- Good morning. - Good morning. - Hope you're having
an amazing day, today-- - Yeah, I'm so excited!
- We are in Gilan. Whoa. (Mark and Hamid laughing) Okay, we don't wanna
get hit before caviar. - Yeah (laughs) - We are in Gilan, the
province of Gilan in Iran right next to the Caspian sea and this area is known for Persian caviar, Beluga sturgeon caviar. - It's a big fish actually! - [Mike] Awesome! - I was so surprised when I met the fish. So exciting! - Mr. Taster has arranged for
us to get an entire sturgeon. - [Hamid] Yeah! - [Mike] And we are gonna open it up. We're gonna see the entire process. We are gonna eat the caviar, which is the best caviar in the world. - [Hamid] It's almost 40 kilo fish. - We just arrived to the
place where they farm, where they raise the sturgeons. And I'm gonna share all
of the caviar with you in this video. (upbeat music) Had a caviar dance party on the way. (upbeat music) I believe that it's a Beluga sturgeon. - Yes, it is.
- And we're just... It's Beluga, right? - Yes. - Which is the best! And just getting a first
glimpse, this is the sturgeon. That is huge and it's so graceful. I mean it does look... It is prehistoric. It is dinosaur looking. It's actually a fish. But even it looks like a shark. And it is also known
sometimes as a Caspian shark. - Here's Dr. Caviar. Doctor (laughs) Dr. Caviar. - [Mike] Dr. Caviar. (laughs) - Look at that! (speaks in foreign language) - These are some, as
we've told yah, as you see this is to test their caviar. This is checking for again,
checking the adequacy and everything to different
parts of the bowl. The best processing is
taken in Iran mostly. Before the revolution, we got
number one caviar of the world and the same is the case even nowadays. - The tools are ready, Dr.
caviar, Surgeon caviar. (speaks in foreign language) Onto the stretcher and now we're
moving on to the next room. (upbeat music) And it's also I believe Beluga
or maybe it means something with the white stomach, because I know... I mean the color is black,
but then the stomach is white. (Mike and Hamid laughing) Thank you. Nurse Hamid. We're all ready, we're
set and the long nose. What a fish! That bone structure! (speaks in foreign language) - [Hamid] Mark. - Yeah. (speaks in foreign language) On the scale it weighs almost six kilos, but he said once you
take out a little bit, it's gonna be about four
kilos of black caviar and they call it black
gold because of its value, because of its just... It's such a delicacy! Considered a delicacy
around the entire world. That entire pan of fresh caviar,
then goes to the next room in that tray to where
they're gonna process it, where they'll probably clean
it, where they'll salt cure it. And that process only takes
about 30 minutes, they said. So we're just walking
over to the next room. Keep it sterile and clean. (Hamid and Mike laughing) Your glasses all fogged up. (Hamid laughing) The glasses. (Hamid laughing) (speaks in foreign language) Now begins the very delicate process of processing the caviar. (speaks in foreign language) Each egg, each piece of
caviar becomes individualized and then takes off that like, I don't know if it's a membrane or the piece that holds it all together. (speaks in foreign language) It's so important because every
little bead is so important, is so crucial, is so valuable. (speaks in foreign language) It's not cooked. - [Hamid] It's not ready yet,
but we gonna try it. (laughs) - So it hasn't been salted yet. I don't think I've ever
had black caviar like this, unsalted. - Yeah, unsalted yeah--
- I've never had unsalted because whenever you
get it in the packaged, it's always salted already. - Yeah, salted.
