- [Keith] This is Henry, and this is me, Keith,
and today we're calling cabs, Ubers, and Lyfts
hoping to find someone who isn't native to the U.S.
to tell us about their life and take us
to the restaurant in Los Angeles that reminds
them the most of home.
- So, dudes, I'm going to call a Lyft.
- How you feeling today, Henry?
- I'm not especially excited, because
we have to talk to eight different drivers
to find someone really cool.
What if the first person's great?
You never if the first person's great.
- [Henry] What about you, new intern?
Are you freaked out by the fact that no intern
has ever kept their job after coming on
one of these shoots?
- [Keith] He hasn’t heard of it because it's not true.
Victor arrives, and we climb into his car,
which proves difficult for me.
- [Henry] What's going on back there?
- I don’t know; I couldn’t figure out the seatbelt.
- [Henry] Victor, what's up, man?
How long have you been a Lyft driver for?
- [Victor] A month.
- [Henry] A month? How do you like it so far?
- [Victor] I like it, it's cool.
- [Henry] Cool, where you from?
- [Victor] LA.
- [Henry] You're from LA?
What part of LA?
- [Victor] Culver City.
- [Henry] Culver City, cool. - [Man] Yeah.
- [Henry] We tell him why we're shooting our video,
and he recommends that we call his dad,
who actually came over from El Salvador when he was nine.
- [Henry] Is he in LA right now?
- [Keith] We call him, but his dad
isn't available until the evening.
- That's okay, we can do it another time.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- We'll call you.
So we get out of the cab in Griffith Park
and I drop my Lactaid.
- [Henry] Wait, what did you just drop?
- [Kevin] My dairy pills.
- [Henry] What is that for?
- [Kevin] It's for my inability to digest lactose.
We call an Uber, and while we wait,
Henry continues to confuse Shane.
Shane, who you like better, me or Keith?
- Uh, Keith is from Chicago.
- Bullshit.
- [Kevin] Well, Henry, you did threaten his job
in the first two minutes of this shoot.
Our Uber arrives.
- [Henry] All right, so what up, man? I'm Henry.
All right, how do you say your name, Arten?
- [Arten] Arten.
- [Henry] Arten, what kind of name is that?
- [Arten] Armenian.
- [Henry] Armenian.
You're from Armenia?
- [Arten] No, I'm from here.
I'm Armenian from Iran.
- [Henry] Oh, Iranian, so...
- [Kevin] We pitch him our idea.
- Would you be interested in us taking you to lunch?
We'll pay you.
You can also leave the Uber meter running,
and we'll buy you lunch.
So do you want to do this right now?
You'll sign up?
You're good?
All right, we do it.
Take us to - what's the name of the restaurant?
- [Arten] Shiraz.
- [Henry] Shiraz.
So Arten, why did you come to America?
- Because it's on my dream.
- [Henry] It was your dream? - [Arten] Yeah.
When I was a child, I liked coming here.
I lived here.
I like my children born here.
- [Henry] You want your children to be born here?
- [Arten] Right, because here is the...
free country.
- [Henry] And your kids, were they born here
or were they born...
- [Arten] Yeah, born here. - [Henry] They were born here.
So who was with you when you went?
Your wife?
- [Arten] Wife, just my wife, and after that
my father and my mother.
- Your father and your mother came too?
- [Arten] Yeah, they came.
My mother-in-law, my brother, my sister.
- So your whole family?
- [Arten] Yeah, my whole family.
- [Henry] Did you study English before you got here?
- [Arten] No. - [Henry] No.
So you moved to America and spoke no English?
- [Arten] Yeah.
- [Henry] At 35, you had to learn a completely new
language of a new country.
I think your English is great, man.
- [Arten] My son teach me.
- [Henry] Your son teaches you English?
- [Arten] Yes, he's 12 years old.
- [Henry] That's great.
- [Kevin] We arrive at Shiraz, a Persian restaurant
that's just outside of Los Angeles in Glendale.
We head in and meet the owner, Brian.
- I'm Brian.
- [Keith] He seats us at a table,
and as usual, we proceed to order way too much food.
In addition to what we order, the restaurant
gives us complimentary Persian juice.
- [Henry] What is this, homemade juice?
- [Keith] Is there alcohol in these?
- [Woman] No.
- [Henry] No alcohol. No alcohol.
- [Keith] All right, calm down there, Keith.
- [Henry] It's good.
It's delicious, it's not too sweet.
Is it typical Persian?
- [Arten] Yeah.
- What is this here?
So it's basil, onion, and radish, and you just eat it
like all in one bite or...
- [Arten] No, you (inaudible speech).
- [Keith] Just eating radishes over here?
- I'm not used to this just raw radish.
- It's a radish.
- [Keith] Now we tried dough, a buttermilk-yogurt drink.
- Here come the dairy pills. - [Henry] Yeah.
It just tastes like juice of yogurt,
like the juice that's at the top of yogurt.
- It's so savory for a drink.
- [Henry] You like it?
Thumbs up? Thumbs down?
- Thumbs somewhere.
- It's salty.
- Yeah, it's salty.
- So it's yogurt, water, and salt.
