 Wow! Let me tell you this, Andrew. You can really taste the champagne in the Asta. No! No! You give the halal in the Asta. Hungarian, Greek, Scandinavian, and Lebanese. One of the best ways to be introduced to a cuisine is through its street food. It's always tasty, affordable, and easy to hold. Plus, it gives you a good idea of what flavors and ingredients they have in the rest of the cuisine. So let's explore some not-so-common street food in New York City. As you guys know, eating the food of a culture is a great way to kind of be introduced to it, but to fully understand it, you've got to know the language. Which brings us to our sponsor of today's video, Rosetta Stone. I know you've heard about it as the language learning tool, but they are giving out deals $179 for a lifetime subscription to all 25 languages. That means over a five-year span, that is only $3 a year. It means you can learn Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Spanish, Russian. You can binge Rosetta Stone, which is much better than binging a whole bunch of other things I can think of. And if you've seen the channel, you know me learning Mandarin, has been a struggle. Sometimes I start a convo, I can't continue. Ten reasons why Chinese Americans suck at Chinese. But I have seen improvements over the years. Guys, there is no better deal to learn another language on your own right now, Rosetta Stone. Even if you don't want to be fluent, if you just want to learn the basics of that language, you can do it. Rosetta Stone, click on that link down below. Extremely unique, fast-casual concept is minutia. And this comes straight from the streets of Beirut, Lebanon. Yeah, and I think this is really cool because it's making Lebanese street food very accessible to everybody out there. Now, I think a lot of people, they've maybe seen Lebanese food. I mean, it's similar to a lot of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern food. But the Lebanese street food, it's a little different here. In my hand, I have this humongous falafel right here. They labeled it for me. Guys, what I love about these things is that they're made fresh. You can see them in the oven. They're puffing up. Oh, I got the yogurt. I got the cheese and the thyme. And it is very aesthetically pleasing. This is kind of like a quesadilla. Obviously, that's the closest thing I can think of. Yo, what do you rip up on the falafel, man? Let me bust open this falafel, guys. Oh, shoot. Now, everybody, now, all right, so I've got the cocktail, which is the tarin timne. And then here I have the falafel. Dude, straight out of the oven. These manotias are crazy, man. And I got to tell you this, guys, one of the best things about manotia, it's really, really cheap. This spot could easily fit into our cheap eats around Chinatown, even though we're a little bit on the outskirts here. Dude, everything here is no more than $7, $2, $7, $10. Very affordable. Cheese. Yo, this one's good. All right, you guys, round two here at manotia. We've got different flavors of the street snack. Manotia, mine is ground beef. And it looks a little bit like a guacue. Yeah, no, it looks kind of like a big tostada, too, that's got the meat on top, almost like one layer of a Mexican pizza. But I got to keep it real, guys. This is probably, like, probably the originator. Wow. This is like biblical. Guys, this smells so good. So what I have is I have a beef sausage that's kind of spread on top of here, and then it's folded up. So obviously I'm going to eat it more like a quesadilla or a taco. Meat manotias. I'm going with the labna de ajín. I'm going with the original. Okay, that's pretty good. The ground beef is pretty good. Happening up here at manotia. Guys, I got the halawa. This is my favorite. My gosh, guys, you just have to try it. It kind of reminds me of some old Chinese dragon beer candy, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Halawa. And I'm going to do something crazy. I'm dipping this. No. In the aster. No, no. You dip the halawa in the aster, David, who taught you that? Wow. I really think it's cool about this location at manotia is that they have one in West Village, but that one's not really for families and it doesn't really feel like a cultural hub as much as this one. There's a lot of kids. You can buy a book here for your kid, have them learn about Lebanese, and then it's a bigger space. A lot more people can come here. So I like how this is kind of like a cultural hub. The other one is really more for grab-and-go, kind of like a party crowd. But man, I'm glad that they're able to hit both sides in them. And I think it's cool