Circling Back - Coffee Friday 004: Arab Pitmaster Hattem Mattar

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Dave and special guest host Peter Hart sit down with Hattem Mattar to discuss how he became a pitmaster in the United Arab Emirates after trying Texas brisket. Hattem has an extremely unique background that includes motorcycles, skydiving and a career in professional kickboxing. Support us on Patreon and receive weekly episodes for as low as $5 per month: www.patreon.com/circlingbackpodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/circling-back/message Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coffee's for closers only. You think I'm fucking with you? I'm not fucking with you. I'm not fucking with you. Coffee's for closers only. Good morning. Welcome to Coffee Friday. My name is Dave. I've got a very special Coffee Friday episode for you. It's featuring me and Peter Hart, a good friend of mine who formerly of the DadGum podcast. If you were around for the Postgrad Problems blog days, you know him as Icehouse. If you were around for the Post-Grad Problems blog days, you know him as Icehouse. He's an Austin guy, and he's also very good around the grill, so we thought he would be fitting to hop on with us. Our guest today is Hatsan Matar.

He's the world's first Arab pitmaster, and as we learned, I don't want to spoil it, a lot of other things. Maybe we get into an impromptu combat sports minute. We do. I'll just tell you right off the bat. We really do. But an interesting guy. We hung out.

We had a great time. Went and had Terry Black's barbecue here in town afterward and went by the Allen Boot Company and checked out some hats and some boots. Really cool. Really cool. And we're glad we got to sit down with them. Hope you enjoy this. Here's Hatem Matar. Okay, Hatem, I want to start out by reading something to you. And you can stop me if you've heard this before, but he is that guy who is the life of the party, the center of attention, the risk taker, the wisecracker, the guy who was

elected student president, but also had the most attentions, the guy who always gets into trouble, but never seems to let it bother him. He's the guy who rides a Ducati, who knows jujitsu, who has jumped out of a plane more times than you've had hot dinners. Of course, that is about our guest, Hatsum Matar. That is from Esquire Middle East. Yes, sir. Were you aware that they wrote this about you? And what did you think when you read that? Because that's the nicest thing I've ever seen written about anybody ever.

We were so honored. We featured a year ago before that was published. There was an Esquire issue that was called The Undefeated Issue. an Esquire issue that was called the undefeated issue. And it was the world exclusive for Habib speaking to the press after he had retired. And we were featured in that same magazine. And the title was the barbecue King grilling with the barbecue King of the UAE.

And I was like, all right, thanks. That's it. Very honored to be featured next to that guy, you know in the in the personal sense in the mixed martial arts sense and then the following year they're like hey we'd like you to be on the cover we want to keep telling the story about where you've come

from and where you've been and three days worth of just conversation with Matt who's the the editor there and he wrote that just from spending three days and just honestly because we're both kind of cut from the same cloth he's a single dad three days later he published that and yeah you're right it is the nicest thing it is the nicest thing anything jump off the page at you i've got a question here though um the last line about jumped out of a plane more times than you've had hot dinners yeah i got curious yeah i guesstimated i because i eat hot dinners frequently must be nice yeah right and so i just did it i'm 37 years old let's say you know 300 a year yeah that comes out to about 11 000

yeah have you jumped out of a plane 11 000 times close close no no no no no not even not no not like dude no not even close i've got i've got 200 237 jumps i'm concerned about this author i feel like he needs to eat more hot dinner yeah he's get this guy yeah poor poor guy we got to feed him more barbecue is that just a hobby you picked up uh it's a hobby that i picked up out of necessity, actually. During – my ex-wife, God bless her, when we had our children, sold my motorcycle without me knowing. Where is the story going? Yeah. So sold my motorcycle.

I'm like, hey, I came back. There's no motorcycle in the garage. I'm like, where's my motorcycle? She said, oh, I sold it i sold it i said okay no problem um and then i went and got my skydiving license because that's not that's not something you can get rid of it's a skill set so i traded the motorcycle for skydiving wow okay okay we'll note that here in the uh on the rundown yeah there you go the opening of that article just by the way it says you might not know how to matar but you know a how to matar yeah i don't know anybody like you yeah i appreciate i've learned i've learned quite a bit in the uh in the few minutes we've met and

talked um but yeah tell us i guess let's start by talking what everybody wants to talk about, the briefcase full of brisket. Yeah. You know, 25 years in the UAE now, 1923, 1998, started grilling hot dogs for the American Baseball League. No one else was doing it. I was 16 years old. Sold hot dogs, bought myself my first motorcycle, got into barbecue from eating it in houston and then nobody was making it in 2014 vacuum sealed brisket froze it flew it back tsa everybody any any border agency on the planet was if i was flying through frankfurt if i was flying direct

giant hunk of meat like this big they're're like, what is this doing in your suitcase? And I just, I couldn't, I was as well-dressed as I was. I was just tired of being, you know, door number two, door number two. So I'm like, you know what? I'm going to make it myself. Made it myself out of the backyard. Backyard turned into catering. Catering turned into events.

