 It has my utmost highest of highest coke times. Don't put that bun meat burger in front of me from Saigon Social. Any day I might just make some bad health decisions. Don't make him make a mistake. Americans eat an estimated 50 billion burgers per year. So it doesn't hurt to have one on your menu even in one of the most diverse cities in the world. We're gonna meet some Asian chefs that are introducing flavors of their motherland in the most American way possible. Culture delivered as a burger. Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese. Man, I'm trying to find the best Asian burger in New York. Let's go. All right, so our first spot is in the East Village on 6th Street. This is Chef J.S. Lee's take on Korean food. And I heard he has one of the best burgers in this zone. J is actually born in Korea. So him doing Korean food is not necessarily fusion but serving this dry aged kimchi mayo burger that he's got extra interesting. They've got a chopped cheese tapoki on the menu. That's all I could say. It's very NY driven, chef driven. No one, we in the East Village. Let's check it out. Our dry aged double cheeseburger has been our number one item since last year. There's three things that's really Korean about it. The first thing is the sesame seed on the bun. The second thing is we use homemade kimchi paste to make our kimchi mayo. It's special because it's my mom's recipe. The third thing is I cook it. I'm a Korean dude, so. All right, Jay, man, at the beginning of this video we said that we're on a search for the best Asian burger in Manhattan. A lot of heart and soul in that right there. This is the dry aged double cheeseburger. It's really about letting the meat and the sauce shine. That bun is really good actually. It's really chewy and actually light and fluffy. From the pickles, it almost tastes like panchon. Yeah, exactly. I can see why Godfrey has named it one of the best burgers in New York City, hands down. I definitely taste like some nostalgia to like a Big Mac but just like spicier and just better and elevated. This bread is not like a picnic or like a barbecue type of, when you have a barbecue kind of bread. This burger is like a traditional steakhouse burger bread. If you're watching at home, you do not own this bread. No, this ain't out of your key foods, even whole foods, I feel like. All I wanted to do was pay homage to a Big Mac in a grown up way. Jay, you got a hit, man. You know, a lot of people try to pay homage. It was a successful homage. He was paying homage, but that was a successful homage. Oh, I think, I don't know. All right, man, we gotta try this next dish. This is your chopped cheese ddeokbokki. It's like a New York Korean dish. That's exactly what it is. People ask me, yo, what's no one's food? What's this cuisine? I say it's Korean inspired and New York driven. Chopped cheese ddeokbokki. Even a harder trick than I expected. It's almost like the best decadent nachos you ever had, but better because it's a different texture. I think the chewiness of the ddeokbokki and the rice cake, it gives you like a, I guess a higher end feeling. But then you do have like the chopped cheese aspect, bodega life. Last but not least, here at No-Won, we've got like a juke, right? Yeah, so it's inspired by a Korean pumpkin porridge. Being in New York and you're serving them something that's more traditionally Korean is a porridge. Pumpkin porridge. Oh my goodness, you guys. That's how you do fuse in the right way. I actually never had so much like kind of crispy and crunchy textures along with the porridge. You're doing one hell of a job. Thank you guys. If you guys are in the area, definitely check out No-Won. Try the dry aged double kimchi mayo cheeseburger and try everything else too. For me, I'm going back in on this. All right, David, we got to hit our next spot. Let's go. David, our next Asian burger we're having is the Bunmi burger here at Saigon Social. Saigon Social is owned by Helen Wynn. Andrew, we got to give full disclosure to the people. Helen Wynn is from Seattle. Yo, we know her. She's great friends with Richie and she actually opened up during the pandemic, but she serves an amazing Bunmi burger. But let me tell you that she is putting a big twist on it. Saigon Social, let's check it out. Tell us about this place. I mean, this is amazing. I just realized that there was not any restaurants that really resonated or was very similar to the food that I grew up eating. Almost your longing for Vietnamese food being here by yourself in New York led you to see the gap in the market. Absolutely. What I did here is I created a burger, but our patty is an eight ounce dry aged burger, which is a special blend of short rib and then dry aged rib eye. We're at Saigon Social. Let's go. I gotta get the burger. This is the Bunmi burger. But man, not just any regular Bunmi burger. I feel like people may have thought of this before, but she added the Maggie Gravy, the patte, Asian burgers. Let's go. I don't know, that's incredible. I could eat this every day. And the Oxtail Maggie Gravy, are you serious? Are you serious how good this is? No Seattle