- [Danielle] I've lived in America most of my life, but I was born in Taiwan to Shanghainese parents who'd found refuge there during the Cultural Revolution.

In this episode of Lucky Chow, I'm revisiting those roots with the help of cooks, writers, and entrepreneurs, who are introducing America to Taiwan's distinctive and increasingly popular cuisine.

From avant-garde bubble tea to a classic beef noodle soup, it's gonna be a journey full of strong flavors and rich memories.

(bright electronic music) When most Americans think about Taiwan food imports, they probably think of boba tea or boba tsa, the sweet drink that took the world by storm beginning in the 1980s.

I've come to New York's Lower East Side to talk to Andrew Chau, who's putting a hipster spin on bubble tea at his bicoastal shop, Boba Guys, and to take some of the exciting new flavors he's bringing to traditional boba.

- [Andrew] We're known for our ingredients, so you're gonna see some of the same flavors that you see in other shops, but at the same time, we have a lot of innovative flavors as well.

- I love the name, it just is so fun.

Bubble tea is all about fun and the froth and the colors and the flavors and the ball.

- Yeah.

- I always thought that it was a Japanese invention but I learned recently that it's actually from Taiwan.

- Taiwan, yeah, it's in Taichung, Taiwan.

Most people will say it's one of the first two companies.

I was just there, and there's these two originators that said, the myth is, that legend has it where back then, they were making kid desserts, and milk tea had always been around.

It's been around in Europe, it went its way through Hong Kong, but they wanted something for kids, and so they make a sugary milk drink with something like a gummy bear, like a desert, and you put it together, and they sold it like crazy, and this is in this place, a city called Taichung, Taiwan.

- Well, how did something that came from this tiny island of Taiwan become such a global phenomenon?

- I think, I mean there are couple things that happened.

I think one is people are, more than ever, are more into, I think, just globally minded.

They're into things that come from different countries.

We're seeing that here in New York, from where I'm from, in San Francisco, we're seeing that as well, and so people are just really interested in trying new things like Southeast Asian food or Asian food in general, and so you have that, combined with, I think there's this need for just eating a little bit on the go, mobile food, and a lot of people like boba instead of coffee, or boba instead of a dessert, so, the reason boba milk tea is so popular is it could do many different things.

You can have it as your coffee replacement, but you can also have it because you want to go somewhere and just walk the park and you want something in your hand that you could drink while you're walking.

So we make things that combine cultures.

- [Danielle] I love that.

- And it kinda makes it more inviting.

We don't wanna be really exclusive, so we try to bring the best of the East and the best of the West, and make it very accessible.

My business partner and I, my co-founder, we love boba.

We were drinking boba every time we were just like, instead of getting coffee, we'd be, "Let's go grab boba," and when we had the idea for it, we were actually trying to do something else, and we just said, "Why don't we just do a boba shop?"

We wanted to do something together, like a business, just on the side, and it kind of took off, and little did we know, four, five years later, most people will say that we kinda started this, whether you call it hipster or adult boba trend, most people will say came from us, and this is, we were in Taiwan and somebody actually said, "You guys are Boba Guys."

Taiwan, the country, a lot of people know who you are 'cause we're doing so much for the country.

- That's a great accolade.

- Yeah, yeah, it is.

It's kind of, very humbling, but it's also scary because it's a lot of burden-- - [Danielle] Holding a lot of the nation's pride on your shoulders.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, it was the first time I finally got my Mom to kind of be proud of what I (laughs).

(Danielle fusses) Stereotypical tiger mom.

- Why is this so hard to make at home?

- It's made from a cassava root.

Cassava is kind of a rooty plant, little bit like a potato.

It's kinda long and you kind of blend it up and dice it up, and then you can get a starch, and a lot of people make it into a tapioca starch which you're probably familiar with, and so the tapioca starch is what you use as your base for the boba, and then, the ball itself is essentially pounded.

It's really tightly packed tapioca starch, with some brown sugar, and it's held together that way, and into a ball.

Why it's hard is because the real perfected boba, the process that we think, it took a while to perfect, is you have to boil it perfectly.

If it's boiled too much, the tapioca starch and the sugar compounds will break up.

Otherwise, if you do too little, and you only boil it, like, you under-boil it, what's gonna happen is they'll be hard and kind of, like kind of solid in the middle.

- So what are you making today?

- It's called strawberry matcha latte.

This is strawberry that we puree, put some sugar in it, and then, after that, we put some boba in there.

So this is the tapioca pearls we were talking about.

- [Danielle] Did you boil this?

- We do, we boil it for about a half an hour, and then, what we do is we put the ice.

In this case, it's just a normal amount of ice.

What's gonna happen is, when you make this at home or anyplace, you need some ice because when you use matcha, it's gonna be hot.

- I see.

- And you're gonna need some ice to cool it down, otherwise, you're gonna get like a lukewarm drink.

Okay, so we just pour the local milk and then we have, this is the organic matcha from Japan.

So when you make matcha, the best technique is to make it a paste first, to get rid of all the little, small grounds and clumps, and then, you add the rest, so it's a two-part process.

- [Danielle] It's quite a meditative process, isn't it?

- [Andrew] It is, that's why I think all the monks do it.

(Danielle laughs) They're super into it.

- [Danielle] Purify.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

Now, we pour it, and this is the money shot.

- [Danielle] All right.

(gushes) - This is East meets West, okay?

You think about natural, the strawberry puree with the organic matcha from Japan, very Asian, and you combine the two, I think it's best of both worlds.

To do something that is touching, that touches your life, that's personal, but also to do something that you really wanna do, like start your own business, it's pretty rare and very few people get to do it, and the fact that I'm standing here across the country, and we're doing well in both San Francisco and New York, and bridging cultures on both coasts, it's pretty rare, and I don't think we ever take it for granted.

- I love what you guys are doing here, just bridging cultures and having fun with it.

- Thanks!

- So I'm a fan of your aardvark.

(relaxing string music) Everyone's heard of bubble tea, but you're probably less familiar with bian dang, the Taiwanese version of the bento box that's a lunch time staple all over the island.

In Chinatown, I talked to Kris Kuo, who's introducing bian dang to America at her restaurant, Taiwan Bear House.

What exactly is a bian dang?

- Bian dang, a bento, it's originally from Japan 'cause in Taiwan's early 19th century, it was ruled by Japan, and so they bring many culture not only for the buildings, but food, right?

So the bian dang is Japanese culture.

This type of food in Taiwan, and Taiwanese like it, love it, and try to invent it, and to bring our own flavor in it.

My partners, she study, she came to US for study before me, and then, she said, oh, she had been living in New York for several years and she can't find that authentic Taiwanese cuisine in New York City, in Manhattan.

Every time that when she really missed her hometown in Taiwan, she had to go all the way to the Flushing.

Yeah, they say, "Oh, why don't we just start up "like really authentic Taiwanese food like bian dang."

It's like a culture, a food culture in Taiwan.

(mumbles) Would you not just open up a bian dang store in New York City?

- You know, food is such a powerful way to bring people together to remind them of home.

How did you come up with running a restaurant when you don't really have a restaurant background?

- I studied business before and then, when my partners bring this up, they say, "Hey, why don't we just start our restaurant "to bring our food, our home country food to New York, "to United States, so that other people's, "not only Taiwanese or Asians, will try our food."

So yeah, it's a good idea, and we just started.

Okay, so this is minced pork over rice.

So you see that every bento boxes come with cabbage, it's pan-friend, but it's grilled lightly, and then salt, and the cabbage.

And this is tofu, and egg.

- [Danielle] What's the batter?

Tastes really good, it tastes different from Japanese chicken karaage or anything.

- Yeah, it, right.

Yes, sweet potato starch.

- Oh, that's your secret.

- Yeah.

(laughs) Oh, you know that.

(both laugh) And then, this one is pork chop bento box.

It's a pork chop and then we have marinate in our sauce, and then its bread is panko, yeah.

- It's kinda like a Japanese tonkatsu.

- Yeah, it's more like a Japanese tonkatsu, but it's in Taiwanese flavor.

Right, the marinade sauce is our recipe.

- You've mentioned Taiwanese flavor several times.

- Right, right, right.

- What does that consist of?

- Like garlic, scallion, onion, soy sauce.

Taiwanese soy sauce, that's why it's not Japanese soy sauce, right.

Rice wine, black pepper, white pepper, salt, and sugar.

And this one is our bestseller.

It's Fried Chicken Leg Bento Box.

- Fried chicken in a box.

- Yeah, it's, yeah.

I ate this all the time in Taiwan.

- Did you?

- I always order the fried chicken leg.

- [Danielle] It looks really good.

- [Kris] Right, yes.

- Most of the bian dang I think about are those kind of like aluminum stackable things that you carry for lunch?

- Right, right.

- This is gorgeous, though.

Looks like bamboo.

- Yeah.

Yeah, I think this made of wood.

- Wood?

- Wood, yeah, it's wood.

Not bamboo, it's wood.

Its eco-friendly and it's pretty cute, so, yeah.

- It's really cute.

When I tell people that I was born in Taiwan, people used to tell me, innocently, "Oh, I just got back from Thailand and," - Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's true.

- But no longer because it's their food that we're learning the differences between Asian countries.

If Hong Kong market in Manhattan's Chinatown is Cathy Erway's go-to grocery, then they're doing something right.

Cathy's newest book, The Food of Taiwan, is spurring the rise of Taiwanese cooking as the hot, new regional Chinese cuisine.

Today, she's going to show me her recipe for a Taiwanese classic, Beef Noodle Soup.

So we're gonna need some rice wine.

This is definitely an essential of the Taiwanese pantry, so it's called Taiwanese cooking spirits here in English, but it's also called mijiu, and it's a basic rice wine.

It's used in a lot of stir-fries, braises, soup stock.

Let's get some noodles, how about we?

It's always nice to have fresh noodles, although dry ones work perfectly fine, but when you can find it, I think that's a real treat.

- Why not?

- This is the beef shank, it's the leg.

It's boneless, but you can see it has a lot of sinew running through it, so if you were to grill that, that would just be super tough, but we're gonna cut it across the length, and we're gonna braise it for a long time so that sinew actually turns into yummy, jelly, collageny goodness.

- [Man] Thank you.

- So here's the basic bean sauce, doubanjiang.

It's fermented soybeans but also chilies to make it spicy, so you have that savory, intensely savory flavor, as well as a little bit of chili.

- [Danielle] I'm like a Chinese grandma, I have to touch everything-- - [Cathy] I know.

- [Danielle] Before I buy it.

Like I squeeze all the cherries.

(laughs) The essentials for beef noodle soup.

Even though I was born in Taiwan, I grew up eating Cantonese and Shanghainese food.

I've actually learned so much from Cathy's book about the history of Taiwan, and how the aboriginal population, the Dutch, and the Japanese have affected its cuisine.

- There are some dishes that are really popular in Taiwan, that were only invented in Taiwan, and beef noodle soup happens to be that, and if you go to Taiwan, or yes, some people, they'll say, "Well, that's a Mainland Chinese dish," but it doesn't exist anywhere in Mainland China.

Beef noodle soup is one of those, just "you'll love it" dishes.

I really wanted to find a really great, just exemplary, basic version?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- [Danielle] So I mean, you really are, like, the Taiwanese food expert.

- This cuisine needed to be explored more, needed to be embraced more, that I was, you know, I gulped in and just dove in, but I really hope that throughout the book, I hope I make this clear, and in the community that I have sort of fostered through Taiwanese cooking in the aftermath of the book, that I really hope that it's just the beginning of more dialogue about Taiwanese cooking in the US and abroad.

- [Danielle] In addition to being a popular food blogger, cookbook author, and radio host, Cathy is the founder of a popup supper club called the Hapa Kitchen.

You can definitely see her half-Asian roots in the way she handles the cleaver.

- I'm really excited to meet and kind of keep abreast with, or keep in touch with other writers who are now starting to write about Taiwanese food and cooking, 'cause when I was doing this book, I mean, I just couldn't find any resources, written in English or published in a US publication, about Taiwanese food, but now I'm starting to see more, which is exciting.

I find that a lot of the times, Taiwanese restaurants aren't really explicit about being Taiwanese, and even when you go to Taiwan, one restaurant will specialize in hotpot, or one restaurant will specialize in Szechuan food, and there's not a whole lot of, "This is classic Taiwanese food restaurant."

- What is Taiwanese food?

- Well I think, to answer that question, you really have to understand all the people and the groups that have come to Taiwan over the years, starting with the aboriginal communities, which are still really celebrated.

In Taiwan, you would typically see wheat noodle, I mean, sorry, rice noodles.

In China, you would have, in the northern climates, at least, wheat noodles.

- [Danielle] Right.

- And dumplings and buns because of, we have wheat, so they really brought that with them to Taiwan and now you see buns and dumplings and wheat noodles galore in Taiwan.

- [Danielle] Under Cathy's deft hand, the makings of beef noodle soup have magically appeared at my kitchen, though the spices I promised her I had are proving a little hard to find.

- Garlic and a little bit of scallion.

I mean, these are the building blocks of so much of Chinese food.

This is the basics and now we're just gonna sear the beef.

- [Danielle] Well there's a legend about this really famous beef noodle shop in Taiwan, that the broth never gets emptied.

- [Cathy] (laughs) I know.

- [Danielle] But can be added to, is that true?

- [Cathy] I'm sure, because especially, when you're making all those, the hong shao, and then at night markets, they have that big, you know, vat of broth that you can choose all your mix-ins that you wanna add in, like so you could meat, you could add meatballs, you could add fish balls, you could add noodles to it.

Those broths never change.

It only adds more and more flavor over time.

- [Danielle] My favorite part about going to Taiwan is really the night market culture, and then slurping down that big bowl of beef noodle soup.

- It's-- - As your fourth meal of the day.

- It's amazing how much they can eat, and do eat, over in Taiwan.

- Yes, but it's also, it has such a late night culture.

- It does.

- Whereas in the US, it seems shut down so early.

I feel like in Taiwan at midnight, there is hordes of people, you know, the old, the young, they're all eating beef noodle soup.

- And all the stores are open, too.

Not just the restaurants, but shops.

You can just do all your, anything you wanna do, you can sing karaoke, just have fun, walk around, but you could also just do some shopping.

Do you like spicy?

- [Danielle] Yeah, sure, I love it.

And it also just gives it that richness.

- [Cathy] Great color, all right.

- [Danielle] Mm.

- [Cathy] Yeah, you can make it as spicy or as not spicy as you want, but since we both don't mind it, all right, I'm gonna add tomato.

These should cook down so you can't even see any chunks.

Now, we're gonna add the mijiu.

- [Danielle] Okay, the rice wine.

- [Cathy] Got it?

Yeah.

- [Danielle] Yes.

(bright electronic music) Cathy Erway tends to her soup with the same care and affection as the most dedicated beef noodle vendor at a Taipei night market.

As the soup bubbles intensify in the rich broth, the lid goes on for a few hours of uninterrupted cooking.

There's plenty of time for a cocktail using the beautiful fresh mango I picked up at the market.

(bright electronic music) Finally, it's time to ladle the soup into bowls of fresh noodles.

Add some Chinese greens, and sprinkle on a garnish of chopped scallions.

I can't wait to try Cathy's version of Taiwan's unofficial national dish.

(bright electronic music) This is really like a test of a true cook, right?

To taste the broth?

- [Cathy] Mm, I always go for the broth first.

- Wow.

- [Cathy] Is it good?

- It's really good.

I don't know what it is, maybe it's having grown up in Taiwan, but for me, comfort food is soup noodles.

- It's so true.

- For me, food is memory.

Long after my near-century old grandmother in Taipei stopped eating her favorite dishes like dumplings and steamed fish, she continued to hunger for beef noodle soup.

Its earthy flavors rejuvenated her, and they'll always remind me of family and of home.

(bright electronic music) We've talked about night markets a lot, and now we're finally going to visit one.

The monthly 626 Night Market in California's Orange County is one of the largest of its kind in the United States, drawing thousands of people hungry for Asian food, merchandise, and entertainment.

Its vendors aren't all Taiwanese, and it's not as cramped and chaotic as I'm used to, but it captures a lot of the original night market spirit.

(bright electronic music) I'm being given a tour by Jonny Hwang, one of the founders of 626, that tells me how his market got its start.

- A lot of our team members are from Taiwan or have been to Taiwan, or are Chinese, Vietnamese, and we all kind of either grew up with night markets, or visited them when we were in Asia, or heard about them from friends and family, so it's definitely something that resonates with us, but I think no matter how much it's influenced us, our future is definitely forming our own identity.

- This is incredible.

When I come in here, I feel the energy and the chaos of a lot of the night markets that you find in Taiwan.

What is the reaction from the crowd that, you know, when they come across these crazy food concepts, or when they come across some of the traditional Taiwanese foods?

- Some people are adventurous.

They'll try the stinky tofu, they'll try gizzards or chicken heart, and then some people just absolutely won't try it.

(lively percussion music) - I'd love to try a pho taco.

(woman mumbling) Yeah, what else do you recommend?

I mean, what, garlic crab fries?

- [Jonny] Yeah, those are great, too.

(Danielle laughs) - [Danielle] This looks amazing, this looks just like a taco with been sprouts, but-- - [Jonny] Yeah, just like-- - [Danielle] Let's try it.

- [Jonny] It's all you.

