- [Vinny] Yeah?

- [Kaytee] Do you want to try it?

(Vinny and Chrissy laugh) - [Kaytee] They worked so hard on them.

- [Chrissy] I'm chef Chrissy Camba.

From running restaurants to cooking for the circus, nothing excites me more than feeding people.

As a first-generation Filipino American, the flavors from my family's kitchen make me feel at home.

Join me as I explore cultural grocery stores in the US and discover the recipes and stories that make this country's flavor so rich.

This is "The Grocery List Show."

(upbeat music) (bright music) I'm here in a part of Brooklyn known as Sunset Park, a diverse community that brings both Latino and Asian people together in one neighborhood.

Local food blogger Vinny Sánchez is going to show me around.

I discovered Vinny via his YouTube food blog called "Vinny Eat World," where he showcases hidden gem eateries across Sunset Park.

- My pop lives in Connecticut and he'll drive out here like two hours - Wow.

- just to shop on the streets around here because there's stuff here that he can't find over there.

That's an excellent place for fish tacos right there.

- Which one?

- El Rey del Pescado, the King of Fish.

See this?

The tacos arabes.

- Yeah.

What does that mean?

- Arab tacos.

- Oh.

- That comes from, like, um, Arab immigrants to Mexico, and then they would, you know, make tacos, like, in that style using the ingredients that they had there.

People always ask me, like, where to eat and stuff, or, like, they wanted to know, is this a good neighborhood to get this - Yeah.

- or where can I get this?

And I was like, "You know what?

Maybe I should share some of the stuff that I know about."

- If you find a place and you want to showcase it, -Mm-hmm.

- what about it, like, speaks to you?

- There's so many, like, little mom-and-pop shops and grocery stores and wonderful, like, little hole-in-the-wall restaurants - Yeah.

- where you can get a really, really great meal that isn't shown as often on, you know, the big eating lists or, like, the big cooking shows.

So that's why I wanted to showcase these places to give them the exposure that I thought they deserved.

- It seems like, there's like, a large Asian community around here, but also Latino.

- Yeah, Sunset Park is almost, like, a neighborhood that's like, split in two.

So centered around here, 8th Avenue, it's very, very heavily Asian.

And then if you go over to 5th Avenue, it's largely Latino in culture.

- So it makes it kind of an outlier that La Placita de Brooklyn is here, right?

- Yeah, that's right, yeah, so this caters more toward the Latino community, but it's here centered on 8th Avenue, which tends to focus on the Chinese community.

It's great because it shows you, like, how these cultures kind of mix and match around the city and share and learn from one another.

It's just what makes New York very special.

(gentle music) - [Chrissy] La Placita de Brooklyn has been a staple in the neighborhood since 1980.

Their goal is to stock a wide variety of products to reflect the diversity of the community.

Vinny and I are picking up ingredients so he can show me how to cook his favorite dish.

- It's called garnaches.

- Garnaches.

- This is a dish that my abuelo, my grandfather, used to make all the time.

I would watch him in his apartment in Astoria cooking, and I was like, "I want to make something just like that one day."

And it never comes out the way that he did it exactly, but, like, over the years, I kind of learned how to put, like, my own spin on it from my Mexican American heritage.

Very, very simple, but very, very delicious.

- [Chrissy] Beautiful.

(upbeat music) - [Vinny] So this is actually new for me.

I used to not add the poblano into the salsa verde, but I learned somewhere along the way like, it gives a really nice color.

A couple of these guys.

It's always got to pass the smell test.

I don't want to make it too hot for you, you know, so let's do three.

- Oh, come on.

I want to eat it the way that you and your family eat it.

- All right, all right, it's going to be spicy.

- Yeah.

- Here's the tomatillos.

So you want, like the, husk to be like, starting to come loose, and then you want to pull it open a little bit and kind of just look for any kind of defects.

- [Chrissy] My grandmother, she was very particular about produce, so we would do stuff like this all the time.

- [Vinny] Yeah, quality takes time.

- You're the one who cooks all the food in the house?

- A... no, no, my wife Kaytee is an amazing cook.

- Yeah?

- She is, yeah.

I cook some things, but she is the genius.

- [Chrissy] Do you have a method for picking out garlic?

- Just, you know, make sure it looks all right, but... - My grandmother always said, like, a tight- - A tight?

- Tight one.

- Yeah.

- Like a fist.

(Vinny chuckles) - I didn't always used to do, like, the open style.

It used to always be the very simple, like, closed style, you know, - Yeah.

- salsa, cheese, and the fried tortilla, and then I started experimenting with, like, different styles and stuff.

