 Does the traditional one also come with dry ice? Probably not. Watch what they do, watch what they do. Watch it. In the show. Yesterday, we were just eating $3 like Ban Mian. And then now we're here, and it's still all Chinese, so I think that to me is incredible. Well, me too, Trub, but I couldn't agree with you more. The first Chinese restaurant in America opened up 171 years ago, and in some ways, things haven't really changed. To this day, most people view the cuisine as delicious, cheap, and fast. Utilitarian with bare bones decor and cold but effective customer service. But in 2020, Chinese food is going through a fancification in Western countries, and New York City is at the heart of it. Today, we're checking out three new Chinese spots where the bill would come out anywhere from 50 to 150 a person, from the ancient to the opulent to the hype beast. Will these places change how Chinese food is viewed? Let's find out. All right, you guys, we're in the East Village right now, and I would say that this neighborhood for all types of Asian food is incredibly progressive, but particularly for Chinese food. We're in front of Chile. This is a very strong concept restaurant. This is a brand new Chinese restaurant, and its decor is based off of a small village in the Zhejiang area during the Song Dynasty. That's very specific. Incredibly specific. So it's going to transport us to a whole different place, and the food is really great, and the service is top notch. There's just not a lot of Chinese restaurants like this. It's 2020. Be prepared to see some things from Chinese food and Chinese restaurants that you have never seen before. Let's check it out. Chile is a concept restaurant based off Hangzhou Circle 1000 A.D., the peak of the Song Dynasty. To really appreciate this spot, you got to do a little research. What kind of pudding is this again? This is a milk tea, like milk pudding. Yeah, it has a little bit of the yellow wine there as well. I'm just going to start off the meal. We have a nice spread starting here, but this is milk pudding with yellow wine and milk tea. Mmm. So good. So good. So we're going to start off with the longjing shrimp. This is lightly poached, and it just has a little bit of dipping sauce, so it's a very, very clean dish. Like much Shanghainese food should be longjing shrimp. Mmm. This is a banger. This is a five out of five coming out of the gate, opening up Andrew. That's a great dish to start off, and I just think that really embodies like the beauty of Shanghainese cuisine and Southern cuisine in general, where it's just super light, and it lets the ingredients shine. Andrew, we're a quarter Shanghainese, but we can't let Shanghai get all the credit for the region. Hangzhou, Andrew, was a big dog before Shanghai was a big dog. Well, leading on to this dish, which is not only heavily debated between me and you, but it's also called Wuxi Smokefish, or Shanghainese Smokefish. Mmm. That was good. That's good, man. Very thick and heavy, sweet and sour sauce on it, but it's very dark, and the fish is cooked perfectly. It's a little bit fried, so the outside is quite crispy, but the inside is still really soft. Crystal shrimp and Wuxi Smokefish and the best versions that I've ever had in my life have both been here at Chili. Mmm. Here's the test, Andrew, because I actually like wine, chicken, Tway Chi. Mmm-hmm. I like drunken chicken, so we shall see. Wow, heavy wine flavor. That yellow wine is delicious right now. It's almost like a wine-slash-chicken-broth mixture. Okay, that was good, but it was my favorite one I've ever had. I'm going back to the smoked fish. Mmm. Go. You are a smoked fish fiend. Going on to their little appetizer plates. David, here we actually have a cold dish that comes with the meal. It's edamame and radishes, and I know a lot of people think that this is pickled, but it's actually stir-fried and then chilled. So good. This is a triple crisp. How special can some? There's a little bit of chocolate in the wano. This is a shredded daikon. This is Durang cake. You can taste the charcoal too. It was good. Warm, crispy, lightly sweet. I like that a lot. Going in on the shredded daikon. David, I've never had a shredded daikon dim sum dumpling before. First time ever. Let's go. Last but not least, walnut shaped like a real walnut, but inside it was a pastry walnut. I like that one. Low key. In this walnut dumpling right here, they almost take all the best parts of the honey walnut prawn, which is basically the sweet walnut, and they put it in here. This is Qianlong's favorite eel. I'm about to wrap it up like a picking duck sauce. You gotta get all that sauce on there. That's the chef's recommendation. Get all the sauce in there. Get a little bit of cucumber, a little bit of scallion. Wrap it up, ready to serve. This is the eel. So she said eat the eel like peeking duck, but you know how they're eating peeking duck in China right now. Guys, it's pretty good. I can't remember the last time I had piping hot eel. It's so good. Ed, we are taking a look at some zhe ties from the zhejiang region that I have actually never had before. David, we've never had really fish and pork in the same dish. This is some