 What comes to mind when you think of the 626? Some crazy Asian landfill with boba, Maseratis, delicious food and questionable driving just 15 minutes outside of downtown LA? Or maybe you think of the tight-knit community, the smiles and camaraderie and memories with your family or all the above. We're here with a mix of people from around the 626 to talk about things that have come to define the region such as food, FOBS, ABGs, Asian American culture and the Chinese diaspora. So this is CeCe, our YouTube mom. She's actually not related to us at all and is actually just an actress. But it's convincing enough, right? She's been in Hollywood movies and TV shows, but I think it's safe to say she's now the quintessential Asian mom on YouTube. Plus, we got this cool gif together. I'm acting. This is Elizabeth, aka Liz, aka a former ABG of the 626. You know, Asian baby girl. She was one of the first to really pop on social media so she's here to let us know that before it was an aesthetic and hashtag thing, it was a lifestyle. Do you feel like the newer ABGs, do they gotta pay tribute? They just need other respect, you know? I just feel like it's just all about respect. This is Tony. He's probably the most fiery food writer in all of Los Angeles. He likes to eat spicy and he likes to talk spicy. He's snarky, talented and ready to offend you, aka kind of an asshole. No offense to the Vietnamese in OC. I don't go down to OC to drink boba. I only go to the Taiwanese brands through and through. This is Angela. She's a mainland Chinese international student. She represents the young Chinese immigrants that are helping change the 626 and kind of the world. She's here to share the truth about her and her friends. You know, the things you won't hear in media. She doesn't drive a Lambo, but maybe her friends do. Not everyone who is a Bob is living that wealthy lifestyle. This is Toaster. He's a rapper from the 626 and we've actually known him since the Myspace days. It was a long time ago. He's born and raised in Omani so he knows the side that's not just boba and smiles. When I see the city, I see, you know, there's still darkness in the environment. This is Jessica. She's from Roland Heights, which a lot of people debate if it's true 626. She just opened up a nice Shabu Shabu spot up the street that you could say is trying to elevate the bubble. You never drank by Jim? No, cause it grows. We're two brothers who moved to LA almost eight years ago to pursue a dream and for a number of reasons ended up in the 626. I guess you could say we've made a few videos about the area and it might have something to do with being Chinese. Let's get into it. What's going on everybody? Welcome to a very, very special Feng Bro's food. Today, we are in the 626 and we have assembled an all-star cast representing different aspects of the 626 with different groups. The thing that's special about this food is that it all comes from the Chinese diaspora. I mean, I think it's just like pretty symbolic of the 626. Hello guys. I believe this food is representing, I believe out of everybody, perhaps Angela the most. Yeah. We wanted to start with the mainland Chinese food because this is a lot of the food that is gaining popularity in the 626. Two of the things are North Dongbei food, which is the chicken-to-human chicken rack. And it's basically the remnants of chicken that they use in the restaurant, deep-fried, and then quick toss in most, a lot of human herbs. Beijing style meat pie, Shanghai-nese beef rolls. This is Shanghai-nese Xiao Long Bao. A lot of my friends are from Sichuan and really love spicy food. So they have skewers that would be dipped into a hot pot. Called Chuan Chuan, right? Chuan Chuan, yeah. So it's like a combination of just skewers and hot pot together. This is a pierced chicken feet, dipped in hot oil. They would leave it outside all day long, just kind of marinating the sauce, and then you grab the skewers by a whole handful, and you flip, you flip, and you pick, and then they charge you by the stick. So the road jam, I think it came from the Northwest area, probably like Xi'an. Spicy lamb ribs. Varieties of chili peppers, tossed again, very similar prep to the Dongbei food, but a lot heavier on the spices. I mean, it seems like every day there's like an old school six to six spot that shuts down and is replaced by like either a Sichuan Chuan. I've all about that life, man. Brain keep coming, it's fodder for the press. It contributes to authenticity of the area. I know you're not Cantonese, but you probably ate a lot of Cantonese food. None, none? No, I can't, I