China's most INFAMOUS hotpot: my ULTIMATE challenge

0:00 Today I'm eating by far the most challenging dish in all my years of food adventuring in China, closely followed by the second most challenging dish, followed by the third most challenging dish. Quite simply, today is my Everest. And I humbly invite you to make this climb with me. So get comfy, grab snacks, and if you haven't already, make sure you've subscribed. Hello, hello, and welcome to another Chinese food adventure. And today's a little bit different because I'm starting a food adventure with another food adventure. So we're actually in the middle of dinner. I'm here with Shen Shan. She's someone who knows possibly more about food than anyone I have ever met before. I'm so excited to be doing this video today with you. The video really starts tomorrow because tomorrow I'm going to be eating something that I've always wanted to eat here in China. I'm a little nervous to try it. It's called

0:45 basically a hot pot that's made with the intestinal juices of a cow. When it's made with the stomach juice of a goat, it's known as young beer. And that's the kind we'll be focusing on for this video today. What do you think you that thing going to taste like? And I feel like if I was to eat bile or stomach juice, it would be very sour. Keep that in mind. Tomorrow, let's see her reaction to that. But I also want to introduce this. And the reason I picked up this video now is because this is a hot pot like I've never seen it before. It's called Tangu. Literally street stall hot pot. And you can find this all over Guyang, the capital of Gujou Province, which is where I am right now, by the way. So basically, she came over and she prepared the hot pot for us, like right in front of us from scratch. It started with a base of pork fat and then she put in some um and then she went in with so like fermented soybeans and it's adding

1:32 all these layers of flavor. So you've got the fermented flavors. You've got that like lardy like rich porky flavor in there. It's also really zesty. It's got like tomato in there as well. A little bit of chili and fermented chili. Fermented chili. So the flavor is absolutely insane. And yeah, I mean it doesn't look like your typical hot pot cuz it's a lot like thicker. It reminds me more of like a really delicious soup that you just put your ingredients in to cook and then take out and eat. That's exactly the mentality here. A lot of people have the impression that a hot pot capital in China is Chongqing, but I would say the real hot pot capital in China is actually um Guang. If you go into any restaurant and then you have a clay pot of like chicken and then you finish eating the chicken, what what you can ask for the the waiters to do is just add hot water. It's almost the concept or mentality of if I have a

2:19 really flavorful base of anything, why don't I make the most of it? I'm absolutely obsessed and uh I'm so excited for what tomorrow is going to bring. I'll see you guys early in the morning because we're catching a train to Yongjang. So, why are we going to Yongjang? Because that's a birthplace of the stomach juice hot pot. We have just arrived in Yongjang. And when I mean we, I mean the seven of us here. So, who you see behind me here is a group of hardcore foodies that usually meet up in Chongdul and they just go food hopping together. I had the pleasure of meeting them on my last trip to Changdu and we click so well. We immediately started planning a food trip together. Every time I come to Quo and actually stay in Gua. This is the first time I got out of Guang. So, thank you Amy. Well, thank you for coming. Have you tried this hot pot before? I tried it in

3:05 Guang, but everyone everyone I met in Guang told us that um it's better and it's more authentic in Rang. It will be more wild than you know it is in Guuang. Do you like it? I I love it in Guua because you know it's very different. Do you like it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be so different. Yes. See, we have the expert. We actually have a kind of a watered down version. We're getting to the not watered down at all for the hardcore hardcore. We're getting the top. Okay, to be honest, I'm actually feeling pretty nervous about what we're going to be eating today. I haven't felt this way before filming a video in some time. And the reason it's taken me this long to actually try this is it's looks like quite a big dish. It's a hot pot and I'm

3:51 only one person and I don't want to waste. And there's also a high chance that I'm not going to like it. Like I don't know if I'm going to like it or not. So, uh, we've got a big group of us to get alert. There will be blood. Yeah, raw blood. Like, this is another, um, feature of this region. They have this raw blood dish. My god, guys. This is just going to be a day to remember. It's way hotter here. Yeah, it's at least 5° upper than And we're not wasting any time. We're driving directly to the restaurant to try this dish right now. So the idea people start eating this as a daily food is because first of all if

