NYC NOW - The Best Bite in Every Borough with NYC Food Influencer Julian Mu

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Description: Julian Mu, who goes by Mubereats on social media, has hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers and millions of TikTok likes, and he pays for every single meal he reviews. He joins us to talk about how he got started, why he only covers small and local businesses, and to play a game of “NYC Chow”, picking his favorite spot in each borough. Follow Julian on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mubereats -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm NYC Now producer Iirec Penobi in Virginia Pierre. I really think what is unique to New York is the true amount of diversity of food that we have here. Because you kind of realize why New York is the greatest city in the world. Social media has changed a lot about our world, including how we learn about good food. Today on the show, we talk to New York City-based food fluencer, Julian Mew about where you can find his favorite bite in every borough. But before we get into that, a few headlines to keep you informed this weekend.

A spokesperson for Governor Kathy Hokel says that New York City will use the new second-home surcharge, or pita-terre tax, to identify tax cheats who live in the five boroughs but pay their taxes elsewhere. New York City's new pita-ter tax is meant to collect hundreds of millions of dollars from valuable second homes. If the second home is a house, the tax kicks in when it's valued at $5 million. If it's a condo or a co-op, the cutoff is $1 million. Well, how to actually tell if a house is someone's second home?

The city does that by looking into your income taxes. If you don't pay New York State income tax, which you're legally required to, if you live here for at least 184 days a year, then the city assumes that that $5 million brownstone is your second resident. except, of course, if you're cheating on your taxes. Busted. Some New York City homeowners are getting pita tear bills on their primary residence because they're not actually paying New York City taxes.

Governor Hockel's spokesperson says, if you're one of these people whose taxes aren't in order, it's time to come clean. Or the state is ready to take action to ensure people pay their fair share. New York City health officials say that they've detected nearly twice as much West Nile virus. as this time last year. While no humans have tested positive this summer, the health department is advising New Yorkers to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites.

They suggest using repellent or wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks, and shoes. They also say they're deploying additional traps and ramping up mosquito surveillance. If you're headed to the farmer's market, there may soon be a new herb on your shopping list. Mary Jane, marijuana, reefer, that cush, whatever you call it, a new state law authorizes licensed cannabis merchants to sell at approved community events like farmers markets.

Governor Hockel says the move puts small entrepreneurs on a level playing field and expands consumer access to safer products. Festivities are hitting the street this weekend. The city will celebrate its first ever Jamaica parade this Saturday. It'll start at 10 in the morning along Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, marking Jamaica's Independence Month. Jamaica parade organizer Bill Tinglin was on WNYC's All Things Considered, where we asked him, what can a newcomer expect from Saturday's parade? The dancing, the food, the patties, the cocoa bread, the chicken, the rice, the juices. If you have energy for more fun on Sunday, the National Dominican Republic Parade starts at 11 a.m. in Manhattan.

Expect street closures along 6th Avenue and the blocks surrounding it, starting at 8 a.m. in the morning. Between the parades in Manhattan, in Brooklyn, you're sure to find some really good eats. But if you're looking for great food in the other three boroughs, then keep listening. Up ahead on the show, my colleague Jenae Pierre speaks with food reviewer Julian Mew. He has over half a million followers across his social media pages, and he's built a business out of knowing where in the city you can get the best bite. Welcome back.

Folks have had really big opinions about New York food, as long as the city's been around. Where can you get the best slice of pizza, the best dumplings, or even what I'm on right now? Where's the best rasta pasta? Well, everyone's a critic these days. But for most of the city's history, the people who got to weigh in officially with a platform were restaurant critics. But mostly, those are all gone, right? Newspapers, magazines, the world's changing.

For a lot of people, the new food authority is the person on your social media feed. You know, the person who found the good spot before it even blew up and knows exactly what you should order. But one of those people is Julian Mew. He goes by Mover Eats on the apps. He's got hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, millions of TikTok likes, and a whole lot of recommendations. Guess what? Julian joins me now in studio. Hey, Julian, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me. Were you always a foodie? Yes, I would say, long story short, yes, absolutely. I've always loved home cooking. I was very spoiled to have grandparents and parents who are able to cook and cook very well. So I'm pretty sure that's what sparked this love of. I mean, you'll even see a lot of the places I go, a lot of the places I feature, they're all home cooking or home cooking.