Events turned into restaurants. Restaurants turned into four. That's awesome. Where are they located? They're all in Dubai. All in dubai yes sir cool so first question do you remember which establishment in houston absolutely it don't make fun it was rudy's that's fine you know what comes up here it was rudy's rudy's is is fine like i i think rudy's we used my previous company used to work next to the rudy's over there on yeah 360 yeah breakfast tacos are fantastic two dollars you want breakfast burrito

oh yeah wrapped in four yes absolutely yeah yeah so first taste of uh barbecue was rudy's and you know they were like lean or moist i have no idea what that is i got both ended up taking some home i was putting it behind my ears before i went to the club you know what i mean oh yeah it's just like i was an obsession okay yeah and then you know here we are in austin hanging out with you guys talking about barbecue that's awesome shout out to rudy's yeah shout out to my man rudy you know you can't uh it's not really feasible to go and stand in a line for like two hours on a whim or anything but you know they're everywhere it's fast i did i i went to killings actually yeah i was blown away did wait in line did the whole thing and just monstrous i haven't done um i did uh louis mueller um hanging out with wayne this afternoon nice um and obviously south side but you know the cool

thing about brisket is when when someone's like oh how long did it take you to perfect brisket i'm like what is the question there's no such thing as the perfect brisket no one's perfected brisket you know what i mean everyone cooks different we hung out with myron mixon in washington he's i guess the kelly slater you know kelly slater from surfing yeah yeah he's the kelly or the michael phelps of barbecues. Won the most titles ever. And his combination for brisket is completely left field of what we're doing. Who's perfected brisket?

Nobody has. Everybody's still working on it. That's huge for me as someone who's done approximately two briskets. They've been okay. Yeah. My wife acts like she's into them and i'm think she's just being nice just being nice no yeah it is part of the experience it is like it is a labor of love it's not a cuisine of convenience so what what other um barbecue

joints around town or just in texas or around the united states are you a fan of i still i still haven't had anything on the west coast okay plan. I plan on doing so. Moose Craft Barbecue started out of their backyard. Now they've got a legit barbecue restaurant. Chef Ben Ford, who is Harrison Ford's son, came to eat at our restaurant. You know, really well-renowned chef showed up to the restaurant in Dubai. And I was like, I recognize you. And he's like, no, you don't. I'm i'm like no but i'm sure i've seen you somewhere and i'm like and he's you can tell he's like you know uh he's like no you haven't i'm like okay when we sat down and i'm like are

you sure like he's like okay just quit it i'm harrison ford's son get it out of the way he's han solo's son and he's a very accomplished chef on the West coast. Did you know that? I didn't know that. He does barbecue as well. But you're a good match for him because Harrison Ford crashes planes a lot. That's true. So you wouldn't need to know how to skydive to hang out with him. Yeah. Yeah. Full circle.

No, he's so West coast barbecue. You haven't gotten out there yet, but I'm going to California this summer and looking forward to doing that. What's the biggest difference between what you do with the brisket compared to like what, you know, classic Texas brisket? Classic Texas brisket, the gospel truth, Texas brisket, nine parts, six parts, black pepper to salt. Yeah. Put it in the thing. Put it in the smoker.

Some people wrap. Some people don't. And then, you know know it comes out you rest all that stuff we spice it with spices from syria spices from the uae spices from egypt spices from sudan you put all those together and you're like what the hell is this you recognize that it's brisket but the spices it's granular you can crunch it you can feel it you're like where does this come from and that's the point of what we're doing it's barbecue or culinary diplomacy as you will what uh what were the spices like the flavor palette what is it something comparable um that you know we might

have heard of or might have in arabic we say i mean which means with the greatest humility it's not comparable to anything nobody else does brisket like this it's called we call it third culture barbecue for a reason um i'm egyptian raised in the uae making american barbecue where does that you know where the nexus of all of those things i don't think anybody else is doing that well i guess we have to go to dubai to try it the only option if you had if we yeah if we had 18 hours i'd make you some uh how was the reception of like you know when you when you first started putting out the brisket to the public were they very receptive to it in the uae in the ua the reason we are where we are now is because we word of mouth um one person told one person and then the next person and then the next person i was a very wealthy oil and gas engineer. And now I am a very poor, but very happy chef.

