Traditional MIDDLE EASTERN Food VS Street FOOD TOUR - Palestinian

Whoa, you guys, usually, usually I say five out of five. That's like, you know, it's pretty 10 out of 10. Oftentimes you have to leave the city to get the most authentic experience. So we're heading to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to have Middle Eastern food on a couple of different levels. An iconic world famous sit down and a millennial owned open air eatery that'll make you feel like you're in the big city over there. We have a couple of comedian friends with us, so I know the food is going to be good and the conversation hilarious. As you know, one of our goals is always to explore culture through food. So Brooklyn, we go hard. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of The World NY where we explore culture through food. And today we're in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in the middle of a large Middle Eastern and Mediterranean community. And we got a very, very special video for you guys. We are in front of Tannerine, probably one of, if not the most famous Middle Eastern restaurant in all of New York City. And you know, we could not do this without two comedian friends, Farouk and Vivek. Why don't you introduce yourself? What's up, guys? My name is Farouk Hussain. I'm actually a Pakistani comedian here in New York City. My dad is so cheap, he doesn't let the lights stay on unless someone looks at the Christmas tree. Tannerine is one of my favorite spots to go to here. Yeah, I'm Vivek, a South Indian comedian. I have a nut allergy, which sucks because I look like I have a nut allergy. In this video to make sure that Farouk doesn't consume any of those drinks from the drink menu. So a lot of people out there have probably had Middle Eastern food in some regard, possibly halal carts or falafel, but you have not seen it on this level. And Tannerine specifically serves Palestinian food. So let me tell you, this is something that a lot of you probably out there have not seen before. Let's go. All right, we've made it inside of Tannerine. It's a beautiful restaurant. It's got amazing vibe. But let's go meet the owner, Jumana, and let's figure out what we're going to eat today. Hi, guys. Hi, everybody. Today, we're serving you a combination of Mezzi, which is very representative of Tannerine and Palestinian food. Some classic ingredients with a different twist on them made by Chef Rawia, my mother, who has been in business for the past 22 years. All right. Starting off our feast here at Tannerine. Guys, we have two dishes that they've kind of put their own little twist on here. Musaqan, and that's the cauliflower steak. I've had a big cauliflower before, like fried one. That's a common dish. You ever had a Bloomin' Onion? Yeah. A million times better. A million times better than a Bloomin' Onion. Chicken Musaqan. It's not dry at all. Like, you'd expect it to be dry or, you know, like chicken pizza, no sauce. But this is, the bread is, like, oiled enough so it's, like, kind of crispy, but soft. The thing that typifies, like, Palestinian food is they use a lot of herbs and a lot of, like... Olive oil. Olive oil is key. Cauliflower steak. Oh, my goodness. I'm excited about this one. Oh, it's really good. Whoa. I feel bad for you right now. I feel bad. I can see Jumana... By the way, we have to address, because a lot of people are like, Hey, that guy doesn't eat anything. Yeah. I got a lot of food allergies and I know a lot of you guys have them as well. A lot of these, like, first generation Asian-Americans, right? Like, probably lactose intolerance is pretty common. Nut allergy is pretty common. So we're eating this in between real quick. Oh, yeah. What are we just snapping into right now? Fried bread boshia. It's a quintessential Palestinian and Middle Eastern spices on it. It's zaatar. The elephant in the room is... How do I know? I'm not Middle Eastern. But a lot, you can trick a lot of people. I grew up in Staten Island and I didn't really get exposed to a lot of, like, even Brooklyn growing up. And then when I started going out, like with my college friends, Muslim kids, where are you going to tell your parents you've been going to meet co-ed parties? At a restaurant, probably one of the most famous restaurants, so it's passable. So we usually end up in spots like this. But what are we looking at right here? Right now, we're looking at these fried brussels sprouts with tahini sauce, like an eggplant sauce. And this is fried halloumi cheese. Halloumi cheese is like kind of sweet, but like savory. It's like mozzarella sticks. Fried halloumi cheese. And I would say, consistency-wise, it does kind of feel like firm tofu, but it obviously has a taste of cheese. How familiar are you with this food? I feel like I can, like, draw analogs to, like, what I've had. I feel like it's such an interesting, like, gradient, right? Because you have the Middle East, right? And then you have Pakistan, then you have India, then you have the Himalayas, which is a mixture between