that whether you're a family or you're single and you just got done drinking that everybody can enjoy manotia. What you guys, our next fast casual concept is called TOPO. And this food is categorized as Pan Spanish, which is an identity that is very New York. So they've kind of taken certain influences and dishes from what? Mexican, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, probably Puerto Rican. So it's kind of a mixture of both. And I'll say this, if they're able to pull off these dishes well, then shouldn't this be a really good restaurant because they're taking the best of each name? The owner's Ecuadorian, the chef's Mexican, TOPO. Let's check it out. All right you guys, the food has arrived here at TOPO, Andrew. I don't know if I've been this excited at a fast casual spot in quite some time. Bro, I don't know where they're getting these shrimps from. I know they got a purveyor out in Jersey, but these are huge. These are like prawns. You also have your perneal, which is your pork brain. Andrew, you also got a gigantic piece of fried fish. Yes. And it's arrived in all this food was about $64. I don't know exactly what type of fish this is, but I'm excited guys. TOPO. Rotisserie chicken. Oh man, it's vanished out. Moving on, Andrew, you can buy each shrimp for $1.25 here. I love, like you said, they're making ethnic food very accessible while still keeping it authentic. Cameroon is freshly made. Wow. All right, moving on to the fish section, Andrew, the pescado. This is baked salmon, baked it fresh, fried fish, fried and fresh. Right. And they do fry it by weight. Fish. Wow. So this salmon combo plate was about $14, but I think for this piece of salmon that they give you, that's worth it. Ending off here on the savory dishes, I've got the Spanish chicken noodle soup. Okay, and then I have the perneal, which is the roast pork. And of course I have to eat it with a plantain. Right here I got a madoro with the perneal. All right, ending off here at TOPO, we got dessert. I have this very, very popular caramel flan. David, you have a passion fruit shake that she made fresh back there. Wow. You know how to love about the spot? You can get freshly made shrimp. Okay. You can probably spend up to $20, $25 a person if you want to on seafood, which it would still be high quality, or you can get the food that's more just sitting out there and spend only maybe like $10 or $11. And I think that's the beautiful thing about TOPO is because you kind of have that range of quality and price if you want. I know that I would personally come here. Am I thinking that, you know, the local NYU kids are going to come here? No. However, I hope that it is able to find its footing within maybe locals that live in the boroughs, but are just, you know, working in Manhattan during the work day. And I wish it the best. But definitely as far as transplants go, I don't know if they're going to get down to Spanish food, but I do. Hey, you know a local woman who lives down the block and she comes here twice a day. So that's part of the crowd. Shout out to TOPO Uncle Chicken up in East Village 14th Street. I'm at Isovaki. This is a fast casual Greek concept. A lot of Greek restaurants in New York, they're not really fast casual. It's like you got to sit down and stuff. It's a long process. They're speeding up the process here. It's a new concept. What do you think I should get to really represent what you guys got? It comes in different ways, whether it's the pita or just the skewer. What do you think is more like Greek? I really want a pita. I like the pita here. Looks so good. Those two guys are eating it right now. And I'm like, yo, that looks delicious. All right. So in front of us, we got a lot of great Greek street food. This is the most popular street food that you're going to be seeing. And actually, Isovaki, the name actually refers to Greek street food. You know what the interesting thing is, Andrew? In different cities, Greek food has a different connotation. In Manhattan, Greek food is typically more expensive as far as like sit down restaurants goes. But this is the first one I've seen where it's like $10, $20 a person. Normally, you're sitting down and having Greek food in Manhattan like $50 a person. And you know what I love about this spot is each store is supposed to transport you to Mykonos. So they make it very blue. They make it feel like you're on a beach. And because, you know, I don't know when the next time I'm going to go to Mykonos. What are you talking about, Mykonos? Well, the correct pronunciation. It's Mykonos. Sovaki. So Andrew, what is your final verdict on