Sichuan food in Paris is SO AUTHENTIC?! My tastebuds are confused....
this is the story of my Cantonese friend who ate a mildly spicy dish So spicy!! i didn't even give you the pepper it's just rice these are gonna kill me these are gonna make me cry oh that's tomato maybe we should take you to a spice camp where you train well we did the next best thing we took him willingly might i add to a sichuan restaurant where they have this one dish on the menu called shangxin liangfen literally translates a sadness heartbreak cold noodles Do you know why this is called 'sadness' cold noodles? because it will spice you to tears stay tuned and as always don't forget to subscribe the time has come to say goodbye to this gorgeous castle our home for the past week it's always been my childhood dream to stay in a Castle and this experience has really made me feel like i'm living in a fairy tale so i want to give a huge shout out to my friend who owns this place who let me come and stay and unleash my inner Disney Princess if you want to get away from everything the noise the city life this is the perfect country life experience in nature well as much as i enjoyed our fantasy life at the castle it is time to get back to reality we are heading to Paris i am so excited to finally do some food adventuring here and there's someone i am so excited for Alice to finally meet bienvenue a paris we are in Paris and guess who we've got here bonjourrrr it's peter in paris bonjour alice wow so French last time we did a video together that you spoke a little bit of French for us but you were speaking like Emily in Paris French bonjour bien sur so to prove to the people that you actually can speak French after a year or so living here in Paris can you guys commence a conversation in French haha anyway today we are not having too much to do with Parisian food French food at all i thought we could take a dive into the Chinese food of Paris because i did hear that there is a large Chinese diaspora right here you can find a lot of Chinese food just something really random that i have just noticed so notice this statue here she is carrying what i can only assume as a pigeon and what is all around her pigeons okay i mean not that crazy unless you consider that there are also three other statues where there are no pigeons this is the pigeon goddess. first up we're heading across town to one of Paris's Chinese food hotspots so i should put it as like a Chinatown kind of like a similar concept in Paris the characteristic of this place is that it's not only Chinese here in the 13th you'll find a mixture of southern Chinese, Vietnamese Thai and Cambodian cultural influences as well as food as we probably know the indochina peninsula like Vietnam Laos Cambodia these three countries were colonized by France there were probably two waves of immigrants coming over here from that time so one is after World War two and one is like by the end of the Vietnam war and of course there are also Chinese diaspora a lot of Chinese diasporas living in those countries and then they came over here as well so as a result the 13th here is a cultural melting pot and i think our taste buds are in for a treat today restaurant Paris we have some Chinese writing here we have English or French here and then we also have some i guess Thai over there this is a fusion Chinese restaurant with southeast Asian cuisine and i think the back of the menu says it all this restaurant was established in 1982 and combines Cambodian, Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine and from this important cultural blend the harmony of the 13th arrondissement is reflected a neighborhood where southeast Asia meets and mixes and as you perouse the menu you'll realise it's the embodiment of fusion. from pho to pork buns to papaya salads to Beijing sour and spicy soup to Vietnamese spring rolls to loc lac a Cambodian Vietnamese specialty to spicy Thai stir fries seriously reading the menu is like a tasebud summary of a four week vacation in southeast Asia and the dishes they come out quick, steaming and oh so fragrant the Chinese rice noodle soup the papaya salad the Thai stir fry the chicken feet and this loc lac a dish i've never tried before it's one of my favourite dishes growing up in Australia i've learned that loclac means to shake which comes from the cooking technique where the diced meat is constantly shaken in a wok it is a diced beef marinated in different sauce in like a soy sauce base, oyster sauce as well and some fish sauce i can't help myself just as aromatic as you'd expect the meat is so tender and it's actually quite sweet too but of course i can't overlook that tomato rice it's served with it's also served with this sauce here it's a vinegar sauce so it's gonna be very sour you probably put too much oh yeah i've got way too much.