don't know what it is i think this is raw beef it's good to go if i ask you to picture vietnamese food there's a good chance you'd conjure images of fall japanese food maybe sushi or sashimi but what about mung foo the hmong people are spread throughout southern china vietnam laos and here in the usa i'm curious when you first moved to the usa were you able to get ingredients like fish sauce or even just a hot chili these people without a nation have their own culture language and food oh this looks great food you've never seen before until today what do you do at this point usually you just put in yeah you do whatever you need to do [Music] [Applause] [Music] residing in the highlands of asia appears a vibrant image of life nature animals tribal men and women in their traditional clothes this is where the hmong people call home in most of southeast asia this is also among home halfway around the world there are no buffalo in the backyard more modern more convenient they're close don't associate them with any tribe but there is one thing that never changes [Music] hi there meet our hosts and his mother bang bang right now they're making galobao a savory heartwarming steamed bun this is her own recipe so she wants to say this is a very exclusive ip the dough is made with wheat flour yeast baking powder oil and sweetened condensed milk this will produce a fluffy outer skin soon next the filling a stir-fried mixture of pork and chicken add in salt shredded cabbage oyster sauce onion scallion vermicelli glass noodles and pork bouillon once that's mixed it's time to bring it all together when you're rolling it you actually just roll the edges out let it have a little girth and then you put the filling in a lot of southeast asian cultures you always add an egg in there because it gives it a little bit more depth but it also kind of plumps up everything okay this is the hardest part right here i feel like i could have done everything up to this point yep it's all about this pleats if you don't do the pleats right then when you're steaming it the whole thing breaks up it's like a ventilation system absolutely and then it gives it a little look to it yeah but i was like i twist a little nipple on top okay [Music] that's basically it you may be wondering if these are the same as chinese steamed buns we'll get to that soon so i want to back up a little bit both your parents are from laos originally yep the hills of laos but my parents they met in 78 in thailand and they got married and then i was born in thailand in 84. 84. are we same age yeah dude what am i doing great beer no stuff no come on we're like traveling in the world man what am i doing now with a piecemeal is a first generation hmong american he's a chef and founder of union mung kitchen a pop-up restaurant experience that introduces among flavors to american palates you look at the word monk it translates to the word free or people of the free so for something to be hmong is for hmong people to make it what kind of monk food does she think you're really good at cooking kind of like the grilled pork and sticky rice but it's like that's pretty basic though it's like you can't mess that up okay you know so with 15 years of experience in the restaurant industry and his whole life dedicated to hmong food today he's taking us on a journey seeking an answer to the question what is mung foo starting with this oh they're gorgeous i love the homemade feeling is like they don't have that factory uniformity to it you see like each one's unique just like how we're all made yeah oh this looks awesome you start from the center because that's where all the meats are [Music] that's good this texture is the best texture i've ever had in a steamed bun it just has a great texture to chew on it's so soft yeah let me try some of this hot sauce mmm mom always says monk food is about balance so something's never really too hot too sweet so you're savory absolutely even the meat's a little bit heavy but the buns a little bit more sweet and light oh it's so nice she'll give you something to take home too yes thank you i'm so fascinated by your food here i'm curious were you able to get ingredients because i've lived in asia for so long now i went to the local like big grocery store and i couldn't find any of the stuff that i might cook with now like fish sauce yeah even just hot chilies i couldn't find that so how hard was it to find food when you first came [Music] for here of years the hmong mainly inhabited parts of southern china but when conflict arose during the wing dynasty they were forced out retreating to the highlands of china vietnam and laos where most people would starve they flourished [Music] learning new ways to work with the land adapting their culinary traditions ingredients and cooking techniques this may be why pang's version of a steamed bun looks similar to the chinese steamed bun when they first came to america here you know you would just go to a regular grocery store and whatever american product they had she said that we just had to take it and figure out how to use it and it's at first they didn't like the taste and like the flavor but they just worked with it and then eventually they started gardening and growing their own produce how would you get seeds though i mean if they didn't have that produce here um from lost in thailand they would either bring them with them or they would have family ship it over that's great and this is so interesting to me of the hmong philosophy is that first year of the crop majority of it is you're growing it for seed you're not actually growing for consumption and that's so cultivated into our cultural dna right because that takes a lot of foresight absolutely but then also it's more like one generation has to sacrifice itself so the next could grow and that's like the essence of what bing bong means to me today the hmong migration to minnesota has enriched the state's culinary palate with a variety of unique produce herbs and vegetables you can't find at a whole foods [Music] was that like a little pumpkin no the best translation is like bitter melon balls that's my nickname in high school hey smarttown marketplace