ANNOUNCER: And now, Signature Dish, A WETA original series.

SETH: Today on Signature Dish, we're mashing up flavors.

We'll fuse tastes from across the Atlantic.

I know that Mediterranean countries love their fish stews, but you're going to put your own Latin spin on it?

RENE: Correct.

SETH: Bring some Indian flair to a south of the border favorite.

It's almost hard to tell, is it more Mexican, is it more Indian?

RENU: That is the idea, to have a good balance of the two.

SETH: And test drive a sandwich that packs intense flavors with off the charts heat.

So if level two is jalapeños, what's level six?

MICHAEL: So trust me, you don't want to mess around with that.

SETH: I'm Seth Tillman, WETA Producer and DC native, and I love good food.

That's why I'm traveling to restaurants across the DMV.

At each stop, looking for the one thing you just got to try, that Signature Dish.

♪ ♪ I'm first off to DC's West End neighborhood.

My destination, Imperfecto, a restaurant where Latin America meets the Mediterranean.

It was opened by chef Enrique Limardo, who first broke into DC's dining scene in 2019 when he opened the Latin American hotspot, Seven Reasons.

He's since gone on to become one of DC's most prolific and successful restaurateurs.

ENRIQUE: I'm originally from Venezuela.

And my passion of cooking, I start I think in a very early age, because growing up in Venezuela, we are crazy about eating.

SETH: Fellow Venezuelan Rene Gonzalez runs the day-to-day operations in Imperfecto's kitchen.

RENE: Latin American cuisine is a bunch of flavors at the same time.

So growing up in Venezuela, you get sweet, you get savory, you get sour, you get spicy.

ENRIQUE: Imperfecto is a Latin American I love Mediterranean cuisine because it's very honest.

It's not just about technique, sometimes it's the simplicity of a great product.

RENE: So it's simplistic in a good way.

We inject all the Latin American flavors, ingredients, and techniques as well because we use masa for tostadas, we do nixtamalization, we burn things on purpose.

ENRIQUE: I like to respect traditions.

For me, that's very important, but I like to have fun with food.

And why not to connect something from Morocco to Ecuador?

It's challenging.

And then you create something new to connect your tongue with your brain.

SETH: Chef, nice to meet you.

RENE: How are you?

Nice to meet you.

SETH: Wow.

So I see you got the fancy knives out here today and a whole fish.

What are you making today?

RENE: We filleting the branzino for our Latin Kabkabou dish, our signature dish.

SETH: Oh, signature dish.

I love that.

And Kabkabou, what is that?

RENE: It's a plate from Northern Tunisia.

So it's a stew made from fish and then some shellfish as well.

SETH: Well, I know that Mediterranean countries love their fish stews.

You got the bouillabaisse, the cioppino.

So this is kind of the North African version of it?

RENE: Correct.

SETH: But you're going to put your own Latin spin on it?

RENE: Correct.

SETH: And what you going to do with this whole fish here?

RENE: We're going to break it down.

SETH: And you prefer working with the whole fish?

RENE: Yes, we do all our butchering here.

SETH: You're the chef and the fishmonger.

RENE: Yes.

I love fish.

SETH: Okay.

RENE: So we start filleting here, from the very top.

And then we always need to make sure we're being gentle with the fish, so that's why I only grab it from the tail.

SETH: You work quickly, chef.

RENE: I've done this a couple of times.

♪ ♪ SETH: And so are these fillets now ready to cook up?

RENE: No, never.

This is going to be ready in two days.

SETH: Two days.

All right, so why do you choose to age your fish here?

RENE: Because the same principles of the meat, you take a little bit of moisture from the meat and the skin get crispier.

SETH: You get a little bit of a richer flavor in there as well?

RENE: Yes.

Now we're going to put it into the brine.

So we got salt water and we're going to place the fish inside.

So this now is going to sit here for 20 minutes.

Okay, it has been 20 minutes.

Now we're going to wrap it up in kombu.

It's going to be one day in kombu, and one more day dry aging in towels.

SETH: And what does the seaweed do to help age it?

RENE: So it adds umami flavor and also helps to kill bacteria.

SETH: Got it.

RENE: So now we just put it with the meat down so that way we will maintain the shape better, just like a baby.

SETH: But I'm guessing you already have some branzino that's been aged and is ready to go.

RENE: Yes.

Why don't you follow me to cook that up?

SETH: Let's do it.

RENE: Okay, Seth, this is where we are going to cook the fish.