real surf and turf right here. Wow. Oh, that's interesting. I'd almost say like the pork patty almost in a way enhances the croaker. You can notice that food here is not spicy. And we're having hot sauce would not be fitting with the traditional nature of the Song Dynasty Basin Hong Zhou. Going into our next two dishes, we have the Hong Shao Rou and the garlic luffa. Here we go, David. Hong Shao Rou with abalone. They captured the essence of the region, man. What can I say? When you're in Shanghai and you're eating at fancy restaurants, this is more of the food that they serve. Y'all don't know what I've been working on this whole time. Please, I'm eating everything like peeking duck today. This is a pork belly peeking duck wrap. You guys, this is probably the biggest sleeper dish and this is actually a gourd that has been cut diagonally so it's got the long noodle-y strips. Stir-fried luffa. Dude, is luffa in season? Because this tastes so on point. The flavors coming through when she said it's like a cucumber, zucchini, slash, bitter melon mix. That's definitely true, but I would say even less on the bitter melon. For me still to this point, the long jing shrimp was like a six out of five. This luffa is like six out of five. Do not even make sense, bro. That's off the scale. How can something be more than 100%? I wouldn't say this is traditional Chinese. This is just more innovative dish that we made. Okay. Yeah, it's a sticky rice pancake roll with peanuts and brown sugar. Dessert has arrived here at Chili. What are we looking at? Yeah, this is the Meilin congee, man. This, I wish we had this every time. Whoa. It's more like a sweet, milky congee with goji berries. Mmm. It's really good. Very light, not too sweet, not too heavy. Last but not least, the brown sugar peanut rice rolls. I'm just gonna rip it off and eat it like this. Wow. I might have to dip it in the Meilin congee right here. Mmm. My biggest things you must get, you gotta get the milk tea with the pudding. You gotta get the long jing shrimp. You gotta get the luffa, and you gotta get the congee. Let me just throw it in there. Smoked fish has the best Wushi smoked fish I've ever had. Chili takes you back to a time period a thousand years ago, and the food is executed with royal precision. Definitely worth a visit. But our next spot, Hutong, first popped up in Hong Kong, belonging to an international restaurant group. They bring a futuristic, art deco, crazy rich Asians part two vibe. But will the food live up to the opulent decor? Let's see. There's probably not a single restaurant that better exemplifies where Chinese food is headed to than Hutong. To be here in the Bloomberg building, Le Cirque, 59th Street, midtown, Andrew. I'm looking forward to trying the food, but I can tell you one thing. We might be underdressed. Let's head to Hutong. Let's head to Hutong. We got the wagyu beef meal first. It's braised wagyu beef, obviously. There's a little black pepper sauce and braised onion. Andrew, we're here at Hutong, not in a Hutong. Those were the alleyways between Shihou Yuen. And Hutong is referring to those kind of old living styles in Beijing, but obviously this is not a old living style. So as amazing as all their dishes here, they are very well known for their dim sum. So let's start off. This is like black pepper beef inside of a dim sum, right? Essentially a very layered and flaky fried dumpling with wagyu beef, black pepper, and onions. You guys, they got a crazy system back there. These have been soaking in rosé champagne. So here's how I'm going to eat this, David. I'm going to take half a bite first without dipping it into chili oil or soy sauce. You taste it, man. It's got that little champagne bite. Guys, this is always that piece of the lobster that you always are trying to get out of the tail anyways, you know, at the Chinese restaurant when they chop it up. Wow, that was really good. It's like a 12 out of 10, man. Do you have the vegetarian option? Very rarely. You find a vegetarian dumpling that's so leafy and packed together, that was really good. Spicy cod dumpling. I love about this cod dumpling is in the northern China, especially along the coast, they eat a lot of fish dumplings. Traditional Cantonese dim sum spots, you don't get that many fish dumplings. Spicy cod bao with a very tight belt. Mmm. This is super savory and fragrant on the inside, but it's kind of like wrapped in a, almost like a fluffy shenzhen bao. And this is almost like a Shaoanbao stuffed version, except obviously with a little bit of the Sichuan mayo on top. This is like a little bit of a fusion right here. And I'm looking at the squid flower. This is probably one of the most interesting things, Andrew. It's almost like a reinvention of a Shui Zhu Yu. Squid flower. Oh, wow. They're taking influences and taking almost like the best of other regions. And they're able to blend it in with kind of like Beijing royal attitude. I would say that this is the closest to lobster I've ever had a shrimp taste. Mala shrimp. Yo, that was one of the best Mala shrimps I have ever had. And I've had Mala shrimp like a lot lately. I've probably had this dish five times in the last month. This was easily the