- i kind of did that mistake once and then i learned from it they put egg in it as you can see they put some fried eggs so it's kind of more like a fried rice with egg and tomato what i like is that the tomato rice that umami nature it bounces well with the sweetness of the meat and then also the sourness from that vinaigrette it's a really well balanced dish and just really nice to eat okay up next we've got our Guotiao Aka Chaoshan style rice noodles from the south of China and we've been provided with some lemon and bean sprouts to go with it which i guess brings in this Vietnamese flare because i don't think i've personally seen Guotiao eating like this in Chaoshan before but let me know in the comments this is my favorite dish here it smells really fresh i do love this white Chubby noodle oh the Noodle looks so white and Chubby is this how they would usually look in the Chaoshan region yes in Vietnam they'll be thinner nice texture also got these beef balls inside that reminded me so much of the beef balls i ate in chaoshan a few years ago they're airy and springy to the point they're almost crunchy i love it with the bean sprouts they just make this dish really fresh a whole lot of texture. next up we've got one of my favorite chicken feet. chicken feet in France in a restaurant specializing in Vietnamese Cambodian thai and chinese food chicken foot for you a chicken foot for you and a chicken foot for me oh it's totally very nice it reminds me of Cantonese dim sum i'm quite fussy when it comes to the chicken feet i hate it when you bite into a chicken foot and it's like not soft and it's hard i like it when it's collageny and you basically don't even have to bite down on it the bones will just slip out on their own and it's a really salty umami flavor and actually fun fact if you take a look at a sauce here there are black beans there are garlic which is exactly what we use in guangdong to to like the marinate of chicken feet and to steam it with it's time for our Thai section we have our papaya salad and this one sauteed basil prawns over rice and basil is used a lot in Thai cuisine but the basil is different for Italian basil it's Thai basil which has a more citrusy flavour and taste and oh my goodness talk about fragrant from the smell alone this is the one i was most excited to try it's umami from the fish sauce garlicky and slightly spicy and uh oh looks like Peter has just discovered that for himself i didn't even give you the pepper it's just right i'd love to take you to an Indian restaurant it will be hilarious and funny and that will probably end up crying maybe we should take you to a spice camp to train oh yeah you train in gradation is that a thing we can make it a thing for people who want to travel to China or to anywhere with spicy regions sign up to alice's spicy bootcamp and then black belt means you can take ghost peppers you can take the whole level i will not challenge that.- i don't think i'm a black belt
no way no way those are next level last but not least we've got our papaya salad these are gonna kill me these are gonna make me cry that's tomato oh gotta love me a papaya salad, so fresh so zesty it's the perfect refreshing way to round off this table of food and sometimes a picture paints a thousand words. we loved the food here oh my goodness check this out hot pot is known as fondue in France that is the cutest, fondue but i guess it makes sense right? at the end of the day is a cheese or chocolate fondue not simply just a cheese or chocolate hot pot this has given me a lot to ponder how about this for Fusion we've just come across an Asian baker here and they have macarons which is very French but check out this flavor just around the corner here we actually have a Durian Macaron which we just have to try Durian Durian Macaron would you say that's a typical flavor for a French Macaron no i mean i don't really think any French people like if they have never been to Southeast Asia like they wouldn't know what a durian is let's try mmm that is right it tastes quite nice the durian isn't too in your face it's quite subtle if you like durian i think you'll like it which is a polite way of saying you don't like durian but i could actually eat it i could actually eat it. I'm okay with this i'm okay with this it's not offensive i didn't think that my first French macaron experience would be with flavors like this we need to give you good we need to go to a good macaroon place can we try we should try real authentic one so we're in the seventh district in Paris and we've just come across this Japanese French Fusion patisserie and that specializes and especially these macarons there's a lot of Japanese French fusion that happens in the city but especially even pastries i think it's because of the cross cultural exchange historically but also the two cultures have this kind of laser focus attention to detail and to flavor and technique and as a result some of the you know finest chefs in the world from both France and Japan training each other's countries so what makes a good macaron what you're looking for is a really smooth surface on the top no bubbles and then inside you just want to stick like the right ratio of cream to the Macaron shell and they also have some very interesting flavors here have to say i'm intrigued to try this wasabi one and in another unexpected twist from today peter speaks fluent Japanese i never thought my Japanese skill will come in Handy in Paris neither did i but that was kind of a surprise and what flavor did we end up getting else Pistachio Raspberry and the wild card wasabi oh oh that feels different it's kind of soft and chewy on the inside and i like how there's like a little bit of acidity in there that breaks through that sweetness well i can devour this one the rest is for you next up pistachio one of my favorite ice cream flavors and this was just as creamy and nutty as that so it was a huge tick for me and actually pistachio is very very typical French dessert flavor would you also say wasabi is a very typical French ingredient