can't stand it, sorry. Really? Yeah, I dated a lot of time. I knew Tony was gonna bring some meat. I dated a Cantonese food for a very long time. I don't care like every country place. Oh, I feel like you're associating the food with your ex? Everybody knows Cantonese food is the best, even though I'm among all the Chinese food. In all of China, Sichuan's the hottest. Sichuan, even in Beijing, even in Shanghai, Sichuan is killing it. It's true, you know that's true. Cantonese cuisine is a dying art in America. And stop, that's it. I feel like the big schism, culinary-wise, is between North and South. There is a 20-year gap between the immigration and the relocation, and this current wave is purely driven by the mainland Chinese, and it's gonna be like that for quite a bit longer. Real quick, what was everybody's favorite dish that we tried so far? Yeah, this one. The chicken bones. Because I love to chew on bones. I love, you see a little bit of fish, what are you doing? Word? I like the chicken feet a lot. I love chicken feet. The Sichuan chicken feet. We filmed some music videos together. You are not skittish about eating anything like quote-unquote like weird, or like to like, from the old world. No, we ate poorly overcooked belute together. There's some people that just have preferences that aren't willing to try new things. Our IG models. We can have IG models. There are some that just takes pictures with it, and they don't even try it. Who would have thought that we'd be talking about hot girls using Chinese food for cloud? I don't like the spicy lamb. The one where you can't even actually see the lamb, it's just covered in chilies. For me, the meat, disc, shi'erbing, shimbing. When anybody eats more northern food, is there kind of like- Or Sichuan. Is there or Sichuan food? Is there kind of a change in attitude? I really completely 100% soaked up the Sichuan culture as far as their lazy, fair attitude to its life. They're beautiful women. I just, I'm 100% devoted to that lifestyle. I will agree with you that when I went to Sichuan, they live life so anti to the Chinese stereotype of being like, you know, no emotion, study, stoic. Yeah, they are just like bright and crazy. I saw kids pushing like a wheelbarrow down the street with a stick. I was like, am I in China right now? Like, that's not my image when I'm in Beijing. All the great rappers come from Sichuan. Yup, the rappers, they're a little bit thug. Is it all because like this is not that expensive? It's not like this is flaming long, right? Like from a cost perspective. There's no way the cost per unit is that high for a restaurant. You're holding up the middle finger on the chicken foot. The chicken foot. I feel like the fobs that like this food, they really like change the complexion of the whole scene. And I feel like some of the ABCs are cool with it. And some, they rather move to Irvine and kind of just be with the Asian-American flow. It's like whitewash Asians that like just salt and pepper. There's some people they can't, it's not that they don't want to taste it because a lot of Cantonese food, they are not bland but it's not spicy hot. So they can't handle the spicy. Some ABCs definitely feel as distant from kind of the Northern or Sichuan food as much as they possibly can. Like a lot of people feel really disconnected from it because it's not their type of Chinese but they're really not as much into the Sichuan hot pot. It's so weird right now because I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, these kids in the Maseratis, they don't know how to drive, they don't use their turn signal. Somebody's getting bribed in Omani at the DMV to give some people licenses. I dated a fob grower who paid. People definitely feel like that there's no reason for the ABCs and the fobs to really interact. Like a lot of people don't see the incentive, oh, the food looks too spicy or it's too expensive actually. It has something to do with two things. One is cultural differences, right? And the other is the language. They all can speak English but it's better, it's easier for them to express themselves with Mandarin. There's two boba shops next to each other. And one is for basically fobs wearing Balenciagas. It's called Tancha. And the other one is very Asian American. Everybody there, there's no Chinese characters really in there. And they're right next to each other and you look in each window and the demographics, they're both drinking boba but one is one side and the other is the other side. Even though it seems like a competition of who's moving in the neighborhood and who's