Samoan vs Afghan vs Guatemalan Food (7 More RARE Cuisines!)

So this is the chow mein? Yes. When I was growing up in Kent, Washington, I would have never guessed that it'd be ranked as one of the most diverse cities in the country. And it definitely didn't feel that way when I was younger. But things do change a lot over 10 years. And every time me and David come back to visit, there's a new restaurant serving food from a different culture. So we wanted to show you some of the spots around our hometown. Guatemalan, Samoan, Venezuelan, Himalayan, and Afghani, just to name a few. Let's go. Andrew, we took a quick trip back to our hometown of Kent, Washington. And I'm super excited to do this video today. We're going to be trying so many different cuisines that we've never had before. And we can do this in our hometown of Kent because Kent currently is ranked top 10 in the nation for most diverse midsize cities and in the entire state of Washington. Andrew, today we're going to be trying Guatemalan Samoan, Australian, Venezuelan, Himalayan, and Afghani. Woo! That is quite a mix. First up is Antigua Guatemala. All right, this is the Guatemalan restaurant. This is Antigua Guatemalan restaurant. The difference is like more like we use like a little bit less spicy. All our tamales are in banana milk. Slightly different, you know, between the Guatemalan and the Mexican. On Guatemala, it's like kind of traditional to have like chow mein, you know, colony of Japanese people somehow. It's a kind of mix of culture, you know, with the Mayas and the Spanish. Yo! All right, in front of us, we have this amazing Guatemalan spread right here. And some of the dishes look familiar to something I've had before, but some of them look totally different. Guys, if you guys are excited about this video, make sure to smash that like button, hit subscribe, and turn on your notifications. David, do you know all the names here? No. I know guaraches, it was a tamale, chinchito, chow mein, pupusa, and that is tortilla de harina, and this is pepian. All right, so this pepian dish is considered one of the most traditional, and it is the national dish of Guatemala right now. So we got to start with this. This is a chicken soup right here. Yo, Andrew, I'm a chicken stew guy. Hey, you're a chicken stew guy, man. I'm chicken curry, chicken stew, that's on me. Look at this tortilla pocket that they've given me. These are handmade tortillas. Let me just pull this out for you right now. Wow, they're steaming. Wow, you know how thick these tortillas are? They're almost more like scallion pancakes. I did not know what you were busting out right there. No, this feels more like roti or like a scallion pancake. Wow. Okay. Yo, please, please, Andrew, give me some pepian. Okay, man. Pepian. Okay, right off the bat, resembles somewhat of a borscht soup, but it's a more chicken base. It has a very deep flavor. Tomatoey, but not like tomato soup. Yo, pepian, what a way to start. Guys, we are going to finish this food. Oh my gosh, there's so much. I'm excited already. Wow, well, so here, if you look at this plate, I have a sausage right here. Oh, tell me that doesn't look like the Lao sausage. Andrew, while you are doing that, I have the Guatemalan horchata. It is different than the Mexican horchata. I'll tell you why in a second. Lighter, less cinnamon. Okay. Churrascos. Dip it in the sauce here. Chinchito and tamale. Chinchito. Oh, you know what that was like? Heavy corn flavor. This is the Guatemalan tamale, and they're a little bit different because... It's got tomatoes in it. Yeah, they have tomatoes in it, and the corn is supposed to be a little bit fluffier, and then also it's wrapped in a banana leaf and not a corn husk. Oh, wow. That's a very soft and fluffy tamale right there. Guys, we have to start finishing up here at our Guatemalan spot, because we have so many other locations to get to. Oh, but the food was really good, and I could eat every dish. I could eat more of every dish, but I'm going to hold myself back. All right, so we got two Guatemalan desserts to finish off our meal here before we go on to the next spot. This one right here is muete, and let's go dig in, man. I've never seen anything like this before. This is beautiful looking. Their layout and their whole... the care that they put into food is just great, man. Muete. Oh, it's warm. Wow. That was like a warm, soaking pancake. Dude, that is a way better version of a bread pudding, but with cinnamon. That is decadent, man. Let me tell you that. Wow. It's almost like a sugar donut with filling inside. Oh, wow. It's almost like a banana coconut fried in a donut hole. That was really good, too, but for me, I got to go with the muete. Muete takes the cake as far as the desserts, though. But, man, both were delicious. Andrew, the next spot we are headed to is a food that I