Comfort Food Twists and Dubai's Culinary Majesty with Tarek Sultani

Embark on a sensory escapade with me and the masterful Chef Jeffrey Schlissel, as we reveal the gastronomic wonders from Ibis Images Studios. Feast your ears on the art of creating the ultimate comfort food with a twist—think Kan Kan pork paired with nutritious turnip greens and a 24-hour fermented homemade pizza that promises a symphony of flavors with its caramelized balsamic onion jam and pickled jalapeños. 

But the surprise doesn't end there; we'll also unfold the story behind a Southern-style chicken dish, cleverly infused with a kimchi kick that will redefine your chicken wing cravings.

Finally, we speak with Tarek Sultani from Cucina Del Sul - think being under the expansive desert sky of Dubai, we gather around the flickering flames to witness a feast for the ages, reminiscent of Francis Mallmann's legendary fire-cooked banquets. As we explore the allure of Dubai's food scene, we'll touch on the delicate dance bet

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:56

Ooh. ["walk and Talk"]. Hello Food Fam. This is the Walk and Talk podcast and I am your host, Carl Fiedini. We're podcasting on site at Ibis Images Studios, where food photography comes alive, and I get to eat it On the menu today, and thank you Peninsula Food Service for supplying the proteins for today's Produccione. It's all about Southern style chicken, kimchi, homemade pizza with con con pork and that, oh man, I gotta tell you it's fantastic. I got to eat it already. I gained six pounds already. Our guest today is a new friend of the show. They are it's Cucinadel Soule. I've got Tarek Sultani. He's in Dubai. We met at the World Food Championships last month in Dallas, Texas, and he and his wife Ola are awesome people and they're doing big things in Dubai. This is going to be my excuse to get out there at some point. Jeff, I don't know, man, I mean you ever go? Huh, you get on a plane, Of course, Like today, We'll go now.

Speaker 3: 2:26

Yeah, I mean, if I had my passport.

Speaker 1: 2:28

I mean, we'd be there for breakfast, I think.

Speaker 3: 2:31

Or next day.

Speaker 1: 2:32

Next day, whatever It'd be.

Speaker 3: 2:34

Sunday by the time we get there, indeed, all right.

Speaker 1: 2:37

So that's Mr Chef, jeffrey Schlissel, man, I want you to jump into pre-chef. Talk about man. Let me tell you something. I really let me shut the music. Shut the music, hold on, get that out of there. Listen, I enjoyed today so much because it was just, it was I don't know. It's simple, right, it's simple stuff, but it's not because there's so many layers and you did so much with it to really elevate it. The pictures are phenomenal. Yeah, as always. As always, Go ahead, jump in, baby.

Speaker 3: 3:12

Yeah. So what I love about the Ken Can or Con Con K and K and it's the best of both worlds. I mean you get a little bit of bone in there, you've got the pork loin, you got a little bit of tenderloin, depending on where the cut's coming from, and it goes all the way down to the belly. So you've got like this, just loveliness, and it curves. And one of the things you've got to do is you've got to like score the fat on the skin so that it won't curl on you or like kind of bend in the center so it cooks more evenly. A lot of people what they do is they actually intend to take it and do it the cheating way and throw it into a deep fryer and get it all nice and nice on the sides.

Speaker 3: 3:49

You can smoke this, you can grill it, you can pan, sear it like we did, but it's the seasoning you put into it, the loveliness you do with it. And we just did like a little bit of a rub. We had like garlic and a little bit of salt pepper, then you had a little cumin. I had a double seasoning and then layering those on and searing it, and then what really was the catch and John's not here right now. He's shooting, but I had the noble citrus tangerines came out and these are actually last seasons, one that we use today, and having that marmalade, a little bit of vodka, a little bit of that thyme and having that just glaze on top, it just brought it to another level.

Speaker 1: 4:31

It was like candy yeah. It was like candy, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 3: 4:35

And then we served it with potato and artichoke ash, with a little Dijon mustard, because that gives it a little vinegar, kick to it, a little spice, but not like heat from like pepper per se. And then I love turnip greens. You know, those are just an unspoken hero.

Speaker 1: 4:51

I mean, I ate my veggies today.

Speaker 3: 4:53

I know, you did and I was very impressed. My wife will be proud.

Speaker 3: 4:55

Yeah, and what I love about turnip greens is it's a way for us to you know, normally those would be just thrown away. Here's an opportunity to braise them. They don't take as long as collard greens, they're not as bitter as collard greens, but they're just fantastic and I think they just blend well together. And then the other part we did. You mentioned the homemade pizza. I did. I wanted to try something new, so I actually ended up fermenting my dough for over 24 hours to give it a little more body, a little more complexion or a complexity. And what was funny is you guys were eating it and I'm sitting there staring at the structure of the damn pizza dough and you guys were like oh, this is fantastic and I'm just going off.

