 I like it. I like it. That is good. I could see the soul. I could see the flavor in it If you like Thai food and you're in New York City, you have to come to Bangla There's always this notion that Thai food outside of the Asian area is not that authentic. Well times are changing We're here with hip-hop artist way from the famous Thai rap group titanium He's gonna walk us through his favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant that reminds him of Bangkok Then we'll hit up one of the hottest Thai seafood restaurants in America Alright, so our first spot on this Thai crawl is in East Harlem We're outside of a spot called Banglin and I got to say this is the most artistic interesting hole-in-the-wall Thai spot I've ever been to in my life way. Can you shed a little bit more light on this spot? So this spot has been open for like four years. I've known the cook for over 20 years We used to work together back in the day and now you open a spot here in East Harlem And it's like a mom-and-pop spot. What makes it special man? It's a one-man show. He sells clothes vintage He cooks he takes the order come as you are order whatever you like guys. You have to check this out Banglin Let's go about my food. Maybe I compare to the music because I always enjoy to the subculture You know for the mainstream culture, I guarantee you know the finger, but you never know the song You feel like you know it, but you don't really know it. You feel like you don't know it But actually you know it, you know something is similar something it in your mind something it in your soul I always tell you you feeling it when you're eating and after you eating how you feel that the more matter 30 minutes when you walk out for me the best way to communicate like you know, we look at each other and then without talking You can see you can feel all right everybody We got the spread here at Banglin Pat cooked everything himself. So you know you got the best chef You got the owner cooking your food. This looks like dishes only I saw in Thailand I have not seen these dishes at other Thai restaurants in New York City This is probably my favorite these two are my favorite This is lap fish with like spring onions and yeah, it's like a salad. It's spicy That's like a curry crab curry. This actually looks like the crab curry I had in Thailand And I went to this one spot and it was based off of Mark Wiens Recommendation he's like this food guy, but that's the only last time I seen something that looked like that This is not your suburban Thai express. No, this is not even Manhattan. This is not this is not any town USA Thai express guys. I could see the soul. I could see the flavor in it This is Thai soul food Could you real quick break down just the main regions of Thai food? The central Thailand Bangkok food is more of the American Thai food that people know, right? Yeah, those dishes are like the Pad Thai or like basic Thai basil kapao But then there's like Isan northeastern get like the grilled pork the grilled chicken the grilled beef very close to laos Yeah, yeah, the papaya salad Then you have up north where it's like cow soy This noodle dish that's like it's like egg noodles and it's curry talking about Chiang Mai region Yeah, Chiang Mai region and then they have like Sai Ua which is like the northern sausage And then you have which which one of my personal favorites is southern Thai, which is like a lot of the curry I heard southern Thailand is very interesting because you may see a little bit more like indian influence, right? We're joined today by radio rapper in Thailand as well Yo, you speak some Thai? I love it. You know, swatika Standard southern fried chicken guys, let's check it out I noticed with Thai fried chicken the batter is very light It's amazing the pattern cooking all this stuff because there's a lot of different techniques You know what's crazy? He was back there in the kitchen I just saw him flipping a lot of pans and then out comes all of this fried fish larb right here Very generous with like was this cilantro parsley? Look at that I've never had a fried larb before man. That's good crab curry right here Wow Who would have thought Andrew that one of the best Thai restaurants I've ever been to was in Harlem This is the crab fried rice. I know other crab fried rice is out there. They're a lot more lighter in color But this is this has got the flavor Yo, all the food here has that street food flavor Listen, if you guys like Thai food and you guys are used to going to all the big name Thai spots in east village Definitely you owe it to yourself to come to banglin here in east Harlem. My goodness. I'm so glad that you took us here Wait man appreciate it What I love about pat is he sticks to his guns man like he has his philosophies that he lives by He was like, hey guys, I don't want to talk too much about the food before you eat it Eat it first and then talk to me later Ask me all the questions after you eat the food because the food will have explained a lot Okay, for me, I loved everything here at banglin since we got to pick favorites I'm gonna go with the chicken because I thought that that sauce was not how I expected But it was even more sophisticated and elevated than I would have imagined the crab curry is my favorite man This reminds me of something that I only had back in Bangkok. So I'm going with the crab fried rice, man Like you said crab pieces are real real chunky and like it was good No, thank you. I almost saw I think I saw a whole arm I think it is an extremely unique experience here between the food and the quality and just