Traditional WESTERN ARMENIAN FOOD at Mayrig Restaurant | Yerevan, Armenia

Awesome, it looks amazing. I can't wait to try it. Oh, I need to eat. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your visit. Good night, good night. Bye, bye. What's up, everyone? This is David Hoffman from David's Vineyard coming at you live from Gyumri, the second largest city in Armenia, arts and crafts capital of the country. You have to come here. But today, what I'm doing is I'm driving back to Yerevan, and then later tonight, I'm flying to Kuwait. I'm so excited. I've had an incredible trip, 10 epic days, and what I'm gonna do today is I'm gonna talk to you all about it. Are you ready? You want some? Yeah, I'll take one. This is the best. I'll take one. Let's go. And yeah, we have a two-hour drive. It's 2.45. We need to be about 4.45, five at six o'clock. I have an interview. Then we have like a dinner. Then the airport. Yeah, so 1 a.m., I'm going to the airport. We both slept like two hours straight. Actually, it was like an hour and a half. This guy flew. We got here really, really fast. So we're entering Yerevan now. Capital of Armenia. Ooh, I can see Mount Ararat right there. Ararat's everywhere. So this is Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. I really, really love this place. I'm actually thinking about purchasing an apartment here. There's so many things to do. There's so many friendly people. There's crafts, there's wine, there's food. There's never-ending hospitality. I mean, one of the friendliest countries in the world. People here have really changed the way I see the world. So happy I came here. 10 days have been epic. This is my favorite trip of 2019 for sure. I have a big thanks to my friend Gayanin, my friends at Armenia Travel, to my driver, and to Lusine for giving me such a great, great trip. You know, it's not about the country. It's about the people. The people's what makes a nation. And besides that, the food has been delicious. Nonstop veg, nonstop meats. And where are we, where are we? So we're making a quick stop here, I think at a t-shirt place. I think it's one of the people I met in Arani Wine Festival. What is this? That's for me. Special gifts for my friends here at Tosp. The company's called Tosp, right? Yes. Tosp, yeah, Tosp. You have to come here. They have beautiful, beautiful t-shirts, sweaters. Love the designs. It's all about Armenian history. So they have here, as you can see, like a queen, like it's a princess. Here's like a symbol. This is our culture. I know, I know. It is your culture. The best, the best culture. I love it. I love Armenia. Armenia's the best. You know how old this is? This, this country? Yeah. I think it's like 6,000? Yes. 6,000. I went to the oldest winery in the world. Yeah. In Arani. Arani. We are so proud of what we have. I know. I know, I know. They're way too nice. They gave me a t-shirt of a king, of an ancient king. Awesome. Really, really nice people. I literally just ran into them. I was like, oh, I love that. And then over the owners, I was like, yeah, I want one. They were like, just come to our store. You got one. Lots of traffic today entering the city, but it is five o'clock. So, you know, standard on a weekday. And yeah, if you guys don't know, if you didn't see my other videos, you know, this country is about wine and brandy. They make some of the best brandy on the planet. Arat brandy. So good. That cognac is so fire. And then in terms of wine, we tried so many different wines. I mean, literally, I tried a different type of wine every single day. It's like two main grapes or three main grapes. They're all indigenous. That's what I like about it. It wasn't just like, you know, the Shiraz, you know, grease, et cetera, from around the world. These were like indigenous grapes. Tried so many. I went to the Arany Wine Festival. It was the reason why I came in October because I needed to go for that event. And yeah, I mean, we're entering. We're almost here at the Congress. We just passed Arat Brandy and another wine brandy factory right there. My hotel's right here. Congress Hotel. I'm checking in. I have an interview in one hour exactly. And then I have dinner with the entire team at Armenia Travel. My friend, too much stuff, huh? Too much. That's not even full yet. Yeah, I still gotta fill it up with some more stuff. And I had a big issue because I'm going to Kuwait after this trip. I can't take any alcohol because it's dry state. So I'm loving my room here at the Congress Hotel. I stayed here at the beginning of the trip. You know, I stayed for like three nights. Really enjoyed my stay here. The staff is super friendly. Incredible buffet. But the best part is the view from the balcony. Check this view out. So right here in front of us, we have the square. It's called 2,800 Years because last year, you had to have been celebrating the 2,800 year anniversary. Love this. Look at this. It's Yerevan. All right, guys. I'm going to quickly get ready. I have an interview in about 45 minutes. Let's go. My name is Gayane. I'm a journalist for Media Max Media Company. And I'm here to interview David. Awesome. And my best bud right here. Gayane. Are you good? You're looking beautiful. Look at this. All dressed up. Yeah, yeah. And I'm wearing the new T-shirt. It looks good, right? Yeah, it looks good. Is this a king or who is he? He said that he's from kind of dynasty. I need to check out. Yeah, I just know like, everything they have is like ancient stuff. Ancient, yeah. With Armenian kings. Perfect. I don't know exactly which king because we had a lot of kings. I know, I know. Too many, too many, too much history, you know? And here we are. This is 2,800 square. Right? 