4:37 you come out you can feel that the temperature is 5° at least above you know in Guang it's really hot it's hilly it's humid. So once you start living here you would constantly feel this kind of stuffiness and it's like your body the the air doesn't come out. So people start using herb and medicines, but sometimes it just doesn't do it. And then they notice that maybe the animals, the cows and the goats are having a good time. They're not feeling weird about it. So is there anything that I can do to mimic their um comfort? So one of the things that they decided is to feed animals with some of the medicinal herb, the wild weeds or grasses, and then taking the juice to see if they can cure their stuffiness. Wow. So, I guess this

5:22 dish has its roots in practicality, but we were just hearing from the shul here that he loves the taste of it. They call it, right? 100 carb soup. So, that that sounds more, right? That sounds very light, healthy, everything. It's not that hardcore. It does sound a lot better than because the translation is almost poo, right? Yes. Like it's an unfortunate translation, but you were telling me on the train that, you know, some people use the shock value of the fact that this juice is the the one step away from going into the colon and being turned into feces. We're not eating feces, but I mean, the name of the dish implies a little bit that that's the case, but carb soup sounds better. And we're also

6:09 tasty raw. They cook it, they eat it raw, they they just put it in their system. Wow. I mean, that would be a next level. Like, I'm nervous to try the hot pot version. Oh, no. Are you serious? Wait, are you about to say that we're going to try the raw version? Oh my god, I'm so nervous. So, here we are at the Yangen, literally goat stomach juice store, where Shenshan knows the owner from an article she wrote in the past. But Shen Shan is a food journalist, by the way. First, we're going to have the hot pot. Yeah. Yeah. And then we'll have the raw blood. This is the raw goat blood that you are going to try. Then we're trying maybe the uh raw stomach juice. I mean I I have to ask the question. Is it safe to eat? Yes.

6:56 Grow in the environment. If we got a chance, we might be able to see it. The environment very beautiful here. The goats are raised in a very clean and safe environment. Turns out we did have a chance to see it early. The next day, Shanhan and I got a kartat. It's a small mountain town famous for its yang, literally fragrant goats. and every restaurant in town sells cow and goat stomach juice related dishes. We went into one and just asked the boss if he knew where we could go check out some goats. He consulted his goat map and since he had time, he actually offered to take us personally, which was so nice of him. Also, can we have a moment for this gorgeous scenery we got to see as we wound our way higher and higher into these remote mountain paths. So remote, we also saw a snake. Oh my god, it's a It's a snake. It was a snake. Oh my god, you saw it.

7:41 Oh my god. Yes. Oh my gosh, there was a snake. A few more kilometers up the road, we came across where the goats sleep. They're not here right now because they're currently roaming the mountains, feeding on green herbs, but some of the youngans aren't quite old enough to go up the mountain just yet. [Music] What do you feel? I feel very happy that I've already eaten this dish. I'm filming this the day after um I ate the Yanga Haw and after holding this baby goat. It's so cute. I mean, they don't use baby goats for for this dish. They use fully grown ones. But and you know, they do have a very nice life. He was just telling me that they, you know, roam free in the in the mountains. They

8:27 eat all of the the grass that they want. They're freerange goats essentially. And uh these baby goats are just here waiting for their parents to get back. So, the parents are they've got energy to be up in the mountains. These babies, they don't have the the energy. They're just a baby. It's just a baby. Now we've seen the babies. Now, time to go search for the grown-ups. So, we went for a little nature walk to meet them as they were making their way down the mountain. And here they come now. Hello. Wow, there's a lot of goats here. It's currently about 6:00 p.m. So, they've just been up on the mountain eating their grass and their like herbal things all day. Um, and then in the morning, we're going to be getting up early cuz that's when they actually do slaughter the goats. So that means that

9:13 by the time it's had enough time to digest all of that stuff in its stomach and that's when they extract the juice. Absolutely correct. So I mean, not all of them are going to be chosen, but some of them tomorrow we're going to come over and actually see them die. Uh, but I'm a little nervous cuz I've never seen it before. Good morning. It is 5:30 and uh we're about to head out uh because they're about to slaughter some uh goats. I just don't know the nice way to say it. Um but the fact is that these animals are used as food and this is going to be my first time seeing an animal meeting its end. Uh which I think is a very important experience. I'm eating meat. I think I should have a healthy respect for how it gets to my

9:59 table. Um, so yeah, I wouldn't lie if I said I wasn't a little bit nervous, but um, here we go. Let's close this and go do this. This is a stove, and the stove is for boiling hot water because the first process will be like removing the fur from the coat from the uh the the the goat. And then that's uh it's a spinner. And then that's it just to dry it up and almost like also like a remove the the coat. And then this is for the residual coat. So if there's like a a kind of the last bit of like the the tougher ones, you just throw a blow tote torch and then just start burning all those ends and then you scrape it down. So you have three things. And then the

