 Wow is it my birthday man. This is definitely all one noodle man. Look at how much trouble we're having right now But I'm telling you this feels pop Say what's up to him in the back LIC is nice and it's clean. What more do you need to say ties team the New York Times just called Long Island City the New Asia town citing the huge Asian population increase and all the stores and restaurants that open up in the past few years We had to see what all the hype was about this was our first trip ever to LIC And we're starting off a yampling a Taiwanese fast casual owned by our friends Chris and Howie that opened up just two years ago But was a pioneer in the LIC Asian food game Starting off our LIC crawl. We're here at yamplings yamplings was started by two Taiwanese and a Korean friend So the three buddies came together. They created this spot. It's mostly based around Taiwanese dishes All right, let's start with the beef noodle soup. I mean your own man Now that tastes pretty good. That's pretty authentic, man You know, I think a lot of people tend to believe that when spots are started by like Taiwanese Americans or Chinese Americans or Asian Americans not gonna have the same like authentic flavor But man, this is good and the beef shank is really soft. Look at that Mmm. All right, let's check out their Taiwanese guo tia now as you can see guys Maybe the shape looks more like a Chinese style But then the fact that they have all the sauce and the fresh cilantro and onions on top. That's very Taiwanese Taiwanese guo tia Mmm all the sauce fresh cilantro and onions just like the Taiwanese do here's their fried chicken sandwich They fry it in the Taiwanese manner kind of like a GPI here You have fresh basil leaves. You have a basil aioli and a potato bun Man, you know at the end of the day, they still are American. So, you know, you want to bring some Americanized items One thing you will notice about a lot of fried Taiwanese chicken sandwiches is that the chicken patty is way bigger than the bun twice the size Here one of my favorite dishes of all time. Zha jiang mian. You got a little oil on top Whoo, I've never met anybody who didn't like the fried sauce noodles. Aka a zha jiang mian Yo, just like I'm building the Taipei railroad system here I got the lunchbox fried chicken on top of rice with a little bit of pork meat sauce on the bottom And you know what also goes really well with fried chicken beer Taiwanese beer great flavor I've never had this flavor, but I've had Taiwanese beer before like 40% grape juice 60% beer I like it yamlings is really cool because you know unlike it being a chain that is ported over from Taiwan or China You know, this is a homegrown Asian-American business And it's still serving pretty authentic recipes and they're making it accessible and appealing to all types of people You know as I've been in here obviously Asians have come through but a lot of non Asians have and I think that's really cool You need spots like this and they are securing their spot in the LIC Asian boom. So shout out to them What do you think about LIC kind of becoming this 2022 They say, you know Yeah, yeah, I've definitely seen the change. I mean it's happening really fast actually like literally over the past year You know just right across the street, you know, there's places popping up all like Asian food drinks But yeah, I mean it's really exciting to see all right guys. We got a long LIC video today We're gonna hit up multiple spots So I need a power-up and I'm gonna go to Chunyang, which is one of the premier Taiwanese Boba brands from Taiwan I'm gonna grab something real quick and then come back toffee cheese cocoa latte whoa You know that top layer was like this thick cheesy caramel cream and then it hits you with the hotness of like the Coco that was a crazy drink. I did not expect that here. I got the zengzi oolong Sienna I'm sorry. I'm working on my Mandarin, but this is a ginger latte Mmm, very gingery. They told me to turn up the sugar so that it could balance out with the ginger spice Hopefully it wakes me up That's like eating one of those ginger candies that are wrapped up in plastic and you just like stuffed it in a drink Where would you rank Chunyang of the Boba brands from Taiwan? Like what ranking is it? Alright everybody, I got to tell you if you see a Chunyang open up in your neighborhood It means that there is a sizable Taiwanese and Chinese population and not just Asian American not just Chinese American Like they're probably from China or Taiwan just because this is a pretty traditional spot. Listen. I got it ginger oolong And I got like a a toffee cocoa cocoa latte. All right, this one's pretty traditional So, you know, it says a lot about LIC and how it's changing. All right, you guys I've got to admit Long Island City in some ways and it feels like Asian parts of like downtown Toronto Because we are just in a space right now that you would never get in the city We're like in a Industrial garage that has been converted into like a noodle craft shop Yeah, and it's gigantic and they actually have a mixture of different styles of like kind of the Chinese diaspora here They have some Singaporean influence. Obviously, they have the Lonzo Fresh handmade noodles and then you also have like a lot of Taiwanese of influences. Yeah This is actually a yo-po-mian. This is a scallion oil noodle, but I added the shrimp to it So it's almost got some vibes of a like a more fresh like thanzai-mian from Shanghai. Oh, man This is definitely all one noodle