 Yo, this is a crazy game to have at a restaurant, guys. Dude, you know why I know that Sansha might be the best Yunami-shan spot in the city, Andrew? Come on, Abba, lonely. Don't leave me lonely. How's it a couple times? We're all familiar with American restaurant chains having success in the Asian market, such as McDonald's, Popeyes, Cheesecake Factory, Shake Shack. But what about high-end, nice Asian chains opening in America? Well, it's starting to happen now. Let's explore a few chains that have just opened up right in New York City, straight from Asia. Our first high-end chain from China is the Dolar Shop. Andrew, this chain is from Shanghai, but it's based off of Macau flavors, and they only have six stores in the West, but about 50 of them in China. I think a lot of people, prior to the $100 hot pot spots opening, would question, why can't you just do a $30 all you can eat? But let me tell you this, the quality and the cost per unit of every ingredient at every step, whether that's the broth, the meats, the vegetables, is completely different. Not dollar shop, it's Dolar Shop. Let's check it out. You can see the decor here is very, very modern. It's not trying to make it feel like that you're in like some Chinese temple, but it's trying to give those Chinese elements but in a new digital way. Another cool feature about this spot that's different than other ones are the open kitchen. Look, you can see the chefs pouring your broth right here. Look, he's slicing the meat, the wagyu right there. Kind of a soothing sound. Alright, here's a quick tip. When you're sitting down at hot pot, just know that there's going to be a lot of reaching across the table for ingredients and stuff. So make sure, roll up your sleeves. Woo! Okay, so the cubes... Five minutes for the cubes, ten seconds for the wagyu. You guys, I am sitting in front of a mushroom truffle broth right now. Take a look at this. These are the biggest truffle flakes I've ever seen. I mean, this is a very luxurious broth. Here I have the split pot. You know, some people call it the yin-yang pot because it's shaped into yin-yang. I have the silver broth, which is one of their signatures, and then I have the ma la spicy. David, what are you putting in? The first thing's in your broth. I'm not necessarily about the tripe life. I'm going to put these tofu skins. You should probably look for the check here to be about like 60 to 100 dollars, depending on, you know, what you order. I think there's a lot of variants due on the cut of meat and the volume of meat. This is not supposed to be in there for more than 10 seconds. I have the short rib, David has the wagyu. I can't even tell the difference right now from an eye test. 10 seconds. Dolar shop. Next up we've got the shrimp paste. Andrew, you're about to create some balls out of this. Shrimp paste here is very, very famous because they use a technique of slamming the shrimp to make it smooth. I think you just do this. I'm just going to, boom, hit it. David, boom. It's cooked. It was pretty quick. Man, I'm just going to go straight into the sacha for myself. I'm a really big fan of the sacha jang, especially the Cantonese style. Oh man, that was raw. Yeah, that wasn't cooked. Yeah, that was not cooked yet. I jumped the gun. I do like the mala broth, but not all the time. I think, I think especially for lunchtime, you cannot do mala. That doesn't make sense for you to be malaed out for the rest of your day. What I really like about the silver broth is guys, it took eight hours to make. It's very labor-intensive and it just tastes like a regular broth that you can just drink. I wouldn't really drink the mala soup on its own, but the silver broth, hell yeah. And in 2021, in a lot of cities around America, it's really easy to spend $100 eating something Chinese. And I think that that's really different than before because previously it was almost like the Coco Cabana style, you know, the Marilyn Monroe and all these like New York people would go to in midtown or in the hood, it would be like $10 for like, you know, pork fried rice and chicken wings. And then you have Chinatown style, but this is almost like a whole new elevated genre of chain that's being poured it over directly from Asia with no compromises. Oh, Eric, Eric, Eric, what do we have here? Can you share with us this ice box where my heart used to be is where, what are we looking at? Catch of the day, we have shrimps here, we have oysters, abalone and some scallops. Abalone, of course, is one of the most beloved mollusks of like Chinese culture. It's just one of those things that everybody