So people were very receptive to it in 2015 because it didn't exist. What made you get out of oil and gas? I got fired. Oh, okay. I'll do it. Been there. You ever been to Subway?

Yeah. I got left off the schedule there famously when I was 16. So it wasn't like, they didn't tell me I was fired, but it was like, okay. No, my boss boss god bless him called me one day and he's like are you gonna join the call and i'm like i was in the middle

of something you know covered in gunk smoke in my face and he's like are you gonna join the call and i'm like what call and he's like the call you scheduled and i'm like oh um i'm having connectivity issues he's like you know what shut up i googled you and i'm like oh this is november by the way i'm like oh and he's like um you're fired i'm like i appreciate you putting up with me this long thank you sir wait so what did he see when he googled you they didn't exactly what you see now if you google me it's all barbecue my linkedin profile doesn't even show up it's all hatem restaurant hatem hatem cooking hatem doing all this stuff so they realized i had a side hustle that wasn't my side hustle anymore it was my regular hustle the oil and gas thing

was my side hustle oh man that's a good place to be it's a really good place to be especially especially right now yeah um yeah i missed the bus on that one yeah as soon as oil and gas picked up i'm like yeah see ya i think i think this brisket thing's gonna gonna work out for you i got some questions so uh you got you say you got four restaurants yes sir uh brisket's a specialty yeah it's a two-part question okay uh first one is going to be you know how many are you moving a week or a month and then the second part is how easy is it to source can you talk a little bit about how you're sourcing the meats because i assume you're not doing it in briefcases anymore. No, I'm not. So two parts of the question.

When things were going well, we were – there's a place in Dubai called Time Out Market. You guys know there's Time Out Market in New York, Chicago, Montreal. The original one was in Portugal. It's a licensed food hall. And essentially, Time Out is a magazine like Texas Monthly. And it curates the best of the city, the best bars, the best clubs, the best. So they pick 17 of the best restaurants and put them in one place. And they have a licensed bar that belongs to them. And essentially, you can eat 10 things at the same time with a whole bunch of people. Everybody can get whatever they want but it's the best of the city so we're part of that food hall and to answer your question when we were when we

had just opened up that was our first restaurant we were doing 1.5 metric tons of brisket every weekend i love that we're measuring things in tons now yeah i don't know what is that what is that what is that what is that in American pounds? Just a lot. About 3,000 pounds. Many, many pounds. Yeah, it's a lot of pounds. So let's say you got a 30-pound brisket, maybe about 100 a week, 100 in a weekend. Oh, yeah.

On the weekend, we were just chucking it out the door. Sandwiches, plates. We were doing half pounds of pastrami, brisket, sandwiches. It was mental. So let's talk. Everybody that's listening, you can go check out his instagram it's great um but can you describe the smoker setup yes sir you can that is necessitated or necessitates talk talk about where you're cooking all these recipes so we got we got we have a we have a custom-made smoker from texas obviously um and um we have a custom-made smoker from Texas, obviously.

And we have several pieces of equipment that do everything that a Texas barbecue would do. The trick in the UAE is, drumroll please, it is the desert. There is no wood. So what you guys would be like, oh, hey, we're out of oak. Let's rock up to the gas station and get a couple of bags we were during covid we were down to the last bag of wood while we were producing before the next container came out so our first ingredient everything what makes barbecue barbecue is imported and it's 45 to 60 day lead time so we buy orchards at a time of sustainable wood.

And where does it come from? All over. We've got wood that comes from Texas. We've got wood that comes from the UK. We've got wood that comes from Eastern Europe. And it's places and people that we know and have met that have come to Dubai that have eaten our food. All of the wood that comes is to our spec specifically, which gives us, you know, our kind of flavor.

the wood that comes is to our spec specifically which gives us you know our kind of flavor and for all the trees that they turn into firewood those orchards are replanted twice or three times over that's great yeah is it mostly oak or you've got cinnamon scheme or anything like that here's the secret are you ready post oak right south side market post oak live oak white oak mix of those three and as subtle as it is there is a difference um if you use one or the other but you mix all three of those money literally figuratively what do you think about the uh the pellet smoker craze because that's i currently am a pellet guy i'm sorry i thought this might happen repent from your ways no look pellet smoking and gas grills will get you the quick endorphin dopamine hit of barbecue convenience but there is no artistry in those things and in my personal

opinion analog barbecue is the last analog experience known to man you can't digitize barbecue right as much as they try to put bluetooth probes that'll tell you when your brisket has hit 205 right barbecue is still are you guys you're laughing are you guys do you guys do that i don't i'm not gonna name names and i like whenever i'm in a bad mood i send them memes about how paul smoking is not cool he does yeah there no and barbecue you have to smell it you have to see it you've got to touch it when i was cooking with wayne mueller we were chucking out beef ribs he wasn't even temping him he was just like this one's done this one uh nah this one needs 10 minutes how the