man. Look at how much trouble we're having right now. All right, guys I just got to go in at noodle craft. They also have dim sum like we said One of the owners is from Guangzhou, so you're seeing more, you know, obviously the Cantonese influence So dim sum, laxia, and dan dan mian, and Sichuan, New Roman all in the same spot Would you say that appearance-wise this almost looks more like a Japanese shumai, which is like lighter color Maybe less pork obviously than the traditional Cantonese one. You're right because in a Japanese They really like seafood their shumai's are mostly shrimp and that is a pure shrimp one I hope to see more like authentic like Chinese or different like, you know origins of Chinese food Feel like it needs more Yes, I want all right One of the things I noticed about being in Long Island City is that a lot of the owners are young whether they're from Asia or They're Asian-American and that just leads it to have a different vibe It does it does and you know people love that heritage like rustic vibe that Manhattan has a throwback But I'm telling you this feels pop. Hey, I'm trying to get this mango coconut saga or this matcha red bean Or the black tea bubble, which one are we getting? I don't know. They all look great Alright guys, we're here at taste cream. What they specialize in is mixing Asian flavors with Western items and that's a leachy rose cake This is a Earl Grey blueberry one Obviously this is not necessarily Asian in the sense of like it being Earl Grey But the cake is really soft the frosting and everybody knows Asian frosting has a like lighter weight and lighter density to it And here I have the leachy rose obviously rose is kind of floral fragrant You know popular in Thailand and Indonesia. I'm telling you guys this blueberry Earl Grey is a 10 out of 10 Absolute banger come support people who are taking risks mixing Asian flavors fusing them with Western items over here We've got a hoji chow cookie Andrew. You've got a black sesame cookie. These are super soft The black sesame flavor is super strong in here. Imagine a peanut butter cookie, but just flip with black sesame flavoring That's how good. Oh my gosh. What is this? This is the leachy raspberry rose lemonade Andrew this is for you because you had the leachy rose cake. Oh my gosh I have the matching drink and cake Wow is it my birthday? Oh, seriously? Oh Nice and tart citrusy taste green check it out. L. I see Jackson have say what's up to him in the back I mean, there's a lot of diversity in the food Whatever you can find my hand. You can be there's only like one of each There's an appeal to housing the neighborhood is it does have a feel of Manhattan, but it's in Queens, too And it's a very nice community isn't there's a nice parks here and then a variety of restaurants, too Oh, okay. I want to move here All right, you guys we're here with Danny the owner at this location a l-milky or I'm okay. I'm okay What makes I'm milky different because I'm assuming you guys got good milk Yeah, so what makes I'm looking different from other bubble tea shops is that we use fresh farm milk And also our tea leaves are hand-picked and it gets imported from Taiwan. All right, you guys. Let's try it out I'm milky L. I see is like sort of a brand new part of New York You know what I like is because for me. I'm a little bit tiny bit lactose. So I got the oat milk option This is good. What can you tell us about this community? Yeah, I think I see it's definitely a growing community. I'm more modernized flushing for sure However, I do feel like flushing. It's still always wants to be like a like home You know what I mean? All right, right now. We are outside of the newest Asian food hall in Long Island City It's connected to the five points Condos and I'm sure you know a lot of the people here who live in this area will come here It's mostly Asian brand new open up about four months ago. Let's check it out All right, we got our mala shangguo It's kind of like a Sichuan stir-fry a lot of people really like mala shangguo even Westerners even non-Chinese They like it because it's a little bit less heavy way to get the Sichuan flavor You know, you don't have to have the big Sichuan hot pot with all the oil and stuff like that. There's oil, but not like a ton, you know Here we have a lot of tofu skins. We have the deep fried Flash-fried potatoes. We have the fish filet. We have the beef here. You got bok choy. You got some enoki mushrooms You got the spam. Let's go Voila ABC Daniel Absolute better cooking mala shangguo fish filet and enoki mushrooms Mmm. Honestly, this little hidden gem that just opened is kind of cool. You can come here study get some Sichuan food Get some boba get some poke chill out. It's nice. It's clean. It's warm blasting seapop. Shout out to ABC eat Andrew the American equivalent of what Chinese people love to eat mala shangguo in is people wanting to eat like Texas Or Memphis smoked baby back ribs inside of a contemporary modern art museum That's a statement One thing that makes lc feel really like a mini city next to the city is the density of high rises Our friend shandy from brooklyn now lives in five points So we had to get a tour and hear why he loves living in lc so much y'all. What up shandy Homie from grand street park Now you're living here in five points this new building obviously it replaced the old five points Um, man, what can you tell us about living in lc? Um, I think it's a nice balance between like not having to live in the city by the same time you get