East Asia and Beijing cultures. And then you get to East Asia and then kind of, like, go up. And then, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, everything is kind of melted. I like the gradient thing you bring that up because we were talking before, all of our cultures have such heavy food. Like, it's like, food is like such a... It's like cream-based. It's a drug, it's cream-based? Do you know, Matt, that the siesta is so common between our all. Like, I feel like the middle-of-the-day nap has to happen because you just ate a lot on your lunch, you know what I mean? Fried Brussels sprouts. Fried Brussels sprouts with tahini sauce. Tahini. Pomegranate tahini, I think. Yo, fried Brussels sprouts are really popular right now, but with that tahini sauce, I ate one. This has got to be the best Brussels sprouts I've ever had. All right, Farouk, what are we looking at? The fried lentils, the fried crispy onions. That one, I believe, it's a house-made thing. It's with the... I think she said it was something called the Napoleon. This is a very signature Tangerine dish. Eggplant Napoleon, tomato and basil salata, breaded fried eggplant with our house-made roasted eggplant baba lanoush. Fried lentils. This is the best lentils I've ever had. Never have fried lentils. They're crispy on the outside and really smooth on the inside. Almost like little tiny, I guess, smooth beans. You're right. Shrunk edamame fried them. Wow. Right? Yo, you've got to combine it with the Brussels sprouts. Look at this. I'm sort of spanking it. Spanking the Brussels sprouts. Eggplant Napoleon. Yo, that eggplant is delicious. Whoa, you guys, that is like a 10 out of 10. Usually, I'd say five out of five. 10 out of 10. All right, to finish off the appetizers that have only got progressively more amazing, we have these filet mignon shawarma sliders. Shawarma. Go with the hummus. Just dip it in the hummus. Shawarma slider. Filet mignon. Packing a lot of flavor for a little slider. I don't know if it's supposed to, guys. I ate this whole thing right after, by the way. You guys, we are looking at the mains here at Tannerine. I mean, this is unbelievable. I think immediately, my eyes are drawn to what looks like the most fanciful, nice, well-executed 14 out of 10 rated chicken rice. Yeah. Is that what it is? It's fried pita chips, chicken, and over rice pilaf. But I would like some of that. Chicken and rice pilaf. Oh. Oh, dude. That was some of the most tasty rice pilaf. I know that she described it as having kind of like vermicelli noodles. I've seen this before, but I haven't seen the noodles as long. Right. It's literally like a noodle and rice dish put together. That is slow-cooked food where I can taste just layers that were previously hidden to me. Almost like listening to high-definition music, high-bit rate music through good headphones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, that's a new instrument. Quick, let's just get this out of the way. Farouk, you're from Staten Island. You are defensive of Staten Island. Is this correct or not? Yeah. Is he defensive of Staten Island? He's got a lot of trash talking about Staten Island. Dude, all people know about Staten Island is from the Sopranos, and the Sopranos doesn't even take place in Staten Island. All right, you guys. I have some kebabs right here, and I believe this is lamb and chicken. Wow. Over here, we have eggplant baked with lamb, over again, vermicelli, and rice pilaf. You've had this before? I've never had this before. This is a kebab. And last but not least, we have the fish dish. Kebab. Wow. I could never go back. I could never go back to, like, $4 kebabs. How do you compare or contrast this to an Indian kebab? We like to mince the meat a lot. We like to make patties sort of situation with it. A lot of the spices that we're having here, they're savory and lemony and stuff like that. A lot of our cooking is more zesty, and you kind of feel in the tongue a little bit more like a sriracha flavor. How spicy would you say this is compared to? Not spicy. Okay. Eggplant. This is so good. Do Indians eat eggplant? Yeah. We call it bangin'. Right. Yeah. Bangin'. Bangin' is bangin'. I used to hate eggplant growing up, but, man, I'm glad I like it. You should do that. It's not just eggplant, though. It's lamb. Yeah. Nope. That is true. And Karu wanted to make sure that the protein got its due. It's not just eggplant. The thing might be anti-protein, but I'm not. Fish-ish. We bound this picture like two old Indy dudes fighting at LA Fitness right now. No words. Planet Fitness over the last pizza. I think this is the best eggplant I've ever had, actually. Like, consistently. Between the couple dishes that we've had it in, delicious. Oh, this is good stuff. This is fresh. Shredded phyllo dough filled with sweet cheese, baked, and then topped with a rose water and orange blossom syrup and pistachios. Oh my goodness. All right, guys. Ending off this amazing meal with dessert. We have Knafeh. Wow. Look at the cheese pull. Earlier, we were