- Okay.

- You could definitely, like, go wild.

- [Chrissy] Do you like the yellow ones better?

- I do like the yellow ones, but they get that, like, that really golden color when they get, like, fried up that's just- just beautiful, you know?

So we're going to go with these.

This is the Cotija cheese.

I'll use this in garnachas sometimes.

- Okay.

- So it'll be cheddar cheese - Oh.

- and then a layer of the - Ooh.

- Cotija just to sprinkle it up.

-Yum, okay.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- There you go.

Queso blanco.

Grew up on this stuff right here.

You cut it, you snack on it, it can melt.

- Yeah.

- You know, good stuff.

- Should we get some to snack on?

- Why not?

(laughs) - We need snacks while we're cooking.

Do we need crema?

- Crema would be great with the open style.

- Okay.

- So, yeah, why don't we do that?

I'll get some chorizo too.

- Okay.

That's the one?

- This is the one.

- That's the one?

- Yeah - With the jalapeño in it?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

I'm so hungry now.

- Yeah (chuckles).

I really think you're going to like this.

- Oh, put me in coach.

Before we called it a day, Vinny wanted to show me one last gem in Sunset Park just a block away from La Placita de Brooklyn.

- Sunset Park, the neighborhood is named after Sunset Park, the park.

It's a really, really wonderful spot.

It's a great place to people watch.

You know, you can really see the diversity - Yeah.

- of the neighborhood.

(park patron speaks in Spanish) (Vinny laughs) (Vinny speaks in Spanish) (Vinny chuckles) - [Chrissy] Wow.

Look at that skyline.

It's just really, chef's kiss.

- Mm-hm.

It's beautiful.

- And all the cute dogs that I want to steal.

(Vinny laughs) I won't steal any.

I have my own dog.

(upbeat music) Vinny invited me over to his house the next day to meet his family and show me how to make his version of his grandfather's garnachas dish.

- Hey, Chrissy.

- Hey, what's up?

- How are you doing?

- Good, how are you?

- [Vinny] This is Kaytee.

- Hi!

- Hi!

- Nice to meet you.

- [Kaytee] Nice to meet you.

Welcome.

- [Chrissy] All right.

Put me to work.

- All right, so the first thing we'll want to do is start, making the salsa, - Okay.

- the salsa verde.

So with the tomatillos, we're just going to peel off the husk just like that.

- This is a job for the kids.

- Exactly.

Yeah.

(Chrissy laughs) This is one of the first things I learned how to do for, like, cooking in the kitchen was taking off the tomatillo husks.

- Tomatillos are, like, a little tart, right?

- Mm-hm, they have, like, a nice, like, tanginess to them.

- Yeah.

- All right, here we go.

Okay, chile poblano.

Over the years, I've probably made this dish a hundred plus times.

- Wow.

- You know, so, whenever we want a really good snack.

- [Chrissy] This is great because usually I'm the one who's cooking, (Vinny laughs) so it's nice to learn from someone else.

- [Vinny] Yeah, it's really cool.

So now we get a little bit of vegetable oil.

Let's get these guys broiling.

- Can I stop you?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Can we have a little bit of snack work first?

So after this, I'm going to cut up some onion?

- Yeah, just chop it up.

All right.

You can see they're starting to get that nice color.

The salsa is going to be a layer on top of the frying tortilla, - Okay.

- and then on top of that, we're going to add the cheese, and then- - While it's still frying?

- While it's still frying, yeah, yeah.

- Ooh.

- Get it nice and melty.

There we go.

- [Chrissy] Very nice.

- Put that in there, right there.

- Okay.

(blender whirring) - Alright.

One other thing I like to do is maybe I'll do, like um, half of a chicken bouillon cube.

I like to put in, like, just a little bit of oil, just a little touch.

(blender whirring) All right.

- Gorgeous.

Mm.

- Yeah, fire.

Yeah, there we go.

- Yeah, that is- - That's it.

That's a salsa verde.

- That is delicious.

- Yeah.

- That was a little spicy.

- [Vinny] Yeah, yeah, I told you (chuckles).

All right.

- I was like, I got this.

Nope, it's a little spicy.

This dish is, like, mostly prep then?

- Yes.

- Because the actual cooking part, like, putting it together is relatively easy.

- Much quicker, yep.

I think we're ready to start cooking this, so... - Awesome.

I can't wait.

I've been waiting all day.

- Yep, yep.

(Vinny chuckles) (bright music) (chorizo sizzling) Do you usually do it with the chorizo or do you do it with other things?

- [Vinny] So I've used chorizo.

I've used cecina.

