Two Guys Eating Their Way Around the World, Starting with “Little Armenia Cafe” in New York
Dillon Davis and Nichols Neff’s plan to try every world cuisine is no longer just a project. It’s a platform creating buzz and community.
Tastebuds’ Dillon Davis and Nichols Neff eat at Wok Wok.
By Greta Reich
Photography by Mathylda Dulian
Wall Street Journal
After a year in New York City, Dillon Davis and Nichols Neff were fed up with “corporate slop,” the bowl-centric meals that are a staple of sad office lunches. One decision changed their palates—and the trajectory of some New York City restaurants.
In November, Davis suggested the roommates break out of their rut by working their way through the cuisines of every country in the world at local restaurants.
“We knew that the beauty of the city was how diverse it is and how many holes-in-the-walls there were, and we weren’t taking the time to explore that,” Neff said.
To choose their first country, the duo spun a digital wheel, landed on Armenia and found themselves at Little Armenia Cafe in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the very next night.
Despite zero filming, graphics or editing experience, they decided to document their journey on social media as Tastebuds. Their first video took weeks to produce and was a shoddy draft, with endearingly shaky camera work and stick-figure drawings of themselves.
Friends didn’t hesitate to call out the mediocre production value. “I don’t know if you should post that,” Davis recalled hearing.
Despite the initial reviews, they posted the video, agreeing that if it got more than 100 likes, they’d film another. Within 48 hours, the video had 100,000 likes.
Davis, 28, and Neff, 27, had bungled their way into foodie stardom, and brought Little Armenia Cafe’s chef and owner along with them.
Their first post captured Ararat El-Rawi, bursting with energy as he served them a multicourse meal including tabbouleh, lamb burgers, spinach pie, baklava and endless wine.
Friends from as far away as Idaho started sending El-Rawi the video, asking, “Hey is this you?” His response: “You know it’s me. Give me a break.”
Then customers started coming in saying, “Oh my God, we saw the Tastebuds video!”
“We’ve made regulars out of the ones who have just kept coming back,” El-Rawi said.
Tastebuds was no longer just a project. It was a platform for hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
Ararat El-Rawi says he’s never witnessed food influencers quite like Davis and Nichols—who still cringe at the label.At Wadadli, owner Edwin Brods knew customers were Tastebuds fans when they came into his Bedford Stuyvesant Antiguan restaurant quoting his personal catchphrase: “’nuff love.”
The familiarity took Meriem Lamtahaf by surprise at first. New customers at Dar Lbahja, the Moroccan restaurant she runs with her sister Touria, called her by name before she’d even introduced herself.
“I’m like, ‘Sorry, do I know you?’” she said. “And they’re like, ‘Oh no, we saw you in the video!’”
Dar Lbahja and Wadadli also saw bumps in orders of the dishes that Davis and Neff ate. Wadadli’s jerk chicken, usually a summer craze, was doing numbers in March and April. At Dar Lbahja, the increase was so sharp at one point they had to buy more meat in the middle of service.
Both Davis and Neff grew up with an appreciation for food sitting around family tables in Texas and Colorado, respectively. But until Tastebuds, they didn’t know how powerful a shared meal can be.
“We quickly realized when we started how much food it is kind of like the great connector and equalizer,” said Davis.
Glenn Cabasso, a medical-records specialist at Bellevue Hospital and a member of food groups across the city, found Tastebuds earlier this year and was struck by the pair’s authenticity.
“It feels like some other groups are here to try and make a paycheck,” said Cabasso, who’s tried a number of the restaurants they’ve featured. “But these guys, they just seem to go to a spot and they give back to the community.”
For Wok Wok, a Malaysian restaurant tucked below a pharmacy in the heart of Chinatown, the exposure has been a game changer.
Wok Wok has seen a larger, steadier stream of customers since the Tastebuds video. ‘Finally I see some hope,’ says owner Erik Cheah, whose own social-media efforts have also helped.
Opened in 2015, Wok Wok made it through Covid only to struggle for the past year. By April, owner Erik Cheah wasn’t sure if he’d be able to re-sign his lease. “I was almost giving up.”
After Davis and Neff showcased Wok Wok to their more than 600,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, business picked up. Then, coupled with Cheah’s own social-media efforts, it snowballed.
Cheah re-signed his lease and even started remodeling the restaurant’s front entrance.
Davis and Neff are now 30-plus countries into their quest, and well into what they’ve labeled their third season. The end of seasons one and two included events that brought together the restaurateurs they’d met.
“Our whole goal is to not take away as much as we can from the story of the restaurant and the story of the people,” Neff said.
‘We knew that the beauty of the city was how diverse it is and how many holes-in-the-walls there were,’ says Neff.
That’s part of the reason they remain “tall guy” (Davis) and “hat guy” (Neff) on Tastebuds. The stick figures are also now standard, but their videos—and community—continue to evolve.
They no longer use “fire” or “money” to describe every meal. They’ve acquired sponsors, a manager and merch. Neff is still working in technology sales, but Davis quit his strategy-consulting job to pursue Tastebuds full-time.
At the current pace of one restaurant a week, they’ll have finished their world tour in mid-2030.
They’ve run into a few hiccups along the way; when they couldn’t find a Cameroonian restaurant in the city, they hired a private chef. But they have no plans to slow down.
They’re still trying to figure out how they’ll tackle finding a restaurant that best represents the U.S. Fans have suggested Native American food, soul food, hot dogs and fast-food chains.
“What is American food?” Davis asked. “In the end, that’s kind of what our challenge is.”