having the halloumi that doesn't melt, and this one is definitely melting. And this dessert. Let's go. Oh, that's rich. That's rich, too. If you haven't had something like this, trust me. This is like a totally different flavor palette. It's a blend of textures. You know how we were saying all the food is light? I get why now. You gotta make room for this guy. The rest of the video will be shot with Farouk sleeping. By the way. You need this tea afterwards. All right, you guys. That wraps up our amazing feast here at Tangerine. But we still gotta hit the streets. Yeah. Real quick, guys. We're losing light, but we're going. Right now, we're about to head to the main strip on Bay Ridge where all the restaurants are. It's by 86th Street and 5th Ave. So yeah, let's go head over there. This is the grab and go spot, really. This is the spot for me. Ayat over here. You can grab a quick falafel, quick shawarma, and just, you know, be on your way. The train's right over there. You sit there and eat by yourself and everybody watches you. This kind of still has some elements of, like, old New York. What is that? Yeah. I mean, I think that, for one, like, it does feel like there's a neighborhoodly feel. Right? Like, you don't see that at some point in a lot of these more gentrified areas. Well, everything is small business. The congressional district, like I was telling them, is the same as Staten Island. And Staten Island are very against big business moving in. They like the mom and pop shop. I think a big part of it, too, is if you have a very strong ethnic presence, then it's much harder to gentrify. To move people out. But this spot is repping Palestinian street food very hard. Very hard. So this is specifically Palestinian. Let's go and see what some of the stuff they got. Let's see what's poppin'. What's your name? Yes. Ayat. So it's named after you. Okay. It's named after her. Oh, wow. We are with the owner of Ayat. Her name is Ayat. We go to the restaurant a lot with my friends and stuff. So I brought him here. Oh, okay. All right. All right, you guys. We are sitting down here at Ayat Restaurant. We just talked to the owner. Yeah. We have a little bit of a different variety of things over here that she's going to be bringing out. Has this become one of your go-to spots in the neighborhood? Yeah. You're like, yo, I like the vibe. I like the food. I got to come here. Yeah, definitely. It's very easy. It's also, it reminds me of more of like a Manhattan vibe. Like we were saying, you just come in, order right there, get your stuff, and you can go. This is why we come out here to see spots that like Manhattan wouldn't have. Yeah, I asked her and she said it does look like a spot that would be in the old city in Palestine. Yeah. So like, you know, obviously way before the younger generation, but still in that country. It feels like I'm in like a street, like cafe, like the vibe that she's going for. I feel that like, you know, some old man's going to come pour coffee for me and I'm like, yeah, it's that vibe. It's going to be, yeah. He has to be over the age of 65. Yeah. Right? And not smile. No. And if he does, missing teeth. Also, let's break bread. Let's break bread right here. Yo. Wow. So it wasn't breaking a loaf of bread. It was like a flap of bread. It's more like a tearing of a treaty. Can you touch the bread? Yeah, I'm good. He can't even touch the bread. The biggest final boss battle. All right, over here we got great leaves stuffed with rice and meat. And over here we got Lubna, which is like a yogurt-y, sort of like a salty and creamy like a yogurt dip. Yeah. Dip the bread in like you would like a chip. Right? Like that. Oh my God. That is really good. I think immediately the thing that stands out, obviously they're both Palestinian spots, even though they're at different price points. Lemon. Lemon and herbs. And mint. This is a musakhan. So a little bit of a variation of what we had earlier, tandoori with chicken on it. This is more of a traditional like street food kind of version. Musakhan. Go ahead, man. Have a slice. Yo, that was like a nutty cheese slice right there. My sesame on top of it. Oh man. This is a great thing to share. I mean, it does taste like a cheese slice, but the kick here is like the roasted sesame seeds on top. Yo, I really did not think the little bit of roasted sesame seeds was going to make such a big difference. Right? Yo, got to try this. Very unique tasting. All right. And last but not least, we got chicken and lamb shawarma. This is the piece de resistance right there. That is top tier. Basically, I mean, we've cut it up, but you get it like a giant burrito slice. What is it about mixing the chicken and lamb together? I mean, this is a common combination. You know what it is? The chicken for the texture, the lamb for the saltiness of the taste. Mixed shawarma. Perfect amount of tahini sauce. Perfect amount of kind of like sour bite to it mixed in with the savory warm meat. All the vegetables, instead of being a traditional salad vegetable, they're all pickled. I like how it's served in a very like fun, cool, like, you know, millennial facing way. I mean, look at this cool plate. Aesthetically, the food looks cool. The music is blasting. The vibes are good. You know, I would have never thought I would come to a Palestinian street food spot and enjoy the vibe. I think from what the owner is trying to accomplish with matching the food with the vibes, with the attitude and everything. 