SETH: Karla, hey.

KARLA: Hey, Seth.

Nice to meet you.

SETH: Nice to meet you too.

ROSARIO: Hi Seth.

Nice to meet you.

Welcome to Nim Ali at the Western Market Food Hall.

SETH: Well, thank you so much for having me.

And I gotta say, I was eyeing some of those sandwiches up on the menu.

They look pretty amazing.

But I don't even know, what is a shuko?

KARLA: Shuko, it's a sandwich from Guatemala, loaded with different type of meats and sauces.

Let me take you back to the kitchen, show you.

SETH: Sounds good.

KARLA: Okay, Seth, come over.

I wanna show you the signature shuko.

It's called Transmetro.

SETH: The Transmetro, well I can tell it's gonna be a pretty sizable sandwich.

Uh, what is the Transmetro?

KARLA: The Transmetro is basically a 12 inches bread which goes with six type of meats and four sauces.

SETH: Six different types of meat, four sauces, wow, that's gonna be pretty stacked.

And uh, is this just regular French bread?

KARLA: Actually it's a little bit different.

It's a special recipe, which I got it from a a baker from Guatemala.

And it needs to be uh, crunchy all the time, especially when it comes out from the grill.

SETH: It's gotta stand up to a lot of weight on top of it.

KARLA: Yeah.

Exactly, yeah.

SETH: Yeah, yeah.

All right, so how do you get started here?

KARLA: Well I open wide the bread.

Then we're gonna turn on this grill, toast the bread.

And we start putting our meat.

Just gonna make steak.

(sizzle) SETH: I like the sound of that sizzle.

KARLA: Right.

You're gonna put bacon, hot dog, al pastor, chorizo.

SETH: You weren't kidding about six different types of meat.

KARLA: Yeah.

And then we're gonna start with the cabbage.

This is just fresh cabbage and what I do is just sauté... With a little bit butter.

SETH: There's a lot of ingredients in this sandwich.

KARLA: Yeah, mm-hmm.

SETH: And I like the little bits of char you're getting on the meat as well.

KARLA: Oh yeah, mm-hmm.

SETH: Oh wow.

KARLA: Yeah.

SETH: That's a well toasted bread.

KARLA: Well, a lot of people likes it, you know.

SETH: Yeah, yeah.

KARLA: They always say like, "Almost burned.

Almost burned."

(laughter).

Yeah, so... SETH: That's the Guatemalan way?

KARLA: Yeah, that's the Guatemalan way.

SETH: And that's guacamole?

KARLA: It's just guacamole, lime, a little salt, pepper.

So cabbage... And in the other side, five meats.

And we're gonna add the last thing and it's ham.

SETH: Ham, one more meat.

KARLA: Yeah.

SETH: Why not?

KARLA: One more meat, yeah.

Okay I'm gonna, I'm gonna add the sauces, which is mayo, a little bit mustard, ketchup and the final and this is the best part, 'cause this is a spicy sauce.

And this spicy sauce comes directly from Guatemala.

SETH: Oh wow.

KARLA: That makes a real shuko.

SETH: You can't recreate that flavor here in the US.

KARLA: Yeah, exactly.

And here we go.

This is the Transmetro.

SETH: Wow Karla, those four sauces.

You've turned what was already and impressive sandwich into just a thing of beauty.

I can not wait to try this.

KARLA: Yeah, and I also wanna cook some more antojitos and bring it out to the table and I want you to try a little bit of everything that we have here at Nim Ali.

SETH: That sounds great, can't wait, Chef.

♪ ♪ Carla, thank you so much for showing me how you prepare this Transmetro.

I'm gonna be honest.

I'm kind of scared to eat this.

I'm glad I've got a few napkins on hand 'cause I feel like we're gonna make a little bit of a mess here.

ROSARIO: So actually a shuko, in Guatemala that word shuko it's translated in English, it means dirty.

So you'll get messy for sure.

(laughter).

SETH: All right, well let's make a mess here.

KARLA: Okay, let's travel to Guatemala.

SETH: Travel to Guatemala indeed.

ROSARIO: Let's travel to Guatemala.

SETH: All right, I'm just gonna go for it.

Good thing we had these ready.

That is so, so good.

Just a hearty, delicious sandwich and I think that bite was all meat.

So I'm gonna go and try to get a bite of that slaw.

KARLA: Go for it.

ROSARIO: Go for it.

SETH: The slaw is such I nice counterpoint to the richness of that meat.

And that Guatemalan spicy sauce on top, that's a really nice touch.

KARLA: Yeah, you can't recreate a shuko without that Picamas sauce.

SETH: You gotta get it all the way from Guatemala.

KARLA: You gotta get spicy Picamas.

SETH: And are there people who come in who could actually eat a whole one of these?

KARLA: Yes, of course.

And they actually order one Transmetro and also uh, an original and they eat all of it.

SETH: This shuko and another shuko.

KARLA: Yes.

ROSARIO: Yes.

KARLA: A small one and a big one.

ROSARIO: There are some families, like big groups of families that visit us.

And they actually do some contests to see who eats more shukos in between them and it's insane.

SETH: Well I'm impressed.

I think given enough time, I could probably finish this off, but it would be a long, a long meal.

It's also colorful too.

I mean, is that part of Guatemalan cuisine, just adding so many colors in with all these sauces and everything else?

KARLA: Yes, of course.

As you can see in my jacket, you can see very different colors, same with the food.

And represent obviously, um, the design of the store.

SETH: No, it's beautiful.

And you know, I think it's a really cool story too that you guys started making these shukos in a bar, but now here you are.

You're in a food hall.

It seems like there's food halls everywhere.

Is this kind of like, just the next wave in DC?

ROSARIO: Being in a food hall has been one of the best decisions we had so far.

Uh, we can share with all of our customers now.

They can take a seat and try all of our dishes.

And it's been amazing 'cause we can share with different cultures, different um, nationalities visit us.

They come and they try shuko and they're surprised.

SETH: Well I'm a convert.

This was an amazing sandwich.

KARLA: It's always a pleasure for me to bring a little piece from my country and bring the culture of my country to this country.

ROSARIO: And of course, let's get messy.

SETH: Sounds good.