-I speak five languages. My first language is Wolof which is the national
language of Senegal. I also learned French,
and I also speak Spanish that I learned
from Argentina; Portuguese as I learned really
in Brazil, and I also speak English. So living here. I just pick up the language
wherever I travel. ♪♪ My name is Oumar Diouf. I am the owner of The Damel
in downtown Oakland. We serve West African
and South American fusion food. One of our most popular dishes
is Argentina empanadas and we also have Senegalese
street food, dibi. We also have some
Afro-Brazilian food like moqueca, acarajé. ♪♪ I was born in Senegal and was 13
when my dad passed away, and my mom had a family
of six children. So I had a very rough childhood. Thanks to God I had brilliant
idea of just deciding that I wanted my mum
in the kitchen. That helped -- helped her focus
in her job to kind of provide more, and it also helped me to find
a joy that later become my profession. I think I loved what I was doing
because I loved to help. Can I have that basket,
Lucy, please. This is handmade from Senegal. -Really?
-Mmm-hm. So usually they put lock in it,
I use it to put my ticket. Dibi is a huge thing
in Senegal. Traditionally you have
these people that's also immigrants
coming from Mali, coming from
other countries around and immigrating in Senegal, and those are usually
the ones that do dibi. So as a immigrant here
in the United State, I wanted also
to represent immigrants that doing the same thing that
people in Senegal are doing. So we are here
at our main kitchen, The Damel and so now we gonna make the lamb,
the dibi lamb, right, and that's start off
with marinating the onions. So we use two kind of --
two type of mustard. We use some mustard
with the grain, and regular mustard;
chili flakes. So we marinate this
and we keep it overnight. So what we got here
is boneless lamb. We just gonna slice it. Lamb is something like,
actually in my culture that's very traditional. We even have
a national holidays that call Tabaski that everybody
sacrifice a lamb. So it's not only it's cultural,
but is also religious for us. And now I'm going to marinate
this the same way I marinate the onion,
and we gonna leave it overnight. So we now use pepper, a little
bit of garlic, and mustard. Just gonna squeeze a lemon
in it, gonna give it
a very good flavor. And we gonna keep this
for almost two days. This is the ones
that been marinating. Just look like this. We basically gonna pre-grill it. So this one we grill them
from the restaurant and we bring it
pre-grilled in the truck. We just gonna chop them,
finish cooking in here. Just throw some onion in there, we going to give it a flavor. Dibi is like Senegal soul food, and whenever you go
to Senegal, you're going to see it
everywhere. And even create
this French word, dibiterie, which is where we
sell dibi. Everywhere I would say in
West Africa has its own type of dibis, and here we serve with two side
of your own choice. Coconut rice in this case,
and deep-fried plantain. So the name Damel is
a Wolof word that actually means
a strong man, and the Damel used to be the one that actually is
chef of the community, helping the community,
you know, when you want to get
birth certificate, you know, when you
don't have enough food, the damel used to be
like the one that's like, economically bigger. I think like, I wanted to be
the Damel for the culinary world to claim what Africa
has spread out around the world, and nobody is therefore
claiming it. -Thank you for the,
the knowledge here on the sign. -Oh, yeah. Yeah I got people asking me
all the time, "What's Damel mean?"
So I decided to... History and foods
always goes together. -That's wonderful,
I appreciate that. -Enjoy, thanks.
-Thank you, brother. -Soccer is a huge thing in
Senegal, where I grew up, and I was one of the best player
in my team, and I score a lot of goals. And that's how somebody actually
decided to invest on us, me and a couple of friend, to send us outside so the world
can see us. And that's how I get a chance to
travel to Argentina, to play soccer. This was a big deal --
at that time it was my dream. One of the reason that I decided
to play soccer also, it was because I wanted to find
a way to make money very fast so I can take care of my family
and having my mom retire. Unfortunately it didn't
happen that way. I got injured, which is normal, and I had to stay out
of the game for about a year. So when I got injured
I didn't -- I wanted to do something and I opened
my first restaurant. So I was like, oh, you know
what, forget about the soccer, I am making money, I am able
to send every month money to my mom and my family, so I don't want to lose this and you know how you just doing
something you love, you feel like you's never
working every day of your life. Today is Saturday and it's
6:45 right now, and now we are heading
to the prep station and we're going to grab
the food truck, we're going to East Oakland. This is my brother. Oh, he's showing me food! He's in Morocco. He has a very good connection
with me and it's like, just like something is going on,
he always like that. ♪♪ ♪♪ In Argentina, what I learned is what today's main product,
was my empanadas. You see empanadas
in every corner in Argentina. In fact, every Argentinean that have a food business here
do empanadas. The base is ground beef, onions,
chili pepper, garlic goes in it, so -- salt, and a little bit of vinegar. So usually we marinate this
and keep it overnight. A little bit of oil. So gonna just put
the ground beef in it, salt. So we gonna leave this cooking
for a while. At this stage we just gonna add
the onion that's been pretty marinated. There is this concept
in Argentina that actually you put like
the same amount of meat, you put the same amount
of onion. 'Cause people just love onion. And then we're gonna leaving
this cooking away for a while. Now we gonna make Empanadas. There you go. ♪♪ There you go,
and you see the number? And then we gonna bake it. We pre-bake them
and bring them hot, and then we hot-hold
them in this. So they all memorize
the numbers. We have the Damel logo
and then the number. The number seven
is a vegetarian. This is easier way
to sell empanada in the truck. -I had the number ten
and the number seven -- the champignon
and the spinaca. Mm! I'm gonna have to bring
my grandma here. Like, for real,
these are so good. -Are you guys waiting for food? What's your name? -Joe.