moving out, it's ultimately a blending of different immigration waves. And though people may always have their opinions, I think it'll always shake out fine. Just like siblings do. The FOB group, like the international students, they're more like really confident about where they came from. They're more like wealthy in terms of like their financial background. So I feel like they have just like an attitude that you know, we can't hang out with our own friends. We don't really have to go out there to make friends with the locals because we feel more comfortable speaking our own languages. These kids from China, especially the wealthy ones, they're wealthy, cool kids from China. I feel like there's a little bit of misconception. Like not everyone who is a FOB is living that wealthy lifestyle. Like they're more still like the low keys. What percentage of FOBs are living that mausoleum routine? I mean, it's an overrepresented group. It is overrepresented, yeah. What percentage would you say? I would say like maybe 30%. So here's my page. I have 449,000 followers. Pretty consistent, you know? I wouldn't consider me really a model. I would... I consider myself a lifestyle blogger. Oh, look at your bikini. My goodness. These are the comments and people can comment on them. Oh, this f*** walking into your life, planning to ruin it. Aren't you guys, we've moved on to the Boba section. AKA Bubble Tea. In Canada, they call it BBT. Tenzu Naita. But we did make the song Boba Life, popular music video, done by Jay Poon over here. Boba went from almost like, it was almost like soda drinks. You know how you have your base cola and then from there and now they have like what? 400 derivatives. This is a chain from Taiwan, Ten Run. Boba Morpho is a ABC sort of Taiwanese chain done by Wang Fu Productions. Phil from Wang Fu. Phil from Wang Fu. Phil from Wang Fu. Phil Wang from Wang Fu. Here, Tasty is actually a, I believe a Chinese Vietnamese or Vietnamese owned chain from the OC. Kind of more providing a more Americanized experience. Tony, when we put the Bobas out, you swapped with me. Why'd you pick the Ten Run Black Tea? I grew up with this. This is what I drink. If we were to say who was what Boba, you would be Ten Run. You know Tony, a little bit, forgive me for my language, elitist? Yeah, you're an elitist. Ten Run's sort of the highest quality Taiwan chain. I feel like the Mainland China tea brands are more innovative. They're less traditional and they're trying to cater to like more popular ingredients, such as like cheese foam. At a Mainland China Boba spot, they will give you like seven different options for Boba. Yeah. You know what I mean? They'll give you a taro Boba, a sesame Boba, a black sugar Boba. But some of them are a little bit too much. Some of them are so much for social media rather than for the flavor. And I don't. So you're not with the blaring LED cubes at the bottom of the Boba? No. I mean, only if it tastes good, you know? It's not all about looks, you know? Just like people, you know? It's not all about looks, you know? And this is coming from my IG model, so that you... Yeah. For older people, they have three highs. High cholesterol, diabetics and high blood pressure, you know, in Chinese, because most of these drinks, you cannot get these kind of drinks without sugar. Yeah. You know? So people, you know, more aware of, you know, being staying healthy. Cheers after that. Let's do cheers after that. Cheers. Like Boba. Cheers. Cheers. This is, you know, Hong Kong, Cantonese, Taiwanese and Chinese diasporic food. And one of the most interesting things about our identity is that Chinese people came from, you know, what we consider China the landmass, but they've really immigrated to every single country for a number of reasons, and they sometimes have built their own kind of style of cuisine there. Growing up in Armani, back when I was a kid, there wasn't too many Asians, you know what I mean? So most of my friends were Hispanic, Mexican. The Xiuma has definitely gotten bigger through the Z-Agen. And that's a fact, you know? And you asking me what stands out from all this right now, it's that. That's like my favorite, you know what I mean? This is Rojak from Indonesia. Has anybody had this? This is like a very sweet, peanutty covered salad. So this is a Burmese tea leaf salad fermented tea leaves, beans and just really fresh, but no carbs, man. All right, Tony, you have to take ownership of this. Of this gigantic fondant. Tony, do you listen to Hyde Brothers? I like it. Love them. I can't understand them really, you know? But I mean, as far as