Speaker 1: 5:31

I was also I was enjoying the structure as I was crunching through. Yeah, that thing had a lot of crunch, had a lot of crunch, but it wasn't like I don't know. It was like it was nice in the middle crunchy outside nice in the middle. It was so easy to eat, yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:43

And that, just you know, spotlighting that. Pizza's the vessel, the dough is the vessel. Instead of doing marinara mozzarella, whatever, we did pureed caramelized balsamic jam, onion jam, and then we layered that with sassy Mima sassy sauce, which is my sauce for the tangerine juice and it's like an old fashioned drink inside the actual barbecue sauce, layered that with a little mozzarella like Colby Jack cheese, and then the pork, the can can. We actually chopped it up and then threw that on top and then caramelized it in the pizza oven. And then we put pickled jalapenos as the finishing touch and that. And then you wanted to do something different, because the last week, with the kimchi, you wanted to spotlight.

Speaker 1: 6:25

Chicken wings.

Speaker 3: 6:26

Yeah, and funny enough with the way we set it up on a plate. It looked like chicken wings but they're boneless and it's chicken tenders and I did it with a 24 hour. Uh, I call it crack sauce because I made this sauce one time. It's just basically ranch dressing. I kicked it up with some black pepper, some pomegranate cheese and some other ingredients and literally you just put that and dip it in and I know, like my old roommate and a bunch of people that know, you know that if you know, you know they'll. If you mentioned crack sauce, it'll be like uh, yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Yeah. So you know I get down right. I want to slap up everything on the plate. So I took that delicious pizza that you created and I took that crack sauce and I just smothered yeah, I was really. And you know the layers on the, on the, on the ranch man that cracks, it's, it's got layers and it's, um, I don't know, you know the best way to describe it is it has life. Yeah, you know, it's, it's really. You take a bite and you'd be like, oh my God, it's alive.

Speaker 3: 7:23

Actually, you know, what's funny is you took behind the scenes we're doing it and you took a bite of the pizza and you John goes. You moaned Because I don't know how I feel about that, and that should have been on tape, by the way. It is Not have been. No, I think you stopped filming.

Speaker 1: 7:38

No, no, it's there. Oh, good, good, I didn't. I didn't put that up yet, but it's it's.

Speaker 3: 7:42

it's funny because, like one of the things about cooking the things that you love as a chef and people that are doing it for love you have a lot of tendency to make things that are so much better because you're cooking with that passion, you're showing that love, the extension of you that you're trying to, and that's what we do with food. Food is this meeting that can bring people together, and I think Anthony Bourdain did the best when he would travel is that he would sit around a I mean for crying out loud. He sat in Vietnam with President Obama sitting president, having a beer in Vietnam and having food, and it brings people together. And that's one of the things that I love about food is is that crevice bowl and that passion, the love that you have for it. You know it's like you know and Keith talks about being in India and people bring in, invite you into their house, because that's what they want to do for you. They want to cook for you. I want you to cook for me too.

Speaker 1: 8:29

That's why I'm here, that's why we do this on Thursdays, yeah. And then I started this whole company, so you can, and John can, shoot, yeah he could shoot, he can, he can really showcase his artwork.

Speaker 1: 8:39

All right, so people out there, the audience, these, these wonderful people who somehow decide they want to listen to us, right, yeah, if you really want to experience all of this, you really need to go to the website, the walk in talkcom, and check out all of John's photography. It's all beautiful food photography of the dishes that you know Jeffrey, chef, jeffrey, is actually cooking up and you really get the full. You get the full experience. You know, jeff puts out a column on there as well blog just about every week and there's a lot on the site. So check it out, the walk in talkcom.

Speaker 3: 9:20

You know, speaking of that, if you really you listen and you want to get involved, here's an opportunity for you actually to taste the food. There's a nine course tasting menu January 13th at our buddy's farm called Kehabah Club. It's in Keystone, florida. It's part of Hillsborough County, tampa. It's equestrian. A lot of farms out there and we're throwing it down. We, you know, listen, we're a food podcast, food media group. What better way for you guys to experience what we can do than to have an event? So you know what Carl just said. He goes the walk in talkcom. You go down to the Craveable Farmers or Farmers Craveable Dinner. You can buy tickets. There's wide open right now but we've got 30 something people already booked coming, so we only have an X amount of you know spaces. So it's going to go fast. It's a great time for Christmas present. If you don't know for your foodie, this is a perfect Christmas, and if you act now, you also get.

Speaker 1: 10:17

yeah, you just get out there and we feed you nice and you're going to be happy. How about that?

Speaker 3: 10:21

Yeah, and I will drop this. There is a menu out there, but that's not the complete menu. We're holding some of the stuff back to be a surprise. But as I was looking over the menu, what was really great is there's no theme to the menu, except that the theme is that we're helping farmers and getting the spotlight on farmers and showcasing what we can do with the farmers, and then you can actually then purchase from the farm directly. But this is what's really cool the menu happens to be world, so every course is from a different part of the world, and I didn't even think about it when I was doing it.

Speaker 1: 10:50

You know there is a theme. The theme is smiles. Okay, experience, experience with smiles, yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:57

What I was talking about with Joey Rowland today. Hey, joey, I know you listen to us, but Joey was like talking about the experience that we've lost and that's what we've done. And you know, since COVID we've lost that experience of going out and having that wow factor.