loves. It's super valid, super expensive. I'm going to put the oyster in here, slide it in. And then this abalone, bro, I might have to put the abalone in the truffle one too. So it's extra fancy. Look at that. It's going to slide off. Oh, the abalone was cut up, but I'm trying to look for it right now. I don't want to lose it because each slice was like a part two, three dollars on its own. Oh, that's a mushroom. Come on, where my happy at? Come on, abalone, don't leave me lonely. There we go. Found it. All right, everybody, that wraps it up here at Dolar Shop. That is a Southern style, Macanese inspired individual hot pot spot that is from China, making its way in the West. Hey, on to the next spot. All right, so our next location that's coming straight over from China is called Hu Tao Li. Now, they only have a few locations outside of China. One's in Toronto, New York. They have some in Paris, Milan. This spot is very, very different. It is a live music Chinese restaurant. The decor is something you've never seen. The vibe is very different. They have cover bands playing all the time. The food is really good and it's very aesthetic. Guys, it's in the middle of Koreatown, New York, which is a huge party area, especially for Koreans and Asians alike. So it fits right here, guys. Hu Tao Li, you've got to see this. The live music hasn't started tonight because it usually starts at about 6.30, but still got some Chinese cover bands right here. So this is our house special Hu Tao Li roast chicken. It is marinated overnight in our special secret marinade. And then the next day it is dried out and we put it in the roaster for a long time. And then they take it out and they chop it up and display it like this. And then we take it off and pound it a couple of times just to get all the seasonings and make it a little more tender. All right, so our food at Hu Tao Li has arrived, guys. And I know it's not 6 p.m. yet, so the live music is not rocking yet. But I can tell you right now that based off of aesthetics and smell and even the dishes, man, there's nothing like this. So I'm going to start with this seafood fest right here. Obviously there's a lot of different seafoods in here, but I love how they kept the crab head right here. They have the sauce. There's a lot of egg in the sauce as well. So actually what I'm about to do is I'm going to take a lot of the soup and do something that a lot of people don't do, which is I'm going to scoop this rice. I'm going to scoop it into the crab bowl. They did not tell me to eat it like this. This is totally my own doing. So if y'all are, you know, offended by this and let me know. But here, guys, I use the crab head as a bowl. Let's go is Hu Tao Li have some fun. That was a great kind of spicy tomato egg flavor right there. If you're into that, definitely check that out. But I got to move on to the actual premier item. This is the Hu Tao Li chicken. This is a thigh piece right here. This is, by the way, one of the best bites of Chinese chicken right here. This cut exactly. All right, guys, I'm going no sauce. That was it. That is a must get here at Hu Tao Li. This is the dish that I've actually never had before. First time having it. This is the Gan Guo Tudou Pian, which is literally translates to with my, you know, very mediocre Chinese. It is a dry pot with potato slices and you can tell that they're lightly fried all over. So they're almost like extra thick potato chips. They're going to be crispy on the outside and very spicy because the peppers are cooked right in with it. All right, Ryan, can you actually explain to me why this dish in particular, which I've had before, is called the Ma La Shang Guo? So basically this dish is called Ma La Shang Guo is because that it has all kinds of different ingredients put into one of the pots. And it's basically a mix of almost every single type of dishes that you might have in your daily life. What does Shang Guo translate to? Directly in Chinese to English. It's basically a flavored pot since it has so many different flavors. Shang Guo, is that the same Guo as Huo Guo? Uh, yes. Shang is in like more flavor, right? Yep. Okay, okay. See, I'm getting a Chinese lesson here. See, this is the good thing about Hu Tao Li. All the waiters are very, very knowledgeable and they can explain everything to you. Shout out to the Si Fu's down there, bro. So good. Here you have your fried pumpkin with salted egg yolk pudding. Let's go on for this. I'm expecting this to kind of cool down all the other spices that I just ate. So basically what that is, it's kind of like a ball of like mashed up pumpkin. So