- Syrian ice cream in the USA.
I'm Chris, this is Yellow Productions.
I do travel guides that are fun,
informative and entertaining.
And in this video I'm gonna be enjoying
some of this very unique ice cream
from a place far, far away, Syria.
That's right, here in the USA.
And actually, it's just a couple miles from Disneyland
in Anaheim, California.
So.
We're gonna eat this.
Mmm.
It has a very unique taste.
It's really delicious.
And I'll say, if you're in Anaheim,
you're gonna have to come and try this,
'cause it's so close to Disneyland
but we're also gonna learn a little bit how this is made
and I'll come back and talk more
about this ice cream at the end
and all the other things that this bakery serves.
So now, if you wonder how that ice cream is made,
well we're joined by Maher who's the owner of this bakery
and he's gonna tell us a little bit about this ice cream.
But first before we get to the ice cream,
and you can see it right here,
tell us a little bit about yourself.
- My name is Maher Nakhal,
I'm originally from Damascus, Syria.
I have a shop of food in Anaheim for almost 15 years.
And I got the ice cream from,
I learned it from Damascus when I was a kid,
15 years old.
So when I built my bakery,
like two years ago,
I planned to do the ice cream still in my mind.
It's the only ice cream in Damascus we have.
So the number one I get from Damascus to United States.
It's the oldest ice cream now.
- So we got this ice cream here
and it comes in kind of a roll.
- And we cut it and we roll it.
- Yeah. - And come in this way.
This way.
Very solid, frozen.
Okay.
This way.
- So you've got this ice cream log right here.
- Mhmm.
- And now when you serve it,
you serve it with a knife. - Okay, the way you serve is--
- 'Cause most ice cream that I've had before
is usually served with a scoop.
- You can do it with a scoop.
It's different, gonna be different process.
It's gonna, you can take it and put it in the pistachio.
But ours--
- And you serve it just in one flavor, right?
- In one flavor right now.
So maybe next two months going to get in another 16 flavor.
- So maybe when you come there might be more flavors.
- Yes, in the next month or two month.
Okay, this one for more presentation,
we do it in this one and do it roll.
That's the proper way in Damascus, we do it roll.
That's casual.
We do it this way. - Okay.
- And then if you're somewhere faster, busy,
you can with a scoop.
It's different process.
So the way that we cut,
some customer coming to sit down,
need one portion for him,
we can do with this one,
and we cut it this way.
- [Chris] So you can see inside of the roll,
there's pistachios,
inside of it. - Yes.
- Pistachios on the outside. - This is sliced.
- [Chris] This is the first time
I've had ice cream in slices.
Yeah. - Just slice it.
And the way you're gonna see is, look chewy.
- Stretchy like that. - Stretchy.
- [Chris] Look at that.
It's very stretchy ice cream.
- [Maher] It's not like any ice cream.
- [Chris] So what did you say makes it that stretchy?
- The sahlab.
Sahlab is sticky
when you put it in the,
when you cook it with the milk,
to make it chewy, like that.
Chewy.
And also the pushing, pushing.
The way you push it, that's the way.
And this is the way how you serve it.
- It looks very pretty.
Almost too pretty to eat.
- Exactly. - Yeah.
- You wanna try, of course.
- I think we are gonna eat it though.
- Yeah, okay.
- Through the magic of a spoon.
Through the magic of editing, we now have a spoon.
Mmm!
And so these pistachios,
you say you get them
all the way from Turkey. - The pistachio, yes.
The pistachio--
- 'Cause the pistachio-- - Yeah.
- I think the pistachios are what make this ice cream.
- Yeah, the pistachio is very original coming from Turkish.
It's very expensive.
We import it from Turkey, got it from Turkey.
It's coming three month a year, seasonally.
So very expensive.
This, call it booza pistachio.
The taste is good pistachio.
You never taste this pistachio.
It's very unique, any pistachio.
- Well you may have never tasted
pistachios like this before and I haven't.
But when you come, you will,
'cause they're good. - Okay.
There is many kind of pistachio
and that's the highest quality and expensive pistachio.
- There's a famous ice cream place in Damascus
that also serves this, right?
- That's why I learn it.
My brother likes Bakdash.
Bakdash is the famous one in Damascus.
You have a thousand people coming everyday to buy ice cream.
Very big store, still until now serving ice cream.
But the secret how he did it,
at that time there is Syrian occupied by Turkish.