Okay, so home cooking, what's your favorite dish? It changes constantly. Depending on a season? Yeah, depending on the day, really. But I think if it really comes down to it, I think dumplings. I grew up on dumplings. And it's just, it's a comfort food, a true comfort food. Yeah.

Is there any cuisine, in your opinion, Julian, that's unique to New York? Unique is an interesting word. I don't think so. There are things that New York is known for and New York does it very, very well. I think the obvious, you know, kind of pizza, bagels. even like chop cheese, like anything kind of in there. Carbs. Carbs are unique to New York.

Yeah. But no, I really think what is unique to New York is the true amount of diversity of food that we have here. Because I'll go to so many different countries and cities, and I'm very lucky to be able to. But you kind of realize why New York is the greatest city in the world. You rarely find a city that has so much diversity of cuisines, and they do it well. So, like, everyone's like, oh, L.A. does better Mexican food. Sure. Like, I probably won't disagree with that.

But we have good versions of Mexican food. We have Puebloan food. We have Wahawk and food. Like, just kind of all around. And it's very rare. And I don't take it for granted, but also take it for granted that, like, not many other cities in the world. have this. Yeah. Tell me about like a single meal in New York

City that, you know, really stopped you in your tracks. You put the fork down and you were like, I have to start doing food reviews because this is just too delicious not to share. One of my favorites, probably great New York noodle town in Chinatown.

It's kind of your classic Cantonese barbecue meat over rice. And it's not really something I had growing up, but it is a very, very popular dish. And it's just kind of like the meat, the sauces all over the rice. Again, it's a comfort food.

And it is one of those things where it's like people grew up eating this. I didn't. And now I have easy access to it. And yeah, I think that kind of sparked a little bit of the exploring, exploring the city, exploring different cuisines. Yeah, because I'm just interested in your Genesis story here. Like, how did Julian become Uber Eats? I would say there's a couple reasons of how that happened.

One, the one I like to say all the time, I have a terrible memory. So I needed to remember the places to tell my friends and family when they came to visit. So that's really one of the main reasons on why or how this started. The other one was food content at the time when I started watching it was pretty similar. And what year are we talking about here? I think late 22, maybe early 2023. When folks were just going back outside post-pandemic. Yeah, exactly.

And a lot of the content, a lot of the places that people went were the same. A lot of the ideas that people had were very similar. And so I was kind of interested in, is there a way to do things differently while supporting local and small businesses? Especially, like you were saying, we were kind of coming out of a time when it was rough. It's still rough for local and small businesses, but it was definitely rough then. For sure. I want you to walk me through the very first social media video that you did. Was that at the spot in Chinatown or was that like the moment you realized that you wanted to do videos?

I actually think it was in Chinatown. It wasn't that spot though. I work in series, so all my content is serialized. One big reason for that is my attention span. If I don't change what I'm doing or if I don't change what I'm focused on, I'm going to get bored. I'm going to stop making videos. So the first series I ever made was trying to find, it all comes back, trying to find the best, or trying to find my favorite dumplings in New York City. And, yeah, I think my first video was two dumpling spots in Chinatown.

And I'm like, oh, this is fun. I'm going to continue doing this. Yeah. First ever video did really well. Now, you know, you're up to 266,000 Instagram followers, 12 million likes on TikTok. Your social media audience is bigger than a lot of traditional or new food media writers and creators. How do you approach expanding your knowledge and staying current on food around the city? Yeah, that is kind of the question.

I luckily have a lot of friends who are focused more on the new openings and the new restaurants. Okay, so you have an end? So, yeah, yeah, kind of. But no, there's a lot of great accounts covering new openings and new restaurants. I'll use Reddit. I'll use all the different publications that are out there just to keep me updated, especially an ever-changing city. Yeah. Are you eating out like every single day, every single meal?

Not every single meal, but a lot. Yeah, definitely a lot. I have a lot of leftovers. That is like I will always have leftovers in the fridge. So it is, it's more than expected, but also maybe less than people would think. I think it's really cool that you make it a point to pay for all your food. You don't take paid restaurant spots. You are out here really supporting these places.

How's the budget for that? You know, there's definitely a lot of expenses, which is a good thing. I mean, I'm not saying that to the plate at all. But yeah, I mean, it's just something that I did ever since the beginning. One of my main pillars is supporting small and local business. For me, it just made a lot of sense for me to go and pay, at the minimum, pay for my meal. They're taking, even if I'm not filming with the people, and many times I am, they're taking the time out of their day to film with me. So at the end of the day, they're doing me a favor no matter how any video does or what kind of comes out of that.