their cadence and their melody, on point, I love it. They captured a certain essence that is very, very difficult to capture. You know, I'm an artist, right? I always thought that it was going to be hard to do that, but they really executed on that. It used to be, I felt like years back, that when you try to speak Chinese and the tone was off, but you had the right context, a lot of people would still not really understand what you're saying. But nowadays with context, I think it's more acceptable and more understandable to speak kind of maybe slightly wrong tones, but the same words. I think it's a globalization. Yeah, there's a lot of, like, Westerners. They are also learning Mandarin, so we kind of more accepting the different tones. People can actually tell that I'm Guilin-Waqiu when I speak Cantonese because they hear the Vietnamese accent in my Cantonese, but I don't even speak Vietnamese at all. What does Vietnamese accent in Cantonese sound like? Em, no idea, you know? Like, that means what are you saying? And then in Cantonese, I say, Like, you hear that gong? Like gong? It's like the NGs, like they can hear my Vietnamese accent. I'm from ABC Cafe, they know me as Nam Waqiu, because I speak Mandarin not so well. Yeah, so they can hear it. Alright you guys, we have arrived at our, like, focus section on more, like, what I call Asian culture. It's almost like going away. Whatever we consider Asian, hot import nights, car meetups, JDM, all the guys who are putting, like, spoilers and cold air intakes, they all, like, pushing, like, Mercedes now. You still out here street racing? Yeah, I do. Pull up on me on the light. Yeah, you gotta learn how to swerve if you're gonna live in 626, man. We made a music video years ago called 626. For the most part, I knew what you guys were doing, though. So I understood it, right? But I think that out of the context of other people, then they might be like, well, what the... That whole thing. And I felt like it was a positive representation, save for being a little cheesy, a little corny. When I see the city, I see, you know, there's still darkness in the environment. You know what I mean? I almost made the 626 a little bubbly, which I know that it is not. It was always in the back of your head to make a 626 song, right? But if I did, then I'd have to talk about Bova, too. You know what I mean? It's fine if you do what you do, but please respect what was here before you, and don't think you're that much better, you know? Like, just because you're new, doesn't mean you're gonna stay. Do you feel like the newer, young, if we can call them ABGs, do they gotta pay... Do they gotta pay tribute? Homage to God or what? I don't think they need to pay tribute. It's just they just need to the respect, you know? I just feel like it's just all about respect. The new rappers, right? The new rappers. I hate it when they diss people who are before them. Like, you know, without them, would you have the styles that you have now in the rapping game, you know? If it wasn't for, you know, ABGs, like, would you be able to speak your mind or let people walk all over you? Like, there's something that you set ground rules that follow along generation and generation that make people better. It's all about progressing. They're trying to pick and choose where they get the look, and they get the attention for the look, but they don't want any association with the activity. It's like, why do you have to diss people? Like, you guys are good in your own way, you know? It's like, if anything, you dissing people, it just makes you less than. For a lot of Asian kids growing up in America, AZN subculture was the first fusion point between East and West that we created. Import cars, raves, vape shops. Over the years, the culture has changed from spiky hair to hard parts, and people don't even use the term AZN anymore, but this world is still the basis for a lot of culture and memes to this day. How would you describe mahjong? Chinese gambling? Chinese poker? It's like, domin- Essentially. Okay. Think of it indomitably. They have like, autobabics, um, math table? Yes, yes. Oh, I've seen that. When it goes down, it shakes it. So we can flip it like this, right? Yeah, I mean, it was more so just like, family fun, my grandma plays, my parents play, so we always like growing up, me and my sister learned as kids, but we were always just like the basic and we were just, you know, kind of play for fun. And do you think when you have kids, you'll teach them too? Definitely. You will. It's a culture. Yeah. It's so great to be orange, like, you know. Like