 So this is a drinking food with apparently dried marijuana on top What kind of prawn what planet did you get this from why did just fall off like that? That was too easy But obviously this is like a black crab, it's like the spider of the ocean So these are imported from Thailand Yes, I feel like they got bigger in the time that they left everyone knows Thai food many people have heard of Isan food from the northeast region of Thailand and you might know it shares most of its DNA with Lao food But do you know what it tastes like and do you know why everyone's raving about it? And why it's credited for providing a lot of the punch or maybe I should say elbow that Thai food has Let's head to Brooklyn and find out hit that like button and let's go what's going on everybody? Welcome to a very special Thai episode of fom bros food. All right right now We are outside of Zab Zab and they are considered New York's best Thai restaurant and one of the best Thai restaurants in All of America they originated in Queens. This is their second location and they specialize in Isan food All right, Brian, tell us about your spot man because you guys got you know written up New York Times time, you know the publications This is the true Isan flavor Is it is it kind of like Isan on a level that New York hasn't seen before I Would say so I would say so. Yes. Hey, man Isan happens to be my favorite region of Thai food and I know they're all great You know north south east west central. What do you think about the title of one of the best Thai restaurants in America? Would you take it? I'll take anything right? All right, you guys leading off round one here at tab tab We got the duck lop, right and a lot of people spell this larb, but it's actually more like LA AP right like a lot Okay, what am I looking at Brian? Well, this is duck breast that we finally chopped We got duck liver duck is it we have a fried duck skin on top. Oh my gosh This is all different types of cooked duck, man Is duck considered even more popular in Isan than other types of lava. These are all very popular lab Well, he's on it's popular with the duck flopping Off rip guys the duck lap is a five out of five immediately the page is going crazy I never thought I would like a dish so much that had duck gizzards in it to be honest I skip the gizzards when it comes to the chicken. I mean, they're okay. I can do it bet This is the best gizzards I've had from a file. Okay moving on to our other proteins here Brian. What is this? So this is a drinking food with with apparently dried marijuana on top This time cloud that guy Eating our fried dill is really interesting too. I've never had something that kind of feels like Twigs or weeds, but it tastes really good While traveling is fun, man. You can just travel to the top top All right, our next dishes here at top top We have the world famous crying tiger steak and the world famous som tam But this papaya salad is done a little bit differently. That's how my cool the raw shrimp the raw oyster The black crab the marinated black crab. Oh, I'm gonna shuck it together. That's it tab tab right here All right guys to the unassuming eye obviously you're probably thinking this looks like a spider But obviously this is like a black crab. It's like the spider of the ocean How authentic would you say this is just how they would eat it in Isan pretty much? Yeah, pretty much All right rounding out round one we've got the crying tiger in Thai you were telling me this is called Salong hi Listen, you can hear the state crying. That's why they call it a crying tiger Yeah, a little bit of a morbid thought that you hear a tiger crying, but hey tigers got emotions too guys Jabber with this one. This has a bitter flavor. It actually it's Okay, you know what I'm gonna try Let me try the bitterness. I'm gonna see how this goes I want to get used to that mm-hmm. Yo, it is bitter right away I might I might more stick with the traditional job. I'm not gonna lie. I'll stick it with the traditional. I Am surprised that some of these fusion steak houses haven't added kind of a crying tiger flavor I see them add different flavors. Well, I'm like man They gotta hit them with some crying tiger marinade aren't you guys that does it for round one But we're not done here at Sab Sab I'm telling you when I was growing up the Thai food I got exposed to it was good But it wasn't like great to me because it always tasted like kind of like Chinese food with more peppers in it But man, I'm telling you once I got exposed to Isam Just expanding my mind All right, you guys we have arrived at round two at one of the best Thai restaurants in all of North America Top top prime. What are we looking at? What kind of prawn what planet did you get this from? Well, it was hard to find these prawns But we found them Oh my gosh My goodness, so these are imported from Thailand. Yes. Oh, man. They took a long I feel like they got bigger in the time that they left. Um, alright, so how do we eat this? What's the best way man? Because this thing is huge. It's gigantic. You can crack it up like Guys what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this tail meat I'm gonna dip it in the juices up front cuz you know that's how we do Get them with a little bit of seafood sauce. I got a little bit of the the head protein David David You want how are you doing over there? Yeah, you look I'm just gonna drizzle on. That's it Thai River prawns That's that Sam, you know Sometimes when you get the giant prawns, you're a little