-Joe? Oh, Joe, it's coming.
-Gabriella. -Gabriella, alright. While I was living in Argentina, I was going to Brazil back
and forth for vacation, 'cause Argentina was very rare
at that time to see black people. When I came to Brazil,
which is just next door, you see a bunch of black people. You know, you see the culture, you see everything
is like Africa. And then I'm like,
I'm gonna see what's, like, culinary look like
in Brazil. So I went to Rio de Janeiro, which is actually like
New York, bigger city, and that's how I met
Claudio Vasconcelos. Yeah, I was working in the
kitchen for Claudio Vasconcelos, and we was responsible of
cooking for the World Cup 2014, and most importantly
we was also responsible cooking for five houses
in the Olympics -- during the Olympics 2016. Those five houses
include the NBA, include Australian house, the Brazilian house, and also include Casa Cartan
and New Balance. And I was leading that kitchen. That was one of the most
proud job I did. Leading that kitchen
mean everything to me because as a former soccer
player and I didn't make it, and all of a sudden
cooking for these athletes that competing worldwide, right,
and I felt like I was a -- I was in competition too,
you know, because like I say, I never did Australian food
in my life, but I had to learn how to
please the Australian people. Americans, the same thing. I think, like, in the short
amount of time, I tested myself of putting
myself in the high level and helping me kind of,
like, put it together and win that competition
by just serving them. In Brazil I learned a lot. Just walking one day
on the street and I see people
selling acarajé, which is also the same things
I ate in my country before. And I was like,
why this is so similar? Acarajé is one of the motive that I start the business,
basically. So what this basically do is, like, we mash
the black-eyed peas, and then when you do -- when you do this action
that I'm doing, this make -- give it a reaction
of making it like fluffy inside. And also the Brazilians,
they make the actual acarajé a sandwich. So they open it and they put
dry shrimp, they put pico de gallo, so I wanted to make sure
I have that in my restaurant. So for the close
cross-culturing, so I just take the techniques
that I like better that how the Brazilian do it, and just making it
as a sandwich. I also put
Senegal's ingredients, you know, just like ginger,
oil, garlic and pepper, and, you know, it's just like,
we cannot go wrong. That's the acarajé. Hi. -Hey, how you doing? -Yeah, what's going on? -I'm truly well, wonderful job. -Alright, thank you. -No, your food is delicious,
thank you very much. -Thank you. I decided to come to America for one simple reason. Like I said, I always like to be
in a competition. The best country in the world
for culinary I think is America. The big question was how do
I get money to start it. So I signed up for Uber
and Lyft, not to make money,
but to find people to talk about my business. So I made five hundred business
card in my car. Everybody that get in,
hey, what you going to do today? Like, just trying, like,
the English, you know? And I make sure I hand out
the business card. And talking about my food. Until one day, I got
this ride, I never forgot -- so this lady I've been talking, because it's a long ride,
you know? This is like maybe 40 minute,
early morning. I gave her my business card, and in the next two hours
she called me. She's like, "Can you deliver
for tomorrow like 200 empanadas?" I'm like, wow -- I barely have
a website, right? So I'm like,
"Oh, yeah, I can!" So I went to my house,
I start hand make them, like hand wrapping them
one by one. I think I finish around
4:00 a.m., you know. I took a shower and I start
baking them at 5:00, 'cause I have to deliver it
for breakfast. But I did it, I just,
like, aluminum foils, a bunch of empanada,
napkins, sauce, it's easy -- and that's how I get it started. So, 'cause from that point -- I started this on May 15, 2019. Yes, I think I am winning
in the Bay Area right now, because I'm a minority
business owner, I'm an immigrant,
I'm somebody that actually come to this country
with nothing and being able to build
something that's, I guess, designed in my kitchen table,
and today is, reaches, like, millions of
people talking about it and trying it already
and liking it. I think that's a win, and I'm
learning in the United State that no matter
where you come from, you know, you can make things
happen in this country. Today I bought a car for my mom and renovated her house,
you know. I took her, you know, I help her
go to the Mecca, 'cause she's Muslim;
to Morocco, to do all these things
that's she's really about. She's retired now, she just
collect her check every month. Which is cool, and that's --
that's what I wanted to do. So I didn't want to go back
until I achieved that. ♪♪ ♪♪