buying standard. This might be one of my favorite burgers I've ever had in my life. Easily. I didn't think Bunmi ingredients would go so well with a burger. Oh, the patte. Done. I typically don't even like patte. And I mean the patte. The Bunmi burger here is an absolute banger. It has my utmost highest of highest coke times. Don't put that Bunmi burger in front of me from Saigon Social any day. I might just make some bad health decisions. Don't make him make a mistake. Don't make him make a mistake. I know you love Bocaw, Bocaw, B-O-K-H-O. Typically comes with a piece of bread. Yes, this is a puff pastry instead. So this is a Bocaw pot pie, guys. The first time I had Bocaw was at Richie's Church. And Richie's family is good friends with Helen's family. Connection. Look at this puff pastry. See that? Do you see that? I can smell all of the spices from the Bocaw, bro. I believe, Andrew, the history of the Bocaw dish traces back to the French. And now we're upping it again with the puff pastry crust on top. French again. So it's like double French influence in the Bocaw dish. Every time I come to Saigon Social, Helen got a new dish that I love. Honestly. Are you guys ready? Yeah. This is a burger video, but this is kind of, like, coming from a whole other stratosphere. 60-day dry-aged tomahawk. I take inspiration from baldeflak, which is the shaken beef. So this is my version, which is the unshaken beef. So this is not something that you can get in Vietnam? No, no. Only here at Saigon Social. And then this is the... Garlic noodles is one of our top sellers, and we serve it with a variety of proteins. As you casually hold the biggest knife I've ever seen, dry-aged tomahawk bollock-lock style. The way the oils and the bollock-lock dip comes together, it reminds me a little bit of Korean barbecue, where you're dipping the beef in a sesame oil. I am so tired of eating great food today, man. Garlic noodles here at Saigon Social. Tons of black pepper. Garlic, I love it. If you are in New York City visiting, living here, staying with a friend, your Airbnbing, come to Saigon Social NYC. Gotta make Seattle proud. All right, I think you want to make a Seattle proud. Honestly, for me, you got my favorite Asian burger. It's good. I like all the other ones, too, a lot. But this is what will happen to be my favorite. Our next Asian burger, Andrew, are two different Filipino burgers here at Flip Sigi. Andrew, we have the original flipping out burger. Just a few Filipino touches. Maybe let's just say 25% Filipino. The kwapa. Then the kwapa, what is that? Not a kwapa, but a kwapa. Oh, a quarter. Oh, this only really has like banana ketchup as the main Filipino ingredient. Other than that, it's a burger. But this is the DP, which, Andrew, is at least the kwapa that is more Asian-leaning. There's a longer knee-sep sausage patty on top. It has banana ketchup. Again, Suka, which is the Filipino vinegar sauce that you're gonna give it. Maybe we should try the original first. Flip it out burger. Banana ketchup. I gotta say, it does taste like fast food burger. The meat's high quality. I do taste a little bit of that banana ketchup. It's a little bit tangier, a little bit sweeter. All right, now time for the most Filipino burger here. Andrew, as a guy who's not Filipino, I still give a Filipino rating of like two out of five. Oh, you're saying on the Asian scale of how Asian that burger was. This is the DP burger. So it's got one longanisa sausage patty on it, a fried egg, some Suka sauce, one beef patty, and it's also got a banana ketchup on top of that. This one's reaching, what, maybe at least 60%. The longanisa burger. Longanisa's Filipino sausage is very sweet, very firm, but man, it really worked well in that burger, man. I tasted it first. It was almost like having some level of a candied ham or bacon in there. Rounding it out here, we're not only having the Asian fusion burger at all these different spots. Flip Suki also does Filipino-inspired tacos, Filipino-inspired wings. They are dusted in synagogue powder, so synagogue is like a sweet and sour, tangy, Filipino seasoning. Filipino hot wings. It's like a buffalo wing, but it's got a little bit of that sourness and sweetness. I've never had synagogue wings before. It works out well. They just gave it the 25%, the guapa. That's the Guiano Reeves treatment. Lightly Asian. Filipino tacos, chicken adobo. Wow, don't eat all the chicken adobo. I'm trying. It's been so cool already to try different Asian burgers, man. It goes to show you that there's been jumps made because they started out with the one that was only 25% Asian, and now you have one that's like 60%, 70% Asian. The Asian burger battle. Let's keep it moving. All right, you guys, we have taken a look at a Korean burger, a Vietnamese burger, a Filipino burger. Now we are at Shinsen Bowery, taking a look at a Japanese burger concept. Guys, they have a Wagyu burger, but it's topped off with something very, very special, which I've actually never seen on a burger before. So I gotta try this, man. Japanese Wagyu burger here at Shinsen Bowery. Let's go. All right, I am ready to