Speaker 1: 11:11

Yeah, speaking of COVID and speaking of world and the food and everything in it. So I'm going to. I'm going to, I'm going to bring in Tarek Sultani. He's over in Dubai, you know, he's doing food competitions out there and it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty interesting story, and once he comes on, we're going to have him talk about it and it's, I mean, I really want to get out there and I really want to be part of what they're doing. I don't want to cook, I just want to watch. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3: 11:44

I just want to eat. I know you do I just when we, when we had him on, I just I was sitting there envisioning what he was describing there's.

Speaker 1: 11:52

There's two things I want to do over there. I want to see the, the sale building there and I want to eat. Man, that's that's what I want to do, all right, so let's, let's, let's bring Tarek on.

Speaker 3: 12:02

I want to go see Tarek and his wife. That's what I want to do. I don't want to see a building.

Speaker 1: 12:06

It's like a little 1130 over there. Now let's PM Tarek you with us.

Speaker 2: 12:12

I'm over here, oh right, hey, welcome how you doing from Dubai.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Absolutely man.

Speaker 2: 12:17

I'm great, I'm great.

Speaker 1: 12:19

I appreciate you. I appreciate you're staying up late.

Speaker 2: 12:24

That food, oh my pleasure, but I'm up, I'm up and I'm hungry. Now let's think to Chef Jeffrey's pizza and that crack sauce. Oh, that's amazing, it is.

Speaker 1: 12:36

And you got to like go make a sandwich.

Speaker 3: 12:39

So tell us what's been going on since we saw you last? I mean, how was Dallas Tell us from like when we, when we parted, you know, I think, what day did you leave?

Speaker 2: 12:54

We left the day after the finals, all right.

Speaker 3: 12:57

So that's Sunday. You left Monday.

Speaker 2: 12:58

I spent in a yeah, yeah and but what. What an experience, honestly. I mean this is our second year in the World Food Championship. It just gets better and better and the adrenaline rush and just kind of watching all that talent in one place is absolutely incredible. And what we love even more is it's truly becoming an international competition. I mean, there were teams from obviously we had we had two participants from Dubai, and then there was like the teams from France and Korea and Japan and like just that whole kind of cultural yeah, there was actually two, I think two teams from France, right.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Yeah, there were two teams.

Speaker 3: 13:37

Yeah, there were definitely yeah, two teams from France and it seems like the burger two teams from France and then our buddy. Canada the bacon.

Speaker 1: 13:47

JP.

Speaker 3: 13:47

Yeah, jp, yeah, canada, canada, yeah, there was. It seems like the burger category was the most world competition, if you know what I'm talking about well there's not. That's not really true. The barbecue had some throwdowns to.

Speaker 1: 14:05

London, afghanistan, everybody with barbecue. There was 21 or 18 or 21 competitors out there for that. The, the, the, the life fire. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy actually.

Speaker 2: 14:59

Yeah, that was cool. The life fire was really cool. Watch watching like oh you know, everyone had his own contraption and cooking in different techniques. It was incredible to watch kind of walk around and taste all the food.

Speaker 3: 15:12

You were able to taste the food. Well, wait a minute, I was stuck at the pod. Yeah, yes, booth, carl probably tasted.

Speaker 1: 15:22

Look, I enjoyed myself from top to bottom during that event. I'm actually looking forward to next year. You know, as it looks like we're going to probably, you know head back out there.

Speaker 3: 15:33

To Dallas.

Speaker 1: 15:33

Yeah, to Dallas. You know a lot, of, a lot of interesting things that are going to happen with the venue itself, with the franchise, and I'm excited to see where it's going to go.

Speaker 3: 15:47

I mean so am I? I mean, I can't believe. So what else? Now, you were there. Who was? Where were they competing, your people? Where were they competing? What?

Speaker 2: 15:56

categories? Yeah, so we had, we had two. We had two contestants. One was in live fire, so we had the smoking beer at Fred Casa Grande in live fire. He made it to the finals, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:08

Yeah, he's a good guy man. Is that the guy you?

Speaker 3: 16:11

took the joy. Yeah, okay, yeah, he's got the cowboy hat.

Speaker 1: 16:14

He's got to have the buckle, the hat yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:17

The French guy, the French guy with the cowboy hat.

Speaker 1: 16:20

You have friends with him.

Speaker 2: 16:23

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 16:24

You need to tell him he was just with us last.

Speaker 2: 16:26

He was just with us last weekend. We did we did this incredible event out in the area of like two hours outside of Dubai called the land, and we do an event called Meets and Mountains. So we do live fire cooking in this kind of beautiful backdrop of mountain. And yeah, fred was one of the stations and he made this fantastic skirt steak with his Cajun rub on the so good.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Yeah, he, we didn't get a chance to get him on the, on the on the show, and I told him, you know, once everybody gets home and situated and whatnot, we'll, you know, we'll reach out and have him on the program.

