 It's actually like oddly nostalgic. I never personally actually got an opportunity to work in a kitchen. You know that's just not how my life played out, but I'm gonna do it right now. You are not getting a US Kobe beef mixed for $20. And I think this is the best one I've ever had. This food is gonna be very very different than anything I've had before. Asian food keeps getting better and better in New York City. From late night Amur rice to Japanese steak to the next gen of Chino Latino food. To what might just be the best midnight ramen. This is a video you do not want to miss. So please hit that like button and let's go. First up we've got Cura Ramen guys. This is a chain from Asia. They've got 120 locations over there and now they are expanding all across North America. They've got nine alone in New York City. I mean there might be one opening nearby you. Guys we're talking about Amur rice, rice burgers, ramen. We got like a mixture between Japanese and Taiwanese influences. I mean it's just a really cool spot that appeals to everybody. It is really just delivering high quality foods. Man whether you're a young hype beast or an old Asian traditionalist when it comes to being a foodie. They got something for you. Let's check it out. And why does everybody come to Cura Ramen to get the Amur rice? I'm about to show you why real quick into the kitchen. All right I'm here with Su Fu Wen. Wen is going to teach me how to cook Amur rice. This is the first time I've ever done it. It takes a lot of mastery and a lot of practice. The little pillow that we know as Amur rice. Oh I'm not going to lie. Wen made it look easy. That's the shot. You know going in to making my first Amur rice to be honest man. I get the general movements you know I have decent motor skills. I'm not going to say that it's going to be as good as hers. I got to turn it on too. I stir I start stirring it a little bit. I start breaking it up in the middle. Shoot it's getting a little too cooked. Okay I'm trying to flip it over. Is this serveable? All right I'm eating it. Not the worst. Moment of truth guys. All right you guys we are going to be learning how to make two different types of ramen. One is a black garlic. Number two we're going to be making a kimchi ramen here at Cura Ramen. Big old chopstick. Big old chopstick if you keep. There's a lot of work that goes into even one bowl of ramen. You see the work guys. I can't fake this. Oh! Chang Shu. The blow torch. And they sear it for you. It smells incredible. First off I'm going with bamboo shoots. Maybe maybe a little extra kimchi. A little a little bit more. I never personally actually got an opportunity to work in a kitchen. You know that's just not how my life played out. But I'm going to do it right now. All right you guys. We've got the three items that we help make here at Cura Ramen. As well as some of their new ones. This is a omurice. Of course Andrew this is not the one you made. But it's the one Chef Wen made. A black tonkatsu right here. And we've also got a kimchi tonkatsu. Oh look at this kimchi ramen. Nice. David nice job roasting the pork. Omurice. Black garlic ramen. Like we said guys they're always bringing over cool concepts from Japan. This is a rice burger. You know what I love about this rice burger. Is that the buns are so dense and sticky together with the sticky rice. That it really holds. In a way a lot of rice burgers fall apart. Yeah. You guys I'm telling you Cura Ramen is so unique. Because it's got the fun vibes of like a diner or a burger shop on the western side. But the food is way more like a ramen shop or a izakaya. Or even like a Taiwanese popcorn chicken spot. I'm telling you no matter what you like there is something for you here. I just see all types of people here getting ramen and the omurice and all these dishes. And it's honestly just a cool spot. I would say check out one of the locations that's opening up near you. This is Agadashi Tofu. Our next new Asian concept is Chino Grande guys. It is started by our friend Josh. Who's also from Winsun a famous Taiwanese spot over here in Brooklyn. This spot it is hard to describe kind of like a Peruvian new American fusion. And Peruvian is already a fusion so it's like a fusion of a fusion. Let's go check it out man Brooklyn always got some things. Man I'm just really excited. This food is going to be very very different than anything I've had before. Okay starting off we got the little gem salad. I've never seen a salad that looked like this. I mean they have fotokaki and a special cream on top. And just like full pieces of lettuce right here. Let's just bite into it. Yo there's hazelnut. There's fotokaki and it definitely reminds me of kind of one of those chicken bacon ranch salads you get at a steakhouse. Brand new way to eat salad. I've never had a salad that tastes like this before. You just gotta come and try this. All right right here we got the grande fries. This is their signature fries. They have their special sauce on top of course fotokaki. Fotokaki is making all this food taste so unique. Because it's combining with other elements that I've never had fotokaki with. So man pretty crazy. All right guys coming in with more Japanese influence. We have these roasted cabbage skewers. This is yaki tori style. Each leaf of cabbage is stuck onto it. So you know I mean I've had