- So I was just in Los Angeles.

- Hi Steven.

- Hanging out with you guys.

Now we're all in New York City, Big Apple.

And today we are doing curry!

Right now we are at a Malaysian coffee shop.

This place is called Kopitiam.

And curry is a very personal thing to me.

Some of the locations in this episode were biased

by my personal Chinese-Malaysian background.

Hence the coffee shop we're at right now.

Woo yes.

Whoa!

- [Andrew] Certified awesome.

- [Steven] This is literally

how stuff is served in Malaysia.

My favorite dish in the world probably is Roti Canai,

which is a Malaysian dish influenced by India.

- [Andrew] Are we gonna try that today?

- They do have it at one of the places

that we're eating at.

- We should eat it!

- Okay!

- It's your favorite food.

- Today we're gonna be trying three curry dishes

at three drastically different price points

to find out which curry is the most worth it at its price.

I'm gonna hit you

with a curry fact!

17th century British colonizers were perplexed

by the variety of dishes in India

and categorized them all under the term "curry".

People who visited India,

they didn't know how to categorize

all of these different foods.

So instead of actually identifying and learning all of them,

they just lumped them into one category.

- Before curry, you would just call it

what the individual dish name was.

- Exactly.

Okay so the first place we're going to is a bakery.

And we'll be having some curry puffs.

- Curry puffs.

So like a little pastry of curry, huh?

I got my drink to go, how about you?

- I might get one of those bags.

(energetic beats)

- Hi, my name is James Chou.

This is my father Han chou.

We're at Fay Da Bakery,

and we will be showing you our curry beef puff.

- [Han Chou] (speaks in Chinese)

- [James Chou] So basically the dough is mixed

same process as croissant.

So in there we use shortening and margarine to fold it in,

goes through that automated sheeter,

a little egg wash,

and then we have everyone putting the filling into each one,

baked and then you take it out

after about 20, 25 minutes,

you do egg wash,

and then you put it back in for another 15, 20 minutes,

and then you do one final egg wash.

- [Steven] What makes a very good curry puff?

- [Han Chou] (speaks in Chinese)

(register bell sound)

- [Steven] I got a watermelon smoothie to start off our day.

We'll be eating a lot of curries.

I gotta balance it out.

- I'm having ice malted milk drink.

- What?

- Yeah it's called Horlicks.

- Wow I didn't even know this existed.

Cheers!

- Here's one for you.

- Yes!

The most familiar smell

in the world to me.

Chinese bakery smell,

that was the Sunday afternoon,

family goes out to lunch,

and we hit a bakery afterwards.

Cheers.

- It's extremely satisfying,

because you have a very buttery nice pastry

along with a very savory filling.

It's not spicy.

It is actually a little sweet.

- It's like a pie.

It's like a ham pie.

- Yeah.

I think it's really cool

that you can have this savory treat

at what is predominantly a sweets bakery.

The fact that you can come to this bakery

and you can really build out

like a pretty well-balanced meal,

that's pretty unique I think, you know?

- I think it's a beautiful thing.

- [Andrew] Adam why are you eating that like a squirrel?

- [Annie] (laughs)

- So we just ate a curry puff,

but we're going to a Malaysian restaurant next.

So to prepare our appetite,

I was thinking that we bust open a durian,

which is the king of fruits in Malaysia.

Durian is a fruit that I've seen people,

kind of, laugh at, the smelliest fruit in the world,

but honestly, durian is a fruit

that my family, the first thing that we do

when we land in Malaysia when we visit is eat durian.

- Really?

- Yeah.

You just cut open a little bit

(durian cracks)

Oh!

- It doesn't smell that bad,

it smells like cheese honestly.

- Cheers.

- Oh it tastes good!

- Yeah.

- It's like a cross between a banana,

a pineapple, and a mango.

Hit me with that curry fact.

- Curry fact!

People who enjoy action movies and adventure seekers

are six times more likely to like spicy food.

- I love action movies.

I like spicy food.

I like getting my face to sweat.

- I've seen you sweat.

The next place we're going to is Laut.

It's Malaysian food.

- So you like this next place a little, or a "Laut"?

- (laughs)

A "Laut".

(energetic music)

- My name is Salil Mehta.

We're at Laut in Union Square.

And we're gonna be having the best Curry Laksa in the world.

- Oh wow.

- Wow.

- [Salil Mehta] Seven years ago, people did not know

much about a Rendang, much about a Laksa,

but a lot of people opened those doors up,

and then my background is slightly different

from most of the Malaysian restaurants

that are in New York City.

Being Indian, I was bringing the Indian influence behind.

- [Steven] So today we're having the Curry Laksa.

- Yes.

- Which is exactly what you're talking about,

the Chinese influence with the Malayan and Indian influence.

- Laksa comes from (speaks foreign phrase),

which means one million flavors.

You have all these great, amazing,

different kinds of Laksas all over Southeast Asia.

Then you have interaction of different cultures.

You have the Indian marrying the Malay,

the Malay marrying the Chinese.

Our Laksa, this is more,

Malay-Indian influenced Curry Laksa.

So the way we do ours,

we use onion, ginger, barley, fresh lemongrass,

grind it all up together in a paste,

cook it low and slow with some fresh curry

leaves brown spices in it.

Add the coconut milk slowly,

and we do a Lai Fun noodle.

This is like tapioca starch noodle.

And we do egg round noodle,

which is like a Lo Mein noodle.

Take some tofu puff actually soaks

in the soup from the Laksa.

I believe that Curry Laksa with seafood goes best.

Put the soup together,

garnish with some cucumber, lime.