hell do you know that but it's not a it's not a door dash 15 minute fried chicken to your door god bless fried chicken i love fried chicken but it's not that cuisine it's you know on the arabic hospitality side of things and i i tell this we were part of the smithsonian folklore festival representing the uae i tell people that barbecue has a synergy with arabic hospitality because arabic hospitality comes from the old days they would host strangers for three days. And those strangers did not have to tell them their name, where they came from, or where they were going. If they stayed for the fourth day, it was incumbent on them to tell their host where they were going and what they were doing and their name. 90% of the people only stayed three days.

their name. 90% of the people only stayed three days. So Arabic hospitality comes from the feeling and the sense that you are hosting somebody who will never be able to repay the favor or the kindness. Barbecue is exactly the same way in that if you spend 18 hours making a brisket, the person that's going to eat it spends five minutes eating that sandwich. He's never going to be able to repay the effort and kindness and time that you've been able that you've had to put in to the cuisine i feel like a jerk now i've been cutting corners about to start crying no no no it's not that it's just it's it is a cuisine you can feel the amount of effort if barbecue is done right you can feel the the the emotion of the person that's cooked the food i think uh are there any uh uh culinary traditions uh in the arab world that are similar to you know

a longer slow uh slow smoke oh my god plenty um tell netflix to give us a special and we'll show them we're in the UAE there's something called Tanur in Oman there's something called Shua in Jordan it's called Zarb and all of those are underground pit cooking traditions where you will bury a whole carcass

and then come pick it up in 24 hours similar to like a pozo yes exactly and you've got to be oh my god is it a cuisine of confidence and then come pick it up in 24 hours. Similar to like a pozo. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And you've got to be, it's, oh my God, is it a cuisine of confidence? So you'll bury this thing,

you'll get the fire, spice it, cover it, and then once it's covered, hey, I'll see you tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, You can't check. You're cooking blind. So when you come back the next day,

everybody's expecting food. Like you've got 20 or 30 people if you open that pit and god forbid it's not ready you can't order hardy's then you're in trouble so it is man if you can cook underground you'll survive the zombie apocalypse what animal typically are you lamb goat um camel um but those because you yeah in in in the uae that that livestock exists um cows obviously are very water intensive no grass that kind of stuff so goat camel sheep lamb you made a face when you said camel is that a there's a goat and lamb are the prefer preferred ones and the camel is kind of like the second no no camel is a luxury actually camel camel camels camels go for millions of derhams when they go there's this i'm you're not you're gonna laugh but there is a camel beauty

contest believe it or not i mean we're in as there should be that surprised me yeah there's a camel beauty contest my dad made me go see the fattest pig in texas one time you nothing will surprise yeah okay i think i saw the smallest horse in the world allegedly at the state fair once yeah there you go just a mini horse so there camel is camel is um you do you do it if it's like a wedding of nobility or somebody you know well to do in the in the area camel is absolutely a luxury the rest of it is you know what um got a lot of camel questions now uh what uh we could do the prettiest camel what is generally the oh man is it the eyelash i don't know man that's outside my yeah donna says yeah that's outside my wheelhouse man and we did cook a camel once for somebody very

important um he uh jokingly says can you cook a camel? You can't drop names? This is very important. No, it's somebody important. Okay. It was an HH. And he said, Hatem, can you cook camel? I said, Zidi, if you send us one, we'll cook it. Just en passant, like as a joke. Next day, open the door. Hatem Matar, I said, yes, sir. He said, I have camel for you. Come on. I'm not joking. I got a picture of it i'll show it to you who is this and so we the camel we put the camel in the smoker and it took

two days to smoke because it was the entire carcass and we were not allowed to break it up because it was it was to be served on a bed of rice. So it's a quarter of the size of the studio. That's incredible. How much rice? It's a lot. It's a lot of people that carry it. Oh, wow. No joke.

It's like Aladdin. Okay. Yeah. Mental picture. Put that in your head. Got it. Are there cuts of the camel that are preferred? Is there a brisket?

The hump is very like the brisket. neck um the young camel is called hashi and the younger camel just like veal um but it is obviously a cuisine of of um celebration um and uh endemic to the uae uh and then i guess north africa is mostly sheep and lamb yeah I noticed you have a rather intimidating wolf on your left hand. Do you want to give us a story behind that if there is one? Okay. Very briefly. Before I was pretending to be a barbecue chef, I was pretending to be a professional fighter. I was on the North American kickboxing circuit.