roasted cabbage before in Japanese spots but not like this. Who would have thought cabbage would feel like meat. You know everything so far has looked kind of familiar. But just tasted a little bit more different than I thought. All right guys here's their chicken thigh skewer. And no that is not scallions but those are chives. Let's try this. With the oyster sauce and the chive. It kind of tastes almost like it's leaning in towards the filling of a dumpling. But then it backs out and says no no no no no I'm a chicken thigh yaki tori. We got the veggie fried rice. I've never seen a fried rice like this. It kind of looks like a salad. So it has yu choy. It has daomio which is a peevine shoots right here. It has a little bit of eggs. It is kind of similar to something you've had before. It's just got a little twist. So you know it's going to be refreshing. We got the fried chicken. It is sprinkled with some spicy chilies on top. And this is a coconut ranch sauce dipping in the coconut ranch. All right so after having some dishes here at Chino Grande. I would describe it as kind of a fresh refreshing kind of veggie forward. More Japanese leaning Peruvian new American spot. Man it's pretty good. And guys Brooklyn always got some new concepts. Gotta come to Brooklyn more man. Guys you know the Brooklyn crowd. You know it's very eccentric eclectic. It's hard to describe this spot. And sometimes it's hard to describe people in Brooklyn too. What you guys are looking at is the fourth generation youth scooter guys. After using the brand new GT Sport. I gotta tell you it is the fastest and it has the smoothest takeoff. But you know I still like the GT SE as well. But both of these have 700 watt motors. And then if you want something a lot smaller but still very quick. This one has 500 watt motor. This is the booster V. And it is super light. So you know what? Youth scooters just giving you options. I honestly think that anybody who lives in a big city. Will have their life changed by buying one of these. Ready to go anywhere. All right everybody I'm here at the Boba guys over in Nolita. You know it's right next to Amelie Andore. You know it's kind of got that more street prep vibe. Where a lot of people are buying street wear. And also come in here. So here I got the ube latte. And then here I got the strawberry rice milk as well. So let me try this ube latte. Light ube flavor. A little spicy chai it's good. Whoa. The guys being a success out here just goes to tell me. That you know a lot of people of all different types of backgrounds. Do enjoy products from Asia. However you know sometimes they just need the branding to be a little different. The vibe to be a little different. And it to be in their zone. All right you guys we're at Kony Shack. This is a crazy concept. Southeast Asian inspired hot dogs man. Tell us what we're looking at. Well this one is the mock dog. So the mock dog we always start with a potato bun. Most of our hot dogs we like to put meat on top of meat. We'll have a bare battered crunchy fish. Right on top of a natural skin casing hot dog. Yeah so this one is the garlic lemongrass chicken taco. Malaysian coconut butter shrimp. We got the meat and meat garlic pork belly taco right here. The most popular item was a bare battered crunchy fish. We got the five spice calamari. And we got the popcorn oyster mushroom taco. Oh. And this one is our new item which is the vermicelli bowl. We got the garlic lemongrass chicken. But we all put a lot of fresh ingredients. You know who doesn't like eating hot dogs right. But just to incorporate like like all these great awesome ingredients. Yeah you're gonna try it. And the pork belly. Yeah it's filling. It's a load of hot dog but you know it's in all levels. People love it. Lemongrass chicken taco guys. Vietnamese inspired. That's like your favorite lemongrass chicken bun meat. But with way less carbs. This is a Vietnamese pork belly taco. Oh my goodness. Washing it down with a mango lemonade. This is a way to enter the consciousness of the Americana Jersey Shore crowd. Never seen a hot dog like this before. This is bare battered fish on top of a hot dog. On top of scallion oil with mozzarella cheese. Fish and a hot dog. That's a new type of surf and turf. Shrimp tacos are really trendy. Well this is the coconut Malaysian curry shrimp. You have never had a five spice calamari taco. Until now of course. I like that one a lot more than I thought. I'm not gonna lie that was unexpected. Fish taco. Popcorn oyster mushroom taco guys wow. This is the vermicelli bowl. Of course inspired by the Vietnamese vermicelli bowl. But this one has a lot more western elements. Like tomatoes and stuff like that. Feels kind of like a salad. Okay here at Kodi Shack. I think the things that stood out to me was the mushroom taco. The calamari taco. And actually they're a holy food hot dog. But you guys also don't just have this. You also have a ramen spot right next to here right. You guys are doing some cool things with that. If you have not had Miniku garlic kudo black ramen before. You are missing out guys. I'm telling you it's 2022. This might be the best ramen in the game right now. You see that that's a black garlic. Listen guys food courts are stepping their game up. To have this level of quality not cooked by Japanese is very 2022. I think previously people