Gold Threads.

Claris Away traveled over eight cities this year to document the food culture of China.

Let's hear what she has to say about her picks for best of 2019.

This year, I traveled to over eight cities in China to document the food and culture of the country.

First things first.

Don't miss our Eat China.

Siri's a 13 episode Siris on Chinese food, where I explain in death the four main regions of Chinese cuisine.

We started this project to dispel some of the misconceptions surrounding Chinese food.

It's far more than just stir fry noodles and dumplings.

I don't want to spoil to much.

Our videos come out every week, So if you want more, check out the links below.

Now, without further ado, these are our top five food stories of 2000 and 19.

1st up, we have the man who has eaten at 7000 Chinese restaurants.

I met David years ago in L.

A.

Where we bonded over food and Asian American history.

I've written many articles on him before, but it was such an honor to finally do a video on him.

David embodies the definition of a food nerd.

Here's a snippet from our video.

Hi, I'm David R.

Channon is today February 12, 2019.

I've eaten at 7440 plus Chinese restaurants, but what happened is about 30 years ago.

I probably think that maybe 500 Chinese freshens at that time, and I decided, Well, maybe I should start keeping track of where I've been to prevent inadvertently going to the same restaurant twice.

David is a retired tax lawyer and third generation Chinese American from Los Angeles.

I met him seven years ago on online Food Forum, called Chowhound and asked him to meet me for lunch.

When I noticed he knew an enormous amount about Chinese restaurants in America, he told me he had this massive list of restaurants accumulated over the years Excel spreadsheet, where I list the number of the restaurant Panati order a name of the restaurant and address of the restaurant, and that he had a collection of menus to go with.

Um, when I started in your Chinese restaurants, I thought I could have something from that restaurant for me is really preferred.

Item is a business card, but some restaurants don't have business cards that have menus.

So basically, these are menus from places I went to that didn't have a business card.

And so I ended up writing an article on him and drew attention to his list.

But David spreadsheet is much more than just a list of Chinese restaurants across the United States.

It also sheds light on the evolution of the Chinese food scene in Los Angeles.

First time you were here in 92.

Yes, it was a really big deal with Ocean Star opened up.

Has the crowd change with food or the atmosphere?

Well, when it was in 1992 I was like the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Everybody had their banquet here.

It was just something really phenomenal.

Next is one of our most popular explainers to date.

The history behind Boba Milk Tea Spoiler alert.

Boba is slaying in Taiwanese for big booms.

Here's why.

Mhm, Boba.

It's taken the world by storm.

Exciting!

Cheers!

Two men on a mission to make better Boba, which is milk tea with tapioca pearls.

Uh huh.

But what exactly is Boba, and what's with a pipe.

Invented in the eighties, Boba is a popular beverage that originates from Taiwan.

Still, the West is just beginning to understand it.

The New York Times famously called it the blobs in your teeth and promptly issued an apology.

After all the backlash, both of these tea shops in Taiwan claimed they were the first to invent Boba in the eighties.

As the story goes, someone working at the shop decided to put tapioca pearls into T on a whim and like it.

But tapioca is an indigenous to Asia.

It's a starch derived from the cassava root, a tuber native to South America, it came to Asia in the 19th century via Portuguese traders, and it thrived in Taiwan because Taiwan has a similar subtropical climate to parts of South America.

Modern boba pearls are made by combining tapioca starch with brown sugar water there, then submerged in a mix of tea and non dairy milk creamer.

But where did the word boba come from?

It's actually swing in Chinese for big boobs and came to be associated with a drink in 1988 when a southern Taiwanese tea shop named their tapioca drinks after Hong Kong sex symbol Amy Yip, her nickname Boba.

In early summer, I made my way to my friend's hostel.

In an way, they're in a center couple who make their own teas and meals from scratch.

And they taught me the art of Harry Tofu.

Yep.

You heard that, right?

Tofu with hairs on it.

Here's the scoop.

Yeah, Mhm.

I don't care.

You don't blow.

