10 FAMOUS Must-Try JEWISH Foods in NEW YORK

Hello, my name is Liam. I'm from Youqiao. This is our friend, Liam, who is of Jewish descent and grew up in the neighborhood his whole life. And he's going to take us on a tour of Jewish spots in the LES. There's a lot of famous Jewish people in America, but the food isn't as well known. So we're going to try a lot of stuff for the very first time. Let's go. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to a very special and very cold episode of Fun Bros Food. We're on Houston and Lower East Side. We're going to be doing a food crawl, learning about the culture of something that I've been wanting to do for a very long time, but have yet to get the chance to and where we at. Guys, we are in front of Rustin Daughters and we're about to embark on a Jewish food crawl across the Lower East Side. And who better to help us through this food crawl than Liam right here? What's up, man? My name is Liam. I'm a born and raised New Yorker from the Lower East Side. I come from a Jewish heritage and I've lived over a Jewish bakery all my life. We are going to be hitting up the most famous Jewish bagel spots in New York City. And then we're also going to be going to some of the most traditional oldest Jewish bakeries. And then we'll hit up some spots that are a little bit doing a new school thing. Rustin Daughters, let's go. All right, guys, I just walked out of Rustin Daughters. I bought three of their most popular bagel sandwiches here. And I had some really cool interactions with people in there. They're very nice. You know, I think when you show an interest in what's going on and like this guy was talking outside, he was saying he's been coming here since 1955 and it's so as good today as it's ever been. As a matter of fact, it's probably better today. It's the third generation of owners. Do you think that these spots should modernize? I think the food should stay the same as it was for 50 years. But I think the facility and the service and the aesthetic of the place could modernize. But keeping the traditional Rustin Daughters has been around over 100 years. And it started by a guy named Russ. And actually, he had no son. So his daughters ran the shop. And that's why it's called Rustin Daughters. OK, Andrew, these were not cheap for three bagel sandwiches, which I got a sturgeon. I got a pastrami rust and I got the classic. It was a total of fifty two dollars. Guys, this spot is high quality, but it is expensive here. Guys, we have the pastrami rust right here. This is pastrami kind of flavoring on salmon lox. Classic bagel and lox is a tradition in Jewish culture coming from Europe. Bagel, Jewish. We add fish because it's culture coming to America. Salmon is easier and cheaper to use. It's even has a saying. If you're a bagel and lox Jew, that means you're a little Americanized, but you still hold your tradition. All right. So here we have the sturgeon bagel. OK, sturgeon is a fish sturgeon bagel. All right. Weirdly enough, it kind of tastes like a fishy turkey, too. Immediately next, we got to go with the classic. Your layer of a lot of cream cheese. You got your smoked salmon right there. You got onions, capers. Salmon lox bagel. You don't know if it's gone. I'll definitely go for this in the future. You rocking with smoked fish? I'm rocking with smoked fish. Last but not least, this is pastrami? Pastrami rust. This is the pastrami salmon, bro. Pastrami sandwich. Look at that pastrami flavor on the outside. You see that? Pastrami rust. I never had anything like that before. The mustard, it's a kick. It's an extra thing to this. What could be more New York? We're freezing our butts off eating restaurants. We got to head over to Cat's Deli. All right. We're about to have a warm pastrami sandwich, a matzo ball soup and potato latkes. All right, you guys, we have made it to the world's famous Cat's Deli. I believe that Nicole Kidman had some sort of like scene here or something. I'll have what she's having. She's like, I want what she's having. That's an old reference, but Cat's Deli, it is just a famous place to get your pastrami sandwich, your Reuben sandwich, corned beef, everything. This is a really like in a weird way, a top 10 tourist location in New York City. Everything here is kosher. What does it mean to keep kosher? So in the Jewish religion, you have certain things you can and cannot eat. The most notable non-kosher meal is pig or pork. This is because we're not supposed to eat things like cloves. What do you mean, the hands? Like the trotters? So what else has cloves? Yeah, so wait, so what does a cow have then? No, I think cows have hooves. No cloves here at Cat's. Let's go. All right, we're here inside a Cat's Deli contestant. First up, we have the latkes. These are exclusive to Hanukkah and known for being served at Hanukkah. It's basically potato deep fried on a pancake. Latkes. I've only had latkes like twice in my life. I think these are the best ones, man. A lot of flavor. Matzo ball. What are the different types of Jewish tribes kind of that there are? Ashkenazi so