I fought for a team called Team Tompkins, who was Canada's premier striking team. My roommate fought Jose Aldo for the title. I fought on the undercard with George St. Pierre. BJ Penn came to the restaurant a year ago, and Anderson Silva stayed at my house. And when I was in university, my ring name, drum roll please, was Hatem the Wolf Matar. And so I've kind of carried that character into my adult life in quotations.

That is way cooler of an answer than I could have ever imagined. I really didn't know. I was like hoping it wasn't something like super sentimental you didn't want to talk about. No, no. It turns out it was very cool. Okay, so jujitsu guy, what's your focus? So jujitsu is the national sport of the UAE, believe it or not.

Sheikh Tahnoun trade under Hanzo Gracie. And he didn't tell him that he was one of the sheikh of Abu Dhabi and he got a black belt from Hanzo. So he's the real deal. Like he's one of the leaders of the UAE, but he is legit on the mats. Picked up jujitsu when I came back from Canada. In 2009, got bronze in the world

at professional championships. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed gave me my medal. Bronze at the Asian games in 2011 and silver at the abu dhabi grand slam in 2016 very cool that's awesome yeah do you still follow the sport i still follow the sport unfortunately but barbecue takes up 48 hours of my day and i used to fight at 165 i weigh a cool 195 these days so we're really far away class i i need to go i need to get back to 165 i weigh a cool 195 these days so we're really far away class i i need to go i need to get back to 165 but i don't think that's happening anytime soon if you're gonna go fight what is the best barbecue for a pre-fight there is no um no i suggest you steer clear of barbecue when we were when we were competing uh believe it or not i'll tell the truth actually believe it or not before we would compete we would go vegetarian for two weeks

uh it improved your cardio improved your wind improved your sleep improved your digestion and then celebrate celebration after your win was you know three pounds of wings to your face was that tough making the switch uh incompetent i mean in university no these days i'm around barbecue every day so it's almost impossible to avoid it. But when you're an athlete, no, it was easy. It was good for you, actually. Do you ever get sick of it, like being around it that much? No.

No. If I thought martial arts was my thing and I took to it like fish and water, I don't know where the – I don't want to say skill because that seems pretentious, but I don't know where the i don't want to say skilled because that seems pretentious but i don't know where the affinity to barbecue comes from but i feel like it's like natural you know i was born to do this this is my calling one more fight question for me that's great uh we can move on yeah uh of all the celebrity chefs, who do you think would fight the best? Celebrity chefs? Oh, God bless.

Because I've got one in my head. God rest his soul. Anthony Bourdain was a jiu-jitsu fighter. That's right. Yeah. And he actually competed. And Alex Atala, who's a Michelin chef, Michelin star chef out of Brazil, star chef out of brazil goes and makes um plates with ants from the amazon for dessert and then goes to train at the local brazilian top team thing he's a fighter there's plenty on the circuit

yeah if i saw a guy step into the ring eating a whole bunch of ants then i knew i'd be yeah yeah who did you think was gonna win i would say aina garden uh because she worked with uh um first of all she drinks heavily and so you know you don't want to fight someone that's not something that's not good for your cardio no but you know she's she could be irrational i guess yeah uh but she also she uh she had some high-ranking government position so i was i assume that she was trained by the special forces. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Einergarten will kill you. Not Guy Fieri. Who's that?

Oh, Guy Fieri. Yeah, maybe. No, he's sitting ringside. He's the promoter. He is the promoter. He is the promoter, 100%. Mayor of Flavortown. Exactly.

People forget that. Yeah. Well, that's cool. I'll try not to turn this into just a combat sports minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back to... Tell us about Aldo sports minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back to. Tell us about Holdo. No, I won't do that.

Just for my own personal gratification, can you. What's the biggest error you see amateur chefs like myself make? Like when they are doing something on the grill, on a smoker. This is probably a larger answer than you want but i think now in life everybody's doing things on the surface because of how simple they are digitally back in the day if you wanted to do something at a government office you had to go physically put your papers in all of that stuff speaking to a girl you had to go up to her and say excuse me can i buy you dinner you know i feel like everything that's done including cuisine uh is um you know

looking stuff up digitally uh bluetooth bluetooth temperature probe setting your microwave or your oven to 250 degrees f on the nose you know it's it's become life has become people cookie cutting things that already exist and not not doing it their own way so i think in cuisine unless you have people over man open the fridge get your spice cabinet out buy something that you've never bought put it all together make a mistake figure it out then the next time change one variable then the next time one variable then the next time one variable i i learned barbecue that way i made hundreds of kilos of bad brisket before i figured it out it's a good answer yeah one one trial and error one thousand everything in life by the way no one's uh wayne gretzky didn't

you know become wayne gretzky in one day. Trial and error. How he holds the stick. Michael Jordan. All those guys, it's trial and error. And nobody sees the trial and error part. They see when you've won the title. They see when you've won the championship. But people are afraid of making mistakes or being told no or this is bad.

