 Yo what's going on everybody welcome to a special episode of low-mid high today We are gonna be eating at three different price points three different levels of the most beloved Asian brunch style that there is out There I swear by now most people have had it I am talking about dim sum and joining me today. I got a couple of friends on my right I got Chinatown native Chris banks. What up? What up? It's Chris banks true Chinatown native And I've been eating dim sum my whole life and on my left. I got repping tea dot toy son Cindy So just to go over real quick We got three different levels to take out style dim sum the sit-down style of dim sum that most people have had and then there's the third Price point this new fusion style of dim sum and it's all in Manhattan's Chinatown. All right, Chris What's the first level of dim sum but lucky King Baker right now on Grand Street grabbing gold I mean he's cheap. Everyone's in a hurry to do this where you go. This is like everyday dim sum. Let's go check it out When do you usually get the to-go style dim sum if you just want to go home feed your family? He brings them home for your friends, you know It's the easiest thing to do like especially in Chinatown or like if you're just driving by Can't find parking send someone in grab all the food is quick I wouldn't say that the quality would be amazing just because to sell other things here like bread cake We're added to ghost but but they actually have the whole spread of dim sum right here My guy Yo, shout out to lucky King Baker. All right, man. We're here at lucky King. We got the spread and we got fontile chicken feet We got low my guy. We got the sticky rice. We got the hot turn, which is the shrimp rice roll We got chew my we got pike what which is pork ribs. We got pike what with turn fun This is one of my favorite dishes actually Cindy you were talking about the menu and how they change it all the time Cuz they brought the little stickies on it. So like if you actually look at the menu They just put like a sticker over and anytime you walk into a take-out place in Chinatown and you see that you know that You have to raise their prices rents going up. Everything's going up. I totally agree with Cindy man as a business owner Like it's rough. I mean graph, you know, the rent goes up. Even Tony goes up Like it's just changing so fast in Chinatown where they need to survive, too Yeah, we're gonna eat, you know, so I grew up in the Seattle area You know a little bit outside of the city, but I always went to Chinatown But I would only eat dim sum on the weekends like after dim sum spots You know off the card, but I never had these to-go spots because Seattle doesn't have that much foot traffic It's not that big of a city SF New York Chinatowns might be dense enough to really sustain spots like this a lot of people already have trouble eating chicken feet But I'm gonna try it. It's dripping. This actually looks pretty good Part is good My guy and Genji guy the same thing Look at that saucy Everything is just package and then usually what they do is they just pack it up real quick They just throw in a couple of these forks. A lot of people just eat this on the go or they just bring it home All right raiding on the Shumai real quick. This is the two-dollar Shumai I mean, I would give it a nine because I mean I've been in five years and still to say it's hard to keep You know I always thought this spot had very decent quality I'm giving it like a Seven when you're saying this spot's been able to keep its quality and it just had a racist price a little bit Yeah, I mean it's consistent I mean, it's not the best because we don't look over the city But you need to eat dim sum every day Lucky King This place is solid be in and out in two minutes. All right So we're going from Lucky King, which is to the to-go bakery dim sum spot That's about the two-dollar range and then we're gonna go up to the mid-level right now to one of the oldest And most classic dim sum parlors in the city, Nam Wah. Let's go Okay, we have made it outside of our level to Nam Wah tea parlor Chinatown's first dim sum parlor since 1920 my grandfather always take me here They kind of kept the same decor and they now it's kind of like a whole like cool style that they've kept All right, let's go get some Nam Wah and we'll see who's in there that we could talk to I'm here with Vincent from Nam Wah Vincent. Can you give me the low down on Nam Wah? I mean, this is like a classic spot This is basically a family-owned restaurant since the 20s haven't really actually changed that much We've kept everything kind of ventures looking being in this kind of like environment It already doesn't look like other dim sum restaurants And then you guys were able to keep that and then I feel like now it's almost become I mean a super diverse crowd All right, so we're here at Nam Wah They've been able to deliver and expose a lot of people to dim sum that would never eat dim sum As you can see there's a lot of like Caucasian people here all types of people It's not to say that locals don't come here. This does kind of have that cool fact We have some of the same dishes that we got a lucky king, but some different ones too I really wanted to get this one. This one's probably not a dish that you're gonna find at the to-go spots This is a shrimp and snow pea vine dumpling and then you have the og egg roll This is like a Nam Wah. I would say fusion like Westernized dish. This is the singe jikyun one of your favorite, right? Yeah, it's basically bean curd tofu skin That's what the wrapper is and then the inside it's bean with pork One of my favorite is the eggplant and stuff shrimp and then you got the classics the phoeng-tao You got the shiomai you got the hakao you got the hachung and then you have the chashu bao right here Did you not want to try it at the last spot? I think I was too focused on the sticky rice. When you finish eating you just spit out your bone. Yeah How do I eat this properly? No, there's ways to eat it properly. I just don't think you can eat it like sexy unless you can And if you want to try go for it No, I love this dish. Nam Wah's price point is around the $4.50 to $5 Scale which does put it at the midpoint. Obviously there's sit-down spots that are a little bit cheaper like a $3.50 $4. I mean, this is a cool experience to be honest And I think anybody who really likes dim sum should try to come to Nam