That's what they've done here. But the whole thing is a crispy bit. Let's try it out

Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City. Today, it's all about the street food and our $100 street food challenge

Vietnam is a land known for its delicious, affordable, one-of-a-kind street food

You can find this for under a dollar

You can find this for under $2. You can find this for under $4

Our previous videos were about how affordable street food can be here

But today we're going super expensive at least as expensive as we can find.

I have done the $100 challenge in many countries Japan, Korea, India

Even in Disneyland in the USA and every time I came up short

I failed I got too full too quick or the food wasn't expensive enough.

I think we missed it by a lot. Today everything is gonna change because I am determined to eat $100 worth of street food any way I can. I'm hitting the streets of Saigon alone. Let's see if it can be done. Let's go

Welcome to the beginning of our $100 street food challenge here in Saigon. In order to spend this much money

We're gonna have to eat some super-sized food

And that's why we've come here to the place right behind me. Banh Bao Toa Phat. Banh Bao Toa Phat. Banh Bao Toa Phat.

This establishment has been around for 30 years making the best steamed buns in the city

They sell up to 2,000 buns per day

And that's not including the thousands more that are shipped off to convenience stores around Ho Chi Minh City made with an endless variety of fillings

Including pork, quail eggs, or even salted eggs always wrapped in a cushiony soft bun

Here we have the king of all Banh Bao

It has eight eggs inside seven quail eggs and one salted egg from a chicken

From a duck. Do you guys salt chicken eggs? No, that would be silly. Why would we salt the chicken egg?

All right, I'm gonna sink my teeth into it now

I

Was told this dish is all about the eggs, but there's so much meat

It's some kind of new fangled Vietnamese hamburger

Almost the meat inside is so juicy and porky and then the eggs. They're just like the cherry on top. It's so satisfying

Oh and here if I bust this open you can see the salted egg. So every bite a new surprise. Let's try it out

It's

Super dry. Oh, but it's so rich and flavorful. This is a very filling meal. Yeah, this whole big thing is only $2

It's a good deal, but that's a problem because I'm trying to spend $100. I don't know how we're gonna do it

Maybe I could eat five of these. I doubt it

Street food number two this time the street is inside this restaurant. Is this street food?

I don't give us a break on the technicality. It's very near the street. You can hear the traffic, right?

So right here we have a fresh water prawn on sticky rice with a salted egg sauce

And this is a treat that you could eat with silverware or you could just dive in with your hands after lathering them up with antibacterial solution the dish starts with a coconut sticky rice mouth

That's coated with a generous dose of salted egg sauce and finally topped with a prawn

It's the signature dish and pride of this restaurant only found here now. I always like sticky rice

It is like the most underrated rice and then on top of it this salted egg sauce. Let's try out this salted egg sauce

Nice bro, there's something about the salted egg

You got to be careful with it man

Like when I had the salted egg in my bun bow, it was so concentrated that it just became like dry and chalky

But when you mix it with the right ingredients and make a nice sauce out of it

It can just be very like rich next

These are fresh water prawns and this whole thing is just caked with that salted egg sauce a couple notable features here

First of all, it has arms

What have you ever seen a shrimp with arms before second as very spiky arms and there's actually meat inside of each one of these

That's not it

That's not it either. I'm gonna eat that arm later. There's so much meat in there

Well, we really want is in here. It's gonna be a massive tail pull it out just like that. Boom. That's a beauty

Look at that. All right, I'm gonna get some rice get some more sauce. Let's try it out. Oh

That's super tasty

I'd like to order like five more shrimps to put on there

Well, so good and then in here a place where a few Americans have gone before you got it

Like take the top off and then look all that that's all food. Technically. This is the head butter. This is what everybody loves

It's so good. It's so rich and creamy. That's damn good

Right

Now we are on one of the busiest streets in Saigon and one of the busiest street vendors is right there

Can you guys see him in the camera frame? You see how he did that?

Cool

This business is on every food delivery app about every couple minutes

You'll see some delivery food guy pull up throw about 15 of these on his bike and take off and they've been here for 40

Years two sisters created this recipe and they've been running this place

Which is insanely popular now like they have built an empire off of papaya salad

You'll notice that no one's actually eating here

So what happens is over here in the park people order the food?

There's somebody over there with a walkie-talkie here. They make it and they deliver it to the park

So what is the food that everyone's going crazy for well

It's right here a papaya salad the first ingredient and the core of this dish is shredded young papaya

Then beef jerky made from cow lungs shrimp crackers peanuts and Vietnamese coriander

However, this dish wouldn't be complete without their own homemade sauce made with secret ingredients that if revealed could get me killed

You

Get a little bit of everything in here a little cracker a little bit of jerky a little bit of papaya

Wow, that's a bite worth getting a close-up on. Oh, there we go. I want to try it out

Mmm, that's awesome such a mix of fresh flavors. It's sweet spicy and savory

There's almost nothing better than getting a papaya salad in Vietnam

Like the name of it seems like first of all salad that doesn't sound good papaya

What is that a plant but it's more than that. I mean when you look at the elements here

It is a celebration of textures. You've got crunchy crackers chewy beef jerky and crunchy nuts

I say crunchy twice, but it's different types of crunchy. Oh, it makes that all with the fresh papaya. So damn good. Love it

Our next location a street side restaurant called soup kua cheap week

They opened two years ago, and I heard they have something really fancy

The $100 street food challenge continues and I was getting a little bit worried

We're getting behind because I'm getting full and I don't think we've even spent $10 yet

But here they have a fabulous luxurious crab claw dish nearing $20 and I got two of them just to be safe to make sure I'm extra full and that we actually hit our goal of $100 allow me to unveil for you guys now

