I Tried a Restaurant Built for Someone Who’ll NEVER Eat There!

I love restaurants and most restaurants are built to make money. There's nothing wrong with that. This one was built to keep somebody's memory alive. Welcome to Amelia's 1931. Here we go everybody let's meet Chef Aileen. Come on over. Chef how are you? What's up you're back. Thanks for having me back. Chef Aileen everybody the owner of Finca and also Amelia. Yes thank you for coming. Absolutely it's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited about this restaurant. We have a lot of things to cook, a lot of things to show you. The food is really about just keeping my grandmother's legacy alive so let's let's get into it. Let's go let's start cooking. We're going to start with the frita. What's a frita? It is a Cuban hamburger. That sounds amazing. Cuban frita everybody. Never had it it's my very first time. Let's go. It's a Cuban burger but what makes a versus a regular burger? So a frita instead of just beef it is beef and chorizo. So that's why you see that color to it. It's got that reddish color. It's because it's about 70% chorizo and 30% beef. I like I like so it's going to have plenty of fat. Plenty of fat, plenty of flavor. In this mix we do a little Asian touch. We put a little soy, we put a little sweet chili, we put a base to our Latin cooking which is onions, peppers and garlic. Okay so this is like a smash style burger. Yeah so we're not traditional smash style we're just gonna bring it down. You can see the color of the chorizo coming out of the beef everybody look at that. While we're doing that the burger has maduros in there sweet plantain. So we're gonna fry those while that's going. Let's fry some up there. And that's like a staple in Cuban cuisine. Now I see maduros everywhere in We love to have something sweet in our meal. Nice little crust as you guys can clearly see gets a little bit of that chorizo color because it's red everybody. You can see that fat rendering what makes a burger good. Cuban frita. Oh I see brioche bun which kind of bun is that? Brioche bun yes yes. I got my noodles fresh out of the fryer. Oh you also smash the maduros. Yeah. So first you fry it then after that you smash them too. Yeah you want to have a good surface area so that every bite has a nice sweet touch. White cheddar goes right on top of the burger. Okay now we build. We got the cheese melted we got the maduros. What's a huacatay mayo? What is that? Huacatay it is a Peruvian black mint and so we make a basically an aioli with a Peruvian black mint. Finish it off with papitas. Nice. For a nice little crunch. No papitas no frita. And that's Amelia's frita. I cannot wait. I've never had this combination before chorizo, meat, cheese, plantains, a little bit of the crunchiness and huacatay. Huacatay. Huacatay sauce everybody. That just sounds awesome. This looks incredible. We're gonna be tasting every single dish in the end there's a lot more. What's next? Next we are making our beef tartare. Oh talking my language. She talking my language everybody. Let's go. Ours is not so fatty we use filet mignon so it is not fatty at all really and we just give it a little touch of a latin twist which really gives it a lot of flavor. So you're not just having just raw beef you got some flavor in there. I love it. That's how you know a sofrito is good everybody. Look at that color. This smell. It's spicy. But but it smells Asian. All right so you're gonna add that right in. We're gonna add this not too much because it is very very potent. Okay now do you have gochujang there? We do have gochujang. Oh see I'm gonna try to decipher what the chef has inside. Okay so we got a little bit of that so mix that very well and uh. We're gonna add some salt you want to help me with that? Yes please. Salt right here. A little bit of salt please let me know how much. That's good it's perfect. I know you want the recipe but you know what happens if I give you the recipe. You're gonna kill me. Exactly. All right so here we have an egg mousse. For like people like me that I'm not a professional chef. Yeah. What is an egg mousse? So it's made with eggs, dill. We whip it really really good to basically come up with this texture. Kind of like a mayo? Yeah kind of like a mayo. We're gonna canal this. So that goes right down on the plate beautiful. And now one of my favorite things redneck caviar. Redneck caviar oh what is a redneck caviar? I like this. Because it's not caviar it's basically pickled mustard seeds. Got it. And now finally we're going to garnish it with some dill. This is some sourdough that we've just grilled to order. And this is our take on beef tartare. You know you got a little bit of that sofrito which is magical. Cannot wait to try this together with this sourdough bread. Would you try it? I can smell it, I can smell it. Sounds great. What's our next dish chef? Our next dish is going to be our seco de res with tamal and cazuela risotto. Oh my god. One of my favorites. Veggie stock for the risotto okay. Our risottos already are cooked so we did the bulk of the work already. And this risotto is cooked with shallots, some butter, some white wine and we just have it ready to go so that service can be a little quicker you know. Smells incredible. And what's really gonna give the flavor of this dish is the tamal and cazuela which is basically a cornmeal casserole. That is a staple in Cuban cooking. That has peppers, a little bit of pork, obviously corn. Look at the creaminess that it's already just with that alone absolutely incredible. A little bit of heavy cream just to loosen it up a tiny bit. Add some parm cheese. And we mix. Finally we're gonna add some pieces of corn in there so you have a little bit more of a bite as well as some scallions. And that is your tamal and cazuela risotto. Beautiful. So this is going to be our short rib. This has been braised for about three hours and that is really what's going to give this a lot of flavor. So this is a