fast, casual, authentic Greek street food? Listen, overall, I think this high quality Greek street food is going to stick around. But I can also see there always being a market and taste for even the more Americanized version. But this one, I think can appeal to a lot of different people. I mean, look at this plate. You don't find this appealing. On our unique fast, casual concept street crawl, Andrew, we have the Hungarian Longos. So this is actually a Hungarian street food. And what I love about street food from other countries is that it's easily ported over because, listen, they're making this food on the street in their country anyway. So of course, you could cook it in the kitchen of New York City. Have you ever had Hungarian food? I have not. And had it not been made in a fast, casual, accessible concept, would you ever have it? It thinks being fast, casual really makes things accessible, and it allows you to try a lot of different stuff very easily. Yo, I heard that this Longos, you know, it might even have a history from Italy. Let's go in and check it out. It's a street food, right? Yeah, this is a European food. It's a kind of a fried bread. You guys, Andrew, we are looking at some street food from Budapest right now. Now, traditionally, I heard in Hungary, Andrew, they might just end at the cheese, but they went with pickles, pepperoni, pepperonis. Yo, I like this one. I'm not gonna lie. I'm getting some Mexican bodger, but I know it's gonna taste different. Here, David, you have the Hungarian one. So this is gonna be a little bit more traditional, but probably with their own twist. A lot of paprika. I heard in Hungary, they love paprika. All right. And then here, I got the Scandinavian one. So this is obviously a fusion one, where they're gonna take shrimp, dill, some creamy sauce, you know, your little cucumbers, very similar to the Scandinavian dishes that we had at S'more previously. Dude, these are pretty interesting looking. Yo, this looks good. Yo, I've never had no food like this. David, does this look like a pizza or it looks a little different? I have a hard time calling it that. I could see, but I think after having seen so many reps of food, I just have trouble calling it that. All right, man. Tear it up. So guys, it is traditional in Hungary that you do not cut it up like a pizza in the slices. You just tear it apart. It looks more like a Native American fry bread to me. Yeah. Hungarian longos. This plump shrimp right here. Oh, David's getting messy with all Scandinavian longos. Okay, guys. So for me, I'm going to go ahead and give the Hungarian longos a 4 out of 5, but I'm going to give the Scandinavian one a 4.5 out of 5. Andrew, we might be in the most notorious dessert dumpling round we've ever been in in our entire lives right now. Now, I got to say, guys, these dumplings kind of go more towards like the chicken and dumplings route where there are balls of dough rather than a wrapping of dough that is encompassing some meat. Right. They're not as Asian as the Kinkali from Georgia or something. So by definition, these are dumplings, but they obviously are just made pretty differently. So what they did is they took a lot of the dough and they kind of wrapped around plum here so that there's plum in the middle here. You have strawberry. Oh, let me bust this open for you guys right now. Boom. So these are a lot of the dumplings that you're going to find in like chicken and dumplings soup. Yo, shout out to Budapest, man. I've never been, but I'm going. Yo, you know who's always in Budapest, bro? James Bond. James Bond is always in Budapest. Hungarian dumplings. Let me tell you this, Andrew. You can really taste the champagne. I don't think I've ever had anything like Hungarian food before in my life. And if it wasn't introduced in this fast casual concept, I never would get to try it. David, you know why these owners are so good at fusion? Why? Because they're also the owner of another one of your favorite fusion spots, but it's Asian. What is it? Ginger and lemongrass. Bro, the same people. Crazy. Guys, I'm tasting just a lot of flavors that I've never had before. It's crazy out here. Longos, we're over here on Rivington Street. L-E-S. Listen, guys, I think that this is really exemplary of why we did this fast casual food video, because we wanted to introduce concepts to people in an easy accessible way that they would be able to expand their mind, their own geography, and their own sense of just being cultured through accessible concepts. Longos completely does that for Hungarian food. We are outside of Schmore in the East Village, and this is a Scandinavian