A crab soup, but wait, there's much more to it than what you see at first glance

They add in a giant crab claw century egg and coriander all swimming in a viscous cornstarch

Thickened gravy this soup always reminds me of the egg drop soup. I had growing up as a young Chinese boy

What I'm gonna get just a bunch of this viscous almost not like broth. I'm gonna try that out

Oh

That's delicious, wow, it's got a bit of spice to it

It's super savory very satisfying warm as it just kind of slowly glides down your throat home

Let's try this thousand-year-old egg and the egg that you'll find all over many parts of Southeast Asia and China

That's so delicious no super intense taste just like super eggy enough of that now it's time for the main event

All right, giant crab claw. Let's go for it

Oh

They took many pieces of crab meat from different crabs and fused it all together to make a new crab claw

I've never seen anything like that. Very unique a little strange and very delicious. All right now the show must go on

We're about halfway to our goal of $100. We got to keep going. Let's go

Our next food it seems simple but it packs a flavor punch

Overcooked rice and honestly anyone who's had a rice in a clay pot

They all know the best bits are the kind of crispy bits on the bottom

That's what they've done here. But the whole thing is a crispy bit home

Che call wit it consists of two parts the crispy shell made by spreading rice over a fiery hot pan and the dip made

Of a concentrated fish sauce dried pork fat dried shrimp ease scallions and stir-fried minced pork

The

Move here mix it up and that's gonna be almost like the jam to my bread

So I'm gonna bust off a piece of this put on a little bit of jam and honey

Oh, it's gonna be good. Try it out. Oh

That's a winner super good I probably put too much on there it's very salty but the best part is the texture

It's so thin and the one side is just golden brown crispy. I can munch on that all day. That's it

It's not a super dynamic food. Did you love crunch? You'll love this 10 by 10

Welcome to our next food. It's totally the same day. It's not the next day. I'm so full, right?

Good. So here this is a great story

She has a snail cart, but no one's really eating here people actually drive up

They get their snails and they get them to go actually someone just ordered snails through a delivery app

Unless the delivery guy is just hungry. That could be too also with this place. It's a heartwarming story a

Long time ago

She used to be a mobile vendor

But she's been able to kind of settle down here in one place in this small market because a youtuber came here did a little

Feature on her sales and now she's very busy lots of traffic people ordering online and us here right now

She has a few different types of snails available and I went with the biggest one she had because they look delicious and plump

Plump snails she steams them at home with only a touch of lemongrass

Then she brings them here selling them with a homemade chili sauce. All right, let's try it out

Mmm, this is so delicious. This is kind of what makes it right here. I think everyone's coming here for her famous sauce

It's just a little spicy

So you feel a little heat kind of warms you up and then very sweet and a bit sour

It's delicious. If you've never had a snail before you have to give it a try. I always say this snail. Oh, thank you

This is a different brand of snail. She's given me

When there's that much sauce, I can't really tell a difference

They're all just kind of delightfully chewy but at different sizes

So it's like do you want something small and chewy or big and chewy?

I like big and chewy

But if you're afraid of trying kind of adventurous wild food a snail is a great place to start

It's pretty doable and in Vietnam, it's gonna taste great

They're delicious, all right, did we do it we did a good job since I

I

Here we are welcome to my sausage party

Behind me such a wonderful array of sausages and the queen of sausages

She's back there whipping up some more sausage concoctions for all the people coming through

Oh, you shouldn't say sausage and concoction too close to each other

Miss knew it has been whipping up these sausages for over 30 years

Recently a local food blogger discovered her reviewed her food and blew up her spot now

She can't stop people from snatching her plump sausages

Her staple dish nem chua chay made of fermented pork ears and skin garlic chilies steamed pork sausage raw pork sausage

Vietnamese coriander kumquat and a pinch of salt it gets all mixed up and served with banh mi bread or shrimp chips

I'm gonna try just some of this chalua

Mmm, chalua is very yummy. It's very dense. It's like the perfect sandwich and deli meat just savory

Meat

I'm running out of words guys. Can we look up synonyms for savory?

Salty spicy piquant acceptable and those are all words that I think suit this food quite well

It's very piquant and acceptable here. This is kind of like a cured pork. I believe it cooks through the acid

That's in there maybe from the salt maybe from some lime science

Oh, I love that and it has this delightful kind of tang to it no part of this pig was wasted

Look at that. That's a bunch of skin

The skin is very bouncy

I like that and then get a little cracker put some meat on there some herbs and we can take that down, too

It's so good, but so intense and there's such a heavy amount of salt in there

It's almost like starting to cook your own tongue. Eventually if you eat enough of this your tongues gonna look like this

It's a lot of sausage I might have to take some of this home

Guys we came to the giant meatball place. Do you have a giant meatball place in your town?

I fucking doubt it on a more serious note. Have you ever seen a meatball this big? It's incredible inspired by Indonesia's giant meatballs and the movie

Inception this creation is a dream come true for ball lovers like me inside the giant meatball

You'll find a grocery list of items corn carrots seafood and smaller balls within the big ball

All that is topped with purple cabbage fried onions dried cabbage and spring onions

Finally, our meaty majesty is bathed in a meatball broth

I think you're supposed to share this with friends or family loved ones someone you met off Craigslist. That would be acceptable, too

I did put up a tinder ad that said looking for someone to eat balls with but nobody got back to me

What is this one? It's probably a fish cake. I bet

It's seafood tofu I bet

Very nice here. I'm told this one is a cheese ball. Try that up. Oh

It tastes cheesy. I think the outer layer is a fish ball and then some kind of processed cheese on the inside

It's so like processed, but I still love it