Speaker 3: 17:02

Let him know that he needs to take a nap before it goes on the show because it's going to be later.

Speaker 1: 17:06

Yeah, let him know that we're going to reach out and I really want to have him on the program. I got to sample. He see, what one of Fred's best attributes is that he's a showman, right. So we were it was a pooch and I were judges for the live fire event and, you know, everybody was cool out there. But there was only like two people, two teams, that were progressive in the way that they spoke and communicated with the, you know, with the judges, and Fred he's like I don't know if he had a cool lot. I think it was doing cool lots, if I remember or I forget, but he, he caught up. He was cutting pieces for us. He's like, hey, try this, try this. And he was putting the food in our mouths. Man, like we got to eat it. Oh my goodness, it was like I remember that I was happy as hell when I you know, when I when you eat meat?

Speaker 3: 18:04

Yeah, anytime you get fed, you're happy.

Speaker 1: 18:06

We all know that True story?

Speaker 3: 18:11

Okay, who was the other person that was competing?

Speaker 2: 18:15

So we had another, another contestant from Dubai who basically participated in the sandwich competition and, yeah, unfortunately that didn't. The results for that didn't come out as we expected.

Speaker 3: 18:29

That was his first time, though.

Speaker 2: 18:32

It was his first time and it's intimidating right. I mean to look at all that talent, all these teams working around you and yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:43

Yeah, so I have interesting. I have a. I probably still have, I don't know, maybe another 10 episodes from the World Food Championship that I have to put out. You know your episode, you know Olas and yours. I just put out like two days ago and in one day of publishing that episode, we started ranking on the Apple charts in Dubai. We were we, I think we were at number 15 on the Dubai Apple charts for food. I mean, that freaked me out. I was, it's pretty, but thank you for being on our show and I'm glad that our program made it to Dubai somehow and that's really awesome. So thank you for that, terry.

Speaker 2: 19:29

That's. That's. That's fantastic. I think we should. We should do more of that.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Well, you're right, not only we should we do more. You know, production work like this together, but I think that we need to figure out how to, how to combine our efforts in cooking food and having some, you know, camaraderie between the different countries and all of that. I mean, we spoke the last time, actually, on that podcast and privately, about how you know, and just now with Jeff. You know, food is the great mediator. It brings everybody together, and I think in this crazy world of ours, we need a lot more. You know, reasons to to to befriend one another and to get together, and I think food is the way to do it.

Speaker 2: 20:20

And I absolutely agree.

Speaker 2: 20:22

I learned a new term last week with you know, from one of the chefs that was with us in our Meacham Mountains event, because usually we have kind of a couple of chefs that are always with us and we rotate a few.

Speaker 2: 20:35

This gentleman was from a chef from Argentina and what he said after the event is we share its fire together, which I found like like a fantastic way of kind of really bonding right Over food, over fire, over barbecue. So you know, dubai is a cultural melting pot and I think that's what's incredible about the cuisine here is that you know you've got kind of everything from Middle Eastern food, but always with fusions of Asian touches, and then you've got chefs from all over the world, from Michelin star chefs to street food concepts. Just bring all this cultural cuisine, different techniques, different ways of cooking and lots of stories to tell. That's part of what we've been trying to do over here, kind of bring people together over food. But I think the other part of it is also give the chefs and the cooks the platform to tell their story, express themselves through the food and really bring them closer to the people they feed.

Speaker 1: 21:38

You know the fact that that there is a. You know you'd mentioned before that burgers, hamburgers are a thing in Dubai. I think that speaks volumes of you know the possibilities or the potential overall. I mean the fact that a cheeseburger could be a big deal in Dubai. To me is is tremendous.

Speaker 2: 22:03

It's, it's huge. It's huge. I think honestly like we've got some of the best burgers we've tasted anywhere. But let's tie it back to the World Food Championship. So last year we participated in one category, which was the burger category and the contestants. So the chef who won the Dubai competition came in thirds in Dallas, comes back to Dubai. We did a series of pop-ups. Come try, you know Dubai's best burger and third best burger in the world and A couple months later he opens up his burger joints and he's got now one of the most successful burger burger joints in Dubai. You've got a stand in the 45 minute queue to get to get a seat.

Speaker 1: 22:46

I love that. You know what people need to understand the audience. So at this world food championship there's somewhere between 800 and a thousand chef competitors something to that effect In the course of two two, two areas where there's multiple kitchens.

Speaker 1: 23:06

Right, so there's, there's about 800, literally 800, competitors and there are between 3000 and, you know, 8000, 10,000 people a day spectators that go through this, this, this venue, this event, over the course of like five days. So it's a big deal, it's not? You know it isn't some rinky-dink. You know backyard, the competition here, and you know rural Alabama, something like that, like that's. This is a Nothing wrong with rural Alabama, by the way, jason lot Love you baby. You know, at the end of the day, this is a huge, worldwide event.

Speaker 3: 23:47

Yeah, remember we were talking about. I said this is not the Super Bowl, where they say they're the world championship.