far, we've got the more Ethiopian Jews, which are black Jews. So Ashkenazi are more of the Eastern Europe region. Primary Jews that have relocated to the Lower East Side. Sephardic Jews are more Middle Eastern and Mediterranean. One thing we're going to have to get into later is the Kaifeng Jews. Chinese Jews. There are Chinese Jews in China. Shmir. What is a Shmir? It's a Yiddish term for just bread. Look at that. Look at that stack. Pastrami. Five out of five? Five out of five. We're going to start to get into some deeper cut things. We are about to have a kanish. This whole time we were calling it nish. Originates from Poland. It's like almost a potato dumpling slash hot pocket. Let's go. Right here. We're in front of Yonah Shimmel Bakery. This is on Houston. This has been open since 1910. You look at some of the photographs they've got in drawings. It's like this is like the OG of the OG. Tradition. Tradition. That's all it is. We're about to try some kanish for the very first time. I think it is noteworthy that Liam, you speak a little bit of Mandarin because you went to what? An immersion school in elementary? Yeah, sure. Ni hao, I'm Liam. I'm from New York. I grew up in New York. That's what can happen in the Lower East Side. A Jewish kid goes to Chinese immersion school. It's normal. Right next to the Jewish zone, Andrew. There was still hella Chinese right there. Chinese people and Jewish people have been in the Lower East Side together for a century now. You will never see this anywhere else. They're bringing up kanishes down from the basement on a bellhop. This is something that they've been doing this whole time. I got the kanish, guys. The best kanish. If you are just holding Jewish food in your hand, I think Jewish people know you are and they'll just talk to you. Where's the sour cream? Yo, what is an egg cream? I've never had an egg cream, Liam. So an egg cream traditionally in Jewish history, seltzer, chocolate and milk. So there's no egg in this. No egg, no cream. Unlike the name. Egg cream. You got the chocolate. I got the vanilla. Oh, that's good. It kind of tastes like something you made at home. I've never had a kanish before in my life. It's like cream cheese, potato and blueberry. Is it kind of like one of those pastries? I've experienced it more as a savory food, but it's definitely more traditional. Blueberry kanish. Perfect for the weather. You got the flaky pastry crust on the outside. Some kind of firm cream cheese in the middle. Spinach kanish. That is like some really tasty and kind of salty spinach mashed potatoes wrapped up in a pastry. Let's just try these new flavors. We're just going to guess what they are. It's definitely multi-grain. This is a healthy one. OK. It's like a squash type of thing. I got the vegetable one right here. I'm just going to bite it. Whoa. Pumpkin joint looks crazy. I've got pumpkin. You've got cherry cream cheese and you've got broccoli potato. I'm not going to lie. I'm really feeling the mashed potato ones. I'm rolling with the potato kanish from Yona Schimmel. Terry, got to get it. Must have. Here we got the classic kanish, what they would be eating in homeland Ukraine. That might be the best one. Really? Shut up. Oh, gravy would be fire. That's like Thanksgiving in a bun. We're about to hit Grand Street. New spots, newly redone spots and old school spots. So let's go to Grand Street. All right. So we have made it to Granite Essex in the Lower East Side, and we're right in front of a classic called the Pickle Guys. Pickle is very kosher and Jewish people love it. So not big on the history, but it's tradition. What's really cool is they actually opened up a kosher burger spot using their pickles right next door called Diller. We're going to be checking out both of them. But first of all, let's take a look at some pickles. Pickles have been here since 1910. This used to be the pickle district. There used to be 40 pickle stores here at one time. Now there's only one left. This is it. We have about 40 different varieties of pickles here. And when I first started, there were only eight. And these are the best pickles in the world. What makes your pickles so good? Well, first of all, you start with good ingredients. Everything we do here is done by hand, not by machine or factory. Anything cracked, broken or bruised goes in the garbage. You only get the best here. This is the most popular pickle we have. That crunch is insane. I don't even know if I've seen him smile about anything in this video so far. But that pickle, spicy new pickle. I feel the kick in the back. There we go. That snap and crunch is real. All right, guys, we're here at Diller's. We're a spin off from the pickle guys. The pickle talked to me one day and said, listen, I'm tired of being a side piece. I want to be the main dish. So we made a fried pickle as a main dish. And that's what we're staple for. We started kosher over there. So we came into the kosher community. We're outside of Diller and we have a whole spread in front of us. We got fried pickles. We have a pickled pineapple lemonade. We got the