10:44 actual slothing is just it's quick. It's just a knife. Don't worry, I'm not going to show any of the actual process, but I did experience it all for myself. And I have to say it was very confronting, but a long time coming. I mean, I'm 32 years old. I've been eating meat my whole life and only now am I seeing an animal being killed for the first time. And it made me realize just how disconnected I've been from the reality of where my meat actually comes from. And since this experience, I've been a lot more mindful when eating meat. Guys, this is not your everyday dish. This is local tradition. And I know it sounds really crazy. We're not doing this for the shak value. And that's just respect their Yeah. culinary tradition 100%. Now it's time to see how the dish actually comes together. So, it starts with a base of goat meat. Then aromatics are added like chili, garlic, spring

11:31 onion, ginger, and cichron pepperc corn. It's then cooked together until super fragrant. Then the goat is readded. And finally, the moment we've all been waiting for, in with the stomach juice. Wow, this is so cool. The last step is adding a bit of bile, which was extracted from the goat's gallbladder earlier that morning. And apparently, it's very intense in flavor, so only a little bit of it is added. And there we have it. But what I only realized at this point that this isn't actually the hot pot. We've got a half half dish here. And this half he's just made is the stir fry half of the equation. Now he's actually making the actual hot pot part which follows pretty much the same steps except no meat is added and a hell of a lot more stomach juice is used. And of course also got that bile going in there too. Check out this hot pot here. We've got half which has been stir fried with the stomach juice and half that's

12:17 prepared more as like a hot pot. And you can see that green color. So, the reason that the hot pot is so green is because I mean, look around me here. Green as far as the eye can see. And this is all that the the goats eat. I still have no idea what this is going to taste like because in this room I the only thing I can smell is the aromatics. I don't smell any specific different taste. So I I still don't know what I'm in for. Wow.

13:07 Hundred herb soup. Yeah. Technically this yes it is the goat would eat all these herbs and then goats. So here local people think that goat's um stomach juice is better than the cow because goats are much more picky eater. So they are really selective. And then their body size is much tinier. So everything the fra the flavors and the fragrance are much more delicate. Well I guess we'll see. I think what I want to do is go for the stir-fried side first because something in my brain is saying that that's less scary. Smells fresh. [Music] Oh, not sour. Bitter. Mhm. It's bitter, but in a very pleasant way, I have to be honest. Which is surprising because I'm not

13:53 of all the flavor profiles, the flavor profile I still haven't developed to love as much as the others is bitter. Like bitter melon. I'm still not the biggest fan of bitter melon. Me neither. But somehow it's different because it's also got some I don't I want to say umami. M. There's a nice balance in there. I mean, the fact that so many people love this dish should be an indication that it's a tasty dish. Now, we go for level 1.5, um, which is, uh, actually getting some meat, dipping it into the hot pot, and, uh, trying this. Let's try it. This is so good. It's more of a refreshing hot pot. It's not a heavy hot pot. Like, it doesn't have any particular or unusual kind of taste. It's just more than anything bitter. The bitter is the first flavor into your mouth, but it won't stay long. Surprising. To be honest, I thought I

14:39 wasn't going to like it. Um, but my mind has been able to catch up with my mouth quite quickly. I also give you a spoon. My point is for you to try the soup. Can I? Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd call this level two. No, it's not bad. I I actually quite like it because you've got the bitterness that comes first and sticks around at the back of my throat, but you've also got this saltiness, this umami, all of those herbs and yeah, ready to try level three. Bring it on. And that's our raw blood dish. What's this dish called? It's um I would say like a raw goat blood jelly. Like a blood bing. Yeah. Most notably, you can see it's already congealed even though it's raw.

15:26 It arrives here 4:30 in the morning. Wow. And so right now it's only like uh 3 hours later. To be safe, yeah, you have to be um quick. But it isn't just served like this. A whole heap of aromatics are added on top like salt, Sichuan pepperc corn powder, MSG, chili, garlic, jeran, this local herb called yulao, as well as coriander, spring onion, fresh chili, and finally a heap of rice vinegar. With that adding, I think you guys are actually not that unfamiliar with this. If you ever had ceviche, that's the same kind of idea. vinegar plus um protein actually cooks. So, it's it's still raw, but it's not really that raw. And you can already see there how the blood has turned darker on top. And that's the rice vinegar doing its work. Have you guys all tried this raw blood before?

