The Unqualified Culinary Critics

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Hello, we're the Unqualified Culinary Critics, a podcast centered around food and cultural experiences. We want to not only share our own perspectives, but hope that these stories connect in some

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way to each one of you as well.

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On this week's episode, we're going to be talking about our heritage, our culture, things that we're proud of that we grew up in. And it's kind of like our upbringings, but with a little bit of a different lens on it. And we do have a guest with us today. His name is Lidor.

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Hi, everyone.

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Thank you so much for having me. So, yeah, we're going to get started.

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And if you'd like to kick it off and kind of tell us how you grew up, what kind of foods were in your household, that would be great. All right. Well, straightforward.

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I come from an Israeli Jewish household. I feel like that these cultures actually are sort of a little bit different. There's the Middle Eastern vibe to it and there's also the religious side of things and it's just like that the food is a little bit different in style. And it's a little bit interesting because when people say Israeli food, a lot of people like to say that it's more, it is true though that the food is basically, a lot of it is more Middle Eastern in style. A lot of it comes from Arab food, things like shawarma, falafel, hummus, people call it hummus. There's just, it goes on and so on and a lot of it is very inspired from one another. But today I'm going to be talking about like the difference between Israeli food and Jewish food and what kind of goes hand in hand and making it a little bit of a difference. But I come from a background in which my father's side of the family are very Middle Eastern and my mother are very European. And so like the foods are basically totally different. And so that's when we talk about the differences here and how they kind of just kind of correspond with at the end of the day. So I'm very excited about that.

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What about you, Ashley? Do you have any similarities or any differences? Actually kind of different from Lador. Given that I have an Asian American heritage, I will say I am proud to be Chinese, Filipino, and Spanish. So growing up, I was shown the cuisines of my culture by simply eating them as a meal and sharing them with my loved ones. But like whether it's Filipino breakfast made by my mom or having an early dim sum with my family, I was able to see the foods and taste the ingredients that's vital to the dishes that's prepared and served at our table. So I was very fortunate to go to both China and the Philippines to see where my family grew up and understand what heritage brings to me. And since then, I felt amazed and blessed at the same time. Nice. Yeah, you guys have very different and a lot of different cultures kind of combining together, which I think is really cool. And it definitely gets you more like it broadens your horizons and your palates and everything. I think that's really interesting. For me, I'm very white. So it was mainly, I mean, my family is very Italian, so that would be mainly my only like thing. I'd probably say that that would be my kind of heritage. But yeah, I'm not as interesting as you guys. So I'd really like to hear more about that. When you say Italian heritage, like, do you have a particular kind of food that stood out to you as you were growing up, or, like, you know? I mean, I feel like it's kind of general to say, but more pastas, especially because when I travel to go to my grandparents all the time, it would be like homemade pastas, but obviously they would be different kinds of pastas. And that, I don't know, it was just more of like a staple in our household. So I'd say that that would probably be my family's thing. I don't know. I just, I feel like it's way more interesting to hear about other people's kind of heritage and learn about that because I don't really have all these different things. And I really only grew up with like one kind of thing.

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I love pasta.

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It's great.

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I can eat it breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's so good. It's one of my favorite foods and it's so versatile. You could do so much with pasta and it's a brilliant food. It's an art form in itself and you're quite lucky. I love pasta.

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It's great to have grandparents that love cooking. That's a big plus.

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For sure.

