Medha Imam: It's falling right off the bone!
Adam Saleh: Yeah, it's really soft.
Medha: Amazing!
Adam: Oh!
Hey, guys, this is Adam Saleh from YouTube.
Adoomygang, what is popping?
And we're here in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
We're about to go to a Yemeni restaurant
called Yemen Cafe.
Medha, she's about to try Yemeni food
for the first time ever.
I'm really excited.
Specifically, we're gonna eat
the most popular Yemeni dish, lamb haneeth.
It takes four hours to cook,
and it falls straight off the bone.
Medha: Ugh, so excited!
Adam: Ready? Medha: Yes, let's do it.
Adam: You sure? Medha: Yes.
Adam: Let's get it, come on.
Sid Nassir: Well, it's a taste usually
that they've never had.
It's an explosion of spices in their mouths.
Medha: Lamb haneeth is a traditional dish from Yemen
that's slow-roasted and typically served at lunchtime
and at special events like weddings and feasts.
It's popular in many Arab countries,
like Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
Adam: I've had it. I have it, like, every other day.
Like, imagine seeing lamb haneeth every day,
every day, and I never, ever got sick of it.
Medha: To make the lamb haneeth, Yemen Cafe usually gets
around 35 to 40 lambs delivered each week.
Sid: We usually get the lamb whole
because we have our own specific way of cutting it.
Adam: Oh, my God, yo.
Sid: By tomorrow, these are all,
it'll be empty.
Adam: Wow.
Sid: But this is the perfect size to make sure
that the meat is tender.
Anything above this, it's not gonna be as tender.
The lamb, it's one of the most fattiest
pieces of meat out there.
That's why we take our time, usually,
just, like, shredding all that fat,
as much as possible.
This is how they've been doing it,
they've been cutting the lamb for the past 30 years
since they opened up in 1986.
This is probably the most famous part right now,
right there, that's the lamb shank.
That is the most tender piece in the lamb.
It's very fatty.
It's something that everybody usually asks for.
So, a lot of the customers,
they specifically want certain pieces.
Like, me, personally, I don't like the lamb shank
because it's too soft for me.
I like something more like the neck area or the ribs.
Paprika, cumin, curry, and black pepper and salt.
Those are the spices that we usually use.
Actually, those spices, we get them all imported.
Actually, that's Pakistani.
Sid: Yeah, that paprika comes from Pakistan.
And due to Yemen having the situation with the war
and the borders being closed,
the closest thing that we can get to it
is the Pakistani spices, so.
You know, when you're a Yemeni restaurant
and you're purchasing your stuff from another country,
it's, you know,
you'd rather be authentic, you know what I mean?
But we just can't do that because
the borders are just, like, shut down.
It's just a mess.
What he's doing right now is, usually,
he'll keep that thick meat on the bottom
so it doesn't burn on top.
So he's flipping it around to make sure
that the fatty pieces and the bones are on top,
and that's our secret.
And this is how we cook it.
Usually, this hard top is what keeps it very moist.
This takes around four hours to cook,
and this is the famous roasted lamb.
Medha: Amazing! Adam: Wow! Yo.
Oh, my, this is heaven.
Sid: We let it sit the last hour,
and it cooks with the steam.
And that's what gives it that,
you know, fall-off-the-bone type.
Adam: Secret? You can't give the secret too much.
Sid: I know, I'm revealing a lot!
What am I doing?
Medha: Once the meat is ready, the dish is served
with basmati rice or Yemeni bread called malawah
and is usually shared in a family-style manner.
Adam: The traditional way, you eat it with your hands.
Even the rice, you eat it with your hands.
Medha: OK, I want to see how you do it.
Adam: So, you gotta grab the lamb haneeth from the bone.
Medha: OK.
Adam: Yeah. Just grab it.
Just dig in.
Grab it, and you just bite it, yeah.
Medha: I think I'm gonna, what do you think?
Adam: Mashallah. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Medha: So good?
Adam: It's the softest ever. You need to try it.
Medha: OK, I'm trying, I'm trying it.
Adam: It's so soft.
What do you think? Medha: Mm.
This is amazing.
Adam: For real for real.
You like it? Medha: For real for real.
Adam: It's good, right? And if you want,
Medha: It's so soft!
Adam: You can mix it with the rice.
Medha: Yeah? Adam: You can go like this.
Medha: What do you do?
Adam: Put it with the rice. Medha: OK.
Adam: And then that's how we eat it.
Medha: Oh, my God.
Adam: And then you put it together, and you go.
Adam: Mm. So d--- good. Oh, my God.
Just really the softest meat you'll ever have.
Like, so different than any other type of meat.
Gets messy, but...
Medha: It gets really messy.
Adam: That's how Yemenis eat.
Usually, at home, we'll eat on the floor.
Medha: Oh, really?
Adam: But whenever we eat lamb haneeth,
the whole family just comes running in
and, just, everyone digs in from the same plate.
Some people, they even put this soup,
just a little bit on it.
Medha: I would do that.
The soup is so good.
Adam: The only thing is, just, it makes your hand messy.
Medha: Yeah. Adam: Yeah.
[laughing]
With the stuff that's going on in Yemen,
it's the largest humanitarian crisis,
and it's sad because
we can't even go back to our, like, country
'cause of so much violence going on.
You know, even though we're here
in America eating Yemeni food,
it will never be the same as eating it in Yemen.
So that's why having Yemeni food in America, Yemen Cafe,
was...meant a lot to me and the Yemeni people
because we're always so prideful and so happy
when something Yemeni goes big.
Medha: How does this one compare to your mom's?
Adam: You're trying to get me in trouble!
Medha: I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!
Adam: This one is just as good as my mom's.
It's just as good as my mom's.
Hi, Mom. If you're watching, it's just as good as yours.