And that's huge. I mean, you're talking to small business, small restaurant owners. Do they ever worry that? Oh, no, 10,000 people are going to come through my door and I don't have, you know, the capacity to take that on. Is that a concern? It is. That's another reason why I pay for my food because I don't, I'm not going to promise a certain amount of views. I'm not going to promise, you know, how the video is going to do. But if it does well, which is great, many times I will at least let the owner or whoever know, like, oh, like this video is doing well. I'm not saying that there's going to be a large rush or anything, but wanted to at the minimum give you a heads up. just to not be like, oh, where did all of this come from? Luckily, I would say all of the interactions I've had have been,

I was going to say, like, 99.9% positive, but really 100% positive. I've just been very lucky. I say this all the time when I'm complaining about my day or when I'm having a stressful day. Even on my worst days, I'm eating great food and meeting amazing people. So, yeah, like I've been very lucky to have very, very, very, close friends come out of doing this. Whether it be on the creator side, whether it be on the restaurant owner's side, there's many that I've been lucky to connect with more on a personal level.

And maybe it started as like, oh, your food looks amazing or I really want to come try this food. And then it turned into, oh, you're a pretty cool person. Let's hang out. Let's grab drinks. Let's grab food together. Yeah, I've been very lucky on that side of things too. That's really cool. Yeah.

You know, another cool thing that you do on your page, You kind of like create a game. I've seen these brackets. You know, you put a chef with a chef, a foodie face off or dish for dish. Can you talk about how that came to be? Yeah. That's kind of just how I... Is that your attention span?

That's exactly it. Yeah. With that in mind, I'd like to maybe get a game going right here. Right here right now. On NYC now, we're going to do NYC Child. Okay. Because I want to know your top recommendations for each. borough. So we got five coming. All right. Start wherever you want to start. It may have to be four because I am. No Staten Island? I just assumed that it was Staten Island. Yeah, yeah. It was a safe assumption. I have a YouTube show with my business partner and the kind of inside joke is that Julian doesn't go to Staten Island. So maybe we go there last. Okay. Yeah. I think what comes to mind immediately for Queens, I think it's the greatest borough.

especially when it comes to food. There's a place called handmade dumplings in flushing that I've been obsessed with. Okay. Payule in Jackson Heights is great as well. I said one. I know, I know. Actually, no, I'll, I'm going to take it back. I think it's Cal Kang in Elmhurst.

Okay. It is definitely one of the most memorable meals I've had in the past half year. The reason why they're so special is they have a changing steam table. So if you put a steam table in front of me, it's automatic. one of my favorite places. Absolutely. Any cuisine, any culture. I seek out steam tables.

So I had this fish dish that was really, really good. They had a green curry that was spicy and just super punchy. And I think they also just made the New York Times top 100 list, too. So, yeah. So that's Queens. So we're one down. Okay. That was tough.

Yeah. Manhattan, I would say potlough club. It's like modern Cantonese American cooking. Um, food is amazing. It is beautifully decorated and the ownership team is, they're some of my favorite people, but it's, it's not only the food and, and the decorations and the people. It's really like what they represent. And what it is is kind of this new generation trying to revitalize and keep the legacy of Chinatown going. Combine that with incredible food. You combine that with them being amazing people. And it's just a really good combination of things.

We've gone to Queens, we've gone to Manhattan. What about Brooklyn? Brooklyn, I would say, actually I am kind of cheating because it technically started in Queens. But I go to the Greenpoint location a lot. Marisco-Sos-a-Marino. Okay, yeah. I had a lot of stuff. There, honestly, my favorite thing there is actually the grilled shrimp.

The grilled shrimp is probably the best shrimp dish I've had almost anywhere. And it is pretty simple. It is, I mean, they do add some marinade to it and they add some sauce to it. And they just do it so well. That is by far one of my favorites. They also have an octopus taco, which is incredible. And they also have this shrimp, the shrimp and shrimp butter taco, which and cheese. And it's like, it's their most popular taco, I believe.