best one. Let's get into this, the red lantern, Andrew. I thought it was chicken pieces at first, but it's actually gigantic soft shell crabs here. It comes in an amazing presentation. Almost looks like something that came from Beijing hundreds of years ago. Here it is at Huta. Wow. I feel like after I bite into that, it's just like disappearing in my mouth. No, it's just falling apart. I've never had anything like that before, honestly. Very good. A great palate cleanser here, David, is the Lettuce Hearts, aka thinly sliced asparagus. I do certainly feel some of the royal sort of imperial techniques being used. Some people might not be super familiar with this, only like certain tiers of people in Beijing have the availability to eat this food. Thinly slicing the asparagus like that. It's like paper thin. I've never had that. Andrew, we are taking a look at the halibut tomato noodle soup. Andrew, I do see the Norse influence in this dish because Fan Xie Qiao Dan. Tomato is such a popular soup, whether it's in hot-pot broth or just, you know, kind of a lunch soup. Mmm. I love this soup. It's like a little bit spicy, but kind of very, very savory, very rich. And it's got the rice noodles, David, like the Yunnan rice noodles right here, so they're a little bit chewy. I actually would go ahead and put this as the favorite thing that I've had so far. Mmm. That's what I came for. I just, you know, when you go to these fancy restaurants, you're just looking for one dish that shuts the game down. So this is the Chinese lantern. Compliment a lot of our dishes as well. Wow. This is our last savory dish, the squash soup with king crab. This is like a savory salted egg yolk soup. This is the purest distillation I've had of this flavor. It's crazy. And this might be the first time it's ever happened to me. So the bao and soi noodles actually is just like the idea from the breakfast of the Chinese. So you eat a bao with the bao zhen, which is the soy milk. The bao is sesame mousse that with the salty caramel inside, with a piece of the sesame cake on the bottom. You're the guest. That's going to be a fun. All right, Khan, the chef, is from Shanghai, and she invented this dessert. It looks like a bao, but it's very much not a bao, guys. Let's go. I like that a lot. It's not too sweet. That was so good. I'm liking that a lot. You guys got to try it, man. This is like, and then they give you extra dollop soy milk ice cream right here. Let's go in on it. It's not very common to find soy milk ice cream anyways. Wow. You guys are doing so much inventive stuff and huge out to you. I do think a lot of what you're getting is the innovative dishes, the dishes that you never had before. You're also getting the ambiance. You're getting the service. Good restaurants in Chinatown are going to be spending a lot of time giving you quality ingredients as well. I mean, the presentation here is going to be on the next level. Hu Tong is really far from any Asian enclave, but it definitely has its crowd and some very unique dishes. It is in the Bloomberg building, after all. So if Chili takes you back in time, Hu Tong reimagines a dynastic future. So let's go back to the East Village to Hulu, which feels like an industrial pop art gallery where all the patrons wear streetwear. It's definitely a vibe that a lot of places try to pull off but can't do tastefully. I think Hulu might have nailed it, though. For our third and final spot is Ula. This is actually really representative of a whole new generation. It's got a completely different vibe. They play hip hop. They have a lot of streetwear influences, but they also still serve very traditional dishes. Let's check it out. Is there anything special about this? Yeah, it has a very good smoky flavor to it. Okay, so when you are ready for another ride, we're going to have water. We are inside of Hulu. English name, Ula, but it's actually Hulu still in Chinese. They had to reverse the name because Hulu... They copyrighted it first, but right now we got to start off with the hype tea. The traditional steps. You have to pour the hot water into the teapot. You pour the teapot through the sifter, and then you pour the tea into a drinking teapot. That is some deep osmanthus. We're looking at a tea shaped like a goldfish. David, that is so artistic, guys. The owners from here, they're very much into art and fashion. They're handmade cheese foam. It's almost like artisanal handmade cheese. Guys, I do want to remind you, this is classified still as a tea room, so their tea is on point. This extra aromatic strong oolong with the handmade cheese foam was delicious. That was the best one I've ever had. The dim sums have started to arrive. We're looking at a mini pumpkin puff, but really on the inside, it has salted egg yolk. You're about to just eat that like an exploding tennis ball. Wow. It's like a shaolongbao. Wow. They have incredibly unique looking dim sum here. Andrew, we are getting into the aesthetically focused hypebeast dim sum. We have an assortment of different flavors. They are color-coded. I've got the spicy mala in there, Andrew. I've never seen a shaolongbao with a center like that. I'm going to go with the black truffle one. Oh, it's