 Anything dipped in this Pearty Pearty oil is fire! Five out of five! Yo, this gotta be one of the craziest things with the eyeball in there. Very few people know much about Portugal. If we do a quick Google search, it shows that it's a small country surrounded by Spain, that it's the oldest country in Western Europe. It used to be a world superpower and has a language spoken by over 250 million people globally. But to be honest, most people are only going to know Portugal as being famous for soccer and specifically Cristiano Ronaldo. Today we're with our friend from New York City, Joey Bats, who is the unofficial diplomat of Portugal and he's going to break down why people need to stop sleeping on Portuguese food and culture. Let's go. All right, we have made it to Newark, New Jersey and we are in the middle of little Portugal right now and we are with the most Portuguese guy we could find, Joey Bats. With all of course our Italian-American friend, we got Marco here. Today we have a very special episode of the world and why we are going to be exploring Europe's least known country. Joey, I know you feel some type of way about this. I definitely feel like Portugal is 100% one of the most underrated countries in Europe and I'm hoping today that we can taste some of the best parts of it. All right, Joey, you not only own one of the most pop and Portuguese cafes in the East Coast, but you also are an insider to this community so you're going to show us some really good spots. Yeah guys, I mean I'm in Newark at least once every other week. Anytime I want to have a good authentic Portuguese meal because I can't really get it in Manhattan. We can't go to the Portuguese spots in Manhattan, right? Well because for starters there really aren't any. Newark is one of the two largest Portuguese communities on the East Coast. So we're going to start at one of my favorite restaurants, it's called Ceába de Esqueda. I've known about this place for years. My mother brought me here a long time ago. It's a staple and it's very much an authentic Lisbon seafood restaurant. My family's from the northeast mountains of Portugal right by the border of Galicia. It's a very different experience than the city. Little Portugal. Not much to swallow. What's going on everybody? I got to give a big shout out to the sponsors video Helix. They are a premium mattress in the box company that's delivering straight to your door. Right now you can get $200 off your first purchase if you use my code right down below and they're offering a hundred night sleep trial period meaning that you can try a mattress and then return it if you don't like it. So if you remember back in July I actually took a sleep quiz on their website and they determined that I should get the Dawn Lux Helix mattress and I've been sleeping on it ever since and I'm not gonna lie I'm super satisfied. My sleep has been super good. 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It took me like three minutes to put together because all the wood slats are cut just perfectly fit together without any tools and screws. So Helix is just making sleeping great just super easy for you. So I love my Helix mattress. If you guys are interested definitely check them out at helixsleep.com slash Fungro's. If you use that link you can get up to $200 off your first purchase and remember you get a hundred day sleep trial period meaning that you can try the mattress out for almost three months and then you can return it if you don't like it. So that's a great deal. Shout out to Helix and watch the rest of this video. Let's start with some really staple pork cheese appetizers. One of them is going to be Camaral Aguilhe which is like a garlic wine shrimp and the other one is going to be the baby clams which are cockles in a white wine sauce. This is called croquettes de carne which is basically meat croquettes. I don't normally eat them with cheese on it so I'm really curious to see what this tastes like. Yeah man I'm trying to try this man I'm hungry. Wow it's a croquette definitely different from Italian croquette but really really good. I love the sauce on the cheese on there. Yo they got the hot sauce. Just like with any Italian restaurant or household there's always nice warm fresh bread on the table so we can dunk and you know into the sauce. Oh wow we got there. Now that's garlic bread. I knew I saw something garlic yet. When I was doing my research for this video that Portugal of all the countries in that region is probably the most traditional. Aside from maybe the main cities like Lisbon and Porto you venture out and you're literally taking a step back in time and it is going to feel that way. Right and that's where actually where your family is from right. My family is from the northeast mountains of Portugal right on the border of Galicia Spain. We normally don't say the village name because nobody will ever know that. We say the closest city so my father Montalegre my mother boutique. Yeah I'm kind of a Portuguese country boy but I'm also American and I live in New York City so you know I get both sides. Joey what are we looking at. Guys so this is a very typical appetizer in any Portuguese restaurant it's Choriza Asada so they fill the clay pig with some moonshine just light it on fire and they bring it out. This right here is called a Major Jambulion Pato. I believe this is in a white a white wine sauce. Super super tasty and very light. This here is also another typical Portuguese appetizer it's Cabernet Laguilho and it's a basically garlic wine shrimp. Immediately Andrew it kind of looks like for me like Cantonese food this is lobster this is like the you know garlic shrimp and then that's clams. It's related to the Asian side man that actually has the color of cashew so