And it's the most popular for a reason. Man, I'm getting hungry here. But let's go to the Bronx. Oh, a lot of great stuff in the Bronx. Yeah. I got to admit I don't visit the Bronx enough. I think that's a pretty regular answer. I think a lot of people don't go to the Bronx enough. And there's truly so much incredible food there. And I think La Pira Lechonera, he only does like pork shoulder Lechon on Saturday and Sunday. And it is how good the food is, the energy and how great of a person he is. I think it has to be La Piraenaena. Okay. What did you have when you were there? I had a mix of everything. So he also does plates. Wow, you're ordering entire menus. No wonder you have leftovers in the fridge.

Exactly, exactly. His latron was obviously very, very good, very crispy skin, kind of that like chip shattering skin that you really want. He had this octopus salad that was randomly really, really good. But I think the best thing is he has this like massive, almost like gatorade. tub shaped container that's just filled with, I think, like a garlic sauce that he makes. And I think it's, it might just be like garlic and water and salt. It's like as simple as that. But on every single bite, it was one of the greatest bites that I've had. Wow.

Yeah. No, I think the more I talked about it, I think that that's definitely my choice for the Bronx. Okay. Well, now to the forgotten borough. Sorry. Sorry all my set and island listeners. We love you. This one, I'm going to have to pull my phone out because I don't remember the name.

Yeah. But I remember how great the sandwiches are. Oh, there we go. Okay. Favorite spot in Staten Island is Anthony's Panino Teca. Okay. Creates one of the greatest sandwiches that I've had while in New York, and I love sandwiches. Okay.

Whiches, I think, is another comfort food. It really comes down to comfort food. Yeah. I'm seeing the trend here. Yes, exactly. I think I say home cooking a lot, but I think I really just mean comfort. for food of all types. What sandwich did you get?

Again, I've had many. It's really just kind of like the combination of flavors, I think, there. I think it's very easy to throw a sandwich off balance. So whether it be too much meat, not enough meat, it's all about the ratio. And I think the ratios that he has at his sandwich shop is really what sets it apart. You're absolutely right. It's about ratio. You know, I don't need a thick tomato on my sandwich.

Sounds like there's a little context behind that one. You know who you are. Yeah, I mean, it really comes down to, of course, quality of ingredients. But beyond that, I think, you know, you kind of have these more viral, like, super-stack sandwiches or something. And I'm like, oh, it looks really good. And then you eat it. It's a mess. Yeah, it's a mess.

And then I'm like, I don't know where my first bite is, how I go. I also don't have the biggest mouth. So it's like I'm just like taking three bites to try to just get through one part of the sandwich. It's a lot. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for going through this new game, NYC Chow. I love it. I love it.

Before I let you go, Julian, I know that you've been traveling a lot recently. And the food on your recent Asia trip series looked amazing. Yes. And I know you mentioned you're a big sandwich guy, the bomb me. Oh, my goodness. But I thought like the coolest thing on your trip. you weren't going to like these really fancy places, right? It was literally like fresh caught fish on a boat, like, you know?

Yeah. And I know that your tagline is finding food, people in places that feel like home. What does it mean to taste like home? I'm just because I say it a lot. You know what I mean? Right, right. But it's like, what does that truly mean? No, I think that's a really good question that I wouldn't have fully been able to answer before this,

but I think we figured it out during this conversation. I think it's comfort food. I think it's like it's something that brings you back, either brings yourself back to a memory or like you can really see from a culture where this food comes from, why it is such a necessity, why it is a comfort food. I think that's just what I naturally found myself drawn to. I know that you're originally from Maryland.

Rockville. Yeah, yeah. Well, when you're missing home, where do you go here in New York to find home on a plate? You might be the first person ever to ask me that. Because I have a series called Homestick and Hungry where I ask people, where do you go to get food that reminds you of home? I'm about to give an answer that I hate getting. Actually, no, I might have an answer. It's the first thing I said, I think, is handmade dumplings and flushing.

Not sponsored. But, yeah, I mean, their dumplings are very familiar. Their dumplings are very good. And it does actually remind me of specifically my mom's dumplings. And so, yeah, that's probably my answer. That's Julian Mew. You can follow him on social media at Muber Eats. Thanks so much for joining me.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. This was so much fun. So much fun. Next time we got to go out to a restaurant. There we go. That's my colleague, Jenae Pierre, speaking with food influence, answer Julian Mew. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Eurek Panobi filling in. We'll be back on Monday.