even how it tastes And the flavors he's able to pack in the fact that it's a one-man show I don't think there's any other Thai restaurant like it But now we're about to head to our second spot fish cheeks and this spot is open pretty recently It is a seafood focused Thai spot and it's very very well known If we could bust a little bit of a quick audible before we go there When you were saying the chop cheese went invented on the street, right? We got well I mean, we're like four blocks away from haji. So we need to get a chop cheese come on man is visiting from All right, hey wait do it So we're gonna go get the chop cheese and then we're gonna head down to fish cheeks in lower Manhattan Let's go. All right guys. We are outside of the world famous chop cheese deli right now They also call it haji's but as you can see this is the place for chop cheese World famous chop cheese. Let's see what it's about New York Crispy sesame seed bread juicy. This is good. This is the highest quality chop cheese. I've ever had haji's you did that man So we made it all the way down from east Harlem and now we're in no ho on bond street And we're in front of fish cheeks and fish cheeks is considered the best seafood Thai restaurant out there Now what does that mean because a lot of people they're thinking I know what Thai food is I've had it in my hometown. You're like hold on. No, there's a whole another side Well, we're in Harlem. I touched on all the different types of genre of Thai food But I left out one is like seafood seafood Thai seafood. It's its own thing like completely different dishes They're completely different dishes. There's like a glass noodle with that's in like a clay pot with shrimp There's also okay the the crab curry But then there's also the oysters the raw oysters with the fried shallots And you're saying that this seafood Thai genre is not something that that us has had a lot of exposure to No, it's different. It's it's same same, but different the number one Thai seafood restaurant Maybe in america, but for sure new york fish cheeks. Let's go Partners grew up in thailand and these are kind of like the meals like your family kind of go out and like Right, we do oysters with like numptom seeds with sauce and fried shallots So, you know like stuff like that We can honestly say that we're the first Thai restaurant to be serving raw oysters. All right, you guys we are here at fish cheeks Dude, where did we start with way? One of these dishes you connect with this one All right, please give me some of these chili paste clan I like it. I like it. That is good Do a fish cheeks. Wow Right off the bat. Yo, let's go into this. Let's do this pot Man, this is crazy. That's good to moving on beyond the food We still got more food coming up, but I got some questions for you way You guys were some of the first like Thai-Americans to go back to thailand and kind of like spark hip-hop culture, right? You could say that we were like titanium back in like 1990 Kind of brought hip-hop westernized hip-hop to uh to thailand to pick up definitely to the mainstream kind of blowing it up It took a while, but yeah So Coming back now, how have you seen like the culture of thai cuisine in america change? It's I definitely think that in the past 20 years a lot of people That are non-thai have been to thailand and definitely experience Thai culture and Thai food And you see that now with the restaurants over there everywhere Like there was a lot of Thai restaurants back when I was living here But now I see it every corner like back in the day you would see like chinese takeout Now they have like Thai takeout All of Asia kind of likes hip-hop, but I feel like in thailand it connects a little bit better Thailand has this genre of music, which is maolam and luuk chung So maolam and luuk chung is kind of like similar to hip-hop and reggae and these are like ancient Yeah, this is like the local music the way they sing it the way they deliver it It's kind of like they're already rapping and they're talking about their struggles, which is very hip-hop So every chance that we had when we did interviews when they're like people are like What is hip-hop explain hip-hop to like people who don't know in thailand they're like It's very similar to maolam and and luuk chung that we're talking about our struggles We're talking about our diary is our personal diary just put in the form of rap Which is very similar to the way that they deliver their music even though it's sped up some of it's sped up It has that that that the beat You know, so it's it's similar in that sense and now now that hip-hop is so big in thailand It's more localized now and you know, there's there's people in like outside of Bangkok in the province You know doing their version or maybe talking about their struggles different than city Now that you're super established you have a label and you're signing younger artists Where do you hope that rap hip-hop in thailand? But I also I guess greater asia in general goes because it's still obviously Probably several steps and rotations have developed behind america I I definitely want you know to help develop new artists and you know help them accomplish their dreams And then also bring the business aspect because music business is a business And if they could live off of that and feed their families for you know generations and generations And if I could help be a part of that You know, I think you know green sauce fried shallots never had fried shallots on an oyster before Yo radio as a foreign artist in asia any sort of insight into like your whole experience