hot. Spicy. Pour. I have salted egg yolk in the middle of that shaolongbao. Look how they have carefully crafted this. The hand work is incredible here. This is some of the most fanciest shaolongbaos I've ever had in my life. Next, we have our dim sum platter, and this really goes back to the roots of this spot, which is a tea room. This is the classic siu mai. Topped off with caviar. This is a very common way to elevate a siu mai. I'll try to hog out next. This corn, she'll tell fun call. Definitely had some interesting flavor profiles to it. I'm interested to try this one. It looks like a little pumpkin. Wow. Would you agree, Andrew, that pigs feet are highly underrated because there's nothing funky about them? If everybody ate pigs feet this way, I think there would be no debate. That pigs feet is good. It's very thick. It's spicy. It has that soft tendon vibe. We're looking at the pa bao fond, which is eight treasure rice. So they put holes inside of the sticky rice so that all the filling could fall into it. And just a minute ago, this whole thing was on fire. That sticky rice is really good. It has a very natural syrup flavor. It doesn't taste like just sugar or anything like that. It's so well done here. Oh my god. I'm going in for another piece, man. It's the holidays. Harbs be damned. I'm going in for... I'm going to mix the pig charters on top. Wow. I know I'm crazy. Pig charters and sticky rice. Andrew, they have some dishes you would not expect to find at a really fancy place like this. Neuro gym bean. This beef is so tender and the sauce is so sweet that it almost tastes like peaking beef instead of raised beef. We have to finish the savory section off with some peeled tomatoes and plum sauce. And of course, the peaking duck. This is a brown sugar glazed peaking duck. So it's going to have an extra layer of sweetness, guys. I am going to predict that this tastes different because the brown sugar is going to give it a totally different flavor profile, way stronger in a direction. But I think I'm going to like it. Andrew, you made quite the wrap. I really enjoy restaurants owned by, you know, younger cool people. That's all I got to say, guys. And by the way, guys, I just had some of these raw tomatoes dipped in plum sauce. Andrew, these taste like fresh versions of that plum candy that you eat at the store. That's dried up. Andrew, of course, one of the hallmark traits of having an elevated spot are fancy desserts. Are you specifically a lava cake person? It's very hit or miss to me. Oh, that's a little different. It was not a double chocolate. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'd save the leaf. Oh, yes. Chocolate lava cake. Oh, David, I think this cake here is as rich as some of the people who eat here. Our second dessert. It is Lychee Rose Panna Cotta. And it looks like crop circles. Lychee Rose Panna Cotta. Oh. The lava cake is easier to eat because it's chocolate, but in terms of like blowing my mind, this actually takes the cake. Last but not least, we've got Hulu's version of Bing Fun. And the Bing Fun came in the form of jelly strips, not just gigantic pieces of jelly. That has a very strong rice wine flavor right there. Not as sweet as the Bing Fun I'm used to having and a lot more of that wine flavor. So that was a nice thing to cap off the meal. What was your favorite thing? I'm going to have to go with that Oolong tea with the cheese foam on top that's freshly made. As far as food, I'm going to have to go with the colorful rainbow shallombows with different flavors inside. Those were amazing. The savory dish I'm going to pick is the pig trotters. That's a must get in my opinion. Aren't you guys, that does it for our elevated Chinese concept themed restaurant. Andrew, what was your major takeaway? I feel like at a time all the expensive Chinese restaurants felt and looked the same. And even may have served similar food, but now they are serving different foods. They have different vibes, different music. Now you really get to choose your own style. Right. Do you want the hype beast theme? Do you want the royal theme? Do you want the ancient 1000 years ago theme? They're here, but it's on us to also be patrons and experience that. With the presence of expensive Chinese restaurants, the price of Chinese food overall is going to go up. I don't think that's true. David, do you think some of our Asian-American friends might even feel apprehensive about trying some of these spots? Just knowing that Chinese food can be so cheap and maybe it feels like some of these spots are not meant for them. Listen, guys, you can get a pig trotter for pretty cheap, but you cannot get one that's deboned and that tastes that good. You can get a pizza slice for a dollar or you can also go to Lombardi's and get a pizza for $35. I'm just saying, guys, there's a lot of different levels of French food. There's different levels of Italian food and there are many, many, many different levels of Chinese food. In fact, I'm just glad that this level's here because I like enjoying them. Please make sure you let us know what you think of this whole 2020 modern wave of elevated Chinese restaurants and until next time, we're out. Peace.