it's sweet and it's super soft. Wow. That is so good. There's so many ways you can pay Venmo, PayPal, AliPay, WeChat pay. If you get your WeChat wallet going, you do need a Chinese bank account though. I actually really want to try to scan one of those QR codes right now. My QR code right there. Oh, it zooms in for me. I didn't even do that. Official account from Hu Tao Li. All right. So now I'm on Chinese page. I'm not going to lie. I can't read really 90% of that. I can send messages to the restaurant. Do you guys screen the messages? What if I send something very inappropriate? Yes, we do actually. The system actually itself has a detection. Now when you click the messages here and you can type anything and it will generally pop up in around one or two minutes. Hu Tao Li. I sent it up. We'll probably see it pop up in, you know, after a couple minutes from now. Every night around 8.30, you just scan the QR code with WeChat, Huixing, and then shake it. If you get the top three, you get a free drink. So we're scanning the game code right now. Now you're in the game. Shake it. It will start to get into the climb. So the faster you shake it, hey, hey, you're going crazy. You're going to blow out your arm, bro. This is my first time. This isn't the first time I've got to win. I'm telling it. I got a lot of experience. This is a crazy game to have at a restaurant, guys, especially when everyone gets a few drinks and up. Okay. So I hit the Lambo. I got first. Second. Oh, Layla second. Good job. Good job. Good job. Good job. Yo. Thank you. Good job, guys. Good job. Okay. My question is what do I win right now? Right now? Well, what do I win? Like a drink? I don't know. You know what it is? I won a fun game with the staff. All right, guys. Thank you. To wrap it up here, man, I think Hu Tao Li is actually kind of special in a sense that you know, when you eat at a lot of Chinese restaurants, it's kind of hard to feel a sense of community and camaraderie with people outside of your table. Here you have live music, you have games, you can win prizes, the staff is friendly, and so it kind of just brings people together. So I would definitely recommend coming here on a weekend or for a birthday, some type of event. All the food that we got with the seafood was about $200 after tax and tip. So I'm letting you know that the food is of good quality. It does taste good, and there's a lot to do here. And you know, just for a Chinese restaurant to provide this amount of fun and engagement, I think it's very impressive, and that's why they have so many locations in China. I even think some Western restaurants might kind of take cues and start incorporating interactive apps with their restaurant, right? It might not be through WeChat, but it might be through something else. So, man, Hu Tao Li, man. I'm glad I came. Thank you for coming to Hu Tao Li. Okay, our last and final Chinese restaurant concept that got ported over from China to America in the past year is San Shi Nudu. Now, this one kind of came in low key. There's not a lot of articles written about it coming over from Yunnan. There's not a lot of coverage of the founders, which is unlike the other two spots we went to. But they are on trend because, guys, the Yunnan rice noodles are very, very popular around New York. And they've got some really cool appetizers. So, you guys, San Shi Nudu here in the East Village, let's check it out. I'm talking about stuff that comes from Asia. This is absolutely what I'm talking about. A toy machine display of the Yunnan rice noodles. Dave is letting them know that we're filming a foodie video. This is Yunnan. This is Wangzu. This is Mo'er. This is Yun'er. This is Mo'er. This is chives. This is chives. This is bacon. Right, Andrew, we are looking at the spicy brisket. But here at Yunnan Mi Xian at San Shi, they tend to do it for you. You know how some of the other spots, they tell you to, you know, basically set up your own bridge noodles. Here is part of the package. Next level service. Actually at San Shi, they actually tell you how to do it. And the first step I did not know this was to coat the sliced meat with the scrambled egg. So, maybe they're talking about the fish here in this sense. Alright, so Andrew, I went and had the Fuyun, a.k.a. the ruler do it for me. But you, Mr. Mixologist himself, are going to be doing it yourself. Yeah. So what I'm doing is I'm going to mix up this egg right here. Do you see this? I have this sliced fish right here. I'm going to pour the egg on top of the sliced fish. You know what I love about this place, Andrew? I think that San Shi, it's