ETHIOPIAN FOOD & CULTURE (You never had this before!) Food | Fung Bros

You feeding me is zero flirting. Zero flirting. It's all generosity. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure for you. What's going on, everybody. Welcome to a special episode of Fung Bros Food. I'm in one of the many ethnic enclaves around the L.A. area, and today I'm in a place called Little Ethiopia. This style of food is getting a little bit more trendier nowadays, but I know a lot of people out there have not tried it. And you know, I could not do this video without some Ethiopian friends, Afonia and Brandon. What's up, y'all? My name is Afonia. I'm a Dallas raised Amarnya speaking bona fide Abisham. What's up, y'all? My name is Brandon. My background is from the Caribbean, but I know everything there is to know about Ethiopian culture. I'm honorary Abisham. Y'all, how do I say let's go eat in Amharic? Enablah. Let's go. Yo, guys, Brandon, Afonia, I know you're Ethiopian. I know you're heavily Ethiopian influenced. You eat this? Yes, I did. I've dated an Ethiopian woman for five years. I had no choice but to eat it. She ate it every single day. I'm vegan now, so I'm only going to eat the vegetables. Where is Ethiopia in Africa? Easiest way to say where Ethiopia is to say it's in the horn. It's right in the middle of a little horn of Africa. Yo, real quick, guys, this looks crazy. OK, so for a lot of people who haven't had Ethiopian food, I've actually had Ethiopian food a couple of times in my life. This is injera. What exactly are we looking at? You have your vegetables. You have cabbage. You have your green. We've got a little bit of dorawat here and there. Chicken and eggs. It's spicy. It's delicious. You've got firfir, which is like injera. OK, and injera is this is probably not Ethiopian. This is this is what I see. This is like a floppy, spongy sourdough pita. This is the basis of all Ethiopian food. All Ethiopian food sits on this. Now, when we eat Ethiopian food, what are some basic etiquette? When you take a bite, you take your right hand to eat with your right hand only and you tear a piece of injera off. OK. And then you prepare what's called a gursha. This this stuffing of food into your fellow diner's face is called gursha. And it's what you do to show your affection and respect. A gursha means bite. I'm just going to get the three different meats in here. Yeah, there you go. I'm so hungry. And then you kind of twirl it around a little bit. Make it a nice little gursha. There you go. Mmm, that is really good. Gursha! What am I about to eat right there? That is firfir. So it's injera. Wait, so that's that's like grounded up injera. And I'm about to pick it up with injera. Yeah, it's spiced, so it's really delicious. That's what's up. I know. Also, we talked about gurshas. You can give someone else a gursha. If we're eating like family, you can give a gursha to a friend. So if you make me a gursha. I will make you a gursha. I will eat it. It's a big thing. No, and the shape of your gursha is much better than mine. OK. For sure. So there's gursha receiving technique, too. OK. Place your right hand underneath your mouth like this. Kind of like a cup. Like this. Yeah. And then open your mouth just in case any spills out. And then you do a little head bow after. There you go. You have to give gurshas in twos. I have to give you two bites. Whoa. Yeah. OK. She's got to stuff your face. Gursha number two. Can I ever mistaken this for flirting? No. Anybody can give you a gursha. So you feeding me is zero flirting. Zero flirting. It's all generosity. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure for you to catch feelings. Head bow. There you go. Perfect. I'm assuming you don't want me to. No. Men can't give other men gurshas. If we go out to eat again, maybe. Yeah. So let's talk about this sauce real quick. I think that's awazi. Is that spicy? Oh, my God. Very spicy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Be careful. A little bit. A little bit of a kick. Yeah, I like that sauce. It's a berbere and oil, I believe. Berbere is like a spice blend. It's kind of similar to cayenne. Oh, OK. You have a Caribbean background, Jamaican background. Yeah. Now, how does that relate to Ethiopia? Caribbean culture is heavily influenced by Ethiopian culture, specifically Jamaica. The last emperor of Ethiopia was His Highness Selassie. He visited Jamaica in a time where there was a drought and no rain. And when he came, it rained. So a lot of Jamaicans, they look up to him as a god or the second coming of Christ. I'd say it's more of an influence in the spiritual Rastafarian background. OK, is this a... So you break off the chicken. I want to do it correctly because I was going to do it my way. But I'm honestly, I'm sure that was the incorrect way. You just kind of break it apart, holding the injera. Oh, OK. Because it's really tender. It's stewed for so long. All right. There you go. Yeah. Your gushers are significantly bigger