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I think that for me as far as when it comes to culture in my household and what I mainly grew up with loving and enjoying are sort of what I was mentioning earlier in my introduction of how things are so kind of split. Like I was mentioning, my father's side is more Middle Eastern. So when I go to my grandmother's house, she makes, you know, when you go to Israel, it's a little bit different because there's people from so many different backgrounds. You have the Europeans over there, you have the Middle Easterners, more specific, you have Iraqi, you have the Moroccans over there. There's just different kinds of levels of people coming to this country and bringing their foods. For example, my grandma on my dad's side, she's very Iraqi and so her house foods, the foods that she makes at her house are very different than what my mother would make. Um, and I've been growing up on both versions of the foods, but I think that my grandmother would make a, is, um, three different level of what people, you could say in two different ways. It's either Cuba or kid bit. It's basically just, uh, there's like seven different ways of making this product. It's just, essentially there's just meat inside of this, of either it's, or it's around dough and they like fry it or they make it in with a pumpkin stew ish. And then they have it in like a beet, like a red beet stew. There's different kinds of versions of it. So my grandmother, she makes the beet kind and the pumpkin version. It's different, because in Hebrew, we say, kuba and lat, which means like kuba with the pumpkin, and my grandmother makes that, and she's so talented in the kitchen with that, it's insane. On my mother's side, which I think I take a little bit more pride in, just kind of how common and more people would, I guess, relate to it, is my mother makes an insane matzo ball soup. So it's just like, matzo ball soup is more of like, I would say resonates with the Jewish culture. And then what my grandmother makes on the other side of my family, she makes more of like the Middle Eastern culture. So it doesn't really relate to the Jewishness of the background. But my mother, for sure, I take pride in the soup that she makes. Her matzo ball soup is amazing. And I'm very proud of that aspect of the culture, because it's all handmade. And it's made, you can literally taste the love while you're drinking and eating the soup. So it's definitely something I enjoy the most.

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If I may ask, like, do you usually help your mom make the matzo ball soup? Because I know that you have to like hand make the matzo ball.

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I, I personally, I'm not involved with her, the development of how she makes the soup. I sort of give her her space and just her chrome creative freedom. I never really manipulated anything in her recipes or try to even, I mean, mothers have different moods, you know, sometimes they want you to help to help clean around in the kitchen. Sometimes they don't want you around at all. So it's kind of, I'm trying to, I'm still learning on how to catch her at the right times. But I know that in high school, I kind of did like a project just for fun. I recorded a, like a mini two minute like documentary version video of her making this matzo ball soup. And like, I had her interviewed and she talks about how this comes from her mom and the recipe was like And so it's like I was invested in knowing where this soup came from. And everyone makes it a little bit different. You'll never have two of the same kind of matzo ball soups. But for her, she was just really happy to elaborate on just like how it was passed down and how it's been the same in our family for years. So that's like the only involvement that I've had was trying to get to know more of it, but not really making it. Do you plan to make it more in the future? Well, I have two younger siblings, two sisters, and we're all watching and taking note on the foods that we eat and hopefully one day being able to remake it for ourselves at home for our families and in the future to come. So I would assume that just from how many times I've seen her make it that I'll be able to replicate a level of it. I'll have to definitely write down a few things because she has, it's also the mother touch. I cannot, no matter how much I'll try to write down this recipe, like she has this physical like rhythm of just how much salt or pepper or whatever ingredient she puts in on just how much of of it to be inside of the soup. And so that it's just that I don't I don't know if I'd be able to replicate it just exactly even though if she gave me the precise measurements it's just like she has that touch. For me, I love soup a lot. I don't know if it's something that I am very very excited to make in the future for myself because this is something that like every person in the Jewish community really takes pride in their own version of and I'm not talking about matzvah soup, I'm not talking about like stuffed peppers or anything like that. This is called, there's two names for it, either call it chamin or chunt. So chamin or chunt but they call it, another word for Chunt is Cholent. And so it's basically just like food that they cook in a crock pot overnight with like beans, potatoes and different kinds of like meat in there. And it just like sits and it cooks and it's within itself for like over a night straight. And people really make their own version of this. I've had really, really good Cholent. I've had really, really bad Cholent. I've had really good Chamin and really bad Chamin. And Chamin and Cholent are basically the same thing. had really good chamin and really bad chamin. And chamin and cholent are basically the same thing-ish. I'd say that chamin is more the Middle Eastern version of this product and it's a little bit more soupy in texture. And cholent is more European and it's a little bit more thicker base consistency. I personally prefer cholent and I think that I look forward to the most is making my own version of this cholent and being able to put it on my own table at my family. It's a very big tradition in the Jewish culture is to make this every day. No, I'm sorry, not every day, every Saturday and to enjoy and take pride in it. Everyone makes it different. So that's like the one food that I'm looking forward to is doing this every Saturday at my family's house, my house.