This is our branzino that has been aged already.

So the skin is very dry, all the fat is there.

SETH: And wow, these prawns look incredible down here.

RENE: Yes, these are our Ecuadorian prawns.

We like to cook them whole.

So we put a skewer on it and we leave the tail on and the head on.

Then we got our bottarga.

We do this bottarga here at home.

SETH: And what is bottarga?

RENE: It's cured fish roe.

So this one is from haddock.

What Italians do, they hang it in the sun.

Of course because of the health department to do it in the walk-in.

SETH: That is a earthy, well aged flavor right there.

RENE: Yes.

So the bottarga is our key ingredient for the tomato sauce, the same preparation of the Kabkabou.

And we add chili peppers from Latin America, guajillo in this case, and we just let it slowly stew, and then we just press the bottarga to extract all the flavor.

SETH: So you get all the flavor and then filter the rest of it out, nice.

RENE: Correct.

SETH: So how do you go about finishing this dish?

RENE: We're going to pan sear the branzino, skin side.

Once it's crispy, then we just flip it for 10 seconds and it's done.

And then we're going to cook the prawns in the oven.

We're going to cut some mojito, that is made from cilantro, shallots, and lemon zest.

We're going to add a sweet plantain terrine, and then sprinkle cilantro flowers on top.

To assemble this fish, we're going to use the branzino, the prawn, the bottarga sauce, and then the dish will be ready.

SETH: All right guys, well I'm excited.

All the deliciousness is hiding inside here.

RENE: Yes, so this is the Latin Kabkabou.

SETH: Wow.

So many pretty colors.

I don't see a lot of edible flowers on this show.

I think I'm going to begin with the branzino.

RENE: I hope you're picking up all the brininess of the aging process, all the minerality of the kombu.

SETH: All right, that is pretty darn near perfect, how nicely firm the meat is, but with that crispy skin.

And the garnish gives it such a nice level of brightness and zest.

ENRIQUE: Yeah, we call that mojito, and it's a combination of shallots, lemon zest, lime zest, lemon juice, like cilantro stems.

And obviously the inspiration of that is to get that texture and all that brightness and speed up the acidity of the fish.

SETH: And the plantains.

What am I looking at here with these little squares?

ENRIQUE: So we use sweet plantains that we cook with raw sugar cane and we made a terrine, and then we cut it in those squares.

SETH: The sweetness of that.

And the Ecuadorian prawn, I got to try that as well.

RENE: I suggest just to start mixing all the flavors together.

I love the clams dipping in the sauce, the mojito on top.

ENRIQUE: Every time you take a bite, it's different.

Something sweet, something briny.

You know, the different textures.

So you are traveling inside the plate.

SETH: I know some chefs, they hear the word fusion and they go running, but you embrace the term, right?

ENRIQUE: We try to do that fusion because of the experiences having learned in Europe, but then in our DNA is all that you know, tropical and South American, Caribbean flavor.

So that's, it's very important for me how we connect all of those cultures and make it richer and more fun.

SETH: Well, I am going to be thinking about this dish for a long time.

I love the fearlessness that you guys are using to put these different flavors together, and I hope you keep doing it.

ENRIQUE: Oh, we will.

RENE: We will.

SETH: Thanks guys.

♪ ♪ SETH: Out in the Virginia suburbs, I'm heading to Oakton, a Fairfax area community to visit Mama Tigre.

For chef and owner Renu Prakash, the restaurant is the culmination of a long culinary journey.

RENU: I'm from Mumbai, India, but I have lived here for 50 years.

Where I come from, it's almost not like learning to cook, it just becomes part of who you are.

My mother tells me I learned to make my first tortilla or the chapati when I was six years old.

We started as Casa Rico 36 years ago in Frederick, Maryland, and it was 90% Mexican.

However, as I was going along cooking there and gaining the success, I was introducing Indian spices and people were loving it.

I just saw that everything about their cuisine was so similar to what we did in India.

Be it the spices, be it the complexity of the sauces they made, or the whole culture of eating together and feeding friends, family, neighbors.

And I figured, it doesn't matter whether I'm cooking Mexican or Indian, I'm just going to be blending the two.

Mama Tigre opened right in the middle of the pandemic.

Everyone around us thought we were the craziest people to be doing that because the world was coming to an end.

However, we got so much love from the neighborhood and we thrived.

And I feel blessed that every decision I make for Mama Tigre, at its core, has that sense of responsibility to be fresh, to be delicious, and have so much love in my food.