So they don't try in the first place to make the error. That makes sense. I know that was bigger than the question on culinary. Like thinking about my life right now. don't try in the first place to make the error that makes sense i thought that i mean i know that was bigger than the than the question on culinary but it is like thinking about my life it really is honestly it is really the capability i think barbecue and martial arts just to you know on the philosophy side of things in jujitsu it's a question of submission if someone puts a submission on you you could be stubborn 100 you could be stubborn but they'll either put you to sleep or take your shoulder off

and you have to the word it's it's it's it's hard to say but you have to submit right in life a lot of people don't do that in general someone's telling you to do something you have to submit if you someone told you on the street you have to submit to what i'm asking you to do you're gonna be like your first reaction is like excuse me holmes yeah yeah i'm not submitting yeah exactly so if you have the humility in martial arts to submit and make a mistake barbecue does the same thing you figure out that the brisket that you're cooking you've made a mistake and you admit that you've made that mistake over and over and over again until you've got your black belt making a mistake and then learning from that one mistake next time up one mistake then next time up you progress blue belt purple brown black i think

people have lost the capability to take criticism and learn from mistakes because they don't want to make them in the first place i think that makes sense especially because you know a lot of people just won't do a brisket uh because it's time intensive expensive yeah you make a mistake you know somewhere along the way overnight yeah comes out bad and they're you know don't want to afraid of failing on that's what it is it's it's a it's a afraid of failure piece all right when you're in when you're in texas yes sir let's say outside of barbecue yeah what is your favorite like texas cuisine it could be fast food it could be something that's regional my favorite texas cuisine i'm my my my reward my reward meal in uh in the uae when I'm in Dubai is fried chicken. So if you guys have a fried chicken recommendation in Austin, man, let's do that now.

We got a couple. Yeah, but like real, I mean, real deal, not fast food fried chicken, real deal fried chicken. Austin's a good fried chicken town. Oh, hell yes. It's coming up. Yeah? Yeah. Let's do it.

Have you tried any of the Nashville stuff? Oh, I know what, I mean, they make them on our side of town. awesome's a good fried chicken town oh hell yeah it's coming up yeah let's do it a lot of them have you tried any of the nashville stuff no oh i know what i mean they they make them on our side of town they make them in dubai um they make the sauce but um i haven't had any i haven't had anything here so your recommendations are welcome what's your go-to p well you you were gonna i could i could see the wheels turning in your head when you mentioned the Nashville. Tumble 22 is a good spot. Mental note. Yeah.

They've got two locations – two or three locations. I think they've got two or three now, yeah. Yeah, they've got a couple of them. They do have the hot Nashville sauce, but authentic Nashville hot chicken, they cook the spices into the batter and everything. So it's like you cannot un-hot Nashville hot chicken. This one, it's just fried chicken and they have a bunch of sauces you can put on top. But it's good. There's no non-spicy version.

There's no such thing as that for authentic Nashville hot chicken. Gus's fried chicken is my personal favorite. It's a um small chain i think they've got a couple dozen locations now but the original is in memphis tennessee and i lived there for a little while it's uh it's it's pretty solid as well honestly the best fried chicken i've had and i've we i was just in australia i've had some fried chicken here there's a restaurant in dubai called bird brd and i don't know what he's done he's actually a peruvian chef uh in dubai making just insane food he does a menu for a month and then it disappears and you can never have it again

he did a dish that was fried chicken creme fraiche caviar honey listen just wait wait wait for it wait for it fried chicken creme fraiche caviar on a waffle with with a drizzle of honey thank me later chicken waffles with caviar with exactly that's exactly what he did he just upgraded he made he made chicken and waffles a first class meal dare i say nobody's doing that no literally no now yeah that's what i'm saying so there is you know in the cool thing the cool thing about the dubai food scene is it literally has 195 nationalities cooking for their own diaspora so the the thai diaspora has their thai restaurants that they go to the uzbek uh diaspora has an

uzbekistani restaurant where would you ever have Uzbek food unless you went? And in Dubai, depending on which side of town you're on, almost every cuisine under the sun exists cooked by its own people. So we're very spoiled for choice. When you want really good Indian, you go to the best Indian restaurant cooked by an Indian gentleman from the south of India, which is a seafaring city,ian seafood and then you go further inland it's just it's an incredible place for food at the moment it wasn't like that when we were growing up but it is now are there uh are there some interesting cross-cultural uh you know kind of blending of those different uh traditions so i'm thinking like here we've got a place called valina's that's – it's Tex-Mex barbecue.