than mine, but that's OK. There is no gushers size template. I think we're kind of low on injera. Oh, it's OK. They're going to come by and be like, injera inshallah, which means like, let's add some more injera. Would you like us to add some more injera? When you can't eat no more. When you do, there's a word that you have to tell people. Say baka, baka. People try to put more what on your plate. You got to block it like baka, baka, baka. No, baka. Wait, you really block them out like you hit them with a bat. Blaka, blaka. Yeah, blaka, blaka. I'm going to use the injera that's been sitting underneath. It's the most flavorful injera. It's the best part. I'm going to roll it up kind of. Kulisha. Spectacular. I'm impressed. Moving on from the injera plate, we're going to move on to one of your favorite, sambusa. OK, Brandon, what are we looking at, man? This is a sambusa. It is a pastry filled with lentils. It's really good. I prefer it because I'm vegan and it's a great option. So you can just break it off. Break off the piece. OK, wow. Just dip it. OK, that is lentils. Oh, that is hot, too. That is fresh. That was crispy, man. Look at that. Look at how the layers of the flake. Oh, I love that. Look at that little pocket of air right there separating through the inner layer. And then you have the lentils here. All right, dipping it. I'm a bigger fan of the ground beef filled sambusa, but lentil sambusas are delicious, too. So we did the injera plate. We did the sambusa. Now we are moving on to the coffee and the honey wine. This is a honey wine. Oh, that's pretty good. Is it really? You like it? You said this is a honey wine. Yes. I actually hate wine, usually. Dan, you're just OK. He loves it. He's a boss. Cheers. I'm up to this honey wine. It's sweet. It was amazing. I love it. It's super easy to drink. It has like a light. Ethiopia is getting all this love right now. Honey, fruity wine. It's the wine's not that strong. Famous Ethiopians or East Africans. Teddy Afro, my favorite singer. Oh, my gosh. He knows Teddy Afro. Wow. A lot of people don't know that The Weeknd from Toronto dranks fruit. He is Ethiopian. His name is Abel Tesfaye and he has a very Ethiopian name. In fact, the vocalist actually is Kalayla. She's a she's also Ethiopian. It's a super Ethiopian name. Leah Kebede is a supermodel. An honorary Ethiopian is Drake. He has mentioned Ethiopians in so many songs. Drake does get accused of being a culture vulture. In your opinion, is Drake more of a culture vulture of East African and other African cultures and like music? I'm not going to call him a culture vulture, but he's not Ethiopian. That's all I'm saying. He's definitely not. I wouldn't. I was not trying to say Drake was that. I was just saying that he he shows a lot of love. He does show a lot of love. And why not? Yeah. I know that in Seattle, there's a large population. I grew up a lot with Ethiopians. I went to school with a lot of Ethiopians and Eritreans. What is the main difference between Eritreans and Ethiopians? Yeah, well, it's a nationality difference. The inclusive term is Abisha, but technically we're different nations. This is Ethiopian coffee. Buna served in a jevena. Oh, whoa. All right. What is going on here? What do we got? For coffee ceremony, you have incense, you'll have popcorn or some type of like snack. OK, so my girlfriend, she graduated. They had a coffee ceremony. They did a lot of dancing. No, I don't know. Oh, there you go. I'm not sure what the dance is. It's called a skitsta. So it's good stuff. It's good stuff. Yeah, yeah. There's no music. I'm shrugging like a little bit. Like you need something. OK, just like that. They got that from Ethiopia. Let's get some coffee. Now, this is this is very dark coffee. Yes. It's very thick, too. It's thicker than like normal. But you would like American coffee. So this is very strong. Cheers. Cheers. Do we cheers? I don't know. We can cheers. Absolutely cheers. Yes, yes. I love bunna. OK, everybody, that wraps up our Ethiopian food video. We went on a whole trip right there. I think that everybody should have an open mind. When I first looked at it years ago, I was like, I don't want this. But when I actually tried it, I was like, wow, this is amazing. Yeah, just try it. That's actually the only thing I have to say. Most of the people that I've ever shown Ethiopian food to have liked it. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching that video on Ethiopian food. Shout out to Mesab, this restaurant that we're in right now. Shout out to Brandon. Shout out to Afomia. Let us know in the comments below if you guys have ever tried Ethiopian food. And if you have, if we left anything out, definitely also let me know if there's any other cuisines or, you know, spots around the L.A. area that you guys want me to check out, because I'm definitely going to try to explore more. Peace. Ciao. Hey, what's up, guys? Hope you like the video. 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