Subtitles section Play video
Hey, what's going on?
Everybody For first the feast, I'm Sean Evans come a natural from Manhattan's Little Tokyo, a stretch in the East Village that's home to some of the best Japanese food in the entire city.
In a typical first, we feast fashion.
We're rolling deep.
Our good friend Frank Bonello is in the building.
You know him from the pizza show on viceland.
Season two.
It's out now, which you might not know about Frank.
When he's not slinging Slices in Brooklyn, he's eating Japanese food.
When did that love affair begin?
Do you remember to me a lot of that with Japanese food and all types of Asian food started a while ago, but I really like click to me.
I had a stopover in a reader, the airport in Japan, in Tokyo, and I just had this Boulud on soup and, like just, I don't know, bells and whistles started going off.
And then, if I have your story, correct usedto work in the neighborhood, right?
I worked with Chipotle right around the corner, right on the corner, right around the corner, so many good spots in this neighborhood.
But if I walk straight down ninth Street turned into ST Mark's.
There's a bunch of little Japanese restaurant, so I was always going down there for a bowl of noodles.
You know, a little rice cake, sushi, whatever.
I mean, whatever I could find to get my hands on this neighborhood, I was Well, that's exactly what we're doing today.
We're gonna be snacking through the neighborhood, having some of the best Japanese dishes in New York City Security.
Aggie, she's the CEO of T I C restaurant group.
She's gonna be leading the charge to, you know, bring good hands.
Frank, are you ready, my man?
I can't Wait.
Let's go.
All right, so we're here at the table.
Secura, We're having lunch, and it looks like something serious is going down.
Can you?
And package this for sure.
So we're at so via we opened in 1996.
So, Ben, riddles are buckwheat noodles.
You can have different variations of the buckwheat noodles.
But what makes soba soba is definitely they're buckwheat.
So what you have is tens on a sofa.
So it has the Fedossova and the temperature.
And so you eat it together and it's not that serious, right?
Yours is a little bit more serious and we'll take a little bit more skill.
Maybe, but you're gonna scoop out the Silva from the hot liquid on and then dip it in the cold.
It's energy, okay?
And you slurped.
I did.
Did you like my slip?
How was it?
It was 100% Javanese slur.
I love it.
This is delicious, like every bite is like a flavor bomb in the fall time in New York this time of year, there's nothing better than Japanese noodles, whether it's Rahman food on a soul.
But my opinion just come in.
It's a little cold out.
Eat one of these bowls and you just like Golden.
I think people think of Rahman is the classic Japanese noodle dish.
How did they differ?
So so by is much, much older The summer I used to eat it from and actually originates from China.
And it has constantly, which is kind of like baking soda, which gives it the yellow tint.
Soba is traditionally made from Onley queen, sometimes flour and water, and you just mix it, roll it out and you just get to enjoy that buckwheat aroma.
It's nice for a New Yorker to kind of be able to come to a place like this, like a guy like me come to a place like this and get traditional soul.
But here in New York, people call this kind of strip little Tokyo.
And I think my father definitely had a hand in that.
My father's first restaurant was in 84 then from there, just kept taking over the block.
Now we have 12 different Japanese concepts and 15 locations.
So here we are, crashing the lunch rush.
Where are we?
And what about you were at a minute.
I just down the street from Somalia, and we're gonna try Japanese street food.
So we're gonna try some taco yucky as well as local.
Um, yeah, this is hockey.
Taco is octopus.
Yaki is grilled, so it's kind of like grilled article.
Not involved.
They're really hot.
Don't pop them in your mouth.
It has good sauce.
Manny on the green stuff.
ISS, I'll no need.
Which is gonna do the best for the best needles.
Leads to top it.
I love the way the bonito flakes look on top of the Taco bowls.
They just look like little dancing angels.
Savory funnel cake, please.
Empoli, What you guys have in your hands are It's mostly cabbage.
One has shrimp in it and the other one has pork in it.
I thought that was prosciutto.
At first I was trying to make it.
Italians the pies on and you coming?
Yeah, you know, you always trying to make it Italian.
So it should be fluffy and currently, at the same time, Definitely with the sauce and the Manny's altogether and the mommy bonito place, It's like a steamy.
It seems like oftentimes everyone has the label.
Something like the pizza of this, the pizza of that.
Like sometimes this is called Japanese Pizza.
Either of you have an opinion on that.
I think calling this Japanese pizza is doing a disservice to pizza in Japan.
Amazing amazing stories from Japan about people spending a lot of time and not believe study and going back to Japan and doing it even better in Japan than in Italy.
So I'm looking forward to that trip slightly nervous because this is very filling.
But I know we have one more stop to go, so I'm just gonna save a little bit on top because everything's been so good so far.
So we're gonna roll up to high collar.
Now.
We're known for something in style coffee program and our cuts Sandwich and Omer.
Right?
Kara, you're shifting gears here in a major way.
It would seem you've handed me this knife what we have going on in front of us right now.
So that knife is to open up the belly of the home, right?
We're going down.
I love a good cross section section.
Actually, it's a gooey situation here.
Can you tell me what is this exactly?
So it's an omelet on top.
A catch up.
Right?
So this style of food is your show, Yo, Means has the character of the West.
And shocker was food.
So you're doing Western food, which is very, very common in Japan.
Actually, that's something you eat with your friends as well as at home.
Your mom makes this kind of stuff.
This is a breakfast item or any time of the day, Any time of the day.
So good.
Let's move on to the country sandwich.
So you just eat it with your hand, just go in, just go in and It's our homemade tartar tartar sauce on the side.
I was a little barbecue sauce on them.
It's our cuts sauce.
It has a little bit of tang, and little bit of a queen matches really well with fried poor things on Japan takes any food from anywhere else.
It seems like it's always better in Japan.
I don't know what it is, but you guys just do everything good over there.
All right, Frank.
I know that your bar is high when it comes to Japanese cuisine.
How did we do today?
This is amazing.
I mean, for me.
I thought I knew this neighborhood pretty well already, but we got the behind the scenes tour today.
All three spots are amazing.
Whether it was the soba noodles had him in different ways.
I've never had before.
Delicious.
I mean, done hitting soccer.
Street food is just like that's That's a conference room for me as well.
I really enjoyed it.
If you want the best Japanese food in New York, Little Tokyo, that's where you'll find it.
Thank you.
If you want the best damn pizza show on cable, that's Frank Bonello show.
It's the pizza show.
Season two on Viceland.
First we feast.