is the beating heart of the hmong community in the twin cities it's open 12 hours a day every day and it houses over 200 business vendors who are meeting the unique needs among folks and whoever else wants to wander in food clothes produce you name it they've got it in hmong food one of the big flavors is bitter what i like doing is i actually like fire roasting it off and they almost make like a baba ganoush out of it one of the things i love is the hmong mustard greens oh so that's mustard greens it's like a cross between arugula and spinach there's many ways to do it you can boil it stir fry it and you can ferment it this is my jam right here because i like that one of the great things about monk food is the fresh herbaceousness of it so we're making dishes it's like i love to have a lot of herbs like cilantro thai basil mint dill yeah i went to buyer lease and they're trying to sell like five pieces of basil for five dollars i was like what is this for half a mojito wait did you put basil in a mojito yep so this is mung town yep do you know how long this has been around it's been here for decades some of the first among immigrants came here in 75 and they didn't have their own grocery stores of foods that they were familiar with so it began when two who was the owner here he decided to say hey what if we gather some of these farmers what if i gather some of these vendors and we brought them together and we could start for our own community but what it's done is now it's open to anybody to come and we have like white local chefs that will come here and grab a lot of this produce too so this is the outside this is all stuff that's grown locally but inside they're cooking hmong food that can just be eaten right now i'm hungry yeah i want some food let's go inside yeah cool [Music] i won't just say this actually i'm looking at this i had something very similar in cambodia called ammo probably the same concept same concept what are we looking at here is a popular layocean steamed fish dish made with white fish and an abundance of aromatic herbs lemongrass cilantro coffer lime leaves ginger shallots spring onions and garlic seasoned with pork bouillon msg rice powder and fish sauce the mixture is portioned out and wrapped in parcels made from fresh banana leaves before being steamed to perfection the modern version includes a bit of plastic wrap to more effectively prevent leakage [Music] show me how to undress this lady [Music] the steam is pouring out of here that looks amazing and you can just smell it you smell all those herbs yeah dude that's great if they really love you what they do is they fellate it's like you don't have to worry too much about bones too much but there could still be remember when i talk about bitterness there's a little bitterness to it yeah now where's that coming from some of the herbs are in there have a little hint of bitterness to it right there's a dynamic flavor coming from the herbs where some of them are fresh and some of them are a bit more bitter it's interesting i could see people from minnesota they don't like stuff that's gelatinous and gooey but this is right on the edge of being like flaky and gooey together what's this dish called so it's called kapong it's a rice noodle dish with a really rich coconut curry broth a dish originating in laos prepared with a broth made of bamboo shoots ground chicken coconut galangal lemongrass and red curry paste consisting of red chili garlic sea salt lemongrass turmeric and shrimp paste that is a lot of flavor on top of rice noodles add fried pork bamboo shoots ground chicken and the broth then shredded veggies and herbs finish with a lime the most important thing is squeezing that lime because that acid really cuts through the fatty i don't want to mess it up you trust me that was important you're a man who's traveled around the world boom oh this looks great yeah it is just so vibrant too i've got some pork here some noodles some veggies i'm ready for a big bite you're right everything i've tried so far has been this balance between sweet spicy savory and then sometimes there's a little base of bitterness in the background milky creamy broth i'm wondering friends you had who are not hmong when you introduce them to food like this what kind of reactions are you getting if this is their first exploration of monk food this is not where i start them oh you have the training wheels on this one you do you have to because if you put them right here this is all they think about texturally it'd be kind of you know out there yeah i had mung food once it was just like a big gooey fish i always usually start out with like the pork sticky rice it's just something that's very transferable right right and then eventually as they want to venture in deeper you can get to this aspect of the food that's so smart you know it's amazing to me so many people write me and they say oh i wish i could go to far off places and try the foods that you try and i think there's a lot of people around here who don't realize this is in their own backyard you can drive 10 minutes from your apartment in minneapolis and come to a different world what's better a wide range of freshly made dishes ready to explore from newbie level food like this you can work your way up to something like this i'm cutting it all the way through on each side raw beef salad here at joey's kitchen i wanted to stop it small so it's easy to chew some people doesn't you know have tea this dish is called lob a sort of salad made from finely chopped raw beef mixed with poached beef tripe lemongrass red chilies toasted rice powder and a lot of aromatic herbs like thai basil mint and cilantro make sure it goes throughly plate garnish with even more red chilies and that's still not it put this on top of an assortment of purple sticky rice grilled pork ribs and mung pork sausage what's even more remarkable is the man sitting across from me the founder of this mung town mr duashon and there it is it seems like there's a lot in here where should we start grab the sticky rice use your finger oh we're just going straight into the raw beef i thought we would start with like a sausage so the finger