Ryuji Tries Authentic Mala Tang at Yang Guo Fu Malatang, Almost for the First Time

Sugasawa first visited this shop around 2021. She wandered in almost by accident and found that no Japanese was understood at all, but the food was delicious. She recalls that back then there was no Japanese signage in the shop, and the local customers were eating while watching YouTube.

According to Sugasawa, mala tang comes in several styles of broth, and Yang Guo Fu is "a bit on the rich side." Although some shops are lighter, this one is her favorite. They also mentioned hearing that videos of people eating mala tang tend to get a lot of views. Even so, Sugasawa says it's popular not because it's trendy but because it's delicious. To Ryuji, who knew nothing, she said, "The less you know, the more exciting it is," and "From here on, this is Disneyland."

At this shop, customers use a bowl and tongs to pick whatever ingredients they like, and the shop cooks them and serves the dish. Ryuji was initially surprised by the size of the bowl. Sugasawa added that some other shops serve set combinations.

The shelves hold some familiar foods like vegetables, mushrooms, and cilantro, but most of the items are unfamiliar. Sugasawa named frozen tofu as a staple and recommended beef and honeycomb tripe as tasty. There are also chicken feet (momiji), as well as a popular ingredient with a chewy, mochi-like texture. Sugasawa had never had the latter either, and picked it for the first time that day. She also said lamb "is almost always good if you add it," duck blood is a staple, cilantro is a "must," and white wood ear mushroom is one of her favorites.

There's one thing to watch out for when it comes to quantity. Once your order exceeds a certain amount (1,000 yen at this shop), 80g of noodles is added free of charge, so if you take too many noodles yourself, you'll end up with more than you can finish. Sugasawa recommended trying things one at a time to find your favorites.

Ryuji chose chicken feet, cheese tofu, octopus, beef tendon, omasum, honeycomb tripe, pork cartilage, himetake bamboo shoots, and more, saying in his own words, "I've only put in meat." Sugasawa replied that this is fine, since mala tang isn't really a health food. Apparently, ending up with more and more ingredients while you dither is a classic mala tang experience.

After paying, you choose the type of free noodles (such as thick noodles), the broth, and the spice level. Ryuji ordered the tonkotsu-style mala broth at extra-hot, and Sugasawa ordered regular spiciness. Ryuji's bowl came to 1,200 yen.

At this shop, you can also make your own dipping sauce. Sugasawa says she always makes two kinds. One is a refreshing sauce of black vinegar combined with green onion, sugar, and garlic. The other is sesame-based with oil, peanuts, and green onion added, which serves to soften the heat and add sweetness. Sugasawa's view is that pretty much anything you mix from what's available will taste good.

Ryuji added green onion, chili, and garlic to the sesame sauce, saying, "Sesame and chili oil really go well together, huh." He also made the black vinegar sauce, commenting that the black vinegar he knows tastes better with a little sugar added.

While making the sauces, the two agreed that "mala tang is not healthy." Ryuji said he had always thought, "This is totally Jiro." Sugasawa called it "Jiro that girls like," and Ryuji rephrased it as "Jiro you can make excuses for," on the grounds that you also get vegetables.

They toast with beer and start by drinking the broth. Ryuji's first words were, "It's not that spicy." According to Sugasawa, this shop's broth is the sesame-forward type, rich and creamy. The famous Qibao (Chipao) has a more numbing heat, she says, and goes in a different direction from Yang Guo Fu.

Ryuji said, "I get why people get hooked on this," and recommended eating it dipped in the sauce. As for price, he rated it "totally fine" for 1,200 yen given what you get, reasoning that a bowl of ramen costs about 1,200 yen even without toppings.

The noodles are quite thick, and Ryuji says their hearty, chewy texture is close to Jiro's. He called his bowl with pork cartilage a "power-type" dish and pointed out that there's a lot of oil floating on top. Sugasawa added that you can also customize it to be healthy by removing the spice or switching to beef bone broth.

After eating the cheese tofu, Sugasawa explained what makes mala tang fun. There are ingredients in it whose taste you don't know, and by the time you eat, you no longer remember what you put in. That's when you get to discover something and think, "What is this? It's delicious." Ryuji rephrased this as "It's like a treasure hunt."

Of the chewy ingredient he was trying for the first time, Ryuji said, "This might be the chewiest food I've ever eaten," and "chewier than mochi," adding that he might get hooked on it. Both of them rated the omasum and honeycomb tripe as going very well with the broth. An ingredient resembling fried bread had soaked up the broth. Ryuji also ate, for the first time in his life, a fish-paste product called "Circus" in the subtitles.