So that the blending is not only of the spices, but the blending is of minds, the cultures.

That is what Mama Tigre is all about.

♪ ♪ SETH: Chef.

RENU: Hi there, how are you?

SETH: I'm doing well, and thank you for welcoming me into this beautiful restaurant.

RENU: Sure.

SETH: Speaking of beautiful, there are so many wonderful colors on this table here.

What are you making today?

RENU: We are doing our signature dish, the Tikka Masala Burrito.

SETH: Well, I love tikka masala, one of the most popular dishes in the world, correct?

RENU: It is, it is.

What we've done here is, I've tried to combine a lot of the Indian spices with some of the Mexican spices to get a little bit of a different taste, yet keeping the authentic tikka masala taste.

SETH: And I know Mexican cuisine, Indian cuisine, both use a lot of spices.

RENU: A lot of spices.

Indeed, you can see it right here.

SETH: Yeah.

RENU: So the first thing we do, of course, is we make the marinade.

So we'll begin with yogurt, sour cream.

We're going to use the chipotle peppers, which is the Mexican infusion into the tikka masala.

This is going to give it a little bit of the smoky flavor.

And then is achiote paste, and this is another very important Mexican ingredient.

It's going to add color, a little bit of that redness.

We use the ginger, garlic, and green chili paste that is used in almost every Indian dish.

So a little bit of the black pepper, garlic, salt, some of the garam masala.

Of course, the garam masala is composed of all of these delicious, beautiful flavors.

Cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper, a very little bit of oregano.

We are going to do a little squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

And then this is the secret ingredient.

This is pineapple.

It's going to leave a... SETH: It's going to give it a nice bright flavor now.

RENU: Just a little bit.

Just a little bit of brown sugar.

And then of course, we are going to make a nice blend.

And so once you have a marinade, that's when you will take your chicken.

So you want to make sure that each piece is coated well.

So this is going to marinate for about 24 hours.

I have some already marinated.

It's got a lovely color.

And I'm going to grill some, so let's go to the grill.

SETH: Let's do it.

RENU: And this is Serpil, my very efficient and talented line cook.

SETH: Hi, Serpil.

RENU: She does... SERPIL: Yeah, hi.

RENU: And she's going to help us do this burrito.

SETH: Great.

So we're actually making a burrito now.

RENU: We are actually making the signature dish.

So the first thing we're going to do is, we're going to grill this chicken.

The grill is nice and hot.

SETH: I can tell.

And the grilling will give other layers of smokey flavor.

RENU: It will, yes.

Absolutely.

And as the chicken marinated, it got a really nice red color.

So I'm going to flip the chicken now.

And Serpil here is going to start roasting the onion, green peppers, and the red pepper with cilantro.

SETH: Whoa.

Wow.

I was not expecting such a spectacular show.

RENU: Yes.

This is what gives it the nice charred look and the flavor.

SETH: Yeah.

RENU: While that is happening, I'm going to be getting my chicken and I'm going to start to slice it.

I'm going to grill the tortilla, and then we are going to roll the burrito with all the sauces, the tikka masala, and a special cheese sauce that we make right here.

And then another masala, the house spice, which is our secret ingredient.

And then you'll enjoy the best burrito ever.

SETH: Chef, this is definitely a knife and fork burrito.

I'm not picking this up and taking it to go.

RENU: It sure is.

SETH: And what are we drinking here?

RENU: We are drinking the classic jalapeño margarita that is designed by my husband because he does the bar as I do the back of the house.

He's an artist and does fantastic margaritas.

So this is that... SETH: So his specialty is the spicy margarita.

RENU: The spicy margarita.

SETH: Cheers to that.

RENU: Cheers.

It's good.

SETH: That is excellent.

All right, I am ready to get started here.

RENU: Please.

I hope you're getting the flavors, the layers, the many, many spices we use to marinate this.

SETH: That is just awesome.

RENU: Oh, wonderful.

SETH: There are so many great flavors, including whatever's on top here.

RENU: This is a blend that we do here.

It's a mixture of a couple of spices, but most important is the roasted chili diablo.

SETH: Got it.

Yeah.

RENU: It's almost like the chili diablo ash.

SETH: There's a lot of good smoky flavor throughout the bite.

RENU: Is the chicken tender?

SETH: The chicken is tender, but it's just also oozing cheese and just oozing warmth and just comfort.

RENU: Oh, wow.

SETH: And it's almost hard for me to tell, is it more Mexican influence, is it more Indian influence because it's such a nice blend of the two.