Speaker 3: 23:52

Because, they're not playing anyone around the world, right? They mean, especially in certain categories. You, I mean burger, definitely, my goodness and barbecue, I mean multiple different countries that were being represented. So it is when, if you win like JP won for bacon, yeah, I mean, you are the world champion in bacon. Mcfadden John McFadden, case in point seafood he is the world champion in seafood right now, until he goes to what? Nebraska? And goes for the final table Arkansas, arkansas, yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1: 24:21

Yeah, yeah, yes, it's, it's all of that and, by the way, we're talking with with yeah, we're talking with them, listen, terrick. I mean there's a bunch of stuff that you know we here at walk-and-talk Want to do, you know, and, and a lot of it revolves around food, food, obviously. But you know it revolves around other people with, with passion, and this food passion, like we have, and it doesn't necessarily we don't want them to just be like here, local, from half an hour away, here in Tampa, florida. You know we're looking for them. You know the Australia and the Dubai and you know all of that. The globe, like a Global food passion is what we're looking for and I don't want to skip over the fact that. You know, what did he? What did he say? Shared and shared fire together. You sure that's, that's powerful and that's a fire. Yeah, it's beautiful. That's beautiful. I mean to me, that hits me, that I, I appreciate that, like you know, all levels.

Speaker 3: 25:20

Well, I mean, think about it with barbecue. What do you have? You got a lot of time on your hands, right, john? You got way too much time on your hand. Here in the States, we're sitting and drinking, you know, moonshine or bourbon, and what are you doing? You're just having a conversation. Same thing with what he's doing out in and, by the way, you guys are doing this where normally it's, in the desert, correct?

Speaker 2: 25:43

Yeah, we do it in the desert, we do it in remote areas.

Speaker 3: 25:46

Yeah, so that's what's really that's, you know. That's like man versus elements out there, Right, you know that's why I said I don't want to cook I.

Speaker 1: 25:56

Just want to sit and watch. Is there wildlife out there? What's what's the what's that? It's a desert, I get it. So what lives there? Anything, there's got to be stuff.

Speaker 2: 26:08

No. So so we do two main locations. One is like proper deserts. We've got dune, soft sand. We kind of shuttle people on 4x4s into the middle of the desert and we do a beautiful camp set up. And the other one, which we did last week is, is in a like an equal resort that has kind of which is more kind of gravel and Kind of rocky like, let's say, more lock, rocky landscape. It's just like beautiful Barren land. There's no green around you, it's just like really rough. And Then you're lighting up the fires. One of the chefs kind of just did it Francis Malman style, like almost like the earth was on fire and you had these massive rib-eyes hanging over it and cooking was just kind of very basic, basic Equipment.

Speaker 3: 26:57

Yeah, you just mentioned, we have people drive.

Speaker 2: 27:00

We have people drive two hours to come over and then they sleep overnight, they camp and spend the night.

Speaker 1: 27:07

How many people show up to these events?

Speaker 2: 27:10

That's around 450 people.

Speaker 1: 27:13

And that's a one, that's a one night showing.

Speaker 2: 27:17

So one night showing, we did them by two, two weekends back to back, so like each, like Saturday and then the next Saturday.

Speaker 1: 27:25

That's amazing, so you man, you mentioned ribeye.

Speaker 3: 27:27

Like what for me, right, we have certain breeds of cattle here. What breeds of cattle do you have in Dubai that you even use or harvest?

Speaker 2: 27:39

So, so most of I mean all of it is imported. So, for example, like the event we did was in collaboration with us meat export Federation, so it's all kind of USDA prime, prime cuts. I.

Speaker 1: 27:54

We got to talk. We have to talk. I have one of our biggest vendor partners and sponsors of the Walk and Talk podcast is a company called Peninsula Food Service and we're the largest distributor of Creekstone Farm beef in the South East United States and I got to tell you, obviously you know, when you're talking prime beef and you're talking about, you know just black Angus and you're talking about you know one blood line it's, it's amazing and it's like, yeah, I, I, I wish, I wish I could put something in the, in the mail right now for you, because it's you know, yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:42

Because what you're saying to me, you're, you're, we're speaking the same language here. I would love, I mean the, the dunes, the sand, I would check that out. But this other, the other thing you're talking about, where it's like kind of gravel and you know, you know, I guess mountainous, I would totally be down for that 100%.

Speaker 3: 29:02

Like you'd have to climb. Stuff you ready for that? Okay, you know I just got to go. You're going upstairs.

Speaker 1: 29:08

I know I got to. I have to, I have to prepare for this Exactly. You made John smile. That's really nice. It's the first time ever I got to take a picture. I'm going to take my phone, um, yeah, no, I mean I would have to like prepare for this.

Speaker 3: 29:20

No, you would definitely have to train.

Speaker 1: 29:21

I don't, I would. I would have to train, I would. It's something where it's. I can't see you for at least a month, like you're out of my life for a month.

Speaker 3: 29:29

You see what he just said. To what training? He said one, two, yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:33

Right, yeah, lift a, lift a spoon. I got you. You know, john, we're. Yeah, he's still silent he too, but it's really.

