 As international students from China move to America for college, the image that often follows is of Balenciaga's, Maserati's and extravagant hot pot dinners. While this is only true for some, others are gritting it out just like any other small business owner. They're opening restaurants and food concepts in the most competitive market in the world, New York City. So let's check out 9 new spots that were opened by international students who decided to stick around. And we are in a seldom explored village, at least by us, the West Village. We are outside of Crop Circle. This spot just opened up and it is serving a Chinese street food that I have never seen been served in America before. Let's go check it out. Hello, hey man, nice to meet you. Fendo Guokui is a product that has a long, long history, but it actually got popular in the past, I'll say it's the recent five years. And we are looking at a Crop Circle original. Even in China, they're more like about the crawfish flavors, because they love like malachao, but this is a shrimp flavor more keeping in line with, you know, the traditions in America, the Northeast. Really excited guys, a shrimp guokui shrimp. So it's kind of like a shrimp paste that they put inside. Oh, this is the Cantonese influence I can tell. Wow. Wow. That's really good. You know what I like most about it? It's super easy to eat, it's super easy to carry. There is not a lot of meat, but I don't think there needs to be, because there's a lot of flavor. Spicy beef. Mmm, got a little malachao. You know why this is going to work in New York? This outer layer, this crust, does remind me of a thin pizza crust. This is kind of like a pizza crust. That's the best way I can describe it. It is. It's similar. I have the chicken guokui. I got the pork guokui. That's good. I like it better than pizza, to be honest. I said it, the pork one's really good. Okay, yo, Andrew, they got everything here at Crop Circle. Man, they are serving all the most popular foods. I'm going to try some of this beet salad, though. Shrimp churren bun. With the egg in it. Oh, last but not least, I got to try the version of the red bean. This one was actually done really well. I don't normally like this. Maybe I've just only been exposed to the white red bean dishes. No, everything was really good here at Crop Circle. Man, I am just glad to see street foods that I discovered in China make it to the U.S. It's good, man. Everything was good. You got a winner, manny. Shout out to you. Now, let's keep it moving. I'm excited to see what else we find. Yo, Andrew, we came all the way to Bryant Park. We're on 41st Street, Midtown. Andrew, we're almost never up here. We had to come to Junza, which is a homestyle Chinese kitchen. Junza refers to somebody with great integrity, and that's what they're trying to do with this restaurant. They deliver high-quality ingredients with very northeastern flavors. We got to see what they got. Let's check it out. All right, so immediately, I think you'll notice Junza is really modern on the inside. I know that a lot of the design work here, as Andrew, is actually done in Beijing. Is that the pepper beef in the middle? Yes, it is. Oh, we definitely got to try that. Do you recommend adding anything to any of them? I would say the middle crisp and the shallots, I think those are really kicking. This is kind of like sweet, greening eyes northeastern Chinese food. You can check out this. They sell their own chili oil here. So this is a mixture between the lion's head meatball and tomato egg noodles. So tomato egg noodles are sort of like a pan Chinese dish all around the country. The lion head thing tends to be more of a Jiangsu to a Jiang-type thing. Guys, I have this pepper beef. It looks like it has so much flavor, man. Let's go. Oh, this is saucy. Very beefy. It's a little jalapeno kick. I would say almost it started to taste a little bit like Mexican. I see the tomatoes. I see the eggs. It tastes a little different. Overall, I like it. I would say I like this dish, but it doesn't really taste like Zhajiangmian as much as it does kind of like a Mexican fusion of Zhajiangmian. It's still tasty. Sort of in the way sweet greens doesn't taste like any salad you've ever had. I wouldn't say that fully tastes like any tomato egg noodle I've ever had, but I like it. You guys, our final two dishes is the firecracker chicken, and then that is a chilled Chinese chicken noodle, you know, very popular in Taiwan and other parts like that, but with more Yuzu Japanese influence. I would say overall the food looks really good, though. Very