You don't smooth your position that you don Shula the whole paddock 0 g from soon do other things.

What you should be Oh, was uncle home?

So you like the current, uh, in way one.

The cut down, uh, woman with the issue.

How should a Hawaiian theme texture of Harry tofu is akin to blue cheese soft but with a creamy and noticeable resistance.

The white hairs on the tofu are the result of a natural fermentation process.

It's a rather obscure kind of soy product, even in China.

But locals in the mountains of an we have been eating it for hundreds of years.

Total blocks are inoculated with fungal spores and left to sit out in a cool and dry place of between 60 and 75 F.

No more to the booth.

Can a woman who was thinking you create, uh, don't, uh, Lieutenant region?

When the hairs grow long and thick, the tofu is ready to be cooked.

Should the end in the model for a your number woman column you, uh, model for in northern China, we explore the city of Qingdao and covered the biggest fear festival in Asia.

It was a culinary face of skewers and street food.

My personal favorite beers in a plastic bag.

Okay, I'm gonna try this beer in a bag.

E feel like it's a huge waste.

A plastic.

Oh, damn, this is really good.

Can yeah, e.

We're at the Kindle Beer Festival, Asia's largest beer festival, where over 1400 types of beer are served and over six million people visit every year.

Qingdao is the city's namesake beer.

In 2017, it was the third most consumed beer in the world after American behemoth Budweiser and snow, a Chinese spear Onley sold in China.

But while snow may dominate by sheer numbers, Kindle is Mawr.

Internationally known, it is one of the oldest beer brands in China started by Germans in the early 20th century.

Today it's available in over 70 countries and is the host of this really, really intense beer festival.

You know, you got going on Hardy.

Oh, God, Yeah, rules that you're gonna show.

So this place feels as if Disneyland Octoberfest and Coachella made it and had a baby.

It's a bit cheesy, and you're hesitant for a couple of hours, but I think that the appropriation of Western beer culture actually works on.

What makes this place particularly awesome is that there's really good comfort.

Last but not least, it's not a food round up without mention of spicy Chinese food, I went to Sichuan and hunt down the elusive Sichuan Peppercorn.

They're actually quite difficult to procure in the States.

Here's why.

If you've ever had Sichuan food or spicy hot pot, you've definitely encountered this spice.

They're cold Sichuan peppercorns and their native to China, and they're what makes the cuisine so mouth numbingly spicy and the effect can be, well, electric.

It's starting to spread alot over my mouth, one study shows.

The tingling sensation has the same frequency as some power grids, but I noticed growing up in Los Angeles that the peppercorns in the states weren't really that strong.

So I had to go to Sichuan to get the real deal.

Seems Celtic Dash.

We're on our way to honey in the epicenter of peppercorn production in China.

For the Americans out there who onion is to peppercorns, as Napa is wine, it is said that the best peppercorns in the world's come from here.

But whether or not that's actually true, well, we'll find out.

I met up with Sons Hall, a peppercorn distributor and processor.

He took me to King she, a town in Hanyang that allegedly has the best peppercorns in the country straight to you, in a way, because that way you know a woman in a sense, a kind of a, uh A, despite its name, peppercorns aren't actually related to peppers.

Sichuan peppercorns have this sort of like lemony in chemistry, sort of a citrusy flavor, so that sort of gives us a hint that it's in the same family as Citrus species.

Many different species in the Citrus family do have thorns and specifically younger plants.

The reason why peppercorn harvesting is so meticulous is because you see these thorns on it, so you have to do everything by hand.

You can't just grab it, Andi.

That's why it can be quite expensive.

53 year old Lee So Jin has been picking peppercorns for 30 years Now.

She makes roughly $5 for every kilogram picked on average, she can pick 10 kg a day during the harvest season.

And that's it for our top five food videos this year.

If you have any requests on topics you want us to cover next year, comment below, or send us an email at hello at gold thread to dot com.

And, as always, tell all of your friends to subscribe to us at Gold Thread, too.

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