Speaker 3: 29:43

So what's? Let me ask you a question, as as somebody who loves cuisine in different countries and stuff what would be like indigenous foods for Dubai? If we were to go over, where would you take us? Yeah, there we go.

Speaker 2: 29:58

Oh, yes, yes, Um, so there's definitely a couple of places that are, I mean, I wouldn't call, I wouldn't describe them as a local cuisine, so that it's not a Marathi cuisine, um, but that's one thing you have to try which is kind of local cuisine, which is usually a lamb over a big bed of rice, uh, so, and, and the lamb is cooked in in what we call matfoon. Matfoon is when they dig underground and they put a barrel under the ground and put the lamb inside and then just let it, you know, let it cook for eight hours, so they cover it with sand Sounds like a barrel with sand, and then, yeah, what do you call it?

Speaker 3: 30:39

The, yeah, the Cuban. Uh, god, a big coffin. We call it coffin.

Speaker 1: 30:44

That's gotta be so that that lamb has to be so tender.

Speaker 2: 30:48

I can't think of the day Fall off the bone.

Speaker 1: 30:49

Fall off the bone right.

Speaker 2: 30:50

Absolutely, fall off the bone, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 30:54

But that's, that's an indigenous way of cooking, though back from the day I mean, look at, listen a lot of times that people and I remember a friend of mine who's from Pakistan, mani, he's like well, you know, the, the Donner, the Yidol comes from there. So I'm like actually it comes from the Bedouins because that's the way they cooked and it's similar to what you were just saying the barrel inside and digging it so that it uses mostly almost like a Dutch oven, correct?

Speaker 2: 31:17

Yes, yep. So it locks the oven, so the Dutch oven using kind of what you, what you have around you, which is just really the terrain, right Kind of sandy terrain, so you just dig, dig underground and put the meat in there and just just let it cook.

Speaker 3: 31:33

See, that's what I would want. I don't want to.

Speaker 2: 31:36

Yeah, but that's okay. But no, you would want a hamburger. Yeah, but my second day, the first day I would want something that's more intense.

Speaker 1: 31:44

Yeah, I would like to have an indigenous hamburger.

Speaker 2: 31:52

So they have. I think this is one place that I have not tried and I'm not sure I want to try, but I'm sure they make a camel burger.

Speaker 3: 31:59

I've had that. I'll try that. I actually had that here in Orlando actually Orlando Florida there's a place called whiskey and they have um different. Well, funny joke. So the camel burger comes out. I had no idea how to. You know cook and so you know like sometimes when you're doing cow or doc, you want to mid rare or whatever your temp is I don't know how to cook what or what temp to serve camel.

Speaker 3: 32:22

So I asked the server and she goes this is the way so it comes out. I take the bite and I look over and everybody's looking at me and I'm like oh my.

Speaker 3: 32:27

God, they're like what? I'm like it's got sand in it. They're like, really, I'm like no, you idiot. I think it's fantastic. There's a little bit of of gaminess to it, like like mutton to to like lamb. That's the difference when you, when the younger lamb doesn't have that gaminess to it, but as it goes it gets older, the mutton has that little more gaminess to it. But it's only a hint. But I would definitely go back to that place and have camel. It was. I thought it was fantastic. You know, guys, other guys had, um uh, ostrich and bore venison, which is that to me is not not nothing big. I was just pretty good it tastes like Dermot Chicken.

Speaker 1: 33:07

I mean it, you know. I remember getting an ostrich. It was like a steak fillet it was. It was huge, it was gigantic, huge, huge, huge, huge. So what's coming up next? Did I miss that? Uh, terek, what do you got coming up next?

Speaker 2: 33:21

What's, what's, yeah, what's coming up next is, um, we are working on a first of all for the World Food Championship. That's going to be a key priority. So I think, just reflecting on our experience this year, uh, one of my takeaways is that we need teams. That's what I just watching you know kind of a lot of these contestants come in. The way they operate, they work in, the way they work together is incredible, and I think that's what we kind of need to build out of Dubai. And you look at the French team, right, yeah 100% competition.

Speaker 2: 33:55

Right, they had, they had, like you know, they had Michelin star chefs as mentors. Uh, so I think for me that was a big learning, and so that's kind of one thing. The other thing is we've been, we've been looking at the World Food Championship like from our side, as then, like the Dubai, you know, coming in from Dubai Uh, what we're trying to do now is actually expand that lens and really make it like World Food Championship Meenak. So try to bring in teams from all over Middle East and North Africa, where we've got, you know, fantastic talent and different, different cuisines. So actually kind of have a team from Dubai, a team from Saudi, a team from Morocco and kind of use, you know, use our, our competition as the jumping off point to go compete in Dallas.

Speaker 3: 34:43

Would you also do training, like what they had in those kitchens set up similar, because?

Speaker 2: 34:51

that's also what we're trying to do, yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:54

Cause, just so everybody knows, it's not a commercial kitchen. There's no gas, that was there. It was all electric, like you're in home, type of stuff that was there. Um, and they only had a certain amount of things that they can use and they literally had to go out to, like when you're, when you're, two competitors competed. They had to go to a local market, pick up the produce and the proteins, correct?

