DAVID: So, today, we're actually going to do our specialty dish.

And this is what we're named after: tostada de tinga.

SETH: And I see tinga on menus in taquerias all the time, but what is tinga?

DAVID: Tinga is just the marination of the meat.

Traditionally, it's a chicken dish, but we also make a brisket that we braise for eight hours.

Right here, we have our broth, our special chipotle sauce.

We're going to go ahead and blend all this up, mix up our chicken, mix it in with our caramelized onions.

So, before you got here, we had the 50 pounds of yellow onions, sliced them up, put it through our food processor, put a little bit of oil on our griddle top and then let that cook for 20 to 25 minutes until it got that nice, brown consistency.

SETH: Hoo, so you're slicing 50 pounds of onions every time?

DAVID: Almost daily.

So Seth, we make our chicken stock ahead of time.

We have some chicken bones, some carrots, some celery, some onions.

We roast that all up and then let that cook for about eight hours.

Once that broth is done, we strain it up, add our chicken breast, poach it for about hour and a half to two hours.

Once the chicken is done, we take it out.

And that's the product you see right here is the chicken once it's done poaching.

SETH: Lots of chicken ready to shred up.

Are we going to be shredding that by hand?

DAVID: No.

So that's what I used to do at the truck, but this guy saw me sweating one day in the hot heat, and he helped me out, because they do barbecue, so he surprised me with this bad boy.

SETH: You did not come to play today, chef, bringing out the industrial power tools.

(tool whirring) Wow.

DAVID: And that's how you shred 40 pounds of chicken in less than 30 seconds.

SETH: That is amazing.

DAVID: Now that our chicken is shredded, I'm smelling the onions and they're definitely ready, so let's pull that off the griddle top.

And you see how they're brown?

Like, when I started learning how to caramelize, I thought we were overcooking them.

But you know that's one thing the chef just kept telling me, "No, they need to be browner."

The sugar comes out and then coats these onions.

It just makes them really tender while they cook down.

All right, so we're going to add this to our chicken mixture.

SETH: You are not scaling it back for our benefit.

We're talking about a week's worth of tinga here, chef?

DAVID: No.

This is actually for maybe two days.

SETH: Wow.

DAVID: Yeah, so that's why we have to do this like about every single day.

SETH: That's why you are the tinga master.

DAVID: So, yeah, we're going to go ahead and we got our nice, colorful broth right here.

SETH: Oh, wow, yeah, this broth, it smells like the best chicken soup I've ever had.

DAVID: Oh, man, I agree.

And, right now, we're going to get our broth and our chipotle, get this blended up.

Right here is just some chipotle and some other special ingredients that we add but secrets that we can't let it go.

But here's some garlic, fresh garlic.

So I have a little bit of tomato paste in here.

That's one thing I can tell you, but we don't concentrate on putting too much tomatoes in here.

SETH: And, all these chipotle peppers, that'll give you a nice little, smoky counterpart to all those sweet onions, right?

DAVID: Correct.

Yes.

Absolutely.

So, now, we're going to go ahead and blend it up.

SETH: David blends the broth and chipotle sauce together in batches and then adds the mixture to the giant pot of chicken.

Good to the last drop.

DAVID: All right, so we got most of the flavor there.

But, obviously, we're going to have to hit it with a little bit of our kosher salt.

SETH: All right.

DAVID: And now we're going to mix it one more time.

SETH: All right.

Should I stand back here?

DAVID: Yeah.

Sometimes, it goes around everywhere.

SETH: Me and all the crew are standing in the splash zone here today.

(tool whirring) DAVID: So we're just going to add some more broth in there.

SETH: Oh, my God, there's so much flavor in there.

DAVID: All right.

So, Seth, now that we have our whole mixture ready, let's go ahead and let's start building up our tostadas.

SETH: All right.

DAVID: So, traditionally, it's always going to come on a hard shell.

One of the reasons is because it's really saucy.

SETH: So a little heft that's going to hold up this nice saucy tinga?

DAVID: Correct.

We're going to put some of that tinga chicken.

I'm going to get some of this lettuce.

And not too much.

It's not a salad.

It's just to garnish.

The queso fresco and some nice crema.

My classic style is just doing a bunch of zig-zags.

SETH: The chef's touch.

DAVID: Yep.

And there you have it, guys, our signature dish: tostada de tinga.

SETH: That is beautiful.

All right, chef, this perfect little tinga tostada, I can't wait to dig in.

DAVID: Let's dig in.

SETH: Let's get to it.

(crunching) A little bit smoky, a little bit spicy and very, very saucy, that is a terrific tostada.

DAVID: Thank you.

SETH: Perfect little balance of textures.

DAVID: And you can see too, that the onion's not overpowering.

Just because we tenderized and caramelized it so much, it just melts in your mouth as well.

If you think that one's good, wait until you try the eight-hour brisket.

That's where it's at.

SETH: And I've never even heard about brisket for tinga before.

DAVID: You probably will find tinga everywhere else, but it's probably just going to be chicken.

So juicy, that brisket, because of that eight-hour braise, it just holds all that moisture in very well.

SETH: This is all about taking the time to do it right, stewing that chicken, simmering that brisket, sweating out and caramelizing those onions.

DAVID: Absolutely.

You saw sweat, blood, and tears, and you saw me crying while I was slicing up those onions.

If you look at our menu, it's very simple, very small, but it gets us to focus on our main ingredients and just make sure that our quality is top-notch.

SETH: Yeah, and when you walk in, these walls, I mean it's almost mesmerizing.

DAVID: This was actually done by Mas Paz, a close friend of mine.

Mas Paz in English means "more peace".

When I actually met him, we had a name, but we just didn't have a self-identity, so he agreed to do our logo.

And I just fell in love with it, the whole name, this whole brand.

SETH: And, through everything you've done with embracing halal and the local Muslim community, you're all about welcoming all, right?

DAVID: Exactly.

We're just here for everybody.

And the awesome thing is that we actually do all of D.C.

United games, so we're inside of Audi Stadium.

The D.C.

United slogan, "All are welcome, all are united," we thought we would be a great fit because we welcome everybody and we feel that everybody should be united.