10 out of 10, I would say. This is exactly the kind of mesh, like, I feel like I'm in a Palestinian street cafe right now. I guess you could just imagine what we had. You know what? I actually don't think it's that different than like a lot of the textures in Indian food. And that beer was really good. The smells of the air of it. The molecules. You enjoyed the molecules. I did. It's almost like I ate something. I would like to see a food show hosted by you two guys. Yeah. Farouk and Vivek. I'd love to see Vivek giving the commentary while Farouk eats. Vivek is the food critic from Ratatouille. He just doesn't eat anything. He just knows it's bad. My favorite was the moussaka. Yeah, I really enjoyed it because of just the roasted sesame seeds on top. I thought it brought a totally new flavor that was unexpected. Yeah. I'm going to agree with you. I've had all this stuff before. I've only had this once. Fresh out the oven. And it was a flick of the wrist move. You know what I mean? Like very, very flick of the wrist move. Just getting a little sesame on there. And game changer. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for joining us on that Middle Eastern food crawl here through Bay Ridge. Shout out to Farouk. Shout out to Vivek. And thank you for taking us on this tour today. I mean, honestly, I would have never got exposed to tangerine or here at Ayotte. Man, I thought it was really interesting. Both spots were more Palestinian based, you know. And that's really cool because I'd never had that food. But guys, there's all types of food out here. Bay Ridge is very, very diverse. And man, I just had some dishes I'd never had before. And anytime, you know, I think I eat a lot of food. But anytime I can taste something that I've never had, I learned a lot. We went to two similar cuisine restaurants. But set in two different vibes totally, first of all. And there's no overlap in the type of food they presented to us. So, it was like I felt like I experienced Palestinian royalty and Palestinian proletariat in one day. No matter what you do, you feel like you know somebody or something. And then you go sit in their establishment or something for like even a minute. And you realize how little you know. Yeah, I mean, my big takeaway even without eating anything was like I thought it was so cool how passionate both owners were. Over like the vibe they're trying to create and the food. Like we asked so many questions and they had the answers like so detailed to every question. There's so many more similarities between what we eat. Like how we view things. Our challenges and our differences. And so, we focus more on that. That's like when you're really going to have a better time like interacting with the people around you. You can find me at Farooqi on Instagram and at Fat Aladdin on Twitter. Follow me. You can find me on Instagram at Indian Maisel. Hey, guys. It's getting pretty late. I heard you have a show tonight. Yeah, we do. It's at Ample Hills Creamery in Brooklyn at 7 and 845. Otherwise, if you follow me, you can find me. The show would have already happened by the time you see this. I've seen Farooqi's set. Very funny. You made me laugh. I don't want to give away the joke. But you compare yourself to Jon Lovitz. And it made me laugh really hard. For those watching who still remember who Jon Lovitz is. If you don't know who Jon Lovitz is, check out all their social media down below. Shoutout to the two restaurants that we ate at today. Ayat is A-Y-A-T. Tannourine is T-A-N-N-O-R-E-E-N. Both in Bay Ridge. Locate them. Find them. They're both on Instagram. Find them. Support them. Let us know in the comments down below what else we need to try out around New York. Yes, we are leaving Manhattan. Officially, guys. We're hitting up Queens and Brooklyn. Who knows? Staten Island might be next. Jersey might be next. It might take a minute to get there. Once you guys really run out of ideas, we'll get you. After we do New York, we're definitely hitting up everywhere else, guys. But thank you so much for watching. And leave it in the comments down below. Be nice, everybody. Be respectful. Thank you so much for watching. Hit subscribe. Hit the like button. And check out their stuff, guys. This is Damien and Andrew from the Farm Bros signing off. And until next time, we out. Peace. For Middle Eastern rather than Pakistani. Yeah, okay. So I get mistaken for a dark Sicilian. I get mistaken. The Sicilian is in his body. I get that. I get a lot of Egyptian. That's all in the voice. I get Egyptian. That's all in the voice. The Sicilian. Yeah.