or bringing the world together Or just being something obviously that people wouldn't expect to see in america. They might not expect to see it See it in asia either work for me was like actually like intertwining with the culture You know what I mean like understanding not just trying to come over there like oh, I'm the only black dude out here Let me be the best rapper like no like let me understand what they're doing and let me study the culture Let me study the music, you know People so that to me that's the biggest thing like you gotta come in with like an open mind And the mindset to like, you know, like I need the network and I need to build versus just let me just take Last time I filmed a video with way was back in Bangkok in 2017 It's so dope that we got to reconnect back in new york And now I got to show you a few more authentic Thai spots around the city that are really popping up Aren't you guys continuing our Thai crawl of new concepts throughout new york city And we are in lil chef mama in phai dai, which is not a neighborhood really known for asian food And they are serving authentic Thai snacks that are pretty rare to find Yeah, man I mean, I think so the chef and the owner are from Bangkok But you know, I think in the past being from Bangkok meant that you're just going to serve pat see you and pat thai Which they do have on the menu for the lunch crowd because you know, they are catering to the business crowd But man, they got some deep cut snacks and street food here. They have these mini dumplings They have the shrimp cakes. They have the chive cakes. They have these limited edition curry puffs You're not going to find these at your average pat thai spot in the suburbs No And to have it in financial district means that there is a change people want the deep cut Thai food This is a papaya salad android that is uh with salted egg yolk So this is a really really strong unique flavor right now I know that in thailand malaysia Singapore the salted egg yolk craze has been booming for the last like five years I love eating my papaya salad with almost any other thai dish I think it's just like a great kind of like a company men. I know that in thailand they like salted egg yolk so much They'll put it on anything papaya salad with egg yolk That's a little bit of saltiness. I like it. That's not really a flavor A lot of people expect to find in the financial district right next to wall street So david they actually only make a limited amount of these per day so they sell out early So i'm glad we came here for lunch Yo, a lot of people serve this chives cake, but this is a more authentic version of this snack Yo, that's the best chive cake i've had in new york city. Whoa, that is delicious Yo, shout out to other thai restaurants, but your chive cake is not as good as this Yeah, I think we got a going on this next because this just flew out fresh out the steamer So I will compare it to the dim sum dish that you can get called ha chung Which is like the shrimp chung fun the rice roll, but that's pretty good. It's got a little extra kick next up We've got the thai snack shrimp fritters. I actually never had this dish in this format I think other places serve this but not in this circular traditional way Surprisingly good. I didn't know I didn't expect much from that but that is actually got a lot of shrimp flavor David coming up. We have these mini thai dumplings which almost look like mini thai pelmenis They are literally miniature dumplings. So it's very interesting to know how they wrap them This was a lot of work somebody had to wrap every single one of these by hand guys There's no machine that can do this They really taste like miniature pot stickers So this is actually a popular way to eat the muya, which is the grilled pork And they kind of made into a slider form kind of like a uh thai ban mi Do you think it's interesting that in thailand in 2021 you're finding so many fusion dishes because obviously they have so much interaction with the west Yeah, I mean they have such a big uh stress on tourism So of course they're going to come up with new dishes and I think that is what's cool about So they told us obviously this is not a traditional thai dish from 100 years ago But you can find this in bangkok right now in 2021 Andrew you have been to bangkok I have not but I had no idea there were this many sub genres to the thai cuisine and wei was explaining it They have like a kanji cuisine that they eat only when they're hung over at like 4 a.m On the street outside of the club with a bunch of different accoutrements And I was like man the food culture goes deep in thailand much deeper than I originally had thought Man it just goes to show you that thailand even though it's a decently sized country But it has such a crazy diverse like cuisine And I think that that's something that people really need to realize and now in 2021 I do think people are demanding some of those regional dishes to come over here And you know something that you might want to eat for lunch even most people in america have only been exposed to pad thai And thai tea, but once you get to know actual thai people It's clear that they have a very unique way of life and philosophy that carries over into their cuisine Wei is an asian-american who built a successful hip-hop and acting career Bridging the gap between nyc and Bangkok and all around asia It wasn't easy and it took a lot of sacrifice hard work and self-belief But maybe if more asian-americans could do this the chasm between the east and the west could feel a little bit smaller and a little bit warmer