in dessert well i'm excited to try it wasabi macaron i'm just looking at you and waiting to see your face i think it's gonna be amazing. wasabi it could be good i think it might be a favorite mmm is it you know it just adds a nuttiness it's good you can definitely taste the wasabi but it comes across nutty it's like a wasabi broad beans but with the chocolate version. what. i like whatever's happening behind us here what is this what game are they playing they're playing a very traditional French game called a petanque they'll go out and play hang out and they're throwing these metal balls i love it it's giving Chinese park you know the aiyis and shushus at the park doing their doing their dancing it's kind of like the French version okay so Peter where are we off to now so we're off to our dinner location in the third arrondisement in this area there are a lot of Chinese people living there they are mostly from the mainland of China that guaranteed that the food we're getting tonight will be authentic and looks like Sichuan food is on the menu tonight and before you say anything i'd like to make it clear that Peter actually suggested this place and perhaps he is in fact ready to start his spice boot camp journey after all i'm sure you guys have seen those accounts on YouTube where they like shock the cool restauranteurs outside of China by speaking Chinese i don't know what they're doing to get those reactions but i feel like whenever i say hey can i get a table for three no one ever reacts i never get those reactions what am i doing wrong maybe you look Chinese oh generally the menu is looking pretty spicy a lot of red a lot of peppercorn it's got a lot of chili emojis here where no chili denotes not spicy one chili is mildly spicy two chilis are spicy and three chilis you guessed it it's extra spicy Peter welcome to bootcamp we are gonna try all three levels i'm probably gonna cry. in the one chili category
we went for a classic mapodoufu then we found this xianjiaoji a fresh chili chicken which has two chili emojis and as for our level three fangxin liangfen what's fangxin liangfen you mean shangxin liangfen? oh shangxin yeah it's got three chilies i heard about this shangxinliangfen it's apparently like um it's so spicy and then like you're crying. Shang xin means to be brokenhearted or feel deep hurt so this dish literally translates to deep hurt cold noodles maybe this is gonna be our black belt dish i think Peter needs some water and not only that as i learned from Alice there's actually been a lot of cultural exchange between France and China historically so as a historian and academic i work a lot with other historians and what i found is the best sinologists in the world generally speaking come from France do you know why that is i think there's always been an appreciation for the orient throughout the Qing dynasty you had a lot of French monks who would go there and set up monasteries and they would teach but they would learn a lot and bring a lot of knowledge back to France yeah and that region was actually specifically in Yunnan because like that was very close to Vietnam so like Vietnam was a French colony so like the French people that go like along the railway from Hanoi like all the way to kunming so actually the cultural exchange between China and France back in the days was very interesting we were there in Shanghai recently the French concession area was a concession area for the French and still to this day is one of the most Trendy parts of Shanghai and the boulevards of the streets they're very wide then they they actually are modeled off of French roads, French boulevards so what's why when you walk down wukang lu it feels almost like you're in Paris or France and they've actually brought in trees plane trees from France directly so you know there's very specific trees that you see on wu kang road yeah they're originally from France that they've brought in. guys i am at the table with a polyglot a geographer a historian and economist i'm just here like i'm pointing the camera i thought we could make this fun and make a game of it who's smarter Peter or Alice oh actually you know what, saved by the bell because our first dish has arrived wow that looks amazing even though our first dish has arrived we all know you can't eat Chengdu Sichuan food without rice so there is time for some questions which country is the world's most earthquake prone country please buzz in with your answer Japan buzz yup China you got it right the story behind that is yes Japan is very prone to earthquake because it sits on that border with two techtonic plates but the problem is there are even more plates meeting each other in China okay we'll do one more our rice has just arrived we'll do one more question before we actually start okay oh who was president nixon's first vice president? Spiro Agnew yeah i should know that because i'm a historian i studied cold war history okay one more we're one and one let's see who will win the first third round oh this is a good one because i believe it's in French what does the saying requiescat in pace abbreviate to Buzz rsvp no no i think it's just my French that's really bad it's requiescat in pace you can pronounce it here well rip yeah rip rest in peace all right i think we can blame my French oh whatever like it was it was Latin the Latin yeah yeah okay anyway let's get digging into this so this is the xianjiaoji the fresh chili chicken