As he ate, Ryuji pointed out something he noticed. Because a film of oil covers the surface of the broth, it doesn't cool down easily, and because the noodles are thick, they don't get very soggy. His analysis was that this makes it a good fit for slow eaters as well.

The heat kicked in later, and both of them sweated profusely. Sugasawa said that rather than being healthy, mala tang works as stress relief through the way the sweating gradually builds. Ryuji, who had also been drinking the day before, responded, "All the bad stuff is coming out," and "Detox." Ryuji, who doesn't usually exercise much, also said, "I'm probably sweating more than anyone on YouTube."

Ryuji's favorite ingredient of the day was the chicken feet. They were sweet and jiggly, and he recommended them, saying, "You should definitely add chicken feet." All the bones had been removed, with only a little cartilage left, and Ryuji was impressed: "That takes a ton of work." He said they taste similar to pork, but with an even stronger collagen feel.

Ryuji also gave some guidelines on quantity: one or two fish-cake-type items since they're filling, one fish-paste item like "Circus," and a fair amount of crunchy offal.

Sugasawa also introduced other ways to enjoy it. The noodles are added automatically, but you can leave them out, which makes it a good snack to go with drinks. When the shop is busy and it's hard to linger over drinks, Yang Guo Fu is also available on Uber, so ordering delivery and drinking while eating it bit by bit is another option, she says. When Ryuji asked, "You're not being sponsored for this, right?", Sugasawa replied, "I just love it."

Sugasawa says she'd like viewers to try other shops too. Like ramen, each shop's broth recipe is completely different: some are more like sesame sauce, some are lighter, and some have a numbing heat. When Ryuji said, "It depends on the person, then," Sugasawa replied, "I think that's why it's so popular." Her view is that everyone can find a bowl that "speaks to me." She also recommended that on a second visit, people should definitely try the beef bone broth with no spice.

Ryuji's previous experience was that this visit was "way more delicious" than the shop he went to long ago. He thinks that at the time, without really understanding anything, he chose something like a trial set. In his own words: "I didn't really get it, ate something I didn't really get, and wrote about it without really getting it."

On her first visit in 2021, Sugasawa didn't rely on a trial set. In the shop with no Japanese signage, she used gestures to ask a staff member "What's this?", and someone came out from the back and added ingredients for her, saying "recommended." However, not knowing about the free 80g of noodles, she put in a huge amount of noodles herself and ended up with an unbelievable amount of mala tang. Perhaps because there were few Japanese customers, about three staff members saw her off outside the shop when she left.

Toward the end of the meal, Ryuji said that what's nice about mala tang is that you can eat it without worrying about calories, and that you feel like you're getting nutrition from the vegetables, whatever the reality may be. When he went on, "It's the same as how girls like pasta," Sugasawa shot back, "What are you saying while dripping with sweat?" and "That's way too middle-aged-guy." Ryuji explained that he "thinks of women as aliens" and doesn't understand how they operate. When Sugasawa teased, "You cry easily, don't you?", Ryuji told the story of bawling at the film Your Name. Yet the people around him and the person he watched it with were completely unmoved, he says. Sugasawa concluded that Ryuji is apparently the one who thinks more like a girl.

The conversation turned to online backlash. Sugasawa said Ryuji seems not to care but actually does, so he might as well stop jumping into the fire. Ryuji replied that the malice is intense and he wants to know where it comes from. He says that once, when he said a Muji retort pouch meal "didn't suit me," people told him "You can't tell because you've got a dumb palate," and it blew up. Sugasawa responded, "It's 'personally,' you know," and "Not everyone feels that way," adding that even though they both love mala tang, there must be people who would say, "What the heck is this?"

Seijo Ishii also came up. A Seijo Ishii video they shot in February was released six months later, so their heavy midwinter clothing aired in midsummer. In the comments, viewers have been requesting a taste comparison of Seijo Ishii retort pouch meals. Ryuji said the Seijo Ishii curry he ate in a previous video was delicious.

Both of them finished their bowls. There are noodles in it, but at 80g it isn't that heavy, they say. Having sweated heavily during a midwinter shoot, Ryuji reflected, "It felt kind of like a detox, I feel refreshed." He gave mala tang, with its many ways to enjoy it, his verdict: "I think this is good, really."

Finally, they talked about trying other chains such as Qibao, as well as independently run mala tang shops, and the video ended.