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I have a question. I know that you said everybody makes it different, but is there kind of like staple food items that go in there besides like beans, potatoes, and the meat like you said or is it kind of just like here's kind of what it is but everybody

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has their own different twist? Um well it's a great question. It typically it kind of just it depends because there's some people that have different like restrictions on what they can or cannot eat and I guess like beans are like sort of like nuts in a sense where some people can eat a certain kind of beans being and some people really can't For me, I it does not matter like I know that there's like like sometimes they put like long I'm sorry. I'm not the best with my beans, but I know that there's fava beans There's there's so many different kinds of beans. There's it's just like it's supposed to be a mixture of different kinds So it doesn't really matter exactly what it is. I know that there's not really too much of black beans You don't really see black beans much in these stews from what I'm aware But it's just it's it's a combination of different kinds and it doesn't really matter what it is There's not really a black and white book that tells you how it should be But typically the idea is that it's supposed to be a mixture of beans with potatoes different kinds of meat Beef that you would like to include it. Some people put eggs in there as well. More recently, I've discovered that people put even hot dogs in there, which is different. This is like a recent discovery, which is interesting. It really does not matter. The whole idea is that you're making home food without much thought. You're kind of just like throwing things together. You know, and some people do it in a very consistent way where it's like, okay, every week it'll taste the same because they're sort of used to making it this way. But some people just throw in what they have, they do what they can, and I think that that's really cool. So it really does not matter. There's no book to it. And the seasonings are all optional too. I know there's some people that put ketchup in their cholent, which is odd, very odd. And there's some people that put barbecue sauce, which is even more odd. There's people that don't put any of that at all. They just season in a certain way and it tastes a certain way. It's all of her interpretation. So like I said, I've had really good cholent, really bad cholent. It's just on how much love you're putting into it. Cause you're going to throw things in there just to throw things in there. Yeah, it's going to taste a little off. But if you have a consistency to this, then it's going to taste great. And it does not matter what's in it.

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For the most part.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's really cool.

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I'd recommend looking it up. So it's spelled C-H-O-L-E-N-T. Cholent.

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Okay. Yeah, it's great. Spelled like it sounds.

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Exactly.

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It's cool. Yeah, I love it. That's cool.

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Do you have your own version?

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Because you've been explaining the kinds of cholent you've heard about, but do you have your own version you plan to make or you already are making?

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I have yet to attempt my own version of cholent. I have not done it just yet. I really want to be given a chance to do it. I've been given it a lot of thought. I've been watching people throughout the years. We've even seen a little bit of YouTube videos here and there, but I've yet to try it. I wouldn't really know what I put inside. I would have to talk to a few people just to get a little bit of like reference as to what they, how they even started with. But yeah, I'd be a little bit clueless because I've literally just been the one to enjoy this all these years. I have not even really cared to know how to really do it, but I would really try to within the next, I don't know, year or two, is attempt to make my own version of it. And it's a lot, you know, like you're really supposed to fill the entire crock pot. It's not just like, okay, I'm gonna make one portion or a few servings. It's, this is supposed to feed a lot of people. So it's meant to be cooked in a very big amount.

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That's good. What about you, Ashley? Do you have any staple dishes?

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That's actually a good question. The one thing that's coming into my mind is a Filipino breakfast, and it's kind of different from what Lidore is saying because of the different cultures. So a typical Filipino breakfast in my house is, because we don't eat pork, we just kind of cut out the longanisa part, which is a sweet sausage. And what we do is we have smoked fish and then have eggs and rice and sometimes maybe a different style of corned beef hash, but it's not like the ones that are in a Hornell can or whatever, you know, not even in a casino, and I bet that they use a can for that, but it's like the Australian version of the corned beef hash and it's pretty good. I like it. It's just good to eat it once in a while, even though it's really salty, but like I said, it's good to eat it once in a while. Good with my cranberry juice,