am sure that probably 99% of our followers have not had before. Yes, it is Samoan food. Now, if you guys don't know, there's actually a large Samoan population in the Seattle area, approximately 10,000 of them. Basically, this is the only kind of Samoan food you can buy at a restaurant in this area. It's called Lily's Bakery, and they're going to have some Samoan food, hopefully, and also a lot of baked goods. This is our pineapple filling. If you guys want to try it right now, let's go try it. We call them our half moon pies. There's also the filling inside the moon cups that I just gave you. The only difference is there's no whipped cream on top of it like the moon cups, but it's almost the same. It's just some people just like it that way. Okay, David, we are outside of Lily's Bakery. We're here in Kent still over on the West Hill. By the way, guys, this is Samoa. We are popping up Samoa on a map. Polynesian island, meaning it probably has a lot of different influences, but Polynesia being the overall broader term for a number of the islands in the Pacific, but this is particularly Samoan food. Outside of the history, guys, let's get into this food. But this is a coconut spinach, David, for you. This is a turkey tail, right? Right. And this is lamb that's cooked in some soy sauce. This is a barbecue chicken, and this is a Polynesian sausage, essentially. And then we have desserts here. We have the lamb curry, okay? And then you also have the sapsoy, which is their chop suey. Coconut spinach. Never had it before. Wow. It almost tastes like the creamed spinach you would get at like Lawry's or San Francisco House of Prime Rib, but with more coconut. Yeah, instead of cream, it's coconut cream. All right, guys, this is the turkey butt. So they call it the turkey tail. It's, man, it is roasted to perfection. This is the ass of a turkey. We are eating ass today. All right, guys, this is the turkey tail. Turkey tail. How do you know the butt of a turkey tastes so good? Very fatty. That is a fat turkey ass. I'm chewing on a tailbone. It's sweet. It's caramelized. It's just falling apart in my mouth. So, guys, we are here moving on to the lamb. So she just gave me a slab of lamb, guys. Here, if you come to Lily's, you can get, actually, you can taste all the food, and it's really, really cheap, man. Everything on this table only costed less than $30. So I gotta shout out to them. Yo, Andrew, I can't wait any longer. I want the Samoan moon pie, man. Try the moon pie. Break one open, though. Here, we gotta break it. You're gonna break it? Oh, it's gonna crumble. Oh, man, these look good. This is the Samoan moon pie. Wow, it's good. Dude, that's really good. And you know what I think I really enjoyed about it? The filling was not overly sweet. I'm not gonna lie. I thought it might be when I first looked at it, but it was totally light. It's got way more of a real fruit flavor to it. Yeah, this definitely makes me more curious, and I'm glad we got a chance to do this because you can't find Samoan restaurants in every place in America. Yo, so far, Andrew, I gotta say, this food crawl has been two for two. Antigua Guatemala was delicious. Lily's Samoan Bakery has been delicious. I'm excited for the next spot. Let's go. On Instagram, shout out to Joseph TT Alihi, David Takataka. And just be like, hey, man, I'm at Lily's Bakery. You know what I loved about going to Antigua Guatemala and Lily's Samoan Bakery is that they were really hubs for the local community. And it goes to show you how diverse Kent is because you're not gonna put a Samoan bakery somewhere where there's no Samoans. You're not gonna put a Guatemalan spot where there's no Guatemalans. Guess what, Andrew, we have next. We have another cuisine that I've had once before but have not really got a chance to indulge in, Andrew. We are gonna be having some of the finest Venezuelan arepas. We have arrived at Papa Arepas. I've got the maltin. Uh-huh, I have the colita. These are drinks that are very common in Venezuela. So before we start the meal, cheers. Oh, that doesn't just taste like Coke. That's a little bit fruitier, almost pure sugarcane. This tastes like a beer. This tastes like a beer? Like a delicious beer. This is really good. Actually, I kept drinking that. I did not expect to like it. You know what? Non-alcoholic. Tell me it doesn't taste like a beer. Bro, my taste buds are drunk. Andrew, this is the number one Venezuelan dish, the arepa. And here I have this curry sauce. David, you have the cilantro sauce. These are hot, steaming, fresh arepas. David, you have the pork one. I have the beef one. Venezuelan arepas. Enjoy. Yo, that, this to me was seriously like- The best arepa. This was a five out of five. Wow, well, what's in it? I have a pork one, but it's like, it's really juicy pork. And it was not dry. Look how much pork I had to cut