Okay. They mix Tex-Mex, Mexican food with – you'll get a brisket or a beef rib with queso on it, that sort of thing. Dana's look is dying for like legit Tex-Mex. So we've got a list of – fried chicken first and then we'll go Tex-Mex. There is – yeah, cross-cultural. Hey, right here. For sure. Yeah um other people that are doing it uh chef omar from uh from slab from bird um there's oh there's an indian restaurant

that's doing a molecular gastronomy so like the stuff that you see on netflix you know where they make like a bubble that explodes and then there's stuff underneath with Indian cuisine. And his restaurant is called Tres Ind Studio. And it's a studio of he plates this stuff. It's incredible. It's just it's not the stuff that you would. I mean, this is something that you go to for like an anniversary or something. But it's art on a plate and incredibly delicious. And it's him pushing Indian cuisine kind of into the fine dining space.

Molecular gastronomyomy that's a word i didn't make that up i don't i'm not familiar molecular you just see me short circuit you guys know exactly um do you know um there's a restaurant in chicago called alinea grant a shots shots um he makes a dish with a balloon of sugar that floats in front of you when you arrive and you take the dish that's hanging off the balloon and eat it that kind of cuisine i'm not joking i'm not making people are wild man i'm not i'm not making this up the the um that type of cuisine is called molecular gastronomy he's got an episode on chef's table okay i'm looking into this when we're done molecular gastronomy okay yeah uh heston blumenthal in london um uh what's his name gagan in thailand and in india yeah cuisine is like you know an encyclopedia never ending that's awesome how lit is dubai um dubai if i left the the only the thing about dubai and why i'll never move and the uae in

general why i'll never leave the uae is because of how safe it is we leave our doors unlocked and if you left something on a table somewhere you'd find it the next day if you came back the next day because everybody lives there with a job like it's an expatriate community you're not there without a work visa so because you're there working um it's an extreme i the the i have daughters two daughters 13 and 11 they've got more energy than i do long day barbecue we've got a lot of farm animals at home the dogs and stuff like that and they want to play outside on the street in the neighborhood we live in it's like 10 30 at night i'm like listen man peace in the middle east i'm going to sleep i don't have to keep my eye on them uh on the safety side of things on the lid side of things if you total other end of the total other end of the spectrum um there is everything under the sun

um the concerts that are in the uae the concert scene, the music scene, the club scene the restaurant scene you've never seen hospitality like that unless you come to Dubai the supercars the decorations of the restaurants who comes, Kareem Benzema the footballer is there

we fed Paul Pogba we fed Mohamed Salah we fed Habib brushed shoulders with um will smith um so you can imagine those kind of interactions in that city it's probably the most lit city on earth in a in a very small space if you if you like or for example maybe hosting an award show and you see will smith walking you, walking toward the stage, maybe after you made a joke about him or his wife and he raises his hand, what are you doing?

You're going rear naked choke. What are you putting in? I love, I love Will Smith. Every, at my, my, the next time I see him, I wanted to do my, my Mike Lowry and Marcus Barnett impression from bad boys. You guys grew up watching that. How do you, how do I know it's Mike Lowry? Cause Mike Lowry, you know, I, I want to do that how do i know it's mike lowry because uh mike lowry you know i i want to do that with will smith but i never got the chance oh man he'll be back he will 100 100 we need to go it just it's just uh drives it home we gotta we gotta figure this out get us to dubai yeah you hear it's lit yeah that sounds like no it is it's a beautiful city it's a beautiful country right it's it's on the if we got brisket that tastes like nothing else in the world it's true

it's true but when you see it coming from the plane it's like something out of star wars it's an incredibly diverse city burj khalifa almost touching the sky right on the water right so it's this coastal city in the middle of pristine desert, 15 minutes outside the city. The sand dunes are like four stories, five stories high. And bear in mind, the UAE is only 50 years old, by the way. Some of the people that attended the Smithsonian Folklife Festival are older than the UAE. You know what I mean? And so the founder of the country, the George Washington of the country, Sheikh Zayed Allah

al-Rahman, we had access to him. Like we saw him. The UAE has founding country energy at the moment. It's that new. Everybody's doing something new. Everybody's building. So you guys got to come. If I'm scared of heights, would I be happy in the hotels?

So the reason I skydive actually is because i'm deathly afraid of heights but you got a plan no so listen so the the the philosophy is if i can convince my brain when i get it's a horrible feeling by the way the door of the plane opens everybody on the plane is high-fiving they're like yes i can't wait you should see my face i'm like why am i doing i can't believe i for this. But tell myself at the door of the plane, I'm going to jump. And I do jump. When I get down, anytime I'm doing something just like this, by the way, there is the nervous part of you, the part of your brain that's like, you can't do this.