Growing up, my family would make it with chicken a lot, which is very, very good.

- [Chrissy] Ok. Yum.

Yum.

And then you get that, like, smoking hot?

- [Vinny] Yeah, it's going to get nice and hot to really, like, fry up those tortillas.

- [Chrissy] Okay.

And your abuelo used to make these?

- Yeah, he used to make them.

His versions, they weren't like this.

They didn't use cheddar cheese.

This is, like, me trying to do what he did, but it gets reinterpreted by, like, my own experiences - Yeah.

- just growing up and, like, after school, my brothers would be hungry.

See what we have in the fridge, and it's like, "Okay, I see some tortillas.

I see some leftover salsa verde.

- Ohh.

I see some cheese."

Put that together and- - Boom, you got it.

- [Vinny] If you want, you can take a little bit of that chorizo.

Really stack it up.

- [Chrissy] Like that?

- [Vinny] Yeah, looks great.

Awesome.

- [Chrissy] That looks so good.

- Yeah, it's almost like, a– like pizza, like, the way they do the tomato sauce.

-Okay.

- Just like a little nice layer, yeah.

-Yeah.

- This is what I love, that crispy cheese right there at the edge.

-Yes.

- A little lace.

- Yep.

- And then should we just add another one in?

- Yes.

Yep.

- Okay.

- [Vinny] Exactly.

You already know what to do.

- [Chrissy] This is fun.

I'm going to make this at home.

- Yep.

- [Vinny] This is a dish that I'll often have Kaytee helping me out because she knows it by heart.

- [Chrissy] How'd you meet her?

- So we're high school sweethearts.

- Oh, that's so sweet.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, in high school, I was like a, like a punk rocker, so I had, like, the (Chrissy laughs) 10-inch spikes on my hair.

- Oh, no way.

Were you ever in a band?

- Oh yeah, yeah.

See?

- Oh, really?

(laughs) - [Vinny] That's me when I was 16 - Oh, okay.

- playing at a club in Connecticut, lead singer and guitar.

- Oh, wow.

- For like a month, she just, like, tried to get to know me and we were both, like, swept off each other's feet.

- Ohh.

We've been inseparable since.

- And how long has it been?

- 22 years.

- Wow.

- Yes.

You're gonna get me all teary.

(Vinny and Chrissy laughs) (bright music) - [Chrissy] It does look like a pizza.

- [Vinny] Yeah, right?

- [Chrissy] They're so cute, ugh.

- [Vinny] Now we're going to put the finishing touches on these.

Last second ingredients.

(bright music continues) - Beautiful.

Your version of your abuelo's garnachas.

- Exactly, yeah.

- Thank you for sharing.

- [Vinny] Absolutely.

(bright music continues) Oh, honey.

What do you think, Kaytee Sue?

- They look amazing.

- They look good, right?

- Yeah.

Cheers.

- Thanks for having me.

- Thanks for being here.

- Oh my gosh.

- Mommy, I want to- - Do you want to cheers?

- Oh, you want cheers, yeah.

- Cheers.

- [All] Cheers.

- [Chrissy] boop.

(food crunching) - Yeah.

- This is delicious.

- [Vinny] Oh, it's so good.

- [Kaytee] How was cooking in our kitchen?

- I loved it.

He did most of the work, to be honest.

- Isn't it nice?

- I know.

I was like, I was more focusing on, like, what kind of snack are we gonna eat?

- That's exactly like me in the kitchen.

(all laugh) - And yesterday was gorgeous, like, golden sun was reflecting off, like, the water, and the buildings.

It was just really weirdly romantic with your husband.

- Yeah, so you– so you get it.

(all laugh) - I might have fallen in love.

Did you go to his shows?

- Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes, screaming.

I was probably the only person alive who cried at, like, a high school punk rock show.

- [Chrissy] Because you were so proud?

- [Kaytee] Yeah, I'm always proud.

- I hope someday you can have me on your show and I'll show you what my family's shown me how to make.

- I would absolutely love that.

I had such a great time.

- Oh, me too.

- Thank you, yeah.

- Sanchez family, what's up?

- Yeah, all right!

- Hands in.

- Woo!

(bright music) - [Chrissy] As the sun sets on yet another delicious day, I think back to our grocery store adventure at La Placita de Brooklyn, an unassuming neighborhood store that provides a transcendent lifeline for old and new food traditions.

I also think about how Vinny, spiky punk rock hair and all, is the real deal, and how his family's recipes help keep him and his high school sweetheart close.

Because, let's face it, the way to anyone's heart usually involves food, and maybe a boatload of hair gel.

(bright music continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues)