Funny story - the colon was quite chewy and stringy. It got stuck in my teeth and I could not get it out. So, all through the rest of the meal and until I could get home and floss, all I could think about was the piece of colon flopping around in my mouth 😂
You are so BRAVO to eat offal as a westerner. Good try but offal is not good for health as it is high colesterol, on the contrary, the sea cumcumber is good for health with low colesterol
when I first went to Thailand in the early nineties, the street vendors would tip a bottle of soft drink into a bag, stick a straw in and seal it with a rubber band. They kept the bottles to use again.
I love how Garen silently shovels food into his mouth whenever Amy didn’t ask him to introduce the dishes. So far my fav guest! You can tell he truly enjoys his food hahah
Maybe I'm too emotional recently. But when your mother tell the story about her father, I’m so touched that have tears in my eyes. Through your mother’s words I saw a really interesting gentleman smiling at me.
I grow up in Qingdao, I can tell you that drinking beer directly from the bag with a straw is a new thing, started probably from less than 15 or 10 years ago, originally it's just a way to take beer home. As almost all of us in Qingdao prefer to drink fresh beer from keg which "expires" very quickly, a whole keg is too much for a family to finish in time, so the most convinient way to have some fresh ice cold keg beeris to buy it from a restaurant on your way back home after work, but you need a container, and the plastic bags are cheap and easy to hook on a scale, and when you get home you pour the beer out into glasses, not drinking it with straws. I think this straw drinking method was made to attract more attention and interest to the beer and the city for tourists
Xiaoge, I have to say you are wrong about the beer in a plastic bag. This tradition started in the early 90s. Maybe you are not old enough to realise that.
My Chinese food adventures these days are going to Costco to get the latest instant noodles and frozen har gow . :( P.S. Your dad's facial expressions to the food descriptions are so cute!
Your parents are so charming! My parents are also unusually open to new things and they are still that way in their '80s. We are lucky to have such support. I'm sure they are happy when you are!
Historically Shandong Food (Lu cai) was actually the cuisine that mainly served in ancient royal families, specialised in their cooking techiniques like braise, stir fry or deep fry. This kind of cuisine mainly focus on the tempreture control (火候) instead of flavours (味道）, 火候 is a bit a challange to the chef's experience rather than one specialty area like chopping or flavouring. The characteristic of Lu Cai is the reflection of confusious philosophycal idea(confusious was born in Shandong):中庸. Not too strong, not too bland, only in the middle.
I think the cantonese style: deep fried colon is easier for first timers. You dip it in a sweet red sauce, only a tiny bit. Its also dyed red in restaurants for a better look but ppl at home do not colour it.
L.a and New York city is very diverse and have alot of good Chinese restaurants. Even in canada , they have alot of good Chinese food, more so in Vancouver and Toronto. The funny part is, in both cities the best area to get Chinese food is called Richmond. Little off topic but in Richmond b.c , you can live there without speakinf english. They have everything you need in Chinese to the point in Richmond , British Columbia, locals who were born and riased in the community were complaining that the local Chinese bussiness need to put up English signage so they can read it and know what kinda bussiness it is. Also they can't even read 80% of the mail they get becasue it's In chinese and complain that it should be in English also. Which I agree. Anyways , to say Sydney have more diverse or better chinese food then the states is kinda flase, it just depends what city your located.
I am a 100% Tsingtao local person. And yes this is how we drink beer. It kind reminds me my childhood. By the way the more authentic way to drink this beer is you use a needle punch a hole on the plastic bag. Let the beer flow out and you use a glasses to catch the liquid. When you need to drink other just punch other hold over and over. Hahah
My family is from Shandong. You guys are very brave trying all the food. I have never had most of the dishes you guys are trying! Thanks for sharing this experience!
I miss drinking TSINGTAO with my brother in-law. Family and I will be returning as soon as travel opens back up. Your videos are always uplifting and enjoyable to watch.
It's amazing how different we sees offal food between cultures. While some people in the west might sees offal as icky, I grew up always thought it more as luxury items you only eat on special occassions.
You too huh? Also grew up eating offals so it never really disgusted me as it was more seen as normal. Didn't realize just how different others saw it till I moved to the US.
@@AVWUVU Yes. Funny thing is, my mom consider offal as somewhat unhealthy, so you only eat it occasionally, colon for example, she considers them high in cholesterol.
Your poor Dad trying the sea cucumber and the colon. Good on you for trying different things. Oh Garen, so handsome, charming and that voice... totally swooning lol
I really love how your parents and your boyfriend are so open to trying new things and don't judge a culture's food even if it's not for them. The respect and enthusiasm you guys have for Chinese food warms my heart :)
Tsingtao beer was actually developed by the occupying Germans and is tasty because of the spring water used. The company has been sold to the Japanese,Kirin I believe.
In Singapore we also have a dish called kway chap, sort of braised colon (but we slice it finer) and we mix with other braised meat and eggs with a bowl of flat rice noodles in herbal soup. This dish originally comes from eastern Guangdong or the Teochew region of China. You really have to clean the colons well though, it's not nice if you get grainy or smelly bits in there. It should still taste a little gamey but not smelly. And yes the colon is my favourite part of the dish
the best thing about ur videos if falling into pipeline of Chinese food videos and getting inspired to cook some for myself. tnx Blondie, my stomach and tongue r satisfied
Loved this! I've been to many Chinese wedding banquets and almost always will have the meat platter (some times with jelly fish) to start and sea cucumber too.
As a native Chinese, I don’t get to see that too! But there is a fun fact that brought up by Garen, you should always keep your boss’s or parents’ jug full of alcohol! (I know it sounds not healthy, but we LOVE to drink!)
Awesome. A vlogger doing a video on cuisine from my hometown province! I'm from Jinan (provincial capital), but i have family in Qingdao too! My uncle, who lives in Qingdao, loves to drink beer. However, as someone who grew up in the UK, I notice the taste of the Qingdao beer tastes so different to that then in China. In terms of the food in Qingdao, you cannot miss out the delicious fresh seafood!
@@BlondieinChina Fun fact, Tsingtao beer brewery was actually started by Germans following German purity laws. This was because Tsingtao was a German colony before WWI.
Hahahahaha! I applaud your bravery in trying new things....and completing the challenge! All the best to you and your family! I look forward to each episode you put out!
TsingTao beer - best beer in the world. I think they won several awards for their beer in an international competition and was named the best beer in the world. Taste very good too.
Don't know how i stumbled into this video. My heritage is Chinese but immigrated from VN and now living in BNE. Love the challenge and the food makes me hungry. Great video haha
The reason why we use plastic bags for beverages (soda/Milk/Beer) is because back in my child days, when you buy them from local stores you have to return the bottles, so they use the plastic bags so you dont have to return the bottles.
I saw sea cucumbers in fish tank in a restaurant and knew the consistency is not for me, your family is so open minded to try different dishes and wholesome.
Hi Amy, we Chinese eat various kinds of colons (actually more like large intestines). We have goose intestines, duck intestines, chicken intestines, and probably a few others as well.
I appreciate that you took the time to explain the spell difference. Not even chinese knows the reason behind it. Great videos! Non-stop watching for couple hours already :P
Blondie, I very much appreciated n respect you n your family love Chinese culture. You like to try n learn n explore, even better than a Chinese person. And also your English is so good n clear for people to listen as well as mandarin. Well done Blondie
omg thank you so much for explaining the spelling thing, and you did such a good job as well! as a Chinese living in abroad I'm really happy to see this!
a lot of cultures serve drinks in plastic bags because for the vendors, it's the cheapest container for them to put the drink in! plastic, paper, foam, or whatever other cups are more expensive than a thin plastic bag and a straw. it's also probably cheaper for the vendor to buy beer by the keg rather than by pre-bottled glass bottles.
Colons can be cooked by removing the fat inside first then quick stir-frying with chilli and spring onions to give them a crunchy texture. It's called 'Cong Bao Da Chang' and it's much more tasty than the braised ones (with fat still attached) imo lol