restaurant, specifically a Danish restaurant. Now, they're serving dishes from all over Scandinavia, which are mostly Tweeted Norway and Denmark. Finland, too. Don't leave out Finland. Finland's the fourth one. Going in first, man. White herring. Schmore bra. Hey, guys, here we have the meatballs. Let's take a look at this. And you used to work at IKEA as a young-in-high school. Can you, what do you have to say? Guys, I had many Swedish meatballs for lunch when I was working at IKEA. Shout out to the exit bistro. I was serving them espressos and stuff, but hey, it was a nice place to work. Let's go try the meatballs now. Swedish meatballs. The real high-quality version. Here we have a beautifully crafted Scandinavian hotdog. I'm about to cut this in half. The cucumbers are pretty interesting. Oh, you can hear the crunch of the bread. Mmm, look at that. Scandinavian hotdog. Andrew, that is certainly better than the IKEA Scandinavian hotdog. Bro, that curry mustard sauce, I don't know if that's what they call it, but it has a slight curry flavor to it. That's really, really good. Let's check it out, guys. I mean, I will say this. Whatever food you get here is well put together. Oh, dude, I saw so many Asians come here for the aesthetics, man. Because, you know, they often call Scandinavia sort of the Japan of the West. Yeah. You know what it is? Like I was saying, everything was well constructed, like some IKEA furniture. The hangover. All right, Andrew, overall, what do we think about the fast, casual Scandinavian restaurant concept? Well, I'll tell you this. Because there's actually a lot of Western food that might have some Scandinavian roots, I do think things like the pickled herring, open face, smore broad sandwich, you know, it's probably not going to be as palpable to the mass market. But things like this hotdog with the curry sauce or the meatballs, and especially the hangover sandwich, I would say these things are going to last and go to the market. All right, you guys, our next concept is called Sammy and Susu. The owner is from Israel. The chef is from New York. Andrew, it's very difficult to describe what they're doing here, but it's very interesting. Yo, it's almost kind of like a pan Mediterranean menu. Now, I know that they're just trying to serve a lot of food that you just can't find in other places. Like, for example, you cannot get a Tunisian baguette maybe anywhere that I've seen. Now, I'm sure somewhere, but I've never seen it. I don't know if it's true or not, but I feel like Tunisia is having a little bit of a little bit of run here as far as food in New York goes. Right, right, right. You got the beef tongue baguette. Andrew, they said that's an ode to the LES 100 years ago. The graphics, they kind of look like artistic too. We got to go in there and check it out. Hey, how you doing, man? All right, bro. Hey, man. Real quick, could you tell us about your spot and what you guys are doing here? Yeah, so it's an all day cafe Mediterranean, but it's very New York also. All right, you guys. We are looking at pan Mediterranean food with a New York twist from, you know, an Israeli perspective. Andrew, you have a Tunisian baguette. Here you have a bordekah. This is a bacon, egg, and cheese bordekah. This is a traditional Israeli pastry. They heat these up for people in the morning. Yo, the owner said that this one right here is a very, very traditional egg and tuna spicy. He said that this was a traditional sandwich that he grew up eating. So this might have a slight twist on it, but it's mostly traditional. I just know that a lot of French people really care, you know, in Tunisia. You mean just the one French guy that we know who's Vietnamese? What's up, you guys? These are the baguettes from the Mediterranean here. Andrew, you got the Tunisian one. I have a beef tongue one, not kosher. They told me. I've got anchovies on it. It is an ode to the Lower East Side circa 100 years ago. Yes, I believe this Tunisia baguette is the more authentic one. This is something that they actually eat over there. Tunisian baguettes. This is a beef tongue baguette with a ton of anchovies on it. I've got to say, guys, I'm going to go ahead and give this beef tongue sandwich four out of five. All right, I'm going to try the beef tongue. All right, that Tunisian one has some crazy spices on it. I don't know what that is. Those spices are crazy. I'm rolling with the traditional Tunisian one. No! This is a spicy tuna salad sandwich with egg on top. The reason why this one is good, but, David, this tastes like very Scandinavian. It has a lot of dill. It has a lot of cream. It kind