taste our Japanese burger. Here we have a fully Wagyu pate with the spicy tuna and the fresh uni. This is crazy between having raw seafood and fish. I think there's a mixtures of temperatures, textures, meat flavors. Let's go. Interestingly enough, it kind of works, man. It's definitely tasting the surf and turf mixture between the uni and the Wagyu beef. Wow, that is a burger you've never had before. All right, so our second Japanese burger, we have grilled shishito peppers. I always wanted them to be in burgers. It makes sense. It's like replacing the jalapenos with shishito peppers. I mean, it just works because they're a little bit hot, but they're not that hot. You know what I mean? They don't really linger, but they do give you that kick at first. I love this spot because they're able to also have fun with it while also offering those very classic Japanese dishes that they have here. It can go traditional, but they can also have fun with it, and that's important. All right, our next spot on our Asian burger crawl is in the Lower East Side on Canal Street. Holy cow, and they're serving halal burgers. You know what's really interesting is they're serving American burgers and American flavors halal. The owners are from Pakistan and Iran, but there's no Middle Eastern or South Asian flavors really influenced on the menu, although there is a peri peri. Holy cow, halal burgers. Let's check it out. All right, David, we got some American classics, except halal. Beef bacon on the holy burger. We got halal, chopped cheese. You do also have a peri peri hot dog. So I feel like the peri peri might be a little bit of the influence from maybe Pakistan or the Iranian side. It looks a lot like real bacon. And you know what? I can tell you, I already know that that beef is gonna be high quality because it is halal. Halal cheeseburger, the holy cow, holy cow. You see this handle of bun right here? Ah, a cushion. Nice. And you're a big bacon guy. How'd you feel about the beef bacon? I'm rocking with the beef bacon. That beef bacon was a five out of five. Wow. Halal, chopped cheese. So Andrew, chopped cheeses were normally pretty much eaten in Brooklyn. It's like a cheeseburger mixed with a cheesesteak, pretty much, but less peppers. That's good. All right, last but not least, we got a holy dog. A holy dog, halal hot dog with peri peri sauce. It's a good hot dog. Plump, has that snappiness. Better than shake share. Can you tell if there's a difference between halal beef, halal hot dogs? I mean, I think if it is halal, that means they took extra care when they did it. So maybe it's higher quality. Usually the halal meats from what I know are more expensive. It's less meat. Bring back that cheeseburger. Bring the cheeseburger back. Let me recall the cheeseburger. Ha! Wow, are you going home for it? Get the beef bacon, holy cow. Of course, we could not forget the smashed bulgogi beef burger here at Fat Buddha in East Village. Me and Andrew's all-time favorite bar in the history of bars, Fat Buddha. The kimchi slaw is so fresh, you can taste the bulgogi flavor marinated into the beef with the cheese. Super thick cheese, they smashed it down. LA style, but we're in NYC. In terms of drinking food, this might be the best one. That kimchi gives you that fermented fresh cake straight out the grandma's kimchi fridge. I've always been a big fan of kimchi hamburgers and Fat Buddha does one that is sensational. Oh, okay, guys. We could not end off the video by showing you the only Chinese hamburger out there from Xi'an Famous Foods. This is the Roja Mua. Now, I know what you're thinking. This is not actually a hamburger. This is not a Western-style hamburger. Not at all. So that's why I'm just throwing in at the end. To this day, guys, let me know in the comments below if you know of a actual Chinese-infused Western hamburger, but this is the closest thing we got, the Chinese hamburger. It's called a Chinese hamburger until there's actually a Chinese hamburger, okay? I wish David was here to finish off the video, but one thing that I realized through doing this video, all my friends, they can cook all this great Asian food, but at the end of the day, one of their best sellers is a burger, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it just goes to show you that is something that's gonna appeal to everybody. It's a familiar form. It's even a familiar taste, but you can dress it up with Asian flavors, and it's a great way to introduce people to flavors that they usually wouldn't have. The Asian burgers today, they're way better than the Asian burgers of 10 years ago, man. Those past iterations, no shade to them, but they weren't as advanced. Man, thanks again for watching, guys. Let me know in the comments below which Asian burger you found the most delicious, and if there is one that we got to check out, maybe there's a Chinese one. I'm looking for it. So let us know in the comments down below. Thank you. Hit that like button, click Subscribe. Until next time, we out. Peace. Two bars for the bunny. Like one, three, like one, three. Touch me. Don't rush me. Don't rush. Boom, buddy. Make us.