16:11 No. Okay. Well, actually, I might see you guys try it first. Actually, this is my this is my Okay. Very excited. Wow. [Music] It's very tender and it's just melt once you get over it's raw. Yeah. Yeah, it's raw. It's It's okay. It's also my first time. It tastes like jelly. Yeah. Very beautiful soft wiggly jelly. Bloody dough. I make sure I have a lot of spices on it. Actually, this is my insurance. Psychological insurance. Okay. Very good. Right. It flows into my mouth. I don't suck it. I don't fight it. It flows in. Oh,

16:56 that's good. I never thought I'd say this, but uh that raw blood is making me hungry. Everyone is loving it. But I think I'm going to need a splash of psychological insurance, too. Yeah. It's really interesting that chemical process that's happened there with the with the rice vinegar and you've got a little bit of brown on top and then in the middle it's just intensely red. M. Mhm. Mhm. Flows and melts, right? Yeah. It's it's smooth and creamy and absolutely no sim like no aftertaste. It could essentially be bingford. Put some uh hong on top of that. Give me some sha. I would eat that like a bingford. What's also great about this dish is the sauce. I mean they're masters of putting together the aromatics. Yeah, I've enjoyed everything. I wasn't expecting to to be honest. I was nervous but I'm no longer

17:42 I am going to do something more. Continue eating. I'm just Yeah. It's now time for the biggest challenge of them all. Level four. Is this raw? Yeah. I can't I ask the question again. This is something that locals eat. Like they'll do. This isn't a gimmick that you're giving to the foreigner at the table to be like the text whoever said that. Right. [Music] He does eat that raw. He said that I would just drink it. You do it first. I'll do it if you do it. I'm not going to try a lot. [Music] Maybe it's better cooked. I don't know. Not bad. I'm not going to give away anything. I'm not going to have a lot to be honest. I'm just putting a little bit on my spoon. You your spoon have flavors. So, use the

18:28 one that I have. Oh my god. We got some juice on there. Just want to prove to you guys it's not a lot, but holy I cannot believe I'm about to do this. Sorry, guys. I just need a moment. What's this behind us here? Soccer. Can you tell me more about that history of this? Well, since we're on the topic, we did actually touch on the local soccer culture on our trip to Tasha Village the next day. This village is last year's champagne of this twin chuncha. It's basically like a FIFA but with the local people, you know, and they they have their football matches and they they fight against each other in a very friendly and fierce way. And they are the champion last year.

19:15 It suddenly blew up because some outsider journalists discovered that, wow, you guys are doing a pretty fierce match and then it blew up in the news and now that they have all this competitions every year. He even took us to see the trophy. But as we learned, that's not all they won. The grand prize for the winning team was the most beautiful cow from the region. And this is it here. Basically the as being a champion you win a cow. They loving that cow as a symbol so much. They just had a wedding for the cow. They find that cow a wife and we even got to visit them in their honeymoon suite. Wa that's a big bull. So this is villages this year's most handsome cow.

20:00 And it's going to be a beautiful baby. Like I really wish them all the best. Anyway, I think that's been quite enough procrastinating. Back to the raw stomach juice. Oh, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's It tastes meaty to me. It tastes like um It tastes like sheep and it tastes like a bit of grass. Tastes like grassy sheepy. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's not It's not bad, but I prefer the hot pot version. Else is up to the challenge. Yeah. Yeah. It tastes much better than it smells. It smells. Look at the color. Wow, that's a big spoonful. Good on you. No, I will I will not finish it. This is for show, right? We are being a show business, right? Okay.

20:47 Check it out. Okay. It has no taste. Comparing to it smell, it has no taste. Well, I tell you what, nothing brings a group together faster than some raw stomach juice. I did it. We did it. We did it. We had blood. We had blood. We had stomach juice. I feel like I satisfactory, right? I feel so proud of myself. I feel like how I would feel if I had just finished running a marathon and I'm feeling very accomplished right now. Congratulations. You are local. That was amazing, guys. Uh, thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for being my guide on this journey. This has been a trip and experience of a lifetime. Guys, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Stay tuned. I've got more videos coming your way. I'll see you next week. Goodbye from Rum Jong.

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