it's like a little bit red a little bit roasted. How do you describe it to people man like how do you describe Portuguese food because a lot of people in America are familiar with Italian food they're familiar with French food. I always find it difficult to describe because we I feel like we everything but essentially Portuguese food is going to be a derivative of a lot of different things coming stemming from the days of exploration where they were bartering all over the planet. Portuguese wines you said are like the best value right. So Portuguese wines are winning awards for several years now but I feel like people they're not marketing them marketing them properly mostly because I believe Portuguese people are very modest they're not really good markets. One thing I have noticed about just even being in this restaurant and talking to everybody Portuguese people are really polite and they're really calm and they're really nice and not arrogant like talent. They're like dogs also talented with dogs. This is chorizo obviously sort of same word as the Spanish chorizo. I like it a lot. Really dense almost kind of reminds me of a polisquilbasa but more flavor. You can actually see one side of the sausage is completely meat. Yeah it's not grounded up this is not like your typical sausage. It's not ground up at all. Camarão aguilho. Camarão aguilho. This garlic shrimp is so tasty it's got huge chunks of garlic lots of shrimp little shrimp taco with the bread. Yo this is fire though. Everything we had has been hitting five out of five. That shrimp lived up to how I thought it was going to taste right. These are called a majos de abuelhão pato and you can see it's made with with again white wine. Wine is a very very common thing in all of our sauces. Oh that's good. That's delicious oh my god. The base is definitely Mediterranean but it totally does its own thing on top of that. Where I want to hear. Yeah that clams with the wine sauce is a taste I never taste before. You know and even eating from like Italian food we have clams with wine sauce. Yeah with clams but that might be definitely better. I'm gonna do both sauces right here. Oh man watch out. Oh the three appetizers round one here at Ciabatta. What was your favorite? I'm a I'm a big sausage guy so I would probably have to go I gotta go with the shrimp. Yeah I was going with the shrimp. I'm with you I'm with you. And then you dip it in the bread the best. I'm rolling with the clams. The clams are really light they let them shine. I mean to be honest I love how it's not overpowering. Round two here at Mariscada we got the seafood mains. What are we looking at Joey because I see squids and types of prawns. Here we have grilled squid or as most Americans know calamari except this is what's inside that crispy calamari you're usually used to. Now what is this dish it looks like a pile of potatoes with egg on top. Of all the plates here this one is the most typical of Portugal this one's got codfish or bacalhau and this plate is specifically called bacalhau agom sa. It's got shredded up pieces of codfish potatoes eggs onions oil vinegar here we just got tiger prawns man I don't even know how to describe tiger prawns they are just big old tiger prawns. Marco you grew up eating a lot of seafood a lot yeah a lot of seafood especially calamari but it was always fried never had it grilled which looks amazing and honestly it's a healthier option as well. Nules grilliales. Nules grilliales. The ends of it are almost like crispy. You gotta try the hot sauce on that. It really lets the just the natural flavor of the squid shine but without any of the squidiness that people don't like. This plate is called bacalhau agom sa. Bacalhau. Really light really light. I've never kind of had like a mashed up fish dish. And by the way you can absolutely and I do this all the time I mix it with rice. For me with the bacalhau I left it the more and more I ate it because initially it kind of hit me with the cod flavor and that's not everybody's favorite fish but then the more I ate I was like man this is hearty it's like really touching my soul. This is one of like a lot of like Italian food like it's very comfortable. All right Joey what do we have? These are called gambas grilladas which is a very large shrimp butterfly open and grilled. Dressed up in some PDP sauce here. Homemade spicy sauce. Joey what can you tell us about like Portuguese being the world's first like explorers? They were the original uh I guess discoverers. They circumnavigated the globe with people like Henry the navigator for an alma mater. A lot of that reflects in the food and the cuisine that we eat. Portuguese tiger prawns. Gambas go to the others. God it's so good. Way lighter than I thought it was gonna be right. This peri peri garlic oil right here it is like straight five out of five you can put this on anything I'm about to put it on anything. Oh mix it up. You know what it is I love it because you guys have melted butter but it's melted butter with a purpose it's not just like melted butter for the sake of having melted butter. Yo I hate to pick another you know sea creature as the winner but I think I'm gonna go with the tiger prawn for me this round. You know what I gotta go with the tiger prawn too. That was delicious. Starts with that butter on there. Straight five out of five easy. Yeah. Bakaiao gongs assa that is my favorite and but you put the peri peri oil on top of it. That's my favorite for sure. All right you guys round three here at Ceabra what are we looking at because me I see a bunch of dishes I mean I've recognized that but these two are new to yeah this is basically Alaskan king crabs done in a Portuguese style this is a very typical actually both of these but this is called