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but yeah. What about you? That's really good. It's really good. I appreciate you bringing up breakfast because I think that that's such an important, not only is it the most important meal of the day, supposedly, but it's also an establishing meal of the day. So it kind of like tells you on just like how you're going to go about the rest of your day regarding of where you come from and your culture and the food. Israeli breakfast really contains, we do like eggs, so there's a thing called shakshuka in Israel and what a lot of Israelis do and that's basically hard-boiled eggs with like tomatoes and they like cook it in the pot and it has like What do you call it in Hebrew say shuma garlic? Sorry There's a there's it's just it's cooked It's like a it's not like a stew, but it's like they place eggs in there to hard-boil Sometimes they just they crack it open or sometimes they well majority of the time It's already cracked open in there. Like you don't have to peel anything. It's already cooked, but it's like an egg stew with tomatoes It's it's really really good and seasoned very well. Usually shakshuka is very popular But on the Jewish side, what do they really eat for breakfast? And it's more of like what it's common is lox and bagels we love our bagels and our schmear cream cheese and smoked salmon. Smoked salmon is so good. And personally, I was never a fan of eating raw fish growing up. I'm actually today, I'm a lot more open-minded and I'm actually starting to enjoy sushi a little bit. But it's smoked salmon is basically just raw fish, but they smoke it and it has this really smoky flavor to it. And you put it on top of the bagel with the cream cheese and it takes it to a whole nother level. We really do love our lox and bagels. It's very popular. You can go to more traditional places to find it. New York is very common and super, super delicious and fresh. But if you're not in an area where you can really find it, I know Costco sells a lot of these smoked salmon, but you could go to Einstein Bagels and find, they sell the Nova lox over there. And that's a good way to start to get your feet wet on like what this tastes like. Um, lox is one of my favorite foods and it's such a good breakfast food. So that that's what the Jewish food for breakfast is, is basically lox and bagels.

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So, yeah, I've heard of those two dishes that you mentioned.

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Oh yeah.

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You've heard of Shakshuka?

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Yeah. My mom's into Mediterranean food. Like I'm saying this right.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Why not? Okay. Well, Mediterranean Mediterranean food consists more of food that's like in the Greece area. Greek food have a lot of similar food as Middle Eastern food, just a little bit with their Mediterranean twist. So like they'll have, Mediterranean will have like, you know, lemon rice with like, they'll enjoy their feta and their different cheeses. And Mediterranean is a little bit different. And I'm a very, very big fan of Mediterranean food, but it's typically more, yeah, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean are a little bit different, but yeah.

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Okay, I just want to make sure I'm getting it right, because you're basically bringing out the differences, saying the record like, hey, this is what it is. But getting back to what I was saying about the shishuka, my mom's been making it recently and I like it. It tastes pretty good.

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Yeah, no, it's fire. I really do like it too. I saw a very funny BuzzFeed video where they were, people were just trying this Israeli food and one of them was shakshuka and it's funny that you mentioned that you were Italian because like some person looked at it was like this looks Italian. The guy's like no, it's just because it's just like it's just a red dish. So you just think it's Italian. But no, it's not. It's very very yummy. So they sell it here in Vegas. You can find it. It's very yummy. At a restaurant or at like a... They sell it at a restaurant. I don't know if you guys know where Tivoli Village is in Vegas but there's a restaurant over there called Leon Cafe. Leon Cafe has shakshuka. It's actually owned by an Israeli and his food is delicious, but Leon Cafe over there has shakshuka. It's a little bit more of a modern twist to it. They serve it on a skillet and it's a little bit different and fancier, but the idea is there. It's very similar to what they serve over there at Leon Cafe.

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Is that your favorite cafe, favorite restaurant?

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I think so. I love going to Leon Cafe. It's not necessarily all Israeli food. It's very, it's more of like the vibe or the scenery. So they have the pastas, they have desserts over there, and it's all very good quality. I mainly like to go there a lot because of the environment. Tivoli Village is just such a pretty, it's such a pretty place that I'd rather sit in a cafe. It's like in the middle of an area that I can look at other things. And that's why I really like to go there. So I really do enjoy that cafe. It's definitely one of my favorites.

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You mentioned lox and bagels and actually the reason I bring up the lox and bagels part only is

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because I think we talked about this in previous conversations. Have you been to Bagel Cafe?

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I have been to Bagel Cafe a few times. I've been there a few times. Nothing crazy though. Pretty good. I'm not too sure if the owner, I don't know who the owner is. Usually us Israelis are so, we love to know on like if someone is selling this kind of food. That's like in our culture We always love to know like who's actually selling it But I don't know I have no idea who this person is But I know that their business has been thriving for years and they do have very good quality foods I do like their cheesecake a lot Their New Year cheesecake is really good over there and I haven't had their matzo ball soup But I did have their lox and bagels and the way that they bring it to you is very cool The portions are really nice. I do enjoy their food over there, yeah. So I'd go, it just has been so long since I've stepped foot in it. I recommend going there. I'm glad that I asked because I've been there too and I also recommend the place. Yeah, it's pretty fuego. It's not New York for sure, like if you go to New York, it's the color of the fish is even a little bit different. It's a little bit more pink, soft, it's fresh. Something about New York just hits different with these bagels but fortunately we have something similar out here. I really like the style, the Jewish like deli style of how they have it. You walk in there and you have all the desserts and the different bagels that you could see on display. It's like everything is meant to like for it to be transparent and for you to see what they're serving and it is a very straightforward place. I really do like it so if you guys have an opportunity to go definitely check out Bagel Cafe. Shout out to them. I'm not sponsored, but they're very good quality in food. So I might even go after this podcast just to get myself. I might go there now that I'm thinking about it. That's good. All right. So,