you know how to play. Exactly. Keep in touch with cultures and learning new cultures. It's the thing, yeah. Yo, you guys, welcome to round three. We actually have another dish, Elizabeth, you are going to show us how to wrap Vietnamese nem nuns. So you take one of these rice wraps and then you dip it in hot water. You can have the choice of shrimp or this is called nem nun, which is a sweet pork patty. And then you wrap once, wrap the ends. I'm not rolling other stuff. And here you go. Yay. Rate mine. No vomit. Look, twisty at the top. Yeah, it's kind of uneven. What we got were some other like, really don't hand foods because obviously jouses, I mean, you can eat it with your hands, especially the janzhao, these are thazhoye beans, which is like big mouth pockets, almost looks like a shirt pocket. And then a classic shenzhen bao. We think that last but not least, we did have to finish it off, you guys, with a shot of baijiu. Do you never drink baijiu? No, cause it's gross. It's like a bunch of old men just sitting around the corner and they're just like, go drink their water. Wait, wait, hold on, I gotta back it up just cause you said, I don't know how people can drink that and then you just blamed on the old guys. I've seen them 100% proof. This is 50%. This is like almost like pure alcohol that burns in your mouth. We are, are we being some, Chinese tradition. We're being some gummers right now. Jammers, jammers is the sister version of gummers. Gummers meaning like brother, homie, we will chase it with some shenzhen bao's, Koreans have soju, Japanese have sake and then we always say, my god, I think Chinese have baijiu and baijiu is like the most lethal one. Of them all. I'll do the whole thing. Cheers, cheers. All right, cheers. Cheers, cheers, cheers. Ganba, ganba. My tongue is numb. I actually was chasing with the shenzhen bao was great though. I feel like it kind of reminds me of this one saying that my parents used to always say it's like that Chinese people really like to churku. Churku like eat bitterness. Yeah, yeah. I really think that one of the biggest traits of Chinese people is the ability to endure bitterness. It's good in a way, right? Because it allows you to do stuff that's really bitter. But then I think some people develop such a high tolerance for it. They never try to break out of it. They just live in the bitterness forever. And trust me, you don't be a 24 seven factory for the world if you're not able to put up with a life that's not that appealing. That's facts. I wasn't trying to end on a super poignant, uncertain note or anything like an indie movie, but it's true. Traditionally Chinese people have always valued work over play. But that doesn't mean we can't have both, especially here in the 626. All right, you guys, thank you so much for watching that very, very, very special episode of Fun Bros. Food. It's been about seven years since we were able to talk that in depth and that on the nose about the 626. It was just really cool to get a lot of our friends that we've worked with in the past to come together and just talk about things really candidly. And that's something that I don't think has ever happened at least on camera. I think this region, the 626 area code, specifically the part that we're talking about is always gonna change. A lot of it is defined by the new people that come to the 626 and add their own flavor. A lot of those people are immigrants and also sort of where the people who were here want to take the culture. You can acknowledge the pieces that you miss when culture changes, but at the end of the day, it's always something to be hopeful for. Anybody out here, whether they grew up here or not, can contribute to culture in a way that we kind of did of all the media and the videos that we did. If you are from here, you know, like be a part of it all. Like why not? Guys, that wraps it up for this video. Thank you so much for watching that very, very special Fungro's Food. In the comments below, please name an aspect or a dish of the 626 or a culture of the 626 that you guys don't want it to go away. Also, maybe an aspect of the 626 that's new that you like, too. All right, you guys, thank you so much for watching that episode of Fungro's Food. And until next time, we're out. Peace! I always wanted to do this Instagram. You don't know what it is? No, I really don't. Okay, let me show you right now. You gotta pick a style that you want first. And you just stick to it. Consistency always looks the best. Posting the same style. You're the model I can tell. Oh no, you can be a model. Oh, come on, girl.