colorful. Looks healthy. Nicely put together. To be honest, this is actually really good lunch food. It feels healthy. It's not too heavy. When you're even thinking about a lot of like sesame sauce in Chinese noodles, it can get really, really thick and rich, but it's very refreshing. So overall, I feel good about eating Junzi. A lot of flavor in this food. For me, as much as I like tomato egg noodle, my favorite dish today was the Lengmian with Yuzu. I had never seen anybody take Chinese chicken Lengmian and mix it with Japanese influence from the Yuzu sauce. Firecracker chicken is my favorite. The chicken's tender, has a little bit of sweetness to it. I love the cabbage that's on the side. Overall, this is my winner. Alright, next up on our Chinese international student-owned restaurant crawl is Zilky Kitchen. What they really wanted to do was they wanted to serve Hunan-inspired dishes in a fast, casual manner. This is something that's not, you know, seen very often because Hunan restaurants can get pretty expensive, but here they're trying to deliver it to the masses and particularly the students at NYU right here. Zilky Kitchen. Let's go. You guys are doing it authentically. We're doing it authentically. If you take a flight, go to Hunan right now, you'll eat exactly same stuff. Do you think it would be possible if you could film some of the cooking? Okay, yeah, sure. We are here at Zilky Kitchen taking a look at fast, casual Hunan. You got a stir-fried egg and hot pepper dish with added pickle greens. I'm actually the most excited to try this. Oh my goodness. Yo, Anna, pour the soup in. Pour some of the soup in. Pour some of the soup in. Pour some of it in. And then here I have the sauteed beef with the fried egg. It's good. There's so much flavor. Spicy, but not too spicy. The peppers are nicely cooked. They're not too raw. Moving on, I'm going to try the Hunan Mi Shem, super flavorful too. I gotta try this egg one though, all that flavor. Man, the green peppers are crucial to these dishes. This tastes like China. Yeah? All right. This tastes like China. You know, the funny thing is I had never been to Zilky Kitchen before, but today, let me tell you this. Are you from Shanghai, but you're partners from Yunnan? Yeah. And this food is mostly basic, you know? Yeah, most of that tastes like Yunnan, yeah. All right, you guys. We are at South of the Clouds and we are about to prepare the Hunan Mi Shem. So she said that is how they do it in Yunnan. A hot-ass pot, Andrew, contained in a wooden container. All right, David, you're looking at a silky chicken, aka a black skin chicken. Yeah, the chicken just comes like this. Andrew, we gotta first try this Yunnan Guoqiao Mian, crossing bridge noodles. Then we're gonna get to the Xiao Guo. The little pot was cooked differently. It was only chicken broth, no pork broth, but pork pieces. They said it's gonna taste really different. Crossing bridge noodles, Yunnan Guoqiao Mian. It low-key has a lot of spice to it, even though you can't see it. This is authentic. So authentic. I burned this out of my hand. This is the pork meat noodle, except still in chicken broth. Little pot noodles. Mmm. You know, straight up, it tastes like loud food. Yeah, it has kind of this sourness that's gonna give you that Southeast Asian vibe. Andrew, last but not least, to wrap up our chicken feast, it's a Yunnan chicken pot. They said they serve this to an U.S. president when he came to Yunnan. Oh, there's this little hole in the pot that goes straight to the furnace. So there was a lot of heat getting into this pot through this hole here. No, man, scoop that, man. I wanna try it. Yunnan chicken pot. Chicken flavor is so deep. It's like chicken noodle soup times five. That touches the soul. Oh my goodness. Dave, I gotta say, that's gotta be one of the best chicken soups I've ever had in my entire life. It tastes like, there's like no other ingredients there. I can tell it's a very little soul. She cooked me up something that was good for my soul. Mama's chicken soup. Could I have another bowl? She worked late. Nice just to keep on the nut lights. Gave me training wheels so I could stay on my bike. Last but not least, Andrew, we have a dish that's not from Yunnan, but has some Yunnan touches on it. This is a Yunnan version of huangmenji, huangmenji originally from Jinan, Shandong. Shandong, obviously, that's where our mom is from. It looks like this version is a lot less saucy. It's a little bit more dry, but the potatoes are really well cooked. Huangmenji, yellow braised chicken, but the Yunnan version. I can definitely taste the