here scoop it up yup go ahead there we go it's almost like a little taco almost you know it's exactly like a little taco that's a good seller as soon as i took a bite i was like i know what's missing rice wine yeah the beef part is kind of cold you can feel the raw fat and oiliness of the beef but then you get some herbs you get a hit of the chilies and it kind of goes down nice if it's not spicy enough then make sure you take some of those oh yeah i learned that from another hmong family oh man it's not about on the way in it's about on the way out that's the problem you know i'll have a mudslide later tonight i mean the drink ribs rip whoa long roasted look at that falls apart [Music] oh that's so good soft tender fatty and here is the belly this is like the chicharron yeah that's skin they roasted like popcorn on top i really have some important in-depth questions but you can wait oh no i want to talk about how this place came to be in 2004 i came to this thing really fresh a younger boy just had big dreams of building a hometown for during the vietnam war hmong villagers worked with the american cia on the secret war in laos after the usa pulled out thousands of monk were targeted and forced to flee their homeland as soon as ca withdrew from south vietnam they withdrew from laos and my dad took me to jungle i was only seven so i've been eating birds snakes mouths and some cut the meat from the deer and they mix it to love and in the jungle for four years spent my life fortunate few survived the miserable journey to bon vinay a refugee camp on the laos thailand border including his family and tua's family how did you know that that was a place of refuge you don't all you care is you just need to get to thailand and my father used to serve the caa so he knows how to reach the campus yeah my dad too my dad yeah the couple yeah just the ease please keep on going the hmong or political refugees legally admitted to the united states they resettled with the help of several church organizations today there are 200 000 hmong who call the usa home when we get first got here we have to learn abc dne we have to learn the system learn how to ride a bus and how to use american dollars is like everything yeah i got through my education and i look back and see a lot of people are still not quite there in terms of english language or jobs or career-wise so therefore i created this thing for the people that can work within language make the money and send their kids to a school so that our next generation will no longer facing hardship and this is going to be our last country america each generation has a mission if dua's generation was meant to survive and rebuild then for year the mission must be to maintain carrying forth among traditions into the future you can see this mission in action at his soon-to-be restaurant where we are right now this fourth element has to be on the table be considered monk food you have your rice you have your protein you have your vegetable and then you have your quota which is your hot sauce [Music] honors hmong cooking with a dining concept called the vinai feast named after the refugee camp where he was born we're just taking the spine bone back off the vanity feast is a communal gathering that represents bountifulness a shared feast of foods bursting with flavor all this is cooked over in open flames first the veggies hit the grill cabbage long beans new toy mushrooms and radicchio we have our thing mushrooms in the back we have our radicchio here ridiculous almost looks like a small red cabbage next the protein shrimpies season with salt pepper and hill tribe seasoning a mix of smoked paprika garlic and cumin you have the chicken what i always do is i just put the flesh side down first the most important thing when you're cooking with fire is you want to cook with ember and you don't want to really cook with the flames for me that's how my father taught me how to cook so the next thing we have is tri-tip steaks just a little salt on it we're gonna put it in the back here okay so the next thing is we have this pork tenderloin we call it hill tribe seasoning so it's like a smoked paprika garlic seasoning finally chicken hearts marinated in soy sauce then sauteed in a cast iron skillet when it comes to hmong food it's about simplicity it's about what can i do with the resources that i have around me and how do i make something out of that you know you don't have to plug this in it doesn't have a big hopper where you're putting pellets in or anything it's just literally wood knowing how to control that wood and the flavor man like the way that the fat falls off the meat that hits the fire and then the smoke and the ember like that's all part of the flavor [Music] as we're setting this up what i really want to do is i want to be intentional and think about how the way that people eat so we don't want to just spread all the food around we actually want to create clumps of the food so notice how there's clumsy chickens here clumps of steaks over here comes with the pork here so it's a way of us challenging the way that people eat if you want the chicken you're going to actually have to communicate with somebody across the side to get you some so what it does is it causes people to actually have a conversation that's why we name this the v-night feast which is having things together is more important than having whatever the things are [Music] time to laugh please explain to me how this works i always just say just draw your plate right here this is your spot okay everyone please yeah just so everyone just dig in what's this one is this beef that's the pork hold on this pork is a little pink on the inside it's fine the way i grow up it's like you eat pork at 165 and what did it taste like it's really dry it tastes like sandpaper right yeah we cook it a little under so it's like a medium ish after you're done cooking you let it rest in that residual heat that's delicious yeah and it's so soft yeah and i usually hate tenderloin because yeah because i'm sorry people don't know how to cook it and i'm like why did they put the word tender in front of loin you just call it like dry loin dry loin