through. Oh, this is the best arepa I've ever had. It's the easiest to eat. And David, form-wise, look-wise, it does look like the Chinese hamburger, the rojak muang. I gotta try the beef one, man. Because beef and cheddar, this is like a, this is like an Arby's special right here. Which one's better? Wow. Which one's better, bro? That one was surprising, but the pork one's better. Really? There's a reason the pork is number zero. Zero is not even a number. There's a reason the pork was number zero. I'm rolling with the beef, man. No! The beef had way more flavor. All right, flip the camera. What a bite. This guy got so excited. This is the happiest John has ever been. By the way, John doesn't smell this much. Oh, come on, man. Three, two, one. Pork. Oh, pork. The pork, hands down. We're just making a pit stop in this video because we had to do something that kind of would cleanse our palate. Bamboo. Dude, I'm not gonna lie. The drinks, price-wise, it could be, you know, eight, maybe nine dollars, but it's worth it. Guys, this is the Vietnamese rice paper salad. Dude, I think that this is fascinating. I don't think we have- Rice paper salad. We don't have anything like this in China. Rice paper salad. All right, I'm gonna try this rice paper. So right off the bat, I will tell you this, the texture of the rice paper gets a little getting used to because it's really chewy and feels undercooked. But as you start to chew it, actually, it soaks up more of the sauce and your saliva in a way, and it gets softer and softer. It has some lime. It has citrus. It has the mango flavoring. It's a little bit spicy. So actually, overall, that's really refreshing, and I'm actually enjoying that a lot. That was the perfect thing to eat in the state that we were in. These leaves are super refreshing. I gotta see John try it. Damn, I feel a lot better right now. It's going down. Yeah, it's like kind of weird at first, right? But it's kind of good. Wait. Wait five more seconds. I'm refreshed. All right, so we've made it to our next spot, Himalayan Cafe, David. So this spot serves actually a variety of everything from Indian food to Nepalese food. But obviously, it's called Himalayan Cafe because here we have Himalayan food. So the interesting thing about Nepalese food is that it's really in between China and India. You can get just Indian food, or you can get more East Asian food, and then Nepal is like this really cool mix in between. This first dish, thank you, sir. We have the momos. Of course, this is one of the most famous dishes from this region. It's a steamed dumpling, often with vegetables. But the difference about this between Chinese dumplings is that there's really no soy sauce. You don't eat it with the black vinegar either. You kind of have this tomato base. I want to say tikka masala sauce. It's similar to that, but pretty much you pour it and eat it with the momos. Nepalese momos. All right. I would say for me, momos are one of my favorite dumplings. And to be fair, they're pretty similar to the Chinese dumplings, to be honest. But some of the spices are different, and some of the sauces are different. I think a lot of people go to Nepalese spots and just get momos, which is cool. But it goes way deeper than that. And I know that on a cold New York day, Andrew, because there's a lot of Himalayan people in New York. I like to go get a good tukba. Andrew, I had a bunch of stuff to do that day. And I had to power up with one dish, one noodle soup between pho, wonton, and tukba. I'm taking the tukba. All right. So, David, we just had Himalayan food and it started to rain outside. But now we're on our way to Naza's Seafood, which is actually an Australian spot. I did not expect to see an Australian spot in Kent, Washington. See, when we talk about ethnic spots and immigrant spots, I guess we're also including Australian immigrants, too. All right. To be fair, if you made me bet money, it is from a person from Australia that also came from another country originally. All right, let's go check it out, man. We're pulling up here. Where is this spot? Naza's Seafood. Oh, hey, it's next to El Ranchito. All right, man. Fish and chips, Australian style. You pick, we cook. Where are you guys originally from? We are from the Fiji Islands. Okay, so you guys are from Fiji and then you guys lived in Australia for a few years and now you guys are Americans now. Yep. Hey, man, that's a beautiful immigrant American story. What a journey. It's the best. We're the best in town. Oh, yeah. Yo, we guys, we made it into Naza's Seafood. I'm so excited, Andrew. We have authentic Australian fried platter. You have shrimp, you have calamari, you have the imitation crab, you have the Australian whitefish. Andrew, we've got every single fish they offer here. Oh, by the way, guys, there's all different types of sauces. They even got