- It's always salted. (mumbles) - Only one left. - Guy got a few left am like, wow! That's amazing! - It's so good, isn't it? (laughs) - I've never wanted to
lick a rubber glove so much in my life. (laughs) - It's so good! - That's incredible because, it's not flavored at all with salt. So you just taste the pure thing. It's really the texture,
the texture is unbelievable! Like silky beads that just gently disintegrate on your tongue, with a slight fishiness with
a slight cheesiness almost-- - Yeah, and I think
we're the luckiest people in the world now, right now. - Yeah, without a doubt. Without a doubt, wow! They were just telling us
that the Persian caviar, they can sell anywhere from
1,000 to $40,000 per kilo. They're gonna start the salting. (upbeat music) (speaks in foreign language) To take out the water and then also to take out the air as well. And that salinity to embed into each egg and to the entire caviar tin. (upbeat music) (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) I can't hold it. (speaks in foreign language) Now, time for the salted one. And this has just been
salted like moments ago, immediately. It works so fast too. - All right, ready? - Cheers! Wow! - The real taste of (mumbles) - Wow! - Caviar. - Yeah, okay that salting process though, it just enhances the flavor. - Yeah. - Just like elevates it to new levels. Wow! Unbelievable! The freshness, the cheesiness, oh man! - I'm looking forward. - Unbelivable! - Thank you very much,
thank you! (mumbles) (Hamid laughing) - Immediately salted and
immediately packaged. - I just steal it, yeah. (Mike laughing) - An entire cake of caviar! That's the most beautiful birthday cake I've ever seen in my life. - Look at that! - It's so good! (speaks in foreign language) Dr. Caviar just informed us,
this is the best quality, top grade and even you can almost like
play with that texture. It's just perfectly stuck together. It's so even, so perfect. Wow! That was just fascinating. And just to see them work
in that entire process. And once they started salting the caviar just their laser focus
because they have to do the salt process so fast
to take out the water, to take out the air. So the caviar processing is finished. We're back in the sturgeon room now and he's gonna cut up the sturgeon, which will then be eaten. And actually we're gonna
take a piece of the sturgeon to eat later tonight. (upbeat music) And I guess they also
have some crabs here. So we are on our way to go
to see some of the crabs that they have here. So I think it's more like crayfish, crayfish from the wetlands
here, near to the Caspian sea. (mumbles) - Just hold them. Just look at that. (laughs) It's always happening with Mr. Taster. It's impressive. - [Mark] How is it? - It's good. It's so good. - So step into the office
here at the caviar factory and they have boiled up
some of the fresh crayfish. It's actually fresh,
fresh boiled crayfish. The juiciness of that! Wow! - It's baby one. (laughs) - This the best tea break ever. (Hamid laughing) - Look at that. (laughs) - That's so good. So fresh and salty and
delicious and sweet. Look at all that (mumbles) in there. Wow! That's delicious too with
the little beads again. (speaks in foreign language) - [Hamid] Yeah. - [Female Cook] That's cheese
and that's eggs with hearts. - Hearts with caviar on
top, the black caviar. Wow! That's wonderful! - [Hamid] Caviar, (laughs)
try that spoonful. - Wow! So unbelievably delicate,
that texture, that saltiness. Iranian Caspian Beluga caviar. That's just unbelievable. Wow! When I came in down to
the hotel this morning, then she was at the hotel, she cooked for us last night. She brought us food in the morning. Wow, thank you so much! Thank you so much. (speaks in foreign language) - This is obviously
(mumbles) garlic. (laughs) Cooks it for you from two in the morning. - The greatest gift ever! Her hospitality, she handed
us food at the hotel. (speaks in foreign language) (group laughing) Garlic chicken. - [Hamid] Yeah. - And that way you could... Like we brought it, we brought it in the van and you can just smell the garlic shoots. - Yeah, (mumbles) garlic and they call it (speaks