So there is soldier coming to visit Damascus
and Bakdash wanna present for him something unique,
and he create this,
so he wanna do ice cream.
At that time there is no electric,
they do it by,
he put the,
and to freeze put the salt
and bring the big bowl
and spinned it around it,
and then to get cold
and they make the ice cream.
At that time there is no electric.
So when he come in and introduce it to the soldier,
he's very famous, he likes it.
And everybody like the ice cream.
That's the idea from the ice cream.
And when he start doing different thing, 15 years,
Italian they come into Syria to see,
that's what I heard from my brother-in-law,
he told me the story.
They see the new idea for ice cream.
So he took the idea, Italian and the ice cream,
and they make a different flavor in Italy.
- Yeah.
- But that's the,
to be honest that's the original ice cream.
We call it booza.
Our name, we call it booza.
- Booza.
- Yeah. - Very good.
And you've also been written up, I see back there,
in the New Yorker Magazine.
- Yeah.
New Yorker and LA Times. - Yeah.
- If you go to LA Times, put booza, Le Mirage,
you see the whole video.
You have the process.
We push it out.
The story.
- Yeah, and tell you what.
I'm actually gonna link to that one, the LA Times video,
if you wanna see actually how it's made.
You can check that out after this.
Well in addition to the ice cream.
You serve a lot of other things.
So let's go take a look at some other things
you serve over here.
- [Maher] We're serving baklava.
Also we need to do ice cream, baklava ice cream.
- [Chris] Baklava ice cream.
That's coming soon? - This is very,
very soon. - Okay.
- So we make baklava.
Finger baklava, cashew, pistachio, walnut.
This burma.
Burma, we call it
(speaking foreign language)
with the pistachio.
This is very famous in Damascus.
This (speaking foreign language) with the pistachio.
Knafeh, knafeh and all the baklava, this one.
- [Chris] And you have some French pastries here.
- We have French pastry here, cake.
All kind of flavor of the cake.
- And then what's in your final case over here?
- [Maher] Here individual cake.
Chocolate mousse heart, strawberry,
chocolate bombe, the famous one.
Very chocolately.
This is pudding, Syrian pudding.
- [Chris] Come here.
Take a look at this pudding.
Tell me a little bit more about this pudding.
- [Maher] This pudding is made from milk, sugar, cornstarch.
And you can add rice pudding,
rice pudding, with a knot on the top.
This is very famous in Damascus too.
- Yeah. - It's number two.
- So last week,
so the background on shooting this video.
So we were here last week,
and we had the ice cream and we had this
and I said, "Maher, we have to come back to try this."
And I brought this pudding to my mom
and she said it's the best pudding she's ever had.
By the way, this video's not sponsored.
I just love this ice cream so much.
So final question for you.
The ice cream's delicious.
What makes it different from Persian or Turkish ice cream?
'Cause I feel like that's ice cream I see a lot more
than I see Syrian ice cream around.
- Okay.
Our flavor is traditional from Damascus.
Damascus neighborhood where we lived in Damascus,
we're used to this flavor.
That's sahlab, rose water, and vanilla,
it's with the ice cream.
So make it traditional, our Syrian Damascus do it.
So another Persian, Turkish,
they do them flavor,
their spices or flavor, they do it in their own.
They have different flavor,
because they used to it.
But ours 2,000 years ago until now
we have the same one,
same pistachio, same flavor, same sugar,
same everything.
That's what make it different.
- Yeah, and it's delicious 2,000 years later.
So I will say-- - Yeah.
- For someone who is probably not gonna make it to Syria
any time in the future,
I appreciate you
bringing this here. - No problem.
- To California.
So for all of you out there.
If you are coming to California,
you're gonna be around Disneyland.
Definitely check out Le Mirage.
If you're on Google Maps or Yelp, actually,
sometimes I find-- - Yelp.
- L-E Mirage and then other times it's L-A Mirage,
depending upon whether it's Yelp or Google Maps.
What's the name outside?
- Le Mirage Pastry.
L-E M-I-R-A-G-E.
Le Mirage Pastry.
100 South Brookhurst Street in Anaheim.
- All right, great.
Well as usual.
I won't say goodbye
because I'm gonna see you all in the next video,
particularly maybe some of my Disneyland videos.
You'll find links in the description below or up here.
And hey, you might see,
you might see him here when you come to the place.
All right. - Thank you.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you so much.
Thank you for coming, thank you so much.