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Sierra, do you have anything that kind of stands out to you in regards to the stuff that we talked

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Definitely bagels. So my dad is from Long Island, New York. So of course he's very Italian. He's not Jewish or anything. He was raised Catholic, but in New York, like you were saying, that's like where you're gonna find the best kind of bagels and all that. So when I was younger, we would always get bagels every Sunday, because that's what him and his family did. And we usually would go to Einstein because we'd just load up on the dozen bagels and everything. But I will say, because I think I figured it out when, like Ashley said, we were previously talking about the Bagel Cafe, that the Del Mar Deli that's at South Point here is the same thing. And they have such good stuff.

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You said the deli at South Point, right?

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The Del Mar deli, yeah.

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See, I've never been really inside South Point like that. I know a lot of people like to go in there.

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Yeah.

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There are a few mimics of South Point. I know that there's like, in my side of town, there's like Suncoast. It's like the same build, it's the same owner, I think. They have, they all typically are very similar in style. And there is a version of, I think, of what you're saying at Suncoast. It's basically, they have like a deli. They have bagels. They have like, it's like a kosher, it's not kosher, but there is like a Jewish deli over there in a sense. I've been there once. Quality was pretty good too. Again, I don't, for some reason I have a thing. It's like, if I go to these places and they're like displaying cheesecake, I have to try it. The cheesecake was pretty good too. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure, I don't know if it's the exact same company or the exact same like restaurant, but there is a version of that closer to my house. I've never actually been inside South Point, but they actually had the first Steak and Shake in Vegas. And now they're pretty like expanding around Vegas, Steak and Shake. I did not know that. Yeah, that's where they first started. They just wanted to like test it out here. And I'm from Illinois and we've had it like there's a bunch of Steak and Shakes everywhere.

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Yeah, and there's like not too many here, but I know that they're popping up pretty quick now.

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Oh yeah, yeah. There's one on the Strip now at the OVO Hotel I think there is, and somewhere else too on Fremont or something. I think they just opened somewhere on the Strip or something, I'm not too sure. But there's like three or four locations now.

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Yeah, I will say though, I definitely recommend the South Point. As a casino, as a whole, I really enjoy it. Maybe it's just because I used to go there so much and I live pretty close to it, but they've got great restaurants.

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Yeah, I gotta check it out. I gotta check it out for sure.

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But yeah, I'd say definitely bagels. I enjoy thoroughly talking about bagels because that's like when I, because my parents are divorced, so whenever I'd go to my dad's on whatever weekend it was, I would always look forward to getting breakfast with him because it would kind of be like our thing and we'd have certain bagels that we'd always go to. And yeah, I think it's also that kind of, even though they're not, you know, homemade, but that kind of sentimental thing. Yeah, that's good to know. I'm just trying to, like, digest everything that I've been hearing so far and I'm just glad that I'm listening to all kinds of cultures and it's just good to hear them, you know.

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Yeah, I think that what's so great about what y'all are doing with this podcast is sort of you guys are the culinary critics in a sense where you guys are not only talking about your experiences but wanting to get to know of others and wanting to get to know more of what's out there. And critics should never limit themselves to what they know, you know, they're always supposed to be knowledgeable in other things and other foods and being able to assess whether or not if it was good or bad. And the fact that we have this diversity on this podcast, hopefully continuing on, I mean, it's been great so far, thank you, but continuing on that we'll be able to continue to evolve and talk about other people's culture because I know that African food and Indian food are just so different than what, from what I'm familiar of and I'm so like uneducated on all of that and I'm so ready to know. So I think that something like this platform, this podcast is so beautiful because you can have people just elaborate and discuss on what they what they know and love. And I think that it's a great opportunity. So I appreciate what you guys are doing here.