yeah wow and then that's the trice tip i like this huge serving absolutely massive try with the hot sauce dude the acid from there cuts through the fattiness you got the heat on the peppers and then you know the cilantro it's a very herbaceous it's tender it's kind of sweet too this is so satisfying what do you do at this point usually you just put it in yeah you do whatever you need to do you know chicken nuggets there's no delicious the way my mom used to cook it it'd be a little bit tough 165 degrees sorry mom she doesn't watch my show my friend don't support me don't just stop ridicule right that hint of bitterness i really appreciate the bitterness in the cooking i've had today because it's not over the top so like when i went to thailand and i had a bile on lab it was like animal biome and it was just so bitter like i would shudder i could feel it in my bones but here it's a bitterness where it's like okay this is multi-dimensional but not all in one direction this is like the best version of this type of meal i've ever had kind of like communal meal on a leaf there's so much flavor there's flavors that go throughout because of the sauces that bind everything together and then everything also has a little bit of its own flavor too oh that's so good this is so satisfying you're opening a restaurant a brick and mortar here it's behind us and who are you trying to appeal to are you trying to appeal strictly to the hmong community or just to the general you know minnesota community i'm not trying to appeal to anybody i tell people that this restaurant is a love letter to my mom and dad so you're not going to water down anything everything that people try there will be like the if it's bitter it's bitter if it's spicy it's nice to take it like it is when my father came to this country he didn't have anything in his under his name but he had something he passed down to his children and was this recipe i firmly believe that to change that is to to kind of spit on his legacy so like we can have that recipe and we can pass that down to the next generation so i don't mind if some other you know young mung chef or moon coco comes through and says hey i really love what our people have done i want to put my own spin on it as long as you can verbally communicate to me why you're doing that and it's not part of a trend i'm right behind you when i think among people i think survivors and when i was in northern vietnam you know obviously you know the history there's conflict in southern china and there's a huge migration among people who spread across vietnam laos thailand some in myanmar and you can see these people moved to where nobody would with them anymore yeah absolutely and so they took mountains mountains that most people would think were completely unfarmable absolutely and they carved rice paddies into the mountains using buffalo using their bare hands whatever simple tools they had available back then and to me that is the epitome of kind of resourcefulness and being a survivor and so i love that you understand and you have that spirit handed to you from your parents and you're like yeah i'm not willing to dilute that or do a fusion concept of that and so what people get is what they get this is mug food i think as monk people we always wonder like what is monk food what is monk food because it's kind of like this weird cousin of every other southeast asian food right and then i i would really say that hmong food isn't a type of food it's a philosophy of food it's a way of food you come in mom's house the moment you step into the moment you leave it's been part of monk food and when you left what she gave you food to go i would love to one day see that people they'll look at a list of what do we want to eat tonight do we eat you know chinese food mexican food italian food i would love to be able to see hmong food as part of that normal conversation absolutely best ever food review show is a small team of independent creators and everything we do here works because of you guys click the link in our description to join our patreon and receive exclusive benefits of peace i've been in asia long enough like this is also my comfort food though this is what a hot pocket wants to be but you can't if you really think about it right you're generous to put them even in the same world yeah unwrap it like a christmas present what did monk santa bring this year yeah and that lime will really cut through the acid and then just toss it up isn't the lime acid i'm sorry sorry the the acid cuts through the fattiness it cuts through like the richness of the coconut i almost just went with that but i was like hold on i said no that lime is actually english my second language dude so you know fair enough yeah but from like age four yeah did you do the fermented mustard greens yeah it's like a mung pickle more like a thing of sauerkraut it's like a mung sauerkraut i didn't replace that dumb statement i said about the pickle that was ignorant they were kimchi yeah it's like a mung kimchi editor go back again and replace the uh yeah thank you guys thank you so much for watching this video a huge thank you to my guy chef ia thanks for coming by awkward handshake thanks man that's the fish it's the flounder fish you can follow us on instagram at v9mn that's our new restaurant that we're uh building out cool guys that is it for this video thank you so much for watching we will see you next time of peace peace good i mean do you feel like did you go too overboard with the piece was it too much that was comfortable yeah all right let's go whiskey dude whiskey i like that is it mung whiskey no it's minnesota whiskey i like that too

Channel: Best Ever Food Review Show

Views: 3,267,999

Keywords: best ever food review show, befrs team, sonny side, minnesota, usa, america, american food, minneapolis, saint paul, Hmong food, what is hmong food, hmong, laos, laotian food, south east asian tribal food, tribal food, ethnic food, ban vinai refugee camp, vietnam war, Hmong in USA, CHEF YIA, GALABAO, steam buns, KHAUB POOB, RAW BEEF SALAD, LAAB, Hmong bbq feast

Id: QLoX1pnURNI

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 17 2021