carne de porca lanjana which is cubes of pork cubes of potato and a white wine sauce with clams over and then this is called a sorda de marisco this is kind of like an entry you may have made a good point you said it was like bread pudding because it's bread white wine eggs sea food cilantro all mixed up a sorda de marisco guys it kind of looks like a whole bunch of stuff blended up and mashed together but I can see the muscles the clams and the shrimp so trust me this is this is not a cheap food yo Joey man I I love to see it because it's like you're from your family from Europe but then I feel like you have so many like immigrant-y kind of like mannerisms too you know you don't think it's someone who looks like you as an immigrant I actually get this a lot at my shop and when I travel everybody always just thinks I'm just a gringo from America but I speak Portuguese fluently and I speak Spanish too and I love you know I love kizomba I love dancing the afro beats I have played at my shop all the time so I like to think that I'm like a bit of a chameleon do you consider yourself white oh that's a good question um actually no I would say that I'm probably more drawn to the latin culture latin based cultures mostly because I like to dance and I like that they're always party king crab with the peary peary sauce with I keep I'm not you know I can't get the name again but this is good did you did you Mario is oh my god you don't that's Andrew that's the first oil I've tried in a while where I was like yo what is this can you get this at the store anything dipped in this peary peary oil is fire five out of five so here we got a very very on any menu at any decent any good porches restaurant cotton pork lunch jenna you got cubes of pork cubes of potatoes those are not french rice those are not french rice is more like a I don't know like roasted potatoes or something like that I do uh is there like a portuguese mafia like the same way there is like a silly mom question not that I know I have like today but the gangster's thing is not part of the portuguese-american experience not really not really well that's a good stereotype not to have I'll tell you that cotton pork lunch jenna rice right now oh goodness that's like the tastiest potato I think I've ever had yeah it's not too salty it's not too sweet so man pass the king crab legs man I gotta go what would you guys favorite for me the king crab oh my goodness this is amazing that's a lot and that's saying a lot why that's your number one thing is because we never order king crab at the restaurant ourselves because it's too expensive that is true my favorite was definitely the park potatoes the flavors that were in there were exceptional man I think my favorite was actually the clam dishes overall but also just anything with the peri peri oil anything thank you so thank you bam yeah I mean I'll tell you what I had never really enjoyed in the sort of the medish coup this is my first time even for me and I'm really loving it and I'm loving it the way Mario suggested where we mixed the king crab meat in there that was delicious Mario you're the real all right you guys we are wrapping up here at ciabra but we are not done we got a whole crawl through little portugal we're gonna head back to joey that's cafe in the lower east side I gotta say man give it a five out of five yeah I'll say yeah sometimes we go on these food videos and the food is good but I don't always enjoy it but the food was not only interesting to me but I enjoyed it a lot here I just want to say this was exceptional my first time I've been having Portuguese food I'll definitely have it a second time a third or fourth a fifth okay continuing we're in front of a very typical but Portuguese bakery yeah it's called Nova Aliança bakery these are the kind of places you see on every corner in Lisbon you do speak English or you don't oh okay all right but yeah I mean this is the first pastel denada of the day I'm sure one of many why don't you break it up man Marco you never had the true Portuguese pastel deny a lot this one's a lot sweeter big time sweet the outs the outer edge is kind of crumbly as opposed to flaky like it's not crunching as much yeah this reminds me of the chinese version exactly this one reminds me of the chinese version a lot I think coffee right now would be the best with this that tasted essentially like creme brulee in a cup what do you rank these if yours are a five out of five man this so basically before I started the business this is what I would say is the typical of any Portuguese bakery in the united states this does not compare to those in Lisbon at all all right okay I'm sorry I'm gonna I gotta give it like a two out of five man I'm really not impressed with it I'm sorry I mean you do own your own brand by the way you do run a shop that sells that and I'm super passionate about it and I need it to be a certain like it's got to be certainly all right you guys we are in front of one of the only authentic Portuguese supermarkets that I am aware of in the world this is like going to the first 99 ranch this is not in the world I'm sorry in America where are we at so this is called seabed a supermarket it's a chain of supermarkets that are basically in either Portuguese or Brazilian communities not just in the northeast but also in like Florida Orlando they have one down there so of course guys at this market you are going to have a mixture of some Italian latin you know even some American stuff obviously so this is the salted cod that we were just eating in the bakahao bro I heard that this is what they were bringing like on ships and stuff to last a long time while they were exploring during the exploration and period back in like the 1400s it's like you needed food