in foreign language) This is the (speaks in foreign language) We call it (speaks in foreign language) (speaks in foreign language) Yeah. Smell the garlic. - Yes! Wow! (speaks in foreign language) The creamy silkiness of it,
it's actually like rich too. (speaks in foreign language) - Means we don't have like this. (laughs) (speaks in foreign language) - Soon as I dished that
out onto the plate, you'd smell the garlicness of it. That's all garlic shoots. Call it garlic sprouts, garlic-- - [Hamid] Coincidentally,
there's some vegetable in that garlic. - Wow! It's so good! It's garlicky but in multiple dimensions, not just straight harsh garlic. A chill fragrant garlic. - It's (mumbles) good. - It's awesome! - I love the taste of
the garlic in it as well. - [Mike] There's no other bones. - Beef. - [Mike] Beef? - (speaks in foreign language) kebab. - (speaks in foreign language) kebab. (speaks in foreign language) So, (speaks in foreign language) kebab. - Kebab okay. - Oh yeah! You can smell the spice
in there, like Cardamomy. - Yeah. - I smell cardamom. Oh yes! Wow! That tartness, the sour... Yeah, that's the pomegranate paste, right? - Pomegranate paste, yeah. - And then you taste like
a clove cardamom taste to it as well. It's so good! (Hamid laughing) Amazing! Insanely good, home cooked food. (speaks in foreign language) She's the one who brought us the food. Thank you so much, that food was amazing! - This is that sturgeon for you. - [Mike] Wow! - [Hamid] (mumbles) for tonight. (laughs) Tonight's kebab. - So we've come to the end
of the caviar experience, but we're still gonna be
eating the sturgeon and kebabs. A special kebab tonight. - (mumbles) kebab, yeah. - You're awesome. More on that later, but we
just wanna say a huge thank you to Bahoo Caviar and also to
(speaks in foreign language) - Yeah, (speaks in foreign
language) the agency that managed the whole trip. - Awesome. - Thank you so much. - Yes, thank you so much for
hosting us, for having us, for putting on an amazing caviar display, a once in a lifetime display. - Yeah. (laughs) (speaks in foreign language) (group clapping) - We're all loaded into the van and we're on our way
next to the Caspian sea. We're gonna go... We're just a couple of
kilometers from the sea. We're gonna go take a
look at the Caspian sea. We're on our way there now. (upbeat music) Micah, can you warm me up? Can you warm me up, Micah? We're just walking the
beach and the whole bank of the Caspian sea here and
just the color of that sand. It almost looks like it's
sand, but it's so dark. (upbeat music) There it is! That's my first touch
ever of the Caspian sea. That way you'll get to
Azerbaijan to Russia, to Kazakhstan and to Turkmenistan, but it's the Caspian sea, it's so rich in natural
resources, in seafood. And the salinity I believe is
about a third of the ocean. So it's actually... I believe it's a lake, actually. One of the world's largest lakes. But it's slightly saline water. It's just beautiful though. With the contrast of the dark
sand, the dark colored sand, the water, the peacefulness,
the just massive bank of sand, so cool to be here. That's awesome, yeah we need to (mumbles) Awesome! - Look at that! - That looks so cool! (upbeat music) After spending a little bit
of time in the afternoon at the Caspian sea, then we had a little break in
the afternoon, in the evening, and now we're out again for dinner. We're on our way to a restaurant, for a specific type of kebab
as well as we're gonna cook up that sturgeon that we brought with us. Just walking into this intersection, you could just see the smoke billowing up from this entire intersection. The aroma of grilling meats
is just filling the air. - Now, this is the bakery. - [Mike] That's the bakery? - Yeah. - [Mike] And then the meat? - They got (mumbles) no. That's the bread. - That's the meat, it's coming from there. (speaks in foreign language) - How are you? (Hamid and Mike laughing) Thailand, Bangkok. - It's barbari bread, yeah.