were very skeptical of ramen spots that weren't Japanese owned. But honestly I've been to enough nowadays that if you just put the work in and you study it. You can still make a good bowl. You know it's pretty cool at here at Senshi Ramen. They do keep it very traditional with Tsukumen and all types of dipping ramens. But obviously over at their other concept they're doing Vietnamese hot dogs. Which is like super hyper fusion. As far as new concepts go. You will rarely ever find something as deep cut as Tsukumen served at like a ramen stall for the lunch office crowd. But I'm telling you they're doing a good job here at Senshi. Of course to wash it all down. You've got to use a sparkler. You've got to use a lemonade. And for me I like them both but I'm going to go with the Yuzu lemonade. Oh my goodness not only that. They got all the ramens. They got bento boxes man. Let us know what we're looking at. So we have fried lotus root. We have pumpkin here. We have sweet potato cauliflower. We have karage chicken. We have a masago spicy mayo sauce. What goes to sesame nori flakes on white rice. Seaweed salad. Sesame dressing salad right here. Tomatoes. Hey what do they eat in Japan for lunch? Bento boxes all day. Quick to go. That's the best. All right good. You guys this fried tempura is not something you normally see at like a quick service stall. Like we said deep cut Japanese items here. Aren't you guys our next new Asian concept. It's not new. It's been around for 10 years but it's probably new to you. We are at Ichiban steakhouse right now. It's 2 a.m guys. The owners are from Kumamoto Japan. It's southern Japan. We're talking about Kyushu, Fukuoka. And this is a blue fin grilled tuna steak at 2 a.m in the morning. And this is a Ichiban steak right here. You've got garlic chips. I've got sauces. I've got salt. And of course we've got the kitsune udon which is a fried sweet tofu pocket right here. Of course look at this super soft egg guys. New York does not have a J town. 9th street and 10th street sort of serve as like a substitute for that. And like I said guys this is super late at night. Te shoku, diner food. This is like denny's but from Japan and it's way better than denny's. 25 bucks. 7 ounce steak guys. Japanese are really good at making tasty teriyaki flavored steaks for cheap. And of course you guys know about this salad. You can't beat this salad. Maguro steak, grilled blue fin tuna guys. Of course this would be like diner food in Japan gourmet to the rest of us. Of course last but not least we've got kitsune udon kitsune. Are these fried tofu pockets right here. We're gonna get into it. Of course we've got the egg right here. We're gonna break that up. Like I said guys you can get this until 3 a.m. in New York City. Last but not least of course in Japan it is not impolite to slurp renewals. To get this tier of quality of te shoku Japanese like diner comfort home style food at 2 a.m. at 3 a.m. in the east village guys. Listen you could go to Gorin. You could go to here. But it's like southern Japan in NYC. What I love about these Japanese spots out in the east village is that a lot of them are from the island of Kyushu right. We talk about te shoku that's home style food but obviously homes are different across the country. So you know maybe in Kumamoto they have more steak or they have more blue fin. You know it's in the south tip of Japan so I don't know but all I can tell you is that these greens are fresh. This fried garlic is delicious and this steak is crazy for 25 bucks. What a deal. Guys there's a spot in little Tokyo LA and a lot of spots in Seattle that I kind of missed because they kind of had more like the teriyaki shop vibes and this is actually giving me that vibe right now. So it's actually like oddly nostalgic. Right so our next Asian concept in New York City is probably the best ramen you can get at 2 a.m. and maybe the entire country here at Gorin Ramen. And you are looking at the third style of ramen. Now there's Hakata which a lot of people know and then there's Sapporo and then this is Kitakata Ramen. It's a chicken broth okay and it has a little bit of dashi and some shoyu. This one has karage in it of course generous amounts of onions and bamboos. I love that. And then this is their spicy one right here with of course chashu. And this is also still chicken broth and I like chicken broth a lot better than tankatsu at this point in my life. Obviously a good tankatsu is hard to beat and everybody loves that but man I love the chicken broth so I'm gonna go into this man. By the way this style of chicken ramen broth is actually in Japan not necessarily that much less popular than tankatsu but tankatsu in America obviously is the go-to. You know but there's like shoyu there's the salt one and you know there's all different types of ramen so let's check this out. It's 1 a.m. by the way and I'm eating a mixture of dashi and shoyu all in the same bowl you know in a chicken based broth. Guys even the way that this spot is designed it's giving you authentic Japanese vibes you know like on our last trip to Tokyo or Yokohama and I gotta say honestly I feel like the broth has not really been Americanized or they're not doing any super anything that stands out to be American so it seems pretty authentic to me. Although I do know ramen chefs they do have a lot of liberties