that could last yo this got to be one of the craziest things with the eyeball in there yo that's the that's the piggy it's open I did growing up every Thursday my father would come back to the slaughterhouse and the truck would be filled with stuff like this and like that so like I'd have the white jacket on I always wonder what my neighbors are thinking I'm like in the middle of the night I'm throwing bodies over my shoulder we secured the period period we secured the period period yo I got some very very Portuguese things in this bag all right you guys we made it all the way back from Newark New Jersey from little Portugal now we're in front of Joey Betz your spot in the LES right you got a couple locations but this is the one yeah the Allen street is my I mean I love the Lower East Side been here eight years now this is my main one and then I have another one in Rockefeller Plaza one thing is that everything we sell here and serves of food or drink is authentic Portuguese whether it's the liquor or the pastries or the food or whatever but the vibe is very much more diverse I play Latin music I have live Brazilian music we have comedy shows I got King's all the music a little bit of everything like a reflection of my personality and I remember you telling me early especially early on in the early days most of your customers were Chinese right 100% like especially like before all this went up I would say somewhere between like 25 30% of my customers were Asian community I really had to figure out how to sell to Americans to get them even to try a sample but with Asian community already know what an egg tart is so it's just like oh this is an authentic Portuguese egg tart I'll try that and well we're going to get more into that but first of all we got to take a look at what they're serving up here at Joey Betz Cafe the spread has arrived here at Joey Betz Cafe so what we have here is pastéis de nata both the original style and the new chocolate version that I've introduced like literally last week and not traditional non-traditional you said people in Portugal are mad at they're not this is actually not what you'd get there I heard this is an abomination it is you know what it's a tasty f***ing abomination I'm okay with that now take us back what is the pastel de nata and how does it relate to Chinese people so obviously Macau is a Macau is a Portuguese colony for I think almost 500 years that's where the exposure to pastéis de nata came from through Macau the original pastéis nata were invented in the Geronimo's monastery in the Belém aspect of Lisbon part of Lisbon they were selling them to the sugar finder across the street in 1834 that monastery closed they sold the recipe the refinery that refinery is still selling them today since 1837 because there's such a huge Asian community in New York and around the world it got so popular so fast that nobody knows about the Portugal isn't it sort of like how more people are familiar with American Italian American pizza than regular the OG pizza absolutely I totally agree with you this is the original version guys I think this is going to be better than chocolate pastel de nata the original dantat original egg tart yeah we like to call them natas for short it's easier to say it oh wow wow very different right I also love you know the Chinese derivative style but I got to tell you these are the best egg tarts in the city but this is guys this is packing the sweets this is delicious this is exactly what a dessert pastry should taste like and I cannot believe that this recipe is hundreds of years old yeah absolutely because I'm not gonna lie I've had some other hundred year old pastries before from other countries I don't like so this is going to be not like a traditional croissant obviously it's soft and doughy opposite of the nata where it's got to be flaky so I want this always served warm and it's going to be a little sweet too like like a little uh softy sweet wow that tastes similar to what we call in Cantonese that guy may bow and that's like shredded coconut I mean honestly they probably got it from you guys they probably got it from you guys but like do you feel like you're creating Portuguese American culture right now is this something that I don't know if you think about it that way but you might be I see exactly what you're saying now and that's 100 possible I guess just coming up with a recipe of of something that I ate growing up but then I'm like you know what let's tweak this because I think Americans will much more appreciate this and then it could become mainstream and even I think you know from where your shop is and lower your side of the melting pot of different people that would love to try everything you have there and it's so different unique all right thank you everybody for watching that Portuguese episode of the world and why we're about to end it off here with a shot of what is it flavor this is aguardant see everybody in the in the New York knows Colombian aguardant but they don't know that we have it as well so before we strength so before we take this shot uh uh Marco any takeaways uh you're Italian American Sicilian it was it was a pleasant experience to do this with you guys and my Mediterranean brother right here yeah really was a pleasure Mediterranean and Lower East side and Lower East side New York all the oil bros that's all about us all the bros cheers all right you guys thank you so much for watching hit the like subscribe button turn on your notifications and until next time we out I think Portuguese wine is super underrated we win awards all the time but I kind of think that one of the major problems is it's price so low that people assume that it's not as good until they try it and they're like yo this is delicious