- (mumbles) bread. - [Mike] Barbari? - Barbari. - So this is a special type of bread. And so what they do is
they take the dough, they pad it out and then
they add this mixture of (speaks in foreign language) I'm not totally sure what
it is, but it's not sweet. It's kinda like oily. They put that onto the
bread and then they, well, using their fingers, make
these indents into the bread and then put it onto the
oven, which is a rotating oven and make these huge flat breads. (machine engine roars) This is a whole
neighborhood bread factory. You can see everybody coming here from the whole neighborhood,
coming to buy their bread. They're making two
different types of bread. One is that one that we saw over there. This one is the lavash,
which is the very thin, very thin bread and it's
just coming off one by one. It's rolled out by the machine. He slaps it onto an
oven which just rotates and I think it's just like
straight up one rotation and it's cooked. (machine engine roars) I've never seen such an automated and such a cool machine
bread store in my life. Everything just kinda cranking out dough, cranking out different types of bread. And this one just goes from... Up here, the batter of
the dough is up here and then it just squeezes
out onto this conveyor belt that just kinda rotates the ball into a perfect lump of dough,
to then go into the oven. It's amazing! And just like the clunky
old machines, I love it! Just the rotating wheels, the conveyor belts, very cool bread factory. You don't wanna
underestimate the importance of bread in Iran. (machine engine roars) - [Female Buyer] This one
got some sesame on it. It is more delicious and
little more expensive. And this one is the plain
one, without sesame. - Wow! (mumbles) wonderful. With the sesame seeds
freshly baked, hot and fresh. Has the perfect density, it's floppy and crunchy at the same time. Yeah, that's just a
daily bread right there. It's like a snowboard, bread snowboards. - For you. - Thank you. (speaks in foreign language) And a whole bag of bread to go. And then directly across
from the bread factory is the kebab shop where we're
going for dinner tonight and we're immediately
just walking directly into the kitchen. (speaks in foreign language) - Welcome. (speaks in foreign language) - Yeah, this is like a corner kebab shop just filled with meat. He's chopping up the fresh meat. The entire fridge is loaded with skewers, with kebabs ready to be grilled. They're grilling in the front. There's a line of people
waiting for their order and they just brought out the main pan that we're looking for. The main meat that we came here to eat. Just the bull hump. - [Male Cook] Onion (mumbles)
and pepper and salt. Okay. (speaks in foreign language) (upbeat music) And now they've brought out the sturgeon that we brought with us. They're gonna make those
into kebabs for us tonight. Expertly slicing it up into
perfect pieces for kebabs. And then he had to take
out that kinda grizzle because sturgeon has a lot
of kinda like cartilagy bits I believe. Sliced up all the sturgeon into cubes. (speaks in foreign language) Processed but onion juice was in that. That was not Sprite they were
adding, that's onion juice. Skewering up the sturgeon
and they also made a sauce with tomato paste, with
some oil with some... I think some onion juice as well. (upbeat music) - Look at that! Oh my God! Looks like I've already
fell in love. (laughs) - They keep the fire back
here just raging hot. Then I feel my face like almost peeling, it's so hot right here. The meat juices are just over flowing. All of those kebabs right off the grill. They do have to sit standing in some (mumbles) space over there. But they have set us up a
table right in the kitchen, actually where he was cutting the meat. They cleaned the table. They're putting their kebabs there. The orange, the sour orange,
the beans, the bread, the onions. - You're ready? - Wow! Yeah. - [Hamid] All right. I'm gonna put it in the beans. - [Mike] That's sour orange? - [Hamid] Yeah. And then mix it together, mix it-- - Chase that with an onion? - Yeah. - Wow! Wow! That was really hot. The beans are really hot. All right, the combination
is incredible though. You got to start your beans
and then you got there like, that hump is so juicy! - [Hamid] Yeah. - It's so juicy, it's so fatty! The juice just flows out of your mouth as soon as you bite it. It just pops with fat. (Hamid laughing) - It's my first time, this combination. I never tried it before, yeah. That's our chicken kebab,
(mumbles) beef kebab, and this is chenjeh which is filet. And this is koobideh, so-- - [Mike] This is our chicken? - [Hamid] Yeah, you got
the onion, don't you? - [Mike] Yeah, I got it. - [Hamid] Yeah, look at that. - [Mike] Put the onion on top? - [Hamid] Yeah, you can do that. Or you can have it separately. - Chicken and beef, sour kebab is made sour with
pomegranate taste, right? - With barbari bread. - You can smell the (mumbles) aroma, okay. Cheers!