of tastes like some of the other food we had in this video. Well, it is an ode to the Ashkenazi Jews that settled the Lower East Side 100 years ago. We are looking at an iced shrimp cream salad inside of a pita. You know why I was so excited to have this? Because I got tricked a long time ago, maybe 10 years ago. I went to Mammoon's falafel and I tried to order a shrimp pita. And they looked at me crazy because it was actually tomatoes. But the photo made it look like shrimp. Oh, you thought they had shrimp, but they never said it on the menu. You should have seen the way everybody looked at me in there, man. And then I realized later why. This, I have the corn tabbouleh. I feel like this is maybe a modern elote slash tabbouleh mixture. That is a mixture of Mexican, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors. Oh, this tabbouleh is really good. It doesn't really taste like traditional tabbouleh as much. It's very sweet. I can definitely feel it's like a 50-50 mixture between elote and tabbouleh. But that's it for Sammy and Susu on to the next part. Last but not least, guys. We are ending off our unique fast, casual crawl in front of Trapezzino. Trapezzino is really interesting because they're these Italian sandwiches that are based off the traditional Tramazzini, except it's made with pizza dough. And it's stuffed with all these different types of Roman dishes. And this food is a real street food that got really popular in Rome. But now it's here in New York. Kind of reminds me of guisados. Guisados are tacos, guys, that actually take Mexican stews and then put them into the taco. This is actually taking somewhat of like a folded pita bread pocket, but putting Italian stews or pastas in there. Guys, I'm excited to try some new Italian dishes from Rome. And I'm also down to try a new just Italian street food. Let's go. All right, you guys, we are at Trapezzino, a new invention from Italy, relatively new, that was brought to New York City. But it's all over northern Italy, Milan, Rome, Venice. This is a pollo cacciatore. By the way, this spot trapezzino is owned by the inventor of the trapezzino. You know what's interesting? It makes sense. It's sort of like we're saying the guisado taco, where it was a new concept brought over from Mexico. So guys, here I have the polla alla cappuccino. I got the pollo alla cacciatore. I tried to say it, I didn't say it right, but I've never had this Italian dish before. It's a Rome dish, by the way. This is the trapezzino. This is a sourdough pizza-like dough wrapped around a dish. Let's go. Trapezzino. It's a little bit like eating ice cream. Yeah, because that's all stretched to tell you. Even stretched to tell you is the super soft inside of burrata. You know, shout out to Tremezzi, turning into the trapezzino. I actually think this is an amazing concept, and you could do so much with it. I'm just glad that you could come to Trapezzino, and for a pretty affordable price of $8.50 each, you can try different Italian dishes. Andrew, we just went on an crazy, eclectic, fast-casual food crawl, where we actually tried quite a few cuisines and dishes from cuisines that we never had before. I think that's one of the beautiful things about fast-casual-style restaurants, is that it kind of makes all these different cuisines very accessible to people, and you get to try a lot of different things. Listen, if you had to walk into an expensive restaurant and sit down and order so many dishes, you know how many barriers of entry that actually is? You'd have to sit down. You'd have to get a reservation. You'd have to find out what part of town it is. You'd have to feel comfortable in that part of town. You'd have to feel comfortable with the price point, and you still might not even order like eight dishes. But you know, everybody makes their own decisions. It depends on what makes you happy, guys. Please let us know in the comments section below what you thought of these fast-casual concepts. You guys, there's many, many more to try. I regret the ones that weren't able to make it into the video, but it actually was really cool. Actually, for me and throughout the whole video, the one thing that I loved trying actually was the Hungarian Longos. Wow. The Greek food at Slovakia was pretty cool, too. You know why? You've been prepping to go to Mykonos to look like an IG action. David. IG meeting. Clearly, you've never been because it's Mykonos. All right, you guys, please let us know what you thought of these fast-casual concepts and other fast-casual concepts you'd like to see in the comments section below. Until next time, we're out. Peace.