with ramen so you know you're bound to do something a little different but this is so good right now. This next one is the spicy karaka but it has nicely roasted chashu and with the spicy sauce so let's check this out. Tons of sprouts very very generous thank you very much. Always got a little minced meat in there too. Let's check it out. Super tender chashu for 1 a.m. are you kidding me? I really like this one but I think I'm rolling with the spicy so if you come to Gorin this one's gonna be hidden. Hey guys let's say you're out late you're coming to Gorin ramen you don't want something too heavy like a tonkatsu but you get the chicken broth and even though this obviously has some oil it does feel a lot lighter so I definitely recommend it. If you're on 14th you know I'm talking about that's lower Manhattan that's right on the line so definitely check it out Gorin ramen. Check out this gyudon lots of grilled onions too a crisp let's check it out. All right here's the gyoza I'm super satisfied. I believe in Japanese they say something like munjigodosuke or if not that I'm walking out of here I'm definitely saying I got the gozaimasu All right here they got their cucumber salad obviously you know the Chinese one is very very popular let's try the Japanese version more nutty more sesame oil not as vinegary and pickled flavor but still very very refreshing I like it's a nice little switch up Continuing our late night Japanese series it just keeps on going we're here at Yakiniku West in the East Village this is the unofficial J-Town here in New York City in lower Manhattan looking I'm telling you guys these spots are pretty cheap look at that you are not getting a U.S. Kobe beef mixed for $20 we ordered two of these you can get Atlantic salmon sushi salmon belly my god this is a salmon toro four pieces 10 bucks definitely a late night cheap eat at Yakiniku West they do have daily specials so for Wednesday we got these short rib the finger and the inside skirt so Yakiniku actually originates from Korea this is a Japanese version they've had it for about seven years as you can see the main defining feature of Yakiniku is the grill that such the smoke downwards this was actually invented in 1980 by a company in Japan called the Shimpoko yo I'm telling you guys this amount of USA Kobe beef for 20 bucks on a Wednesday are you serious all right you guys we got some different dipping sauces here it's about kind of like Worcester I'm not sure what's going on what you guys this is the Kobe rib finger there's definitely a lot less sauce than Korean barbecue but the beef quality is still there but definitely way less marinade actually I miss it but it's still good all right you guys we got some of the garlic shrimp we're about to put on there um you know you definitely do not smell very much here but there is a less side dishes that they give you for free and there is less flavor so it really depends on what vibe you're looking for this is way more chilled I see a lot of tables not drinking any alcohol at all that is very different from K-town Korean barbecue of course we had to order lettuce this was $5 it would have been free at Korean barbecue so Yakiniku it's way more a la carte if you want to break it up but it could add up as well so all right you guys we're opening up our foil purse of mushrooms we've been working on this whole time it almost formed like its own little mini oven inside of the foil um if you guys have never had Yakiniku before the Japanese version of Korean barbecue definitely check it out the fundamental basis is pretty cheap but once you do all the add-ons it could get you know kind of pricey depending on what you want but definitely worth the shot it's a different energy a different vibe check it out see for yourself all right you guys we are at my favorite late night izakaya here in new york city oh taishou super affordable super deep cut izakaya late night eats you've got chazuke right here cha means tea in chinese and japanese in korean zuke means submerged this is just green tea dashi salmon wasabi boom we about to just mix this all up and it's almost like a kanji in a way but uh the rice is not like really like melted to the point where it's this like soggy thing I mean this is just real fresh this is absolutely one of my favorite clean snacks there's very little oil in it and this is just something you could make at home but it's pretty cheap here too this is chikuwa cheese I've actually never had this dish before it's the japanese fisticks stuffed with cheese and then grilled and then you've got some seaweed flakes on top of course you got the qp mayo chikuwa cheese come here and discover some japanese street food that you never had before in your life all right everybody here we have one of my favorite dishes here at yaki tori otaisho this is called the buta two inoki no scramble egg it just means buta is pork obviously inoki is the mushrooms there and then it says no scramble egg but it it's a scramble and what I like about it is that it's kind of messy but it's got a lot of flavor and it's easy to eat and you just can throw it over rice man it's got everything I love man I love inokis and I love the sauce on it it's one of those wet scrambles it's eggy it's kind of sweet honestly this is like a dish you probably cannot find anywhere else they might have just created