Yunnan influence and how fragrant it is. Honestly, it tastes like half dapangji and half huangmenji, which is, I can't compare this to other huangmenjis, but this is good. Andrew, overall, what was your favorite thing? And I gotta give it to the chicken soup here. It feels pretty torn because I liked everything, but I gotta actually give it to the guochao to the crossing bridge noodles. That was fine. Andrew, what constitutes public village as a hipster Chinese spot? Hipster Chinese spots, what they're doing essentially is I've studied Chinese culture and food, and I like this from this region, this from this region, and this from this region. I know how to make a good version of all of them, and I'm going to serve it at one spot. This spot is opened by the LGBT Chinese community. And that is right there, non-traditional. We're here with one of the owners, Kio. How would you describe this menu? It's authentic Chinese food with a little bit of a modern twist. She made all the chili oil from scratch, and then all the noodles were also homemade. Food is the key to your soul. If you want people to really understand you, it's like, you know, probably when you describe it with words, you know, you probably will be able to do, you probably will mess it up, but you can't mess it up with food. Alright, so David actually had a meeting to go to, so for the rest of this segment it's gonna be me. Let me, first of all, start off with this traditional plum drink. I'm always interested to see how kind of new school hipster spots are gonna do a twist on their plum juice. Very authentic. I'm gonna tell you that. That is a traditional drink here. Here's their berry mojito. Got a little carbonation to it. Elderberry, delicious, very light, flowery. These are two dishes that you're really only gonna find at really, really Chinese spots. And this one, the Cao Leng Mian, I've only seen it in Beijing. This is the first restaurant in America that I've even seen and served. This is a street food off of Beijing. Basically what they're doing is taking these long, flat, pasta-like noodles. They grill it with egg and then they fold it up around cucumbers and sausage and whatever else you got. Cao Leng Mian. Guys, it has a lot of hot dogs and cheese. I would say that's predominantly what I'm tasting. My favorite part is just the noodle and the egg actually. That's so good. This one looks a little bit cleaner, a little less messy, but it's still completely covered in flavor. Look at that. Yeah, we're doing a video on that. I love it. I want to watch. All right, so we got chicken neck right here. I don't want to be weird and rave about the chicken neck. It's honestly really good. What I like about the chicken rack is like you can just kind of bite at it. This is one of the must-get dishes. It's unlike any other Chinese food I've ever had. Okay, here I got the wanzai noodle. This is a dry noodle. It has like a lot of chickpeas, lots of vegetables. Oh, you got two types of noodles. Two tones right here. Okay, a little bit of soup at the bottom. This has that mala heat right here. All right, straight up, that is a tasty bowl of noodles. Man, I got to take one more bite. Dude, honestly, David is missing out a lot right now. Finishing off the meal, we have Bing Fun. This is a Sichuan dessert, but it's usually topped with a whole bunch of different things like crushed peanuts. You have a little bit of flowers in there. You have hall flakes, which are made from the hawthorn berry. You have a few goji berries in there, too. It's actually one of my favorite desserts. I don't even like growing up. I didn't even like Chinese scissors. That's because everything was just like red bean. But the Bing Fun came through, it's killed the game. Honestly, my God, that is so good. It's actually so good for cooling you down because the jelly is kind of thick and it kind of like soaks up all the spices as you eat it. All right, my favorite things here are absolutely the jigujang and the Bing Fun. I think this right here, these two, if you just got this, this is a meal right here. And to be honest, man, I think everybody should check it out. Public Village onto our next spot. All right, Andrew, we are in Greenwich Village. Essentially the NYU University Street area. It only makes sense that former NYU students opened up a Yunami Shen spot. David, I have a backpack on. I'm looking like a student. We're in front of a spot that was started by former international students. Let's go take a look. All right, you guys, this is rice noodle. It's a Yunami Shen spot, but I gotta say it's a little bit lower end. It's