Wah now. This is the thing guys This is my thing about sriracha. I love sriracha, but it's not a traditional thing It's not a traditional hot sauce. So to be eating this with dim sum. I feel like it's like a little bit This is like more new school. I Agree with you, but I mean I can put on anything honestly. It's so delicious. Mmm. How's the shiomai? The moist is good. Wow. What are the traits of a good shiomai, Cindy? Like I said, like this one just juicier because the more fat there is in there They steam it and you bite into it. The fat part of the top. If I could break it in half for my chopstick, I think that's a go. I think this is influenced by Chilchow people, actually. I guess it's almost like a hot dog with an open hot dog. As you guys got older and obviously there's more foods. How do we balance going to dim sum but also still getting all those American meals in, you know. And nowadays when we have our own choices as you know second generation Are we still going to dim sum? Like our parents took us, I think we should take our parents, you know at the moment to grow now. We should always keep that tradition, you know. I feel like you should be forced to eat dim sum with my family, but now like I actually want to go. It's like a it's a communal thing, you know sharing little plates of deliciousness. Egg roll. All right, let me try this chashu bao real quick. I'm a big fan of the baked one. And then you know nowadays even at like Tim Ho-Won, they got the crystal on top. It's the custard that's baked on top. A lot of people grew up getting dim sum off the cart. But now a lot of spots it's like by the order. So what do you miss about the carts? I love the carts. There's still some spots I do with them. I'm very into size. I always love like asking like what you got what you got show me what you got and then she's like Lifting it up. Hey, I got this I got this I got this There's kind of like this fun like back and forth and I do think it's kind of like a show because like she's gonna try To convince you like hey, no, this is really fresh whole Sun-Seen whole Sun-Seen like this is I just said it's fresh. It just came out. You gotta get it. So you know what it is with the carts? People tend to over order because they just eat with their eyes. Half the time you're already starving and then the first thing you do you just order and then you sit down you realize you have all this food. It's like Thanksgiving. Cindy, is that you up there? Back from the future. Definitely one of those gypsies that like drink potion. And you actually like 200 years old. Yeah. All right, everybody. We're wrapping up Nam Wah. This was the middle level. What would you got? What was your overall takeaways from this spot? I love it. I mean no complaint at all. I mean I tried out some new and I had some original. It was great. At the last place it definitely was more mass-produced whereas here you can tell that it's a little bit more well-made, a little more fresh. So I mean you go to the everyday spot if you need it quick and cheap. Here this is the mid-level and then now this is like new dim sum. It's fancy. There's definitely some stuff there that you guys have never had before. So let's go to Rice and Gold at 50 Bowels. All right, y'all. I'm here at Rice and Gold with the executive chef Jay. Jay, give us the scoop on what Rice and Gold is doing in Chinatown. So Rice and Gold were Asian eatery, not limited to one type of Asian cuisine. We love flavor. We love creating flavor and we don't want to bound ourselves just to one type. I've actually had these two before and I will tell you guys that really does taste like pho. It really tastes like pho. It tastes like pho and it has a really strong beefy pho. If you pick it up by the side of my puncture, look at that juice. You see that? All right, who eats shallom bao biting the top? I like the top. You smell it? It smells like pho. That's good. So it has like the skin of a shallom bao and the flavoring, not just of a regular bowl of pho. I wouldn't say. I'd say that was like extra punchy. She had that really spicy kick because it has a little chili on top. I was a little scared for a second because actually that was the first thing I bit into it. I was like, oh no, I'm either going to choke or cry. I got the spice first and then I got the beef and the juice and then the skin and it all came together. That broth. So this is a corn juice skin. The skin is really good. You have to hold that thing in right now. It has just enough of that crunch too on the inside. We have a bacon shumai with Benton's ham on top. And I like to put the little mustard garnish because a lot of dim sum spots they give you the hot mustard with either the chashu or the shumai. I feel like it was very New York in the way that it had the pork and mustard flavor because it kind of reminded me. Some element, it was like a pastrami shumai. That's kind of what the sense I'm getting. This is like the next level of dim sum. And this is coming out of an innovative kitchen where they're trying to take authentic flavors of a lot of different cultures. And they're like creating familiar dishes but with like a whole new twist. Alright everybody, that wraps up our low-mid high episode of dim sum today. Cindy, what was your favorite stage? Definitely stage 2 just because everything was just made a little bit more fresh. It was made to order. I'm going to start with level 1. I mean it's a quick grab and go. Like you would still eat a lucky kick. Of course all the time. But number 3 is probably my favorite because that soup dumpling like that should blew my mind. I'm just so glad that Cindy, Chris, you guys were here to talk about Chinatown, to talk about dim sum, and to show everybody out there all the different levels. Yeah, I mean I just thought it was so special that we could just do all three levels within a few blocks from each other. Alright everybody, thank you so much for watching that video in the comments below. Let me know which level you guys like to eat at and which spot you would like to try. Let me know if there's any other ideas that you guys want for us to do of low-mid high. And until next time everybody, I'm in New York City. And we out! Peace! There's a lot of dim sum in Chinatown, man. Actually a lot of dim sum spots scattered around, even in East Village. Pretty much, yeah. We're in Chinatown, New York, we're dim sum limbs. Until next time, we out! Peace!