the Same vibe a lot of folks that are from the city kind of move to lc But I think in the next two years there's going to be a lot of like plushing restaurants here. Um, I feel like the crowd is great. Everybody's like super chill if you want a nice semi quiet asian life in the city lc There we go. All right shandy behind us is court square diner This sort of represents old lc right because this has probably been here for like 50 years All this stuff around us has been here for like five years. I mean, what do you know about it? Um, I know this is where everybody usually hang out after like a go party and stuff their food is pretty good It's kind of nice. It's like got that nostalgia feeling even though I wasn't like living in the 50s, but All right, you guys if you can have all those luxury asian high rises in lc You got to have some kawaii anime kuroki stuff. Let's check out this test Let's go Okay, you guys we've got the ken drink the chun li the majin bu the vegeta for me I think I got to go with this the chun li and the majin bu Yo d what did you get? All right, I'll tell you this that is more asian than anything in manhattan All right, I got the majin bu ocean bomb peach flavor at the ken sparkling tea peach flavor It's chun li, right? Oh, you're right man. I had the chun li one. It's an official asian enclave when there's a pairs back in There's cenas don't know for it All right guys as you know, we are technically in queens nearby elmhurst They actually have a thai food truck. This is very rare to find especially in the city. You'll never see a thai food truck Oh my goodness. They're making it fresh. They got the fresh brew thai iced tea. Okay, so so they have uh Pat krupao, you know thai sausage fried thai sausage fried rice. Oh I'm tempted but I can't do it Do you like long island city? Yes this area What do you like about it? People are nice and it's clean, right? Uh-huh. Yeah. Hey, you guys heard it here LIC is nice and it's clean. What more do you need to say thai iced tea? All right, our next spot in l i c is called kuku kachu Uh, the owners are from china, but they wanted to open a modern chicken spot Now I do think spots like this do kind of exist in the big cities in china like shanghai for example Um, so i'm interested to see their twist on western chicken and waffles chicken and fries chicken sandwiches All right, everybody in my hand. I have their newest item. This is the guagua chicken sandwich I thought gua meant like guabao like something chinese, but it actually just stands for guacamole So you got guagua kukus. Man, that's a lot. That is actually fresh guacamole right there Yeah, I can see those pieces of avocado. All right guys, uh, let's check it out, man This is a chinese fried chicken sandwich Um, as you can see, uh, there is only chicken thai as it should be with any good chicken sandwich It definitely reminds me of the uh, mcdonald's chicken filet sandwich from out there, you know Because like we always talk about the asian fast food chicken sandwiches out there are to be honest better They're tastier so man shout out to them and they're doing a whole bunch other stuff They got like chicken and waffles and all these other dishes and they're just trying to do something new But but uh with a twist If the make shanghai from china could work in the states, um and blend in even with other flavors And it goes to show you that it can because pretty much they took the chinese chicken sandwich from mcdonald's And then they put on guacamole and it's good. Yo, they got the whole 88 rising playlist. Just come out and check out kukus In my opinion, like this place is like exploding like we are all like doing like Great here. So like this is definitely gonna be a new Like asian town. All right you guys, we have to end this edition of our lic food crawl andrew at the building Jackson park that's sort of like i want to say spark this whole Asia boom asia town boom of lic I mean once this thing went up and this many asians moved in guys I think Everybody else knew that they had to open up at least a food cart if not a restaurant And this is one of the food carts right here guanbing china guanbing. We got full on dishes here We got to do the peaking duck one and or look at the photo. Yo, actually, you know, can we get the photo? Can we get one uh, uh, beijing khao yan Can I get the classic khao lang mian the khao lang mian is a Street food from northern china that the first time I had it was in beijing like six seven years ago There's only one or two spots in the u.s. That i've ever seen it at. This is one of them David that's a guanbing. It's like a thin Scallion pancake. It's thin like a jianbing, but maybe material wise more like a scallion pancake I give it a four. All right Overall we got to see the basis for a modern asia town 2.0 being laid down I think over the next five to ten to 20 years You're going to see something really really special come to life and considering you're only 15 minutes from the city And brooklyn and 20 minutes from flushing. It's got the location to grow I mean, who knows maybe in a few years when I want to start a family even I move to lyc What do you think? All right, everybody that wraps it up for our asian lyc video part one Let us know in the comments down below if you would ever move to lyc in number two Let us know if we missed any spots that we need to hit up next time guys Long island city. It's really my first time going around scooting around checking out the neighborhood. It's cool I see why people move here