♪♪ ♪ Maíz ♪ ♪ Dulce maíz ♪ ♪ Abundado ♪ ♪ Listo pa' la tierra cultivar ♪ ♪ Dulce raíz ♪ -I would always love helping out, like, my grandmother, my great-grandmother in the kitchen.

I loved it.

And it got to the point where, like, I started, like, just kind of wanting to take over.

They loved the help because they were always cooking.

and I loved doing it.

What really made me fall in love with cooking is just knowing that you can take just a few simple ingredients and make them delicious.

I try to create new traditions with people that I love now.

That's beautiful for the sake of love and also business.

I mean, it's just a perfect combination, and it's something that, like, just keeps me going.

♪♪ -Brother... -That was amazing.

-Okay.

So, the discada, it's a tractor plow disk.

They weld an edge on it so it's like a pan.

It's from the northern part of Mexico.

It's different cuts of meat.

Our recipe's beef and pork.

But if you go throughout the country, you'll see other people use, like, other stuff.

They'll do, like, bigger chunks or they'll do chicken or they'll put, like, wienies and stuff like that.

-They'll do different vegetables, too.

-They put, like, beer, tomato.

You cook by layers.

So you put the first one, and then you put it aside, and then you put the next one.

So you keep on adding flavor to the fat and the juice that comes out of every meal.

And that's how you cook the next one.

And it confits on it.

So over a process of hours, you're confiting the meats and the vegetables so they all get together.

[ Indistinct conversations ] When my dad started making it, the recipe, it was like, "How can I, like, tweak a little thing, like, little things about it, to actually make it, like, more unique to me?"

-Hace como 25 años me invitaron a comer en la casa de mi hermana, mi cuñado, y él tenía ya el disco.

Y en ese momento, la probe y me gustó.

Pero aprendí cómo se hacía.

♪♪ Y mi cuñado me regaló un disco, y me lo llevé a México.

Y un día invité a todos mis cuñados.

Y entonces les dije: "Bueno, vamos a comer, pero ayúdenme a cortar".

Pero sí era mucho trabajo.

Fue cuando se me ocurrió pedirle a mi carnicero allá en México: "Oye, ¿me puedes hacer el favor de cortarla?".

"Sí, cómo no".

Y me los entregó cada carne separada, cortadita.

Porque en México los taquitos son de carne cortadita, muy chiquito.

-It's a dish from the northern part of Mexico, but the flavor profile and the technique is something that's really common in Mexico City, in Central Mexico, so it's, like, the best of both worlds.

[ Gas igniter clicking ] -I've actually tried to -- been, like, trying to figure out the best tea method.

What I've been using with this one has usually been heating this up first, and then I let it boil, and I keep the tea off, and then I add the boiling water to it.

Because otherwise it gets really bitter.

-It's supposed to get bitter.

It's Elysian tea, so they're a bitter tea.

-I guess there's, like, two versions of my dad.

He was, like, very strict about speaking Farsi in the house, so I didn't learn English until I started kindergarten, and very strict about school.

Mardanbigis only make A's.

You're only taking AP classes.

You're doing the extracurriculars.

He's essentially, like, training you into being the most, like, holistic person that you can be.

-She was always interested in being self-employed, always.

She always asked me questions about, like, that.

"How about this business?

How about that business?"

It just -- she was asking advice all the time.

-It needs to -- Obviously, you're looking at the plate, and you're seeing the composition of it, but it's kind of like a art piece.

Now he's much more, like, chill.

He's more, like, "go with the flow."

He's a good cook.

He makes, like, kebabs really well, but my mom's a better cook.

She makes the best rice in the world, like, by far.

My mom is this pint-size firecracker.

She's loud, she's feisty, she loves the color red.

She always wears lipstick.

She's so lovable.

I would always bring my friends over to our house because growing up in Arkansas, there's not a lot of exposure to Iranian culture there.

So we would all just, like, feast together.

And your plate is never empty.

Like, as soon as it's about to be empty, like, you get another heaping plate.

All she's ever wanted is for her kids to find happiness.

And she'll, like, press you, for sure, because every decision you make has huge implications to it.

I really don't think this is steeped enough, but we'll see.

I don't remember exactly when -- I want to say maybe middle school or junior high is when they got divorced.

All I know is that it was finalized on September 11, 2001.

So that day was a double whammy.

♪♪ -So, Joanna is the mother of my child Amelia.

We just started hanging out as friends, and from there, we started dating.

We got very serious really, really quick.

She was visiting from Mexico, so she was going to have to return, you know, because her visa expiring and stuff like that.

But a couple months after she decided to stay, that's when we found out we were pregnant.

And from there, we were like, "We should just get married so we can be together as a family."

-Can we play at the park for a teeny bit?

-Yeah, let's play.

We'll play on the playground for like 10 minutes, okay?