very traditional Peruvian dish called seco. So first we're going to plate our risotto and next we're going to add our short ribs. To finish it off we love a little acidity and we love a little bite and a little crunch and of course cilantro. So we're putting our salsa criolla. You are a mad scientist in the best possible way. Look at it! Oh wow! I mean talk about a delicious and appetizing dish for me. You know a lot of people don't know but after steak short ribs is my favorite. Really? I love short rib. We're not done. Next we got our charred pulpo. Octopus. Octopus and it's cooked three different ways before it hits the plate. Really? So octopus has only two options really really good or really really bad. That is correct. Right? So that's why we do a lot to get it to the perfect texture. It's a little bit sacrilegious. Okay. But we fry it. You fry it. And then we saute it. So what this is going to do is really going to lock in the texture so you don't have that chewiness on the outside. I never had a fried octopus. I had many many different. Most of the time it's just grilled but fried will probably get everything crispy. Like I said a little sacrilegious people might come for me but you know what I love about cooking? There's no rules. And I don't like rules. I don't like rules that's why I don't bake. I break the rules all the time. I do some crazy stuff chef trust me. I know I've seen it. Wow look at that you see it got a nice beautiful color on it already and let's be honest this is the best part. Yes. We boiled, we fried. And now we saute. So first we're gonna chop it up so you can see it's nice and tender. It almost looks like you sous vide it. Yep. Hold on chef there's a problem here. There's a little problem on the tip right here. I told you when you first started there's either a very good way or a very bad way. That's a good way. Now we're gonna saute it. Octopus in here and then we're gonna brush it with our anticucho. I love the color of that thing. Wow I like that. It's really locking in the flavors now. Now we're gonna plate it. The base of this dish is gonna be a sobies. So that's gonna go on the bottom of our dish. That's the base? That's the base. Okay. Next we're gonna plate our octopus and we're just gonna plate this right on top. And voila and here you have our ahi panca pulpo. Wow you know I first started by saying look you either make it really good or really really bad. I think you got something going on with the deep fry. I don't think it's sacrilegious. I think people should deep fry octopus more often everybody. It looks incredible, looks nice and fresh. That sauce is absolutely genius. Thank you. Looking good and before moving forward I want to thank today's sponsor Graza. I love the taste of Graza olive oil and I'm not the only one. My whole family loves it too. You guys know I use olive oil all the time but here's the thing not every olive oil should do the same job. That is why Graza gives us two extra virgin olive oils. Sizzle and drizzle. One is for cooking and one is for finishing. Graza extra virgin olive oil is made to be used. Sizzle is made from mature mid-season olives for a mellow flavor that is perfect for roasting, toasting and sauteing. I'm using it today to cook this food and build up some flavor. Drizzle is the finishing oil made from early picked olives for bold flavors and the highest antioxidants. Once the food is ready squeeze a little over the top. It adds freshness, richness and a final pop of olive oil flavor. Both are made from 100% olives with no chemicals or funny business. There are single origin and single varietal. The variety origin and harvest date are printed on every bottle so you know exactly how fresh it is. The squeeze bottles stay on my counter making it easy to grab the right oil. Graza also comes in opaque squeeze and glass bottles. Scan the QR code or use Graza store locator to find at a grocery store near you. Thanks Graza for sponsoring this video. Now let's get right back to it. What are we making next chef? Korean marisco paella. Not your traditional paella so you know. So if you don't know what paella is I like to describe it like this chef. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's a Spanish style risotto. Yeah. There you go. All right take it away. This is essentially a sofrito. Remember big part of our cooking. Peppers, onions and garlic. We're gonna start with that and some mussels we're gonna toss it into a hot hot pan. Some white wine. So the white wine what it does not only flavor it actually stops the garlic from overcooking. Yeah. Got it. Now we have our mussels in here. We have our sofrito. Now we're gonna go with some shrimp. We got some big boys, some medium boys. We have fresh grouper and some octopus. You want to let this cook down so that the seafood gets all this delicious flavor. Add a little bit of salt. The most important part is this. Oh what is this? So this is a base that we make in-house. So you know to minimize the amount of steps when we're making this dish. And it is gochujang and tomato base. Of course it is. So that's where all the flavor is gonna come from. All the Korean flavors from that sauce. Oh the smell that is coming out of this. That goes right in. A little bit goes a long way chef. This is a very flavorful dish. So like two scoops and then we're gonna add a little bit of stock in here and that's gonna give that faella sauce is gonna give it flavor and color. So now we're gonna add a little bit of acidity and then we're gonna add our part cooked risotto in there. Got it. The flavors are locked in. Yeah. Tastes great. Uh we're just gonna plate. Oh that looks incredible. And so you've had my pork belly paella. Yes. At Finca. So this is gonna be not more traditional because it's not but the main protein is more traditional. So traditionally Cubans like to put peas on top of their paella and this is our Korean paella mariscos. These dishes are looking incredible but I got one question chef. Who's