so experiential for the $20 mark. The appetizers here at San Shi are super authentic. We're in the East Village right now and I have a Tieban Youyu, which is a grilled squid. And this is like a squidward squid. This is Jeyagun Fun. You never had that before, right? This is a fern root noodle. I've never had it. I know that there's a lot of other similar noodles around Asia, but this one is fern root. That could be from the Miaozhu Mountain. Yeah, man. It's supposed to be very healthy. Appetizers, Tieban Youyu. I'm not going to lie. Every time I have a piece of squid like this, it reminds me of two things. Taiwan, and the second one is a Chinese mukbang that just got banned. So this started off as a flavor at KFC China, the New Orleans flavor, but now it's just almost like Chinese young modern flavor. Yeah, it would almost be like what we view as like sweet and sour sauce at McDonald's where it's like it was based off of Asian flavor, but it just has gone a completely different direction. This is based off of Western flavor. It's gone on a derivative. And then of course I got the fried fish balls here. Alright you guys, on to the main attraction here at San Shi Noodle. Andrew, I'm looking at the Yunnan Mishen. For me, I got the spicy brisket, which they said is the number one top seller right now. A little bit, you know, not untraditional, but obviously beef brisket more for the US market. Yo, I'm going to try this spicy one with ramen noodles. So this is the only one that we substituted. And like I said, you know them giving you that ramen noodle option, I think is really cool. It's just... Well, would you say that a lot of western people, they wouldn't opt for the ramen noodle? Yeah, I mean if you don't know what rice noodles are, you can still come here and have the soup. Hua Jiao Ji Tang. Winner, winner, chicken soup dinner. Dude, you know why I know that San Shi might be the best Yunnan Mishen spot in the city, Andrew? Because I've got this same fish maw chicken broth at some other spots, and I really didn't like it. But here they executed it A1. Guys, as you can see, we went to three different price tiers, three different experiential concepts. Andrew, what do you think of all these spots that are opening up in the past year directly ported from China? Obviously some of them they're changing them more than others, and some of them they're just keeping straight up fully authentic. A lot of people would think that chains from China are only going to be very high-end and expensive. That's not necessarily true, guys. San Shi, I mean you can eat for under about $15 here if you just get one of these to yourself. And it's a really cool experience. It's very clean. The decor is still on par with a lot of other spots. The spot that I'm looking forward to going back to is definitely Hu Tao Li just because the energy is so different. It is more than a restaurant. It's like a Chinese experience, not just a Chinese restaurant. Really cool that all these Chinese concepts are coming over. Obviously, statistically do I think all of them will be successful? No, but some of them will be, and it'll be dependent on the adjustments that they make to adapt to the market here. I would say that one concept I'm really looking forward to coming over, Andrew, is a Huang Meng Ji concept. And they already have it on the West Coast. Yang's Braised Chicken, but they kind of like westernized it too much. I'm talking about the real authentic Jinan Huang Meng Ji from Yang's. One thing that I would like to see in America that maybe America's ready for it is this one restaurant that I've seen advertisements for in like the airport where it's like this big Mongolian guy eating this lamb rib. And I just think the Mongolian lamb ribs, they got to come to America, man. Alright you guys, thank you so much for watching that brand new Chinese concepts restaurant video. Please let us know in the comment section below a chain that you'd like to see come over. And what do you think of what we tried today? Is it for you? Do you think as an ABC, even if you're like American born Chinese, can you relate to it or do you feel like too distant from it? You know, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. Let us know in the comment section below. Like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. And until next time, we out. Peace. Eric, you're from Macau, right? And my father's from Hong Kong. So, you know, we have a lot of Southern blood and Southerners, they love seafood. Absolutely. Yeah. They call me and I feel like they call me a cat because I eat fish a lot. They call you a cat.