Speaker 2: 35:17

Man, I mean that's probably one of the most difficult things for right for all the international contestants is, as they arrive to Dallas, sourcing kind of the right cuts of meat, sourcing equipment, ingredients. So we make sure our guys arrive four or five days. Now that it's our second year there, we know a couple of places, a couple of butcher shops that can help us Uh. But yeah, I mean, like like for example, the, the guy who competed in the sandwich category, when he, when he did his, his cook in Dubai, it was actually uh, it was smoked, so he cooked. You know, he cooked his kind of brisket for eight hours Going into sandwich in Dallas. He had to figure out how he's going to kind of change the meat and shift the uh and cook with the equipment that's available over there. So there's a lot of kind of adaptation that needs to happen as you get there.

Speaker 3: 36:11

Yeah, definitely, you gotta be McGuiver. Definitely because you don't know, and the more you do. I think Team France was there. What a week before, two weeks before, I heard of some reason, something like that.

Speaker 1: 36:23

Yeah, I mean, I think it's smart. I mean, if I know, if it's me, and I know that I'm gonna be doing a competition in May right next year, let's just say, starting today, I'm on the internet and I'm looking street by street, market by market, I'm calling those people, those businesses, I'm letting them know hey, I'm gonna be there in an X amount of months and this is what my expectations are, and I would have all that stuff set up like way ahead of time, because then when I land, everything is plug and play.

Speaker 3: 36:56

Well, I mean, the good thing for Tarek is that he's got people here in the States that we can actually help now facilitate some of that stuff moving forward for him, because that's one of the best things to have is somebody that has the knowledge of what that area might have.

Speaker 1: 37:11

That's something else there too. Yeah, I feel like there's gonna be. I feel like there are a lot of synergies between what Ola and Tarek are doing and what we're doing and obviously having this world food championship kind of in the background as we kind of work around it. I feel like there's a lot we can do together.

Speaker 2: 38:16

I agree, yeah, absolutely, absolutely and honestly. I mean just kind of reflecting back on the podcast we did together while the world food championship. It was such a great experience and a great opportunity for us to tell our story. I think there's a lot of stories that we can bring to the surface here from chefs in Dubai that have traveled from different places all over the world and wanna bring people together. Bring people together over food.

Speaker 1: 38:49

Well, we have all new friends here, so I embrace that. I know Jeffrey does, and at some point you'll get to meet our or here, or here our executive producer John Silent John, yeah, Silent John.

Speaker 3: 39:05

What I love about the idea what you're trying to do is you're actually showcasing the melting pot of the Middle East, and I really don't think that there's one. I mean, yeah, you could say like, Philly has the Philly cheese steak, and we've talked about this, New York has the New York style pizza and so on and so forth. But I think when you see these cuisines jumping borders and then you see these chefs that are doing infusions, I think it brings it to another whole, another level of what cuisine can do, not only for the cuisine of that country, but the actual friendships that can develop. And this is the point right now that we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 39:45

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also, when you bring these different cultures together, you realize how, through their cooking, you know the ways of cooking and the food they serve, how much commonality there is. Yeah, I mean the different names and different kind of maybe, like all come back from all traditions, but it's all is very similar.

Speaker 3: 40:10

Yeah, there's only one cuisine that was invented in the 1990s, which was Elbule, which is the modern cuisine. You mentioned somebody's name, Francis Millman, and I think he's just one of the culinary gods. I mean, this guy cooks seven different ways on fire only. He's got 30 different restaurants around the country, actually around the world, and he doesn't use gas All wood.

Speaker 1: 40:33

Habergular restaurants. They're good sizes, yeah, yeah, I mean like when he went Pressive.

Speaker 3: 40:39

Yeah, when Tarek said he's somebody did it in the Francis Millman, he's got this pyramid thing, you want to describe it. What your chef did, that was sort of like what the earth was on fire. How did it look?

Speaker 2: 40:52

Yeah, I mean, basically he lit up his wooden charcoal and laid it on the ground. On top of that there was a cage, and on the cage he had different vegetables. And then he had another kind of pit next to that with just hanging the big hanging rib eyes, and then there was a third pit. I was just trying to squeeze in and take these videos and you feel like you're in a volcano. It's just absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1: 41:27

They didn't do that at this event, at the World Food Championship, did they?

Speaker 3: 41:30

No one did that.

Speaker 1: 41:31

Well, no, somebody did. Well, they did that.

Speaker 3: 41:33

No, that's not what he's talking about like on the ground, like when Francis Millman he builds an igloo and you can walk through this thing different times.

Speaker 1: 41:42

But there was one or even two competitors on that live fire had the big cage and the hanging veg and the girl that won Women on fire, whatever it was called.

Speaker 3: 41:57

She had the hanging as well, and the Santa Maria is what you're talking about, like when they pulled up and the different things and hanging both down and going up and down. Yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah, it was impressive.