2,800 square. I love it. It knows better. You're never thirsty in Armenia. All right, just had an epic interview. Really long interview. About an hour. But we did a lot of things. How about the whole trip? Everything from gastro, vino, you know, scenery, all destinations. And right now, we're actually going to a Syrian Armenian restaurant. And if you guys didn't know, it was a huge Armenian community in Syria. And during the war, they all moved back here. A lot of people moved back here and they have incredible cuisine. It's a little different, but it's still Armenian. I'm excited. We are going to Syrian Armenian restaurant. Here we go. Mayrik. Mayrik means mother. Mother. Hey. You're doing great. How are you? Yes, I'm great. I'm fine. So now you will see the process of manti. Manti. How we are starting it to prepare. So it's a privilege, huh? Knowing the Syrians. Yeah, not everybody is allowed to enter to the kitchen of Mayrik. Amazing. Because Mayrik, you know, it means mother. Yeah. So all mothers have their secrets. Exactly. That was great. Hello. Wow. Manti? Manti. Oh my God. It looks amazing. So it's combination of dough and ground beef. After we are putting it in the oven, it's kind of baked. After it's portioned for enjoyment. So as you can see, she starts off here with the dough. She takes it through like two different stages here. Makes it really long. Then they put it here and they cut it using this, like I've never seen this before. So they cut it with this into these tiny little squares. And then they put the beef. It's beef, right? It's beef. They put the beef and then she uses her hands to make it in this shape. Beautiful shape. Really delicate. Boat shape. I didn't know that. No one told me that. Awesome. It looks amazing. I can't wait to try it. Oh, I need to eat. Thank you. Thank you for your visit. Good night. What is she doing here? She's preparing one of the versions of Armenian Paflava. With teeny dough and with pistachios. Wow. In the portion we are serving walnuts and pistachio versions together. Okay. Called Sare Burma. Okay, so it's everything dough. Then she puts a little bit of butter, right? Then she puts the pistachio. After it will be in the oven. After it will be baked. Covered with sugar syrup. It will be so fantastic. And here they're cooking other dishes. They're making kebabs right here. These kebabs look phenomenal. Beef kebabs. Wow, that looks so good too. Whoa. All right, my man. Let's go eat. I have to eat something. All right, so I'm trying this little appetizer. It's like a dough, I guess red pepper, sesame seeds? Some seeds in there. Mm. Wow. Almost like a veg taco. Phenomenal. I'm serious. Ganats? Ganats. Ganats, ganats, ganats, ganats. Thank you. Thank you all. So here we have so many different things. We have hummus. We have like a red pepper hummus. We have tartars right here. We have a beef tartar. We also have a womey lentils and also potatoes. This one looks phenomenal. So this is like Armenian tartar. Obviously it's a twist, Middle Eastern twist. Look at that. I'll try this one next. The potato one. Wow. That was so good. It's almost like super minced meat broken down to like grains. I'm gonna try this. This is my favorite, the eggplant. My favorite, eggplant stuffed with like curd. There's also some pomegranate, but I'm good. So creamy. Roasted eggplant, the best in Armenia. Next up we have a multi-layered like dough with three different Middle Eastern cheeses. This looks so good. Basically it's the cheesy baklava. My friend taught me that right now. Whoa. So many layers. Very crunchy. The cheese is all melted. This is incredible. Incredible. Okay. How's your lunch with the new guy? Oh wow. Oh my God. Next up we have the manta. Boat shaped. With beef. Oh, and the yogurt on top. Wow. What a delicious dish. That's incredible. That's one of the oldest preserved recipes for the Armenian cuisine. And over here we have the kebab. This one's a little thinner. Love the spices. Super fresh. It's too good. More food. All right, so for dessert we have sari burma, which means mountain. Mountain flavor bunch. Okay. And we have two different versions. We have the pistachio and we have the walnuts. I got the walnuts. Oh yeah, pistachio, that's good. You have the walnuts? Cheers. Get nuts. Love it. Super nutty. I love it. Wow. The walnuts are great. I love the walnuts here. Walnuts? Yeah, amazing. Cheers. Get nuts. I like pistachio better. Super sweet. And walnuts better for me. Mm-hmm. Want to change the plate? No, I'm taking this one. I'll have it, I'll have it. Okay. Oh, and the last thing we're trying here is, I think it's like, what is it? It's a cheesecake with rose jam on the top. Rose jam? This is great. This? Mm-hmm. More? Mm-hmm. Wow. Wow, guys, this is ridiculous. I actually love it. It's sweet. Get nuts. Wow. Wow, incredible Middle Eastern Armenian food. And that's it. My 10-day adventure here in Armenia is over. I can't tell you enough how much I love this place. And today we drove from Gyumri all the way back to Yerevan, and we ate some delicious Middle Eastern Armenian food. And you saw how nice everybody was. We went to the back. We saw they make some food. Then we went and we ate some delicious, delicious food. It was so good. Everything was so mouthwatering, and I'm so happy I came to this country. I can't tell you enough. And yeah, it's 12.30 at night. I'm going straight to the airport. I have a three-hour flight to Qatar, a one-hour connection, and then a one-hour flight to Kuwait, my 76th country. I'll see you guys in Kuwait. And they're actually calling me because I'm late. All right, guys, gotta go, gotta go.