May 16th of 2017 is when Amelia was born.

Oh, that one.

You haven't done that one yet.

So from there is when I decided to start going back into working construction with my dad again a couple of days out of the week.

At the same time, Uber'ing on the weekend nights while working at the restaurant in the mornings.

-Ya vas a llegar.

-Yeah, your feet is a little too big for here.

Come on.

That's where we definitely started, you know...

Which one?

...to have, you know, tension.

-Con la otra mano.

And, you know, unfortunately, we ended up getting divorced.

-Oh!

-Papi te tiene.

-I'm holding you.

Try one more time.

-I'm not going on.

-Thankfully, we -- we have that respect for each other, and we know what our intentions are.

Amelia, now, we're like two peas in a pod.

Keep your legs strong.

One more spin, and then we'll go.

-Ready?

Whoa.

-Seeing her now, like, I'm starting to see the very giving in her, as well.

Silly kid.

She's always, you know, stuck by me.

And then whenever I bring her out of the car, whenever we walk -- we're walking out of somewhere, she'll have her arm sticking up, ready for me to grab it.

Yeah, she's really... Yeah.

Um... Yeah, she makes it all worthwhile.

-We were gonna do ramekins originally, but we just don't have enough, really, once the swing service gets going.

-What's up, Paolo?

-I would, potentially.

-Thank you.

-If we're gonna do that and that, we'll run out of ramekins in like 45 minutes once the rush starts.

-You could top it.

We could just drape it over.

-Golden beet and a tuna walking in.

-All the ramies.

-Thank you.

♪♪ -In about 2014, '15, two chefs that I had worked with had left L.A. to go open this restaurant called Olamaie.

And I remember being like, "Why are you guys going to Austin?

Like, Austin, of all places?"

A year later, they both win Food & Wine Best New Chefs.

And I was like, "Damn.

Okay.

Well, I guess maybe something's happening in Austin.

It's not this little sleepy town that I maybe thought it was."

I remember visiting with my dad, and I just remember being so fascinated by how much people love tacos in this town.

It reminded me a little bit of L.A., but, like, different.

It's got some funk to it.

It's got some grittiness to it.

After living in L.A. for, you know, so many years, I decided Austin was the place for me, and little did I know it would change, like, the rest of my life.

-Hot ticket.

-Another side of beans.

-One cross-eyed, two tunas.

-All right.

-Two duckies and a tunie going to 41.

They are going to get another tuna.

-I have one more coming for them.

-What are you bringing up next, Chef?

-I had just showed up to Austin.

I had the intentions of opening a restaurant, but I didn't have a passive income at the time, so I decided to get a job doing some catering because catering, I thought, had some flexibility as opposed to, like, a restaurant job, which is always at nighttime.

Thank God I did.

It was one of the best decisions of my life to go work at catering, because during that journey, I met this little lady right here.

-[ Chuckles ] -It happened to be my first week there on the job, and it was her last week there.

-Two beets, two forks, and a receipt to 21.

I joined the team a couple years before you got there, primarily on the corporate event management and logistics side.

There'd be some interactions between chatting with clients and working with the catering chef who's there.

Walking through the space, there'd be, like, laser eyes, like -- zzt!

-- little vibration between the two of us.

But at that point, I was like, "You know, I'm on my way out.

Can this be anything?

Probably not."

And, uh... -Wow, damn.

-Well, I don't know.

I -- -"Probably not," wow.

-Well, like, we -- Anyway, we had, like, minimal interactions while we were there in that week.

Two hot tickets in the window.

♪♪ You gotta tell -- you gotta tell the -- the "Sesame Street" Mexico story.

-Bro, it's way better.

It's just way better.

And he's way more colorful.

He's got a winning personality.

-What's his name?

-Abelardo.

[ Both laugh ] What?

Okay.

So whenever -- I first met him and, like -- Because some other guy actually invited me to his house.

And they were hanging out, and he was there.

And, uh, just the moment we -- I have a very specific sense of humor.

And -- And he -- like, whenever I walked in there, I remember I started like -- I think I cracked a joke or something, and he -- he was, like, the only one that laughed.

And I was like, "Okay.

Well, there you go.

I'm gonna lean towards you first."

And -- And then he just -- we just kind of clicked that night.

♪♪ So, I finally, like, invited him to my house.

I'm very friendly, so I, like, befriend anybody.

But it's like, I have a close group of friends, and he was in it.

So, like, those were, like, the people that I will always have at my house for like these special occasions, you know?

-For a bit there, I think I was better friends with your brother.

-Okay, well, that -- ouch.

-I'm saying, like, we would -- I would hang out with his brother all the time, and I would be at your house when you weren't there because you would go to Mexico all the time.

He was always gone for, like, spring breaks and stuff, and his brother would stay.

And I got really close with his brother.