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Thank you. We appreciate that.

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I have one more question for you both. What is one place that you think, or it could be multiple, I don't mind, give me a recommendation for food places that you think represent your culture well.

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Okay. I'm going to give you guys three places, and only three places, because this is what I truly recommend here in this city. The first one being is not actually from, he's actually Persian. I'm not Persian, but the owner is Persian and the food over there is so so good. It's called Nevada Kebab. You can find this place on the street of Rainbow, which crosses with Sahara. It's across the street from the McDonald's and the El Pollo Loco. It's basically has blue LEDs around the building. It used to be a Dairy Queen, but they bought out the building and they're still using the drive-thru over there. You can order kebabs and pick it up through the drive-thru or order and wait. The food over there. Yeah, it's cool. It's a cool idea. It's a cool idea. It's definitely not like a McDonald's drive-thru, where it's just like, it gets really quick. You kind of have to sit there for a few minutes until it's like done, which I guess is whatever, but it's a cool feature that they have for sure. The food over there is so good. And they have a thing called kubadeh. And kubadeh is very similar to kababs because kabab typically is it is a Ground meat kabab is ground meat Usually shish kababs are usually just the piece of meat on a stick and that's where they kind of just like grill the meat And I guess that's the shish kabab version of that, but they don't really have that over there They have kuba de and kuba de is is very light and fluffy ish I'd say and they put it over a bed of rice and it's just it's so tasty I like to take their salad sauce and put it on top of the rice and it takes it to a whole nother level their food over there is so delicious I totally recommend going and I'm very picky with my kebabs I've had a lot different versions over the years and there's is very yummy that's one place it's on Rainbow and Sahara Nevada kebab the second place that I really recommend it's called Jerusalem Chef's Table. Jerusalem Chef's Table is a restaurant that is owned by a very, very close family friend of mine. And they own this, it's a kosher restaurant, it's all kosher, and it's a little bit more fancier-ish, a little bit. And they have just different kind of Middle Eastern inspired foods. It's not like that they're known for one specific thing. They just have a very big menu with different things. You can order things like a burger and those casual things and they make it a little bit fancier. But they have, their schnitzel is really good. Schnitzel is just like a fried, it's basically like a chicken katsu, just a little bit thinner and with sesame seeds on top. They have just different versions of food that you would essentially find in Jerusalem today. Jerusalem Chef's Table, it's a little bit more of a fancier-ish kind of restaurant. It's on Flamingo. It is definitely the most known kosher restaurant in Vegas today. They've been around for a while. And what's great about Jerusalem Chef's Table, not just about the restaurant, but is also their service as well, because what they do is the owner of the restaurant, Leo, who actually owns Jerusalem Chef's Table, he also owns Prime Prime Nosh. And Prime Nosh is a kosher meat distributor, and they're the largest kosher meat distributor here in Vegas right now. And all their meats are basically, like I said, kosher, halal included. So they are providing most of these restaurants with the meats that they carry. So Nevada Kebab is actually the client of Prime Nosh. They get their halal food from Prime Nosh. They have an amazing factory, Prime Nash in Henderson. And so it's just, it's kind of really cool on how these restaurants can sort of expand just beyond what the restaurants is, but supplying and holding quality meats as well. So I applaud Jerusalem and Lior for that. That's really, really, really cool that they do that. And their food is excellent. I just had it, I was just there this past week and the food is very yummy. My third recommendation, in Hebrew we call this shkhunati. And shkhunati means a little bit like not from the hood, but it's like if you went to the hoods of the street, it's more like street food. Shkhunati means street food. And I personally, sometimes you just need that. You don't need something fancy. You don't need something too out of the ordinary. You kind of just need that one. You need a good pita. You know what I'm saying? Like a good sandwich, a good pita filled with shawarma or falafel or something or whatever you want inside. And that's why I go to Hummus Vegas. Hummus Vegas is located on Sahara. If you take the exit Sahara on the 95 by where the plaza where they have like a It's literally right next to the world's largest gift shop on Sahara next to the Sahara Hotel in that area Hummus Vegas you could just walk in there. It's pretty street food vibes over there You walk in there order your pita with whatever you want inside Very simple and I think it tastes the best in all of Vegas as far as like a good pita sandwich. I think that they have like the best pita sandwich you can find in all this like this entire city. So that's where I would go if I wanted like a really good shawarma or falafel. I actually haven't had their falafel but like I heard they have a really good sabich over there. Sabich is a basically a pita filled with like eggplant like fried eggplant potatoes and different kind of like salads that they put in there. It's a vegetarian sandwich, which is very, very yummy too. And they have that. So it's more like a street vibe over there. You can sort of see the ingredients in front of you. And I much prefer that kind of environment on a casual day. So those are my three places that I totally, totally recommend. So awesome.