Speaker 1: 42:08

I can tell you that.

Speaker 3: 42:09

Yeah, but what Torrique is saying is this is like literally on the ground, there's no metal, there's nothing, it's more basic no contraptions, exactly no contraptions.

Speaker 2: 42:19

No big equipment, no smokers, it's just earth and charcoal.

Speaker 3: 42:27

It's very raw, it's the primal, exactly raw, it's primal. So you've got infrared, you have radiant heat, so you're playing around with like you're at that point, you're not cooking, you're a food scientist because you're almost like baking, because you have to know where the heat's coming from. If the wind changes. You've got to pivot it's. There's so many things that you're dealing with an offset smoker.

Speaker 1: 42:52

You know what the good news about that scenario is? You didn't have to cook Well that, that, there's always that. But the fact is, if you're outside and you're charring meat, you're cooking meat like that. It's always going to taste good. There's nothing you're going to do to mess that up Hardly anything.

Speaker 3: 43:12

How did the chef season it, by the way? Was he just like the water, salt and pepper with the little rosemary, or what was he doing?

Speaker 2: 43:20

Yeah, it was very, very. Yeah, it was basically salt and pepper. He had chimichurri next to it and served this with vegetables.

Speaker 1: 43:30

Yeah, you're saying all the right stuff.

Speaker 2: 43:31

I'm going to book my friend he was Argentinian, of course, he had chimichurri.

Speaker 1: 43:35

Yeah well, naturally. Yeah well, I'm going to book the flight and I'm going to get out there and I'm coming.

Speaker 2: 43:41

We need to get you out here, absolutely. Yeah, true story. All right, so to answer your question as well about where I would take you, there are a couple of restaurants which, honestly, I take both to my guests too, because they are must haves in Dubai. One is Orfali, which is probably ranked number one in top restaurants in the Middle East. He does this incredible mix of Levantine cuisine, so it's kind of Turkish, lebanese, syrian just incredible, incredible flavors, so much umami in all the dishes and a lot of storytelling as well. So each dish is inspired by one of his trips or his memories of living in Syria Fantastic. The other place is definitely Reef Reef, koshiyaki, asian street food just top notch, high quality Koshiyaki's and the ramen's. And the third one is a ceviche place. It's a startup, this incredible chef, peruvian chef, who used to do kind of more catering and private dining, and opened up a very small place in Dubai and it has become very popular. Just like really, really nice ceviche. How does that so? Those are my three hitlers.

Speaker 3: 45:17

How do those chefs maybe you don't know the answer to this, maybe you do how do they, especially the Peruvian chef, obviously being in Dubai, peru being in South America, obviously does Dubai have the ability to? I mean, we can import it, but nobody's growing Contra corn or Amayillo peppers, so is he importing them? Or does he change to what? Or are they changing for what's there and grown in Dubai?

Speaker 2: 45:44

A lot of it is imported and obviously, especially when you want to keep the food authentic to its source of origin. However, there's definitely a big trend of not a trend, but really a kind of very intentional direction to support more local farms and local produce. So there's been investments in lots of farmland, like converting a lot of desert land into proper farmland and reducing different types of vegetables local vegetables, both organic and just other vegetables and to support sustainability. A lot of the restaurants have been using as much as possible local produce. But at the end of the day, dubai is a global hub for trade and commerce, so a lot of food comes from all over the world.

Speaker 1: 46:43

How many people are in Dubai? What's the population?

Speaker 2: 46:48

It's around 2 million.

Speaker 1: 46:51

OK.

Speaker 2: 46:52

That's Dubai as the city. Remember we were part of the country as the United Arab Emirates and Abu Dhabi is the capital and there's a lot of things happening in Abu Dhabi. So I think last month Michelin launched there Abu Dhabi rankings were the first time. And then the guys from the yeah, and then they did the taste of Abu Dhabi as well, and that was very popular. So again, a lot of culinary experiences just becoming popular and bringing people together.

Speaker 1: 47:33

Well, we're here for it. I think what we're going to do, tarek, is we're going to go ahead and let's stay in contact here over the next very soon and let's try to work some dates out and figure out what we can get started. I definitely want to do something with you on the podcast. Do me a favor Make sure you're in, ola. It's probably midnight over there and it's getting late, so be sure you send Ola our regards, and I just want to thank you very much for being on the show. Can you tell everybody how to find you? What's your Instagram handle?

Speaker 2: 48:13

Yes, instagram is pucina del sol C-U-I-C-I-N-A del sol, s-u-l.

Speaker 1: 48:22

Perfect.

Speaker 2: 48:23

And you can see the. You'll have a look at the reels the meeting mountains event.

Speaker 1: 48:30

Perfect Listen. We're coming up on the hard break.

Speaker 2: 48:35

I'll set up the call as well with Fred. Get him on the podcast. Yes.

Speaker 1: 48:41

I'm loving it. All right, listen. Thank you very much, tarek, for being on the program. We appreciate you kindly.

Speaker 2: 48:46

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 48:47

Jeff, love you, baby Johnny, we are out.