and i seem to be having quite the moment with it right now i've been in Europe for the last very weeks so this is i've already started thinking the first meal that i'm Gonna have when i get back to China and i've already decided it's Gonna be my favorite Malatang place in Dongbei where i get them to load it with mouth numbing and spice and sesame sauce i'm trying to pick a piece that is less spicy for me i really like it because i love the flavor of peppercorn and i feel like that comes through really strongly in this spicy it's a little bit of heat it's not too bad it's not too bad and honestly i love these green chili pepper corns because they're so citrusy and vibrant it's definitely my favorite peppercorn yeah i went through i don't think i've told you this but i went through a period where i was so addicted to green peppercorns i was just like sprinkling it on everything like everything my toast yeah had sichuan peppercorns and i got to a stage where my digestive system was like no no more peppercorns so i had to take like a six month break from sichuan peppercorns oh wow but i'm recovered and i'm back i may be back but i don't think Peter ever departed the station in fact i think he's lost on struggle street right now for those of you who don't know Peter actually has ancestral routes to hunan and every Chinese New Year pito will go back to Hunan for four days only four days longer than four days i cannot take it the next dish that has just arrived on the table which is actually rabbit so you were letting me know that rabbit is used a lot in French cooking right and i guess that's another something in common that Chinese food and French food have in common is they use a lot of Rabbit actually in Sichuan i went to a place called Zigong where they're very famous for using Rabbit and basically every restaurant will have rabbit on the menu somewhere it was so so so delicious i'm sorry to tell you but this one actually comes with a three chili warning it looks very innocent i actually don't really believe that it's gonna be that bad so let's try. famous last words when eat the spicy bunny Alice let's feel this first and say just how spicy it is oh that's so tender this is what i love about rabbit yeah it's just it's tenderer than chicken and it doesn't have too much of its own like flavor it's not gamey like duck or lamb can be this is not spicy i find that that one's spicier actually you're gonna be fine. a few minutes later well maybe this is gonna be the one that will really finish off this is the shangxin liangfen which i love that the name is called that becasue it's gonna spice you to death or spice you to tears it's probably Gonna happen but never fear Peter restbite is on the way a least spicy dish the Mapodoufu has also just arrived and i have to say it looks very very good and i tend to judge a Sichuan restaurant by the quality of its mapodoufu i mean you've definitely got the presence of doubanjiang in there which is one of the essential ingredients to mapodoufu so you've got that umami kick which is so important it's salty slightly spicy it's more salty in umami than anything else yeah and that tofu is nice and soft i hope to say this place is quite authentic it tastes good. if i got this food in sichuan yeah
i'd be like yeah i'm in sichuan but no more stalling it's time to try out some heartbreak noodles so jelly like oh yeah it smells so good it reminds me a little bit of like. i can't smell it smells a little bit like cucumber a little bit in like the vinegarina it definitely has like the vinegary garlic heat chili kind of smell it's got black vinegar and garlic yeah i mean winning combo yeah can i give you some heartbreak noodles heartbreak noodles okay fine well how else would you translate shangxin sad sadness not really sadness that's even worse look how jiggly this little thing is let me try it first and see if i'm gonna be trying okay let's see actually like comparing to this like this is okay there's more sweetness and sourness which balances it's just actually quite fresh it's very refreshing it's not spicy at all but i wouldn't agree that it's not spicy at all but i heard a really interesting thing that the reason why we feel so good after exercise is our dopamine and pain levels are so closely related so when you do something that's painful you feels so happy afterwards because you got through it and it's like basically over and that's why you feels so good after exercise called the pain pleasure paradox so that's real because i just saw this on TikTok and then no the neuroscientists approve in the pain pleasure paradox is like what the swinging from one to another actually increases our endorphins and makes it happy i mean yeah you're gonna be really happy after this um like what i'm feeling right now is like there's like vapor or smoke coming out of here i have to be honest like this kind of cold weather eating a little bit of spicy food is you know like the right kind of feeling i think that's the dopamine kicking in well thank you guys so much for joining me for this very special Parisian Chinese food adventure it has been so much fun with you guys i'm looking forward to more videos as a threesome together in the future so don't forget to follow Peter on his channel don't forget to follow Alice on her channel as always don't forget to like comment and subscribe to my channel and i will see you on my channel next week bye from Paris
2025-02-12 23:17