disappointed because it's dry This was juicy man. I oh my gosh. Listen guys. I know we're in the Northeast right now But I'm I'm taking the river prawns over the lobster right now. My god Whoo, listen guys, this is one of the best restaurants that I've ever eaten at I'm being dead serious right now This place is incredible. Look at that straight from Thailand. Oh my gosh Aren't you guys next up part around to we've got a drink and we've got catfish wrapped in a banana leaf Brian, what is this drink? All right, so this is some new school and old school because David while you're sipping on that modern 2023 margarita, you know what I got right here. Oh man pork belly bamboo shoots All steamed together in a nice little package for you Mmm. He's on food. They know how to do bamboo's too Brian you got another cocktail here. What's this one? Oh, this is the Makgeolli, so basically it's a lime leaf And we marinate Let me try that infuse That's good. That's smooth. The only reason why I cough It's got a lot of citrus in there. Whoa Wow, even the cocktails are hitting you from different levels, you know, that's what I'd say Thai food is so popular because it's sweet It's sour. It's citrusy. It's bitter all at the same time. I never had this before in my life. Wow What do we look at? This is very traditional nam klik prahtu fried egg with a cha om leaf Then you have the brahtu, which is a macro, which is grilled. Okay, so I'm just gonna take a piece of this, right? Right You didn't want to explain it anymore. You said just taste it. Oh my good. What is this? That's a Thai egg. This is a Thai egg. Oh my goodness guys nam klik prahtu This is like we in the mountains I love how the vegetables are steamed so like this kind of low cabbage that you have here It's very very soft And I think it's a nice switch up from the raw wraps that we're used to do it. Yo, I love this egg omelette Thai egg omelettes, man. They might be the best in the world Moving on Brian, what do we got here? This is a dish that I think I want to say for sure I've had before but even the way it looks is a little different And how you holding up because I'm telling you the Muay Thai elbows, I feel like I'm in a fight with a rotain rotain now Lime soup fish brand Zeno Wow, you guys made this one sweet. Mmm. I taste a lot of sweetness. I sweet I taste the lime Mmm, damn it Brian. It's not right that a restaurant should be hitting this many home runs, man It ain't right. It's not right. Oh man I'm gonna eat it. I put it on top of my little sticky rice, which I love to do I Love it, man. I love what you guys did Cuz I've had this dish Previous times and it was a little sour for me, but you guys sweeten it up. Wow Listen guys, I don't know if you guys have ever had like sweet meat from fish. I know in sushi. Sometimes it tastes sweet I'm telling you not this fish is sweet. This is the best version of this dish. I ever had that is so good telling you guys You guys are still eating cheeseburgers. Are you kidding me aren't you guys to round out round two? We have been eating an incredible feast here at Saptop. What are we looking at Brian? This is Ling sap No other sport pork spines soup that we like is the Korean Yuk-de-jang right or gamja time. Oh gamja time. That's what I meant. Oh All right, you guys, this is Ling sap sap port next to Thai version. My goodness. Here we go Mmm. Mmm. Okay Salty sweet a little I feel that lime juice coming through. Oh Oh my god Don't drug test me right now. I'm gonna fail it. Don't drug test me guys. Even though I don't do drugs Feel like I'm on hot ones right now. Isan edition Trying to eat a lot of delicious Isan food and talk at the same time. It's very difficult guys We're trying to accomplish here. Okay. I know a lot of you know Especially people in the younger generation you guys enjoy substances come get some substances here legally David's trying to say you don't have to go to those substances. Just come to tab tab and get that get that tab tab right here This is a dare program. Okay. All right guys, um Brian, please explain what we're looking at here It's uh, we chopped whole chicken chopped it and brought them up with young tamarind leaves galangal lemongrass galangal sounds like a Lamborghini Oh, that definitely sounds like a substance. Hey, guys, I'm gonna have blue ginger one thing I got a note guys. Sometimes you look at a Thai dish and be like, alright, that's not that spicy Just watch out for these little buggers here. Okay, when you see the lot little Thai chili Just know that it packs a punch and you might take a bite. That's not spicy But if you have this in one of your bites Tom some guy Hmm. Oh, man, you guys know guy in Cantonese. It's the same word. Yeah chicken I love that you guys use dark meat chicken thigh right here. It's skin on I'm telling you guys. There's a reason why Pete Wells gave this place three out of four He rarely ever does that Oh, is this my favorite dish? All right, you guys our last two dishes here at SABtab is a Capral, but this is a different type of Capral Ryan What's different about it man? You told me it's the devil is in the basil leaves. Yes, we you we chopped the beef we hand chopped it. This is a ribeye and We saute with fresh garlic Thai chili And then we use hot basil this a Cropel a lot of people have a had a propel. This is a common dish But they do any different I would say this is common in the sense that it just got common recently Most people were still on the pad Thai to Pat see you pack your mouth and then