a lot cheaper than the other spots we've been going to. I feel like this is a student spot to me and I'm not saying anything about the food because the food actually looks pretty good. It feels like a student run spot. So I got Pidantofu, which is a thousand-year-old egg and tofu. I gotta say, Andrew, so far so good. They're packing the flavor. A little on the salty side, but actually overall very flavorful. Here I have the number one ordered item. This is the beef rice noodle with a fried egg and an extra drumstick. I got the soup right here. We pour this in. I got a tomato egg right here. I'm gonna be pouring it. Fast casual rice noodles at the rice noodle on the Google. Definitely tastes very homemade. Yeah, flavors aren't too strong. I think it's easy to eat, but I have to say the food is good. It's not complex and it's definitely not comparable to like Yunami Shen spots run by, you know, actual chefs, but it totally gets the job done. It reminds me a lot of China. Last but not least, Andrew, for 450 at the rice noodle, they have a osmanthus jelly. Not a bing fu. I've got to say, Andrew, that the rice noodle is maybe the most student-feeling place we've eaten on this whole crazy food crawl. Aren't you guys, we have arrived at one of our last and final spots, WT. WT was opened up by Chinese international students. It's sort of like the hottest new boutique boba shop in New York. And you know what I think is really cool is that it's on Thompson Street, which is really not an Asian street at all. But you see a lot of history here. There's like these dudes like playing chess right there and reading like that. What I can only assume is Ernest Hemingway. David, they're far past that. Come on, they've read all those books. I know, nice and boba. Now across from WT, there might be another new boba tea spot here. So they do coffee meats, juice, fresh milk tea, cheese foam. This is definitely Asian-owned. Now these people are doing a little bit of a different take. See that there's a non-Asian person working at the counter. Let's see who's behind all this. We do have boba, but that is not our specialty. You got owners of the spot on Chinese? Yes. They actually have another company in China. We actually have a sister store that's on... Oh, they do crop circle. These are the guys know Manny from Crop Circle, which is a spot that we're at earlier. Actually also has coffee meats, juice, which we're at right now. So we guys, I know a lot about boba. This taro was just slightly cold and it wasn't freezing cold. It gave me no brain freeze. Kudos to that. They got the temperatures on point. But the real test for the temperatures is the dragon fruit and the peach with the cheese foam in it. I think if they were a... So you're saying cold enough to be cold, but not too cold to freeze? I'm stressed, WT. They did a real good job. I can see why WT has been shutting the game down lately. Really get the real dragon fruit flavor without it being too sweet. Wow, real grapefruit, lots of cheese foam. It's not too sweet. Overall, I like it, but I can't drink it too fast. Andrew, I've got to say I was impressed by WT. No cap. All right, Andrew, we have to go to the battle of the international student owned boba chains because one is owned by economics majors. One is owned by engineering majors. I just made that up. And so both of these boba shops actually are right across the street from each other. One's Mino, one's WT. I would say Mino does not focus so much on marketing that it has boba, although they do, they're more of a coffee and juice spot. Pineapple coffee, my goodness. The pineapple strong, the coffee strong. Got brain freeze. I enjoy this a lot. I really like the fruit coffee drinks. I know they came from Japan originally and kind of got popular all around Asia. So as far as the fruit slushy with cheese foam, I would say it goes to WT. Mino is offering some products that WT doesn't even have. A boba warrants on Thompson Street. Who would have thought? Who would have thought three years ago you'd say that? Aren't you guys, thank you so much for watching that video. Please let us know in the comment section below. One, what are some other concepts you would like to see some international students open? Number two, what else you want us to cover? And number three, make sure you like, subscribe and turn on your notifications. Follow us on social media and until next time, we're out. Peace. Yo man, are you a fan of PG-1, the rapper? Cause I heard he's also from Dongbei. PG-1, oh my God. He's my favorite, yeah. Yo, shout out to PG-1, rapper China. Yeah, respect.