And then I have the conversation. I was like, oh, weren't you talking to me at the door of the plane? And you said, I can't do this. And I did shut up. You're lying. And then I do it so i jump to get over my fear of heights so when i have the conversation with myself about anything else i can't do i'm like i've had this conversation with you before shut up you're lying all right how many jumps before you could go solo seven seven yeah because

i did a tandem once that counts as one and you weren't lying when they open the door it gets real yeah it's a different feeling the wind is pulling is is and you look down and you're like i did i pay for this your body's like no you shouldn't you shouldn't do this yeah 100 and if the guy doesn't go one two three and you jump you're like you know what just take me down if you if you can look at the pilot and the guy that you're flying with look him in the face and be like please take me down some people i'm serious some people on the pilot and the guy that you're flying with, look him in the face and be like, please take me down. I'm serious. Some people on the plane, they're like, hey, you ready? And they're like, no, I'm not flying.

Nope. And they got to come down and live with that for the rest of their life. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. You'll be fine. You'll be fine. The hotels are not that high.

Just don't stay Burj Khalifa. Yeah. I don't. I see pictures of that and I'm like. You could stay at the farm. It's only a one-story building. Tight. Yeah.

Yeah. Come hang out. What's next for Hatim Matt matar in 2022 um more culinary diplomacy more breaking down barriers more telling people about the uae where we come from what we stand for arabic hospitality um the middle east in general and in the united states i, I grew up French school, British school, American school, Saudi Arabia, UAE. Not out of ignorance, but what's on the media. Anytime we have conversations with people in the U.S. that have not traveled abroad, and we say the Middle East, their automatic response is conflict. Oh, isn't that where this was?

Isn't that where this war is? Or isn't that where? We're trying to get rid of that stereotype that exists from the 90s and still exists today there is conflict but look at we call it mina middle east north africa from morocco to iraq almost 17 or 18 countries correct me if i'm wrong we all speak the same language right um and it's an incredibly diverse part of the world doesn't really get its fair share of publicity for its cuisine for its landscape for its mountains it's the red sea you listen do you guys scooby dive anybody anybody big on the water i snorkel um you haven't snorkeled until you've

snorkeled the red sea okay you know what i mean we got an itinerary yeah just start adding the stuff that just getting getting the arab world the publicity it needs for its music for its culture for its calligraphy for its athletes um for its medicine for all the stuff that's that's what's next for us in disguise as barbecue that's the point of everything we're doing really really. Very cool. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming by. This has been a good time. Fantastic.

Thank you, guys. Where can the listeners follow you? Instagram, first and last name, Hatem Matar, H-A-T-E-M-A-T-A-R. In university, nobody knew my name. Everybody thought my name was double T. I was introducing myself, 19 18 19 years old hey what's your name hatem i'm sorry what everybody's in the club you know doing that thing with your ear when you're like i'm sorry what did you say so i'm like hatem and i realized that they couldn't hear me so i would say i first year university i said h a double t e m and what

they heard was double t they're like oh double t i'm like yeah no problem so i spent four years of my life in university incognito double t is a pretty badass nickname it is and then when we came as good as wolf listen when we came to graduate when we came to graduate everyone was like and they're like who's that and i got up and they're like what double t double t double t yeah that producer randy over there he's uh he goes by t-bone oh no took him took him to dinner one time he ordered a t-bone they didn't have a t-bone but he wanted one yeah so instagram and everything else that we do is on um you know the restaurant is on there our culinary diplomacy project with the uae embassy is on there our culinary diplomacy project with the uae embassy is on there our culinary diplomacy project with

the american consulate is on there um bilateral barbecue relations kind of um yeah and everything we do is mostly on instagram i'm too old for tiktok yeah me too i tried yeah i tried my kids are on we're doing okay yeah i think i think it's that does the trick for me i tried and then my niece saw one that i did and she's 13 she's like what are you doing no you know i don't know yeah my daughter asked me she's like are you on snap are you on tiktok or snapchat i'm like uh no why she's like because i'm on it okay well i'm on it now you know what i mean yeah so just instagram just instagram awesome well thank you for doing this no my pleasure thank you guys for having me what a cool setup uh what a cool hangout and what a cool conversation.

I hope I get to host you guys in the UAE. You guys get to visit and you see what all the hype and fuss is about. Yeah. I hope that happens as well. It's on the list. Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay.

Well, that's Hatsum Matar, ladies and gentlemen. We will see you all next week. Bye. Bye. You think I'm fucking with you all next week. Bye.