- [Danielle] It does taste like pho.

- [Jonny] Right?

- [Danielle] Wow.

- [Man] So, this is french fries that's, it's a bed of fries that's topped with real crab.

We don't use imitation crab, and it's our own mixture of garlic aioli that we've put together.

- It's really fun.

- [Danielle] The night markets is truly in your blood.

Did you grow up with night markets?

- Yeah.

- [Danielle] Where are you from?

- I grew up in Taiwan, and down the street is the night market, every Wednesday.

- The night markets in Taiwan are, they've been there for so many years, so they've grown on top of each other organically, and here, it's like, we pop up once a month, so everything's set up very straight and organized, so I think that's the primary difference.

And I think one thing in Taiwan that we have that they don't have is the crowds.

The crowds here are just, it's, by seven o'clock, it's just shoulder to shoulder, and it's, this is the most happy I've ever been in my life, working here at the night market, yeah.

It's phenomenal, phenomenal experience.

- [Danielle] A lot of stuff here, it's like Disneyland for foodies.

- And it changes every month.

That's the beauty of it, it just changes.

- [Danielle] Hi!

Can I try the miso-glazed pork belly and also the cola-braised pork?

- It exposes a lot of our non-Asian friends to this concept where so many people can get together, eat different food, and just kinda enjoy ourselves, and this can be something that is not just a monthly thing.

It could even be a daily, weekly thing, just like you have in Taiwan and any of the night markets.

- Thank you, thank you.

- [Hiroo] Okay, so this is our cola-braised pork.

It is Coca-Cola-braised pork shoulder.

It is topped with a Savoy cabbage slaw, with chive and also a pickled mustard seed.

- [Danielle] After pho tacos and crab fries, I'm ready for some native Taiwanese street food.

That means a visit to Hugo Tseng, a chef and showman who hawks classics like stinky tofu with the help of his trusty loudspeaker.

I've never tried anything like this, actually.

It's fish egg sausage, so, there's actually fish eggs in there and as I eat this sausage with what's been handed to me, raw cloves of garlic.

(speaking in a foreign language) This feels exactly like Taiwan and Hugo feels like my uncle from Taiwan here.

All right, so he's introducing me to the best of the Taiwanese street foods here.

So this is, wow!

(Danielle speaking in a foreign language) A kind of fish egg.

(Hugo speaking in a foreign language) With... (Hugo speaking in a foreign language) This is very sweet, it's baked with a yolky custard filling outside of a pastry shell.

This is chicken skin that he's wrapped around in a skewer with a lot of white and black pepper.

I don't know how to quite eat this thing.

Just stuff the whole thing in my mouth or?

So this is fried popcorn chicken with basil.

(both laughing) Basil and white pepper.

Okay, now he can't talk for a while.

- Try, try.

- Okay, so this is a stinky tofu that he's fermented in a vegetable stock for six months.

(Hugo speaking in a foreign language) - Oh!

(Danielle speaking in a foreign language) So stinky!

Whew!

Stinky tofu smells like a wet rag or dirty gym socks or something, but it does have quite like an umami flavor.

It accentuates, somehow, the bean, that the soybean, I guess, that's used to make the tofu curd, (laughs) but boy, is this stinky in a good way.

This is another one, this is actually one of my favorite Taiwanese street eats.

It's the soupy thing that has a lot of mushrooms and then a lot of gelatinous collagen-rich meats, and I think that that, like, ch-ch-ch flavor, that texture, they go ch-ch-ch (speaking in a foreign language).

Yes, it's what makes it really, really special.

(speaking in a foreign language) This oyster pancake is one of the most famous Taiwanese traditional street foods.

There's eight fresh oysters in here, and then the batter, actually has rice flour in it, and the Taiwan have this phrase, QQ, and it refers to the texture of the food, so if it's QQ, it means it's like, (smacks lips).

- Something magical happens at night when you bring all these people together with good food, good music, arts, and it's really a community feeling.

You're supporting local, small businesses, entrepreneurs, artists, and I definitely think there's something magical that happens at night that we in Asia and other parts of the world have really enjoyed with night markets and night bazaars, and the US has largely been like a nine, 10 o'clock, things are closed type of culture, but I think that's changing.

- [Danielle] Here in the California twilight, I'm surrounded by tastes and smells that transport me back to the island where I was born.

Like an American town square or European piazza, night markets are places where we meet to share the rhythms of daily life, and if you're lucky, a good bowl of beef noodle soup.

(bright electronic music)