0:31:06
Yeah. I'm bookmarking all of these as we go on to them right now.

0:31:12
Just be advised, it is a little bit, kosher is not cheap, okay? Oh yeah. A pita sandwich of shawarma over there at Jumbo's Vegas with fries and I think even a drink over there, it is close to, it's like $18, $17. Like kosher is not cheap, it is expensive, but the quality is there. Like if you want a good quality sandwich, definitely go. It's definitely worth the money and the experience. So you only live once, might as well enjoy a good pita, right?

0:31:37
Exactly. And support the locals here.

0:31:39
Of course, of course.

0:31:40
For sure, for sure.

0:31:42
All right Ashley, what are your, oh sorry go ahead. And it all comes from Prime Nosh, the kosher meats, so it's all really good, it's all really cool that they're all just basically helping each other. It's like a community of business here. Yeah, yeah I like that.

0:31:57
That's really good. Yeah it's a really cool idea. Okay Ashley, your recommendations. Well, I'll tell you right now, I'm kind of currently going on a little journey as to finding my next place in regards to my heritage so that I can recommend it to all of you. Admittedly, I don't have anything for Filipino cuisine other than my house because my mom's a good cook. Same thing with the Chinese food too. that I used to go to this restaurant with my family once in a while before it closed called Joyful House. And that's one of my favorite places growing up as a kid. They served really tasty authentic Chinese food like Westlake soup, which basically contains cilantro, egg whites, mushrooms, beef, etc. Hong Kong style crispy noodles, steamed or fried flounder, that kind of good stuff. Much better than P.F. Chang's or Panda or what my friend will call it, Handy in a Pinch. But like I said, if I find any places, I will let you know. So do we have any final thoughts? Sort of, if I may just make a

0:33:00
small comment real quick. Yeah. Speaking the whole Filipino side, I totally admire that you do come from different backgrounds and even if you're just, you know, one background, that's, that's amazing because that means that you're just you're very knowledgeable and what you what you are and everything like that you could be very knowledgeable just from from having so many different kind of backgrounds too and I come from so many as well it's sort of just hard to keep up with it but Filipino food is really really cool I've been to a few what do you call it the fast food like restaurants where you walk in there and they have like the food already ready and you just kind of like order and they like just played it for you and you hey and you can eat it I really really like Filipino breakfast I've recently just discovered this, and it includes the rice and some beef that they put, and the beef is sweet, it's a little sweet, and they put three eggs on the side of it, and it's so chef's kiss, it tasted so good. Because I work by the Sahara DMV, and there's a place on Maryland Parkway that has that, and it's so delicious, so kudos, because that's a great breakfast like rice, eggs, meat. Yum.

0:34:06
Nice. Thank you.

0:34:07
Yeah, I don't have any final thoughts except for saying thank you guys for telling me about all these different foods because now I'm gonna have to look into some of them. Definitely. But yeah, I just wanted to thank you guys for coming in and talking about this and sharing your different cultures and foods that you grew up with, because I feel like we can all learn a lot. Even if we had the same culture, it's like everybody does things differently. This is really interesting and it shows you just how different and cool and fun all these different foods are. And yeah, I just wanted to thank you guys and thank you, Lidor, for being a guest on the show today.

0:34:51
Of course, thank you guys for having me. It was awesome. I had a great time.

0:34:54
And we also do want to hear from you guys. So make sure you comment, tweet us, all that fun stuff on our Instagram and our Twitter. Tell us what kind of foods you grew up with, what kind of cultures and backgrounds you guys are from, if you can relate, if you can't relate, all that fun stuff. And we will talk to you guys next week. And we will talk to you guys next week.

0:35:12
Bye.

Transcribed with Cockatoo