Amelia? Amelia was my grandmother. She is my mom's mom. She basically raised me. My parents were working very very hard to give us the beautiful life that we have. So she's basically my second mom. I'm guessing she was a great cook. She was and that's where we spent most of our time was in the kitchen. If she walked in here today and she was like make me a dish, what is she's gonna ask you for? I think she'll have the oxtail with the tamale and cazuela. She loved tamale and cazuela which is basically like a corn meal casserole. So that's one that must have. Yes. But you know what I must have? The steak. Of course. Can you make me the steak? Of course. All right let's go eat the steak everybody let's go. What do you think? I mean this is heaven right here and I haven't even tried. Now which one caught your attention right away Carlitos? There's so many incredible dishes in front of us you know what I mean? I'm gonna be honest I'm a man from the sea. You're a man from the sea. So the octopus. The octopus okay all right you want to try out let's start off with that. Please dig in Carlitos I want to know your honest opinion over here because the chef made a sauce that she uses leftover from the onions that look incredible to me. Give it a go. Cheers brother. Cheers. Oh my god. Magical. I like to say one word sensational. Yes. Amazing everybody. It's crispy, it's tender. Right so she deep fries it. I've never seen a deep fried octopus. That is insane. But the sauce everybody just makes it so good right. So we're gonna try this right here which is her beef tartare. It has something very very important here that she did not want to give me the recipe Carlitos. But I'm trying to figure it out because it looks so good. It was kind of like a sofrito but her sofrito had like a nice deep color and then on the top here she has what she likes to call redneck caviar, mustard pickled seeds. Cheers. Yes. That's what I'm talking about everybody. When you grab it with the sauce and you have it with the sauce that is just on a whole different level for me right there. What I feel the most is the freshness of the beef you know what I mean. If you have good quality beef whenever you're eating tartare you'll notice the difference right away. It's a good combination this sauce it feels like a mayo and that combination with the sourdough bread and also the meat is so good. Mrs. Amelia would be very very proud. La frita. La frita let's go for it. This is my very first time never had a frita before. Cheers everybody. Oh you immediately feel the chorizo. A little bit of sweetness from the sweet plantains. Wow I never experienced that before. Oh look at Carlitos. Carlitos in a different world. What happened Carlitos? You know that clip from Ratatouille? Yeah. Where he tries the actual dish and he takes him back to his mama giving him a dish. Same thing. I love the spiciness of the chorizo and the little crunchiness from the frita. You know you're gonna feel the cheese and you're gonna feel everything else but I noticed immediately is the sweet plantains which you're going for more. It's it's my favorite part. It's like you say the acidity of the chorizo combined with this um sweet plantain there's nothing better than this. Well hold your thought Carlitos because if you think that's good she made a paella. This man is a seafood lover. I want to know what you think about the paella. Would you say you love seafood more than steak? Say no. No. Correct answer. Let's give it a go That is incredible. Wow Carlitos I've been to Spain, I've been to Portugal. I'm gonna get roasted in the comments but it's better than a lot of dishes that I had in Spain. That's a big statement. It is delicious. I love the creaminess. I think the secret is because she's combining two of my favorite type of cuisine which is latin food and obviously korean food. Can you feel a little bit of the spiciness of the gochujang? I can feel the gochujang right there. I'm telling you. It's a different flavor. It's not the paella. It's that umami flavor. This is uh will make a lot of Spaniard people and Cuban people proud. The creaminess, the texture, the seafood. Absolutely. And she uses grouper on her paella. That's amazing. Okay very good. We got two more dishes to try. You pick. I heard about that tamale risotto. We need to try that. Tamale risotto with some short ribs. Let's give it a try. Cheers! Cheers! Oh wow! Chef Aylin is dangerous bro. I have a, I mean there's still one more thing to try but I'm gonna go ahead and say it. That's my favorite. That's a great, are you okay? No I'm not. Describe to the people that are not having this experience what does it actually taste like? It's creaminess, that savory, that sweet from the corn, that perfect like sauce on the short rib. The short rib is so tender, so soft but also has a tremendous amount of flavor. That is incredible and you know I still got the steak to try but so far that takes the cake for me. What did you, which one so far have you liked the most? I am in between the octopus and that. Really? I'm leaning more towards the risotto. The risotto is incredible. Yeah we gotta go for the steak. Please dig in my friend. She's serving it with a sirloin steak and her steak au poivre sauce. Cheers everybody. Oh yeah. That is a top tier steak. It's juicy, medium rare, how we love the steaks. It has a good crust but the best part I think is the sauce. The sauce right? The sauce is very very delicious everybody. Makes it savoriness you know what I mean. Wow okay we have to pick the favorite dish my friend. Top three go. Short rib number one for sure, number two the octopus and number three the paella. I'm with you. I hope you guys enjoyed this video if you did hit that thumbs up. If you're not a subscriber be sure to subscribe and we'll see you guys on the next one because Carlitos we're gonna keep on eating. What are you gonna go for then? I knew it. I don't know why I knew you were gonna go for that. I mean you want some more?