RENU: It'll be hard for some of our dishes where we blend the flavors.

That is the idea, to have a good balance of the two.

SETH: And I can also just tell for you how much fun this is.

You're just enjoying having fun with putting these dishes together.

RENU: Absolutely.

This is the best time of my life.

I love making the sauce, the tikka sauce.

And it's almost like being an artist and trying to get the perfect blend.

So this is by far my most favorite item for me to make and to eat.

SETH: Well, it was fun coming out to Oakton.

It was fun being in the kitchen and watch you work your magic.

Thank you so much, chef.

RENU: Thank you, Seth.

It was a pleasure to have you here.

Thank you.

♪ ♪ SETH: To finish up, I'm headed for Alexandria in the newly developed Old Town North neighborhood.

A few blocks from the Potomac's edge is Wooboi, the second outpost of chef/owner Michael Choi's flavorful and fiery fried chicken joint.

MICHAEL: I grew up in the Northern Virginia area.

My family were restaurant owners.

So when I went to culinary school, I was trained in classical French cuisine.

I fell in love with the idea of getting my own Michelin star, but then I realized it was way too expensive to open a Michelin star restaurant.

So I went this route.

Simple food yet just as delicious.

Originally, it was going to be a Korean fried chicken concept.

Many people don't know this, but the most popular food in South Korea is actually fried chicken.

But I wanted to do something a little different and show off my skills as a chef.

So I landed on Nashville hot chicken.

And I feel like there's a lot of special or unique twists that we can do on the flavoring of spicy fried chicken.

SETH: Michael opened the first Wooboi in Herndon in 2019.

An immediate smash hit.

A year later, he opened up the Alexandria shop.

MICHAEL: The way we prepare our chicken is, we use like a Japanese styled brine, which is the most flavorful chicken in the inside, in my opinion.

And then we use the most flavorful outside seasoning, which is Nashville hot seasoning.

So we combine the two together.

SETH: While the sandwiches can be made to suit all palates, the six spice levels go all the way up to code red and code blue.

MICHAEL: At Wooboi, we have a special wall here.

It's called the waiver wall.

And if you want to eat the code red or code blue chicken, you have to sign the wall.

It's sort of a tradition here.

SETH: Michael, good to see you.

MICHAEL: Good to see you, brother.

SETH: I'm excited about trying the chicken here.

Tell me about what you're making today.

MICHAEL: So for you today, I have the Japanese Nashville influenced Sando, our most popular item here at Wooboi.

SETH: Well, I like any kind of fried chicken.

Is this going to be spicy?

MICHAEL: It's up to you.

So we have six different spice levels, but for today, we're going to just be making the level two for you.

SETH: Level two.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SETH: But I imagine even that's going to probably pack a little bit of a punch.

MICHAEL: Yeah, that's about a jalapeño level, maybe 100,000 scoville units.

SETH: All right.

I think I can handle that.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SETH: So tell me about this chicken here.

MICHAEL: Our chicken here is brining in a karaage type brine.

What we add here is shio koji, sake, mirin, salts, and different Japanese spices and some buttermilk.

You'd like to have these nice mellow flavors.

And then we pack a punch on the outside with this Nashville seasoning.

This is our, what we call it, the love sauce right here.

SETH: The love sauce.

I kind of like that.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

So this is a blend of four different peppers that we use.

It includes jalapeños, cayenne, different Ethiopian spices.

This is a mixture of smoked peppers, and this is a lot of sweet peppers.

SETH: And so if level two is jalapeños, what's level six?

MICHAEL: Oh, level six.

Oh, trust me, you don't want to mess around with that.

That's Carolina Reaper.

You got Komodo Dragon, you got Trinidad Scorpion.

SETH: Well, you're throwing a lot of scary names at me, so I'm glad that we're sticking with level two here.

MICHAEL: Yeah, you're going to enjoy this one.

So now, I have the mixture of salt, sugar.

This is some onion powder here.

We have a mixture of a secret spice blend.

SETH: There's a lot of flavor going onto the inside and outside of this chicken.

MICHAEL: Absolutely, absolutely.

We don't mess around over here.

So what we're going to do is, we're going to separate this in two separate bowls.

And half of this spice we're actually going to put away, and the other half we're going to make our actual love sauce.

SETH: So this sauce is just oil that's been infused with more flavors on top of what we already have.

MICHAEL: Exactly.

We're looking for almost like a nice shiny red.