- Cheers. (laughs) - Wow! It's so juicy! And you immediately taste that sourness, but like a fruity pomegranate sourness. - It's so good! - That is so good, yeah! That is unbelievably (mumbles) - I ate the onions with it. Sour beef, inside. - [Mike] Thank you. - [Hamid] And I'll give
you some onions as well. - This is sour beef with
a lot of onion in it. And this is the lavash bread. (mumbles) (Mike laughing) - [Hamid] It's a (mumbles) sour taste. But just beef, love it! On the juiciness of the onion (mumbles) - I put some (mumbles) on top. - [Mike] Nice! - Look at that. It's ready to eat. This is for you. (laughs) This big bite. (Hamid and Mike laughing) - [Mike] I got a long biter? - Yeah. For you and for me. - Next up for the kebab
koobideh, the minced meat. There's onions in here,
there's salt and pepper. This might be the most classic of all. And they're wrapped up with onion. We got the onion ready. This is-- Yeah, okay. - Ready? - Let's just do it. Wow! (mumbles) Wow! The texture of that and this is the kebab
that is never gets old. You can eat it every
single day and be happy. - That's the cute point. You can have it every
single day, twice a day. - [Mike] And never get bored of it. - Guaranteed. - Wow! (Hamid laughing) - Happy you liked it. (laughs) - Stunningly good! (speaks in foreign language) Wow! The carbonation! (Mike and Hamid laughing) Okay, that's how it's done. That is how it's done, okay. (speaks in foreign language) Still good. - [Hamid] It's for you
(speaks in foreign language) (Mike laughing) - [Hamid] Yeah. (laughs) Oh my God. (laughs) - [Mike] It's juicy! - Open your mouth. (laughs) That's the onion. (laughs) - Wow! - That's so good. - The final course is
gonna be the sturgeon, which he just threw out,
the entire grill is filled with our sturgeon now and that's probably gonna cook pretty fast 'cause that fire is just blazing! Wow! That's unbelievably good! It's so juicy, it's salty and
it has that sour taste to it. I think from the orange
and the tomato sauce. Wow! It's so unbelievably juicy! Okay, We have a whole platter to devour. (speaks in foreign language) Is it okay to eat it right up the skewer? (mumbles) Wow! It's so unbelievably tender. - It's sour as well. - Yeah. - It's because of the sauce. - The sour orange and the
sauce (mumbles) like tomato. It's so pure! And fresh! This is the sturgeon that
we had the caviar from-- - Yeah
- This morning. - Poor fish! (Mike laughing) So good! - Okay, for this one I
will grab it with bread. Juices! What a sturgeon party, it has been today. Orange is spectacular! (Mike and Hamid laughing) - It's sour! - Yeah, that is sour! But after refreshes the
mouth, that's delicious. (speaks in foreign language) How did you like it? - Oh (mumbles) it was really fantastic! Something very different. A very specific experience
I think for everybody. - Oh man! - It's very cold. - Yes. - Very cold, you know this
is the North of the country actually and very close to the Caspian and the wind from the
North from the Siberia. - Especially at night, it's cold. - Yeah so that's why, it is very cold.
- Siberian winds, right? Siberian winds and
we're just like rolling. We're rolling out of here now. That really was a sturgeon
kebab party inside the kitchen and all of the kebabs were good. But yeah, nothing beat that sturgeon and today has been all
about that sturgeon. It was a day of learning
about the importance of caviar and the value of caviar and
the respect that they have for the Beluga caviar, the Beluga sturgeon and its importance in the Caspian sea. It's been an amazing day and
again, a learning experience. I wanna say huge thank you
to Mr. Taster for arranging and to (speaks in foreign language) the organization that organized
my trip, big thank you. And I wanna say big thank to
you for watching this video. If you haven't watched all the videos in this "Iran Food and Travel" series, I'll have the link in the description box. You can watch the entire series. Thanks again for watching. Good night from Rasht and I
will see you on the next video.