an Indian chili vinegar because they are daisies from Fiji. Oh, my gosh, they have the garlic vinegar. Yo, first up, we got to go with snapper, Andrew. Snapper, cooked perfectly. Guys, the batter that they make is super light and crispy. It totally melts away, but it gives you that initial crisp. Halibut. I'm just going to eat it by itself. That's one of the lighter, cleaner whitefishes. To me, that's kind of like eating the chicken breast of fish. Halibut. I mean, I can tell from all the fish and chip spots, whether the person came from Britain or Australia, I can tell that they do care about it in a different level than in America. They prioritize it more. Definitely American fish and chips are at the bottom. British and Australian fish and chips are definitely at the top. So, guys, man, if you find a fish and chip spot that's owned by a British or Australian person, definitely try it out, especially if they're daisy. Andrew, we have arrived at our last and final spot on this ultra diverse, ultra international Kent, Washington food crawl. We're going to Dogwood Cafe and Lounge. Yeah, they have eggs Benedict here, French toast. Very ethnic. Just kidding, guys. We're going right next door. And this spot is called Afghan Kebab House. Andrew, we have arrived at Afghan Kebab House. We're having an authentic Afghan experience here. As you can see, we're sitting down on the floor. We've taken our shoes off. They put the placemat here for us. David, in my hand, I have the bolani. OK, which is a spinach bread. Spinach flatbread that's kind of folded over. Honestly, it looks like a quesadilla. That's the closest thing that comes to mind. And David, here you have the mantus. Yeah. And not to mention, we have this delicious mushroom soup here. Whoa, that's good, Andrew. It's got like chickpeas on it. Definitely a little bit different than the momo. But if you guys know where Afghanistan is, it is situated next to Pakistan. Pakistan is next to India. I got to be honest. It definitely has like a 50-50 experience between like a ravioli and a dumpling. It's packed pretty loose like a ravioli. It's flat. The inside is not kind of clumped into a ball, which is more like a dumpling. I would say the thing that gives it the ravioli vibe is the white sauce. Yeah. Kabuli pulao and lamb shank. Yo, Andrew, this is amazing. I love pulao. Pulao is actually one of my favorite things. Raisins and rice. I think I got to take a fork with this piece. I'm gonna break off a piece of this lamb shank right here. Oh, lamb shank. The lamb is good. The lamb is like actually a lot lighter than I thought. You heard it from him. Afghan Kebab House and Ken Washington. Check it out. What was your favorite thing that you had on this trip, man? First of all, I think that there was something that was pretty much a five out of five at every spot we went to. At least one thing. My mind keeps going back to the five out of five mullete at the Guatemalan restaurant. That was definitely a banger. I would definitely say the tortilla de harina. Moving on to the Samoan spot, and there's no question why this is the number one selling item, the moon pies. The moon pie was overall the best thing there. Especially with some heavy whip on top. Moving on from Samoa to Venezuelan. Venezuelan spot. Dude, we had a debate about it, and I think about it, Andrew. Andrew, I have to concede. Yeah, it was the beef arepa. The beef arepa. The pork one was really good too, but I thought the beef one just had way more flavor, more spices, more layers to it. Himalayan Cafe. I would say the best thing there that I enjoyed was the momos and the chow chow. I thought those were the best things. The fried halibut was amazing. I actually really loved the chips there, the fries. And then your favorite thing at Afghan Kebab House. I think maybe Afghan Kebab House was my favorite out of everywhere. I thought, like I said, everywhere had a five out of five item. Okay. In my opinion, Afghan Kebab House might be number one. So I would say Afghan Kebab House, the mantou were crazy. Personally, I got to go with that lamb shank, man. Just, it was so fresh. It was so tasty. I could eat it by itself. All right, you guys, thank you so much for watching. Hit like, subscribe, turn on your notifications. Please let us know what other cultural concepts you would like to see us check out. I think food obviously is not an entire culture, but it is the easiest way to get introduced to culture. You guys, thank you so much for watching. Until next time. We're live from Kent, Washington. We Fun Bros. Going back to LA soon. We out. Peace. We're ending off our most diverse city in Washington food crawl, which is, you know, Kent, our Kent food crawl. And it's so cool because over the past several years, while we've kind of been moved out of Kent, Kent has just exploded with the amount of diversity.