pickled lentils, egg rolls. And then we have the kosher burger right here. But it's not just regular kosher. There's a word for it. That cheese on there is a high level kosher. Halaf is real. Halaf is real. All right, kosher beyond burger. You can tell those pickles are high quality because there's like that crunch and sweetness coming from their pickled lentil egg rolls. I'm not mad at that. Fried pickles from Diller. I've had fried pickles before. These are the best ones. Fried sliced pickles. This might be my thing. I'll give these about a four point five out of five. Last but not least, man, I think you got to go for this pickled pineapple lemonade. Pickled pineapple lemonade. It's like that traditional lemonade with a little dill to it. But it's overwhelming ginger taste. Perfect. OK, so three doors down from Diller and the pickle guys. We have Kosar's and this is traditionally a huge Jewish community. So, of course, you know, you're going to have a very high density of Jewish businesses. Kosar's has been here since 1936. But recently, there was a change in ownership and it kind of modernized it to a younger generation. But you know what? I think the bialy's and the bagels and the recipes are generally the same. So bialy, it's like a bagel, but without the hole, it's baked. It's filled with onions and poppy seeds. This is something that's exclusively Jewish. You will only find at Jewish spots. You can't find this at a bobega. You can't find this at most delts. My personal opinion, better than a bagel. I do know a lot of people like the bialy better because it's softer generally. OK. Hey, Liam, you got hype in the bialy. Bagels versus bialy's right here at Kosar's. Plain cream cheese bialy and then a plain cream cheese bagel. Yeah, both of them toasted because the battle is going down between the bialy and the bagels. Can we do one order of the bobega French toast? Yo, Liam, what do you think about the younger generation wanting to keep the tradition alive, but like, you know, more modernizing it? As diverse as this neighborhood is, you have to keep evolving your traditions and your food. This is exposed to the younger generation now as they did it. All right, we're here at Kosar's. They're known for the bialy's, guys. Bialy with cream cheese. It's kind of like English muffin texture. Kind of like a fluffy piece of dough. More garlic flavor. Bagel with cream cheese. The bialy had more flavor and was easier to eat. And it has a better ratio of carb to schmear. Yeah, I feel overwhelmed with the bagel. I feel like it's almost a little dry, in my opinion. I would take this over a bialy. That's two to one. Bialy's. Last but not least, here at Kosar's, we have chocolate babka French toast. Babka is a Eastern European Jewish bread, and they have made French toast out of it on the griddle. Chocolate babka French toast. I'll tell you, that is decadent. That chocolate is built in, but it doesn't taste like a chocolate chip. That's what I like. That is a five out of five. Six out of five. Yo, the chocolate babka French toast. Everybody get it. You guys, we're going on a Jewish food crawl right now. We're near the end of it, but we're not done. Let's keep it pushing. All right. Going along with our theme of modernization, we are here at Rivington and Clinton in front of Davidovich bagels. What is like an old school technique they use here at Davidovich that a lot of bagel shops are not doing anymore? Well, it's kind of rolled up dough that's flipped with a stick rather than a machine. Like you don't see that anywhere else in New York or even in the country. If you go to any bagel spot and they say that they sell hand rolled bagels, it's likely that they are bought from Davidovich. Davidovich bagels. Oh, they got rainbow. I don't know. Is that the traditional Jewish thing, the rainbow? I don't know about that, man. Davidovich bagels. We have rainbow. We have hot bread. We got the rugelachs, right? And then we got the pastrami bagel with everything on it. Rainbow bagel. The honey walnut spread is really sweet. Not traditional. I'm loving it. Pastrami bagel. How do you guys like the bagel? It's kind of thick, but it's not too hard. It has a good feel to it. It cuts in perfect. Unless I love Kozars, it's a better bagel. Salmon lox and cream cheese. That salmon lox was better than russet dogs, in my opinion. What? What? That's controversial. Rugelach. This one's a little dry, Davidovich. Last but not least, we got the challah bread. It's the holiday season. I just want to break bread with the fam. Challah bread. The bagels clearly taste different. I think it's the stick flint. On to our next spot. But I got to say, shout out to Davidovich. All right, you guys, we just went a little bit further down on Grand Street. This is one of the most classic kosher bakeries. It's called Moishe's. Moishe's. Is this a spot that you grew up going to? Yeah, for sure. I actually live in the building right on top of it. Jewish food in the LES. How long have you been working here? Fifteen years. Fifteen? Fifteen. Do you eat Chinese food on like Christmas and