propral Is this the best propel I've ever had let's try it's different. The ribeye is delicious, ma'am It's different guys. Yes. Yes, SABtab does serve a pad thai. Yes, they do have a propral You guys get it right here Hmm There's more layers and those layers are great layers last but not least and what are we doing here at SABtab? Ryan, this is a salt-baked fish, but man, what do you guys call it me and prop out? Oh my gosh, and you can see the salt right here I've had a dish like this before where they pack it with salt and then they bake it It's delicious. What is the salt supposed to do for the fish? It gives a flavor inside the Fish Me and cracker proud. I can't think of any better dish to end off this meal here at SABtab I mean like we said guys, you know Thailand has so many wonderful regions of food central south north northeast Isan is northeast it borders Laos a lot a lot across over maybe 90 percent Delicious mountain-driven dishes. They don't taste like anything you've ever had before You know my god and and and to hear about the origin story of SABtab Even the Woodside location where you guys just had your Isan chef cook up a family meal and then that family meal You guys loved it so much. You were like, oh man Let's just change the concept of one of our other restaurants into a tab tab and base it around his dishes I mean, I think that's an amazing story and that's the that's the beautiful thing about it You know and I'll tell you this like sometimes Food can be that simple just a nice salt-baked fish with some good sauce That's all you need. I mean they're importing a lot of this stuff from Thailand from very difficult to reach regions I mean your guys the supply chain Is is is not easy, right? All right, you guys we just left SABtab and that is northeastern Isan food But we had to check out a spot that is doing Chiang Mai style food Just so you guys can get some compare and contrast plus we got to get uh this soy sauce in here This is done in the grilled Chiang Mai style now the big difference between Chiang Mai food Then Isan food from Bangkok food to, you know, southern Thai food is that it's more salty and bitter and less spicy So this is actually my first time ever trying this gang-haw And this is my very first time having soi nem prik num specifically with the green sauce from Chiang Mai Like we said, it's very interesting because Chiang Mai and Isan are both very uh high up in northern Thailand But they do have different flavor profiles because one is the northeast and one is just considered the north Um, as you can see, we got all these accessories to eat with the uh, soi and nam prik num I am telling you guys if you guys have not had northern thailand food, whether it's Isan or Chiang Mai style Man, you are missing out. This is probably one of the most Best cuisines in the entire world to be honest My goodness, we got the nam prik num right here Putting it on the cucumber put a little bit of that Put a little bit of this Put a little pork rinds. I'm gonna even put a piece of squash in there. My goodness This is the big mac of soi nam prik num from Chiang Mai Next up from Chiang Mai. We are looking at gang-haw. This is a dry curry stir fry using Rice noodles. You've got other things in here. I could see on appearance wise This just looks like kimchi, but it's not this is my very first time having this dish So much bamboo essence from the stir fry in here guys. My goodness gang-haw from Chiang Mai Honestly, the flavor profiles of this Chiang Mai gang-haw remind me the most of Yunnan food Yunnan is a part of china where a lot of people said the original people who sort of populated northern thailand possibly came from The dhuang people and I can actually see the linkage and it's so cool to see these border areas the border other areas They're always going to have different influence just like isan has so much influence with lao food Probably one of those well-known dishes from Chiang Mai, which I just realized that it's from Chiang Mai Is the cow soy now this is like a curry chicken noodle with different types of noodles One's fried on top and one's just boiled on the bottom now the origins of this dish are actually really interesting It's actually called a chin hao dish Which means it's from the yunnanese people who came and settled northern thailand in the mid 19th century So it does have chinese roots But specifically from that particular group of people in china the yunnanese, which oftentimes are also muslim guys Look at this curry noodle fried always using the dark meat. Oh my gosh that chicken is falling out the bone Why did just fall off like that? That was too easy. That was too easy Oh my gosh, I like it now because now I can kind of like shred it up Get the two types of noodles and chicken in one bite You're tripping bro. If you haven't had this you're tripping I mean the reason why that we're coming here guys is to just show you that there is so much more besides just like You know Bangkok style food because now thailand is kind of being represented You know of all of its regions of food because to be honest it is really good And there actually is a lot of undiscovered food or I guess I should say Unpopularized food in the western world right now. And by the way, yes, if you're wondering why I'm using chopsticks for a Thai dish It's because the roots of this dish are chinese So, you know, it's a noodle soup at the end of the day You got to use chopsticks on a noodle soup, but everything else you can use forks of your hand