it here all right here we are with a salmon cream yaki soba of course you guys know yaki means grilled soba means noodle made out of buckwheat but this has salmon in it and I feel like it does have a little bit of the mentaiko roe eggs but not too much because my boost the price but this one is really delicious because it kind of tastes like a creamy salmon pasta but with yaki soba noodles I might even hit it with a little chili Nanami chili I mean honestly I just like it here I just like it how you know this spot serves so many dishes that are a little bit like off the menu dishes at other spots you know I mean a lot of spots are going to serve your oyakudans you know your kind of standard dishes but here they're bringing you all these obscure maybe like brand new dishes I mean maybe some of them they made up and some of them obviously do come from Japan maybe things that you might more find and maybe osaka you know or kyu chu you know maybe outside of the city but man these are great for drinking too and they do sell a lot of drinks here of course here at yakitori taisho we had to get the yakitori I've got asparagus wrapped in bacon I've got chicken thigh I've got scallion I've got chicken skin and I've got beef tongue if you guys have not had beef tongue or you guys are shying away because this is an unconventional cut definitely come and get it this is a five out of five listen guys the guy who started from Japan this whole region of east village feels very Japanese actually is from kyushu which is southern Japan they have their own vibe there that's a little bit more loose more fun feeling and I'm telling you if you feel that vibe you're at otai show it is a really fun place to bring your friends bring a date here it's open late it's affordable probably the most affordable is akai in like in all of Manhattan in fact I always get the teriyaki tei this is amazing here this is of course chicken thigh the only way they like to do it in Japan you get spaghetti too sort of an ode to the yashoku sort of western Japanese fusion dish or taishu is a winner continuing our late night Japanese concept crawl throughout New York City we're here at taka ramen owned by two Japanese guys named taka one was from the fashion world one was from the food world guys they do things a little bit differently this is a peppery karage with this dip right here it is designed to appeal to like Japanese but also you know more western people that's why it's not hyper traditional like Gorin was for example these are purple yam tempura fries I have never seen this anywhere else we've got the wasabi aioli we've got other dips I'm gonna just do all three one if you look at these Japanese pork sliders I'm telling you this piece is super thick it's gigantic it's actually a double slice and uh yeah just a little bit different you know it's not too different it's still like sort of what you might have in your city but just one notch elevated honestly guys this is the biggest piece of chashu I have ever seen in a Japanese pork bun this is almost like a big-ass piece a dominican or you know Cuban pernil guys I've had a lot of pork belly buns at Japanese ramen spots before and I think this is the best one I've ever had the chashu is nicely roasted I know they flamed they flamed it at the end and man it's just delicious honestly what you're looking at here is a fish and chicken broth and then you have grilled pork belly here and then you have minced pork here and then of course you have your egg so you got a lot of stuff going on let me taste the broth real quick and it has this dark roasted flavor dashi shoyu flavor it's really good man I mean I remember growing up really the only type of ramen broth that I would eat is like tonkatsu maybe shoyu maybe miso but now when you're in a bigger market a bigger city around so many Japanese people man you're gonna get all the ramen and let me tell you there's like a different style of ramen for almost every different region of Japan so that's why it's amazing I'm in a ramen sugoi this is the kimchi hiyashi chuka this is obviously a cold ramen that you're gonna eat in the summertime and obviously the kimchi is a more new element but what I like is that this spot is actually started by you know fashion designers and fashion designers no matter how old they are they are definitely more on the cutting edge to kind of blend cultures and stuff like that obviously them being from Tokyo matters too because maybe if they're from like a smaller region they might only want to serve that style of ramen which is totally okay but when they're from Tokyo obviously you get that kind of global mix fusion mindset so let me try this yo this kimchi version actually kind of tastes like a mixture between soba and the korean nem yang the cold buckwheat noodles and that's what uh I mean that's pretty cool so as you guys can see we've been kind of on this late night Japanese crawl and I think it's cool because in lower Manhattan below 14th you will get a lot of like Japanese spots now you might pay a premium because they're open late but honestly the quality is there like none of these spots are bad at all and I actually love how they all offer something different so man you guys again late night maybe not super late night but around 11 p.m 12 11 but around 11 p.m 12 a.m you still got some Japanese options