stuff? It has to be kosher. The first thing we got is a hamantaschen. This is very... It's eaten during Purim, which is basically the Jewish Halloween. OK. It represents the Haman, who was an evil figure in the Purim story. It could represent the ear or the pocket of hell. But it represents a greedy man. That's why it's filled with cream or prune-like flavor. We're eating something that represents an evil man. Almost, yeah. OK. So why do we eat him? Is it like... Kind of... Teach him a lesson? We're like, yo. This is a representation. I've never seen poppy seed like this before. If you're trying the Purim one, I'm gonna go in on this poppy seed one. Hey Haman, I teach you a lesson. Eat your ear. I really like the Purim one. It's underrated. The Purim one is underrated. Purim one is better. This one was weird. This is rugelach. Yiddish for a little twist. It's a dough wrapped in more like a poppy seed or a chocolate texture. Rugelach. It has a deep cocoa flavor. A lot of cinnamon. Not bad. Coming up next, we have the famous black and white cookie. It's just a Jewish staple. I can't say particularly that it's coherently Jewish in terms of Jewish culture, but it's made by Jews for Jews. Jewish black and white cookie. Let's go. Chocolate and vanilla. Can't go wrong, guys. Last, definitely not least, mando bread. Mando bread. It's something my grandmother used to make when I was little. Okay. When we saw this lady in there, she had been working there for 50 years. She used the old traditional bread slicer to cut this. They got the old school slicer right there. Is this chocolate bread? Yeah, it's like a chocolate bread. It's almost like biscotti. Mando bread. I know what you mean. This is like a chocolate covered biscotti. Yeah, biscotti. It has that kind of like vanilla flavor to it. Oh, oh, oh. I'm not going to let you guys get off the hook. Oh. Y'all both said. Y'all was good. Try that. Kosher soda. Maim chayim. Oh, carbonation is very, very bubbly. Very high. Lime. All right. We've made it to our last spot on Division Street. It is Mickley Bakery. It's a new bakery owned by a young Israeli guy. Spain to Middle East is Sephardic Jews and the Mizorahi Jews, North Africa. And then, of course, Andrew, the Kaifeng Jews. Oh, the Kaifeng Jews from China. From Zhengzhou. If we thought that the other bakeries that we went to were a little bit old school, I'm sure this one is much different. Let's go check it out. All right, you guys. We are here at Michael Lee Bakery. Like you said, this man is from the center of Israel. He comes from a very famous baking background. Here we have the chocolate bob cake on the bottom. Another way of making arugula. OK, so kind of I'm seeing some similarity to the knish here. Yeah. And then here I have the spinach one right here. Israeli baked Jewish goods. Very French. It has this crunchiness of a croissant, but it still has that texture of arugula. At Moisha's Bakery, that babka bread was your favorite. That's like the tradition. But this is like the new one. As you can see, this is like a twisted one. Babka. If you like Jewish bakery goods, but you kind of want it in like a more French croissant decadent style, this would be a good pick. To twist the original format. All right, you guys, that brings us to the end of our traditional to modern Jewish food crawl through the Lower East Side. There was so much history. Like we said, a lot of these spots have been around for like 100 years. My favorite thing was the pastrami sandwich at Katz. Maybe actually potato spinach knish. I got to go with that French toast. I don't really like fish, but that bagel and lox was delicious. I think that potato knish really blew me away because I didn't expect that. I think it was really cool just to be in the community and see how excited everybody was that we were filming the video. People were excited about us being excited. And that made me excited. I definitely want people to go out of their comfort zone. Go to a Yonushin, go to a Russian Daughters. Like go out there and try things. The homotashi, that's my third pick. The prune joint. Yo, Liam, huge shout out to you. Thank you for doing that, man. You don't have social media, man. That's crazy. You're a young guy. Thank you so much for watching that traditional to modern Jewish food crawl in the Lower East Side. There is no better place to do it than the LES right now. In the comments down below, let us know if there's like another food that you guys want to see us explore in New York City. You know, I know it's hard to travel right now, but you can still travel within your own city. So thank you so much for watching. Hit that like button, click subscribe, turn on your notifications. And until next time, we out. Peace. How old is that machine? Older than you and me together. His father, Stephen. You know his father, Stephen. I used to come here, I had long hair. You think I remember? Liam, this sign says, be a mensch, wear a mask. What does this word even mean? Be a mensch, be a good person in Yiddish. Wear a mask. You're helping the community right now. Be a mensch.