SETH: Because when I think of Nashville chicken, it's like I think of the heat, but I also think of the color of that bird.

MICHAEL: Exactly.

I mean, it's the most beautiful color.

Because it's Nashville and because we're talking about spicy chicken, we have to make a nice refreshing slaw.

SETH: And this is just cabbage?

MICHAEL: This is just a cabbage.

And what we're going to do is, we're going to first add some red onions here.

Now we're going to add some sauce here, a little bit of vinegar.

This is just a little bit of salt.

Now we're just going to add a little bit of sugar.

And last but not least, we have our seasonings.

This is more, this is like straight South Carolina slaw right here.

SETH: All right.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SETH: You're just bringing influences from all over.

MICHAEL: Exactly.

I like to use the best of the best here.

And then we give this a good hand mix here.

What you're looking for is a really nice contrast of textures.

You want a nice sweetness.

Now that our slaw is done, we are going to go ahead and fry our chicken.

SETH: Awesome.

MICHAEL: And while that's frying, we are going to go ahead and cook our bread.

When our chicken is done, we are going to dip it right into the love sauce, and then we are going to spice it in that reserve seasonings.

So now we are ready to make that sandwich.

We're going to go ahead and add our comeback sauce.

This is our signature sauce over here.

It's so good, it makes you comeback.

We put our beautiful slaw that we made together.

Pickles, the bun on top, and then wrap it up like a baby.

That's our Sando.

SETH: Michael, this thing is an absolute monster.

Look at the size of this.

MICHAEL: Yeah, this is it.

This is what we've been working really passionately on, trying to make the perfect chicken sandwich.

I'm ready to see your reaction.

SETH: Well, it's got the color, it's got that Nashville hot chicken color.

MICHAEL: Right.

That little darker than Ferrari red color.

SETH: All right.

I'm going for it.

MICHAEL: So that chicken's nice and crispy on the outside.

It's really juicy on the inside.

The outside breading is very thin.

What we want is a really nice, almost like a grilled chicken.

That's what we're going for.

SETH: Well, you got it.

That is everything I'm looking for in a fried chicken sandwich.

MICHAEL: Thank you.

Thank you.

SETH: Packed with flavor from top to bottom.

MICHAEL: It's like a super strong punch like in the face, but nothing's overpowering.

You know, you have the perfect balance.

SETH: And the flavor of the comeback sauce, it's terrific.

But I see all these other sauces here as well.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

So at Wooboi, we have six different sauces.

My personal favorite being the somi sauce there named after my dog.

It's a cilantro lime based mayonnaise sauce.

SETH: It'll maybe help cool down the bite a little bit too.

MICHAEL: Yeah, exactly.

Pretty good, huh?

SETH: That's just outrageous.

And I will say, for level two, it takes a moment, but those jalapeños start to catch up with you a little bit.

MICHAEL: They do.

And at Wooboi too, this is only a level two, right?

We have a three.

We've got a code red and we've got a code blue.

And over here, I have a chicken nugget.

As you can see, it has the blue toothpick here.

This right here is the code blue.

It's just one little chicken nugget.

And I want you to try it.

You can't leave without trying the code blue.

SETH: Oh my god, man.

You're going to make me do this on camera.

(laughing) MICHAEL: Don't worry, we got a lot of water in the back.

So you know, whatever you need.

You see all these signatures here?

It's all the, I guess the victims who tried the code red and the code blue.

SETH: Well, if they all managed to survive, I guess why can't I?

MICHAEL: Yeah, you can do it.

SETH: All right.

It's just one little nugget.

How bad can it be, right?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

Seth, now you're holding right there the hottest chicken in the world.

SETH: Let's try it.

♪ ♪ Michael, you were not messing around.

MICHAEL: Not messing around.

SETH: I instantly regret the decision, but this was all so good.

It's hot.

MICHAEL: It's not bad.

SETH: It's hot, man.

It's hot.

I need some water, badly.

Oh my God.

MICHAEL: It's a slow burn too.

It gets worse.

It lasts about 10 minutes though, so it's okay.

SETH: It's legitimately painful.

MICHAEL: Right.

SETH: But this was fantastic.

Thanks Michael.

Okay, I am going to walk outside for a second.

MICHAEL: He's making a run for it.

MAN: Uh-oh.

Seth.

MAN 2: All right, we stopping down?

[laughing] SETH: All right, level two from now on.

But I'm going to be okay.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ANNOUNCER: To find out more about great food in the Washington Metro area, visit weta.org/signaturedish.