So I have a ton of memories of, like, partying at your house without you being over.

-Todos los amigos se venían acá.

Entonces, luego, de repente, así como que darles de comer no era fácil.

-Era todos los fines de semana.

-Empezaron a venir cada fin de semana y pues no era fácil.

Y empecé a hacerles una vez, dos veces, tres veces tal vez, les hice la discada.

-So, my dad had a rule.

Every time we wanted to make discada, we were allowed to do it at the house.

He's like, "I'm not gonna prep everything and, like, cook it for you all and, like, you just come and eat, like, and party.

Like, that's not gonna happen."

So his rule was like, "We will all have to show up like four hours early and, like, start prepping everything.

So, like, we'll have to cut it, we'll have to cut the vegetables.

-With, like, dull knives.

-Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's like, dude, it's so much -- so much meat.

-"Oh, my God."

-But -- so, yeah.

So it was like -- it was like a whole process to it, right?

-De ahí empezaron a hacerla ellos.

Xose básicamente se puso, dijo: "A ver, déjeme papá, yo la hago".

Y la empezó a hacer.

Y la empezó a desarrollar, a desarrollar, y le agarró el gusto y el modo.

-Those are, like, probably the best memories I have from high school because he just kind of became, like, a -- I think that, like -- It was, like, something very important for all of us.

I don't know why it just became that.

It just -- we started -- It started just like, "Oh, come over, and we'll eat," for, like, my birthday or something.

But eventually it was like every time we had, like, something special, that's what it would become.

So we would go over to my house and cook it, and, like, we'll all be there.

We'll be together.

We'll be talking.

Come here, baby.

I'll kiss the baby.

-[ Laughs ] -The Godfather's kiss.

[ Laughs ] -You come in the day of my discada.

[ Laughter ] -Amelia, she's 5 right now.

She's a blessing, for sure.

I told myself, you know, she's -- she's coming.

I need to do something.

I can't be working for somebody else for the rest of my life.

You can put on... if you want.

That's where wanting to make Cuantos a reality really started.

I had been talking for the longest about, like, you know...

I decided on the concept I was gonna do, Cuantos, and the type of style I was going to do, but I'm like, "Man, I really -- I wish I can afford to go down to Mexico City."

So, me and Joanna took a trip to Mexico City in later 2018.

All up until then, I was just watching nonstop YouTube videos about different bloggers or different people with taquerias in Mexico City and would, you know, break them down and explain them.

The locations that we went to, those were all places that were in the same YouTube videos, so I had to make sure to go to those places.

As soon as we landed from the airplane, we went straight to Spoke Wheels.

I have three fundamental pillars that I go to for whatever it is that I'm doing, the first one being Mexican, second being the French, and then the last one that was added was the Japanese technique.

Going back to the roots of my cooking, that's where I started seeing that they all, in a way, very much tie together, especially with tacos.

♪♪ [ Speaking indistinctly ] [ Television playing ] [ Sighs ] Cómete la sandía también.

What color you gonna draw it?

-Uh, black.

-What we're doing at Cuantos, it's not something that we made up.

-Now, you gonna draw you or me?

-Mmm, me.

-You?

-Mm-hmm.

-It's just using what I know from my culture and just tying the techniques to what I am able to put out.

That was even more incentive for me to really try to bring all these three things together, to really present them back home as close and respectfully as possible.

♪♪ ¿La apago?

♪♪ -Coming through.

♪♪ -We had said hello to each other, but we didn't really, like, interact until her last day, and we all went out to somewhere on East 6th.

-I think it was Shangri-La.

-We were just in the back, just, like, talking with each other.

Like, I liked her energy, I liked her vibe.

She was very, like -- She was a very strong woman.

You could tell.

-We are hanging out, and we have a good time.

And then I go to New York, and Concha, a mutual friend of ours, is like, "Edgar's hollering."

-We were having our company holiday party, and I was like, "Man, I think she'd be a great date for this."

-What's up?

I was kind of thinking about it, and it's like, "Yeah, he seems cool."

♪♪ -I hit her up in the DMs.

Well, actually, no.

You slid into my DMs.

She slid into my DMs.

-[ Laughs ] -Just for the fact and record.

-For the record.

Let the record say I slid into your DMs.

-[ Laughs ] She ended up coming back, and that's -- that's where it began.

That was the root -- the root of it.

-Thank you.

♪♪ -It was so much fun.

I just remember everybody had something to do at all times and everybody was together.

Everyone's standing around, like, waiting for this dish to be done, like, mesmerized, almost like a campfire.

-[ Chuckles ] There you go.

This is the last one.

-Like, I'm -- when I tell you I was obsessed with it, I'm talking about obsessed with it.

Like, I fell in love with the whole process.

The dish, it was like more about how it brought everyone together.