- [Arten] And ice.
- And ice.
(chuckling)
- [Keith] Next up are four different rices
that each feature a different fruit.
- Which one should we start with, Arten?
- [Kevin] This guy. - [Henry] Which one is this?
- Zereshk Polow.
- Zereshk Polow?
- So these are dried pieces of fruit?
- Cranberries.
- [Keith] It's cranberry raisin.
- Like cranberries.
- [Kevin] But it's not cranberries?
- No, no, no.
- [Henry] What's the Persian word?
- Zereshk. - [Henry] Zereshk.
- Yes. - Okay.
- It is a lot like a craisin.
- I never would've thought I'd like fruit in rice.
It's really rice for kids.
Do your kids like this rice?
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so much.
- [Kevin] We tried the other rices,
finding each uniquely sweet and flavorful.
- All of these, these are party rices.
These are rices you could go out with and have a great time.
- A really good night, you know?
- Yeah, you'd have a really good night with these rices.
- [Keith] Next up are two yogurt appetizers,
and a shirazi salad.
- [Henry] Cucumbers.
- [Keith] Shallots. - [Henry] Shallots.
- [Keith] Shiraz. - [Henry] Shiraz.
- [Henry] The yogurt is strange to come
as something you share like an appetizer.
And you're drinking yogurt milk.
- And you're drinking yogurt milk.
- And then you eat yogurt.
(chuckling)
- You guys just love yogurt.
We start with a cucumber.
- Boy, that's so good.
It tastes like swimming in the ocean feels.
Now we try the shallot?
- [Arten] Yeah.
- This is like sour cream and onion.
- It's like sour cream and onion but
instead of dipping a chip into it,
you're just eating it normally, which is
what I would rather do with it anyway.
- [Arten] That's salad shirazi.
- [Henry] Salad shirazi.
Do you make this at home?
- Yeah. - [Henry] You make it
or your wife makes it?
- No, my wife. (laughing)
- [Kevin] All right, let's get into these
mountains of food there we're having.
- [Henry] Is this a normal amount to order?
- [Arten] Yeah.
- [Henry] Do you have anything more coming or this is it?
- [Man] No, that's it.
- This is it? - [Man] Yeah.
- Great.
(laughing)
- Try this one.
- [Henry] Try this first --
- [Arten] Yeah, because this one is different.
- [Henry] It's different than a kabob.
- [Keith] This is chicken and pomegranate sauce.
I've never smelled anything like this before.
It's really, really sweet.
Not in a bad way.
- Oh, wow.
It's like a sweet barbecue sauce almost.
- I like this one with the vodka in the night.
- I'm in heaven right now.
This is one of the best chickens I've ever had.
- The sweetness, too, is not a sugar sweetness.
It's a berry and fruit sweetness.
- Yeah, just like put fruit in your meat, America.
Persia's got it.
They've figured it out.
They know the secret.
- [Kevin] We continue on to our chicken,
lamb, and beef kabobs, each served
with a roasted tomato and roasted jalapeno.
- [Henry] This is two different things?
- [Arten] Yeah.
- [Henry] This is... - [Keith] Ground beef.
- Ground beef.
Okay, so it's like a steak.
So try both, and you put the...
- [Arten] Like that, yeah.
- [Henry] The slice?
What's it called?
- [Arten] Soma. - [Henry] Soma.
- [Keith] That sort of just goes on everything.
- [Arten] Yeah.
- [Kevin] So that would be on every table
of every restaurant...
- [Arten] Yes.
- [Henry] Oh, yeah.
- It sort of has a hamburgerness to it,
but it's totally differently seasoned.
- I feel like I'm suddenly upset
at all the other beef I've had in my life
because I don’t think it's trying hard enough.
- I could straight up eat this every day forever.
It is perfect.
- It's everything you want your kabob you make
at home to have.
This is all the right spices,
all the right flavors and textures.
It's perfect.
- [Henry] Arten, so your wife,
she cooks all this stuff?
- Yeah.
- Does she cook better or worse than this restaurant?
- The same.
- [Kevin] Let's say instead of worse
better or equally.
- Yeah, she's going to be mad that maybe she's looking.
(chuckling)
- [Kevin] Brian comes by to see how we're doing
and to warn us that more food is actually on the way.
And though we don’t have much room in our stomachs,
we managed to try coconut ice cream,
rose ice cream, the sweetest baklava-type
desserts imaginable, and some fruit.
We also have Persian tea, where traditionally,
you hold the sugar cube in your mouth
that slowly dissolves and sweetens
the tea as you swallow it.
It boggles Henry's mind.
- Wait, what are we doing?
What are we doing with that?
- [Kevin] It's time to go.
We thank Brian for the incredible meal
and head back to the BuzzFeed office.
It's been a perfect day of overeating,
and I try to create a visual of the warmness
in our stomachs with a sick lens flare.
We part from Arten and thank him one more time.
He took his afternoon to share with us his story,
his food, and his kindness.
Every driver has a story, and today,
thanks to Arten, we got to experience one.
- [Henry] All right, Shane, give me say in this.
We're really good at making videos, you guys.
Really fucking good.