It became, like, an important part of my life, and it's not my family's recipe.

It's not my culture.

But he, like, made it a part of my -- my identity, and my adolescence was super-centered around discada.

Like, for real, my best memories are doing discadas in his backyard.

That was my favorite time ever.

-Cuando estaban en high school, Anthony me decía: "¿Por qué no pones un negocio?".

Yo decía: "Este chamaco."

Sí, luego.

Pero me decía: "Señora, ponga el negocio de la discada".

Y yo: "Sí, un día de estos".

Pues él tenía -- En high school.

♪♪ -[ Whistles ] -Tengo un chingo de hambre.

-Vamos.

All right.

Rico, go ahead.

♪♪ -Ooh!

-Pero era impresionante la cantidad que comían.

Te estoy hablando de 25, 30 tacos por persona.

No era cualquier cosa.

-It's something super personal for me.

It's something I've done, something that has already been in my life the whole time.

-I ate six.

[ Laughs ] -I felt out of place, and then to see everybody that I got close to, that it meant that much to them, as well, that that's when I was like, "Okay.

Like, I'm good.

I feel okay.

I feel like home.

♪♪ -Um, are you gonna pre-plate, or do you want to just set out plates?

-I want to plate just two mains, like two things, and then we'll just serve ourselves.

We finally got to go out on a date.

-It was one of those dates where it kind of lasts for a long time.

Is this a Porron night?

Just kidding.

Chardonnay from Sonoma.

-Mmm.

-It's very... [ Glasses clink ] -Chardonnay-y?

-Yeah, but also kind of, like, smoky.

-Couple nights later, it was New Year's Eve, and -- [ Laughs ] -She tells me, "Hey, I'm having the biggest party ever.

Like, I just want to let you know, all the parties I always have, there's always like hundreds of people that pull up.

-It's true.

-The celery, it's dates with Meyer lemon honey vinaigrette.

I had to work catering.

I had to do a catering event.

So I didn't end up getting out till, like, post-midnight.

Pull up and no one is there except for her and one other friend.

And I was like, "Okay."

-[ Laughs ] Okay.

So, I still wanted to see him.

And there were people there at the time, and my friend Concha was about to leave, too.

I was like, "Please, please stay and be my wingwoman.

Let's not make this look so depressing."

And, finally, we get to this place where, like, my friend falls asleep, and Edgar does stay over, but it's, like, very peachy.

It's cuddling.

I know it sounds weird, but anytime we're next to each other, it feels like it kind of melts into each other.

And I felt that that first night.

And so we woke up.

It was New Year's Day, unseasonably warm, like 75 degrees, and he helped me clean the entire house.

He made me a French omelet.

And I was like, "Damn, this is delicious."

So what are we having?

Eggs and celery?

-Celery salad, little baguette.

-That was kind of it.

Moved in together after... -Few months.

-Couple months.

Said "I love you" after like... -Three weeks.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

It was a very quick thing, you know.

-I have faith in this.

-Oh!

-Nice.

-I didn't get the fold right, but that's okay.

-Okay.

I think it's good, right?

Oh, wait, you're putting the bread on here?

-Bread's already on there.

-The first time I ate your omelet, like, I didn't know what was in it.

And then, the second time I watched you, I was like, "Oh, all right.

That's why."

-Butter.

-My mom would never really use butter in cooking except for the last part of the rice.

Like, she would put a little bit on top.

-Your mom put a half a stick of butter in the last time.

If it wouldn't have been for Sara, this restaurant wouldn't have happened.

[ Glasses clink ] Salucita.

-Salucita.

-To a good meal, good things in life -- [ Tongue clicks ] -- coming our way.

One day at a time.

♪♪ [ Both grunt ] -You open this?

-Yeah.

-Every time.

-[ Chuckles ] I don't know.

To me, it was really cool because I got to see my family, got to see all of you all.

It was...

I enjoyed it.

-It was cool.

-Yeah.

Plus, cooking -- that was just... -I haven't seen that in a while.

-It's amazing.

I love that.

-Think the last time we cooked, in the longhorn one, was, like, definitely before you opened.

Talking about Edgar, I saw his vision before they opened, and I really wanted to support any way I could.

You know, his vision definitely took off.

Nixta's doing so many great things.

It's opened up a lot of doors for him as a chef.

Beto, same thing.

We watched him grow from, you know, that one little tiny bus.

Now he has two big trucks, new opportunities thrown his way constantly, has a lot of big things in the works.

For us, you know, we've been around probably the longest, but we really want to grow with them.

We're still kind of, like, learning how to do it.

And, also, there's, like, one thing holding us back pretty major.

-Having family and friends over here, it's my favorite thing, All these faces, man, it's like... -It's cool.

-I love that.

-I love you.

-Over here?

Love you, too, buddy.

-Salucita.

-Definitely.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