Shams El -Mutwalli Dubai

Saeed Bin Shabib, combined his passion for salt beef with his admiration of Japanese culture through a recent collaboration between his brand Meat Melt and Japanese ramen restaurant, Yui.

The month-long pop-up between Meat Melt and Yui featured both salt beef buns as well as special dishes like Salt Beef Tantanmen and Salt Beef Shoyu Ramen that was offered for a limited time. 

Meat Melt’s uniqueness stems from the brand’s quality, salt beef that takes days to prepare, and involves a multitude of herbs and spices.

“I have always experimented with aging and curing processes to develop interesting, deep flavours that you wouldn’t normally experience,” said founder, Shabib. 

The founder of Yui, Peter Ahn worked alongside Shabib to deliver a culinary experience that integrated authentic ramen, made in-house with the tenderness of Meat Melt’s beef.

The process of transitioning from an out-of-home brand to a temporary in-store service was hasty; Soon after dish variations were decided on, both founders agreed on a pop-up and began operating within the span of a week.

The pop-up also stems from Shabib’s underlying fascination with Japan, and “how they perfect their craft.”

“I tried to bring that culture into Meat Melt. Focusing on the quality, focusing on the experience of eating the sandwich,” he said exclusively to Arab News Japan. 

When reflecting on his time in Japan, Shabib said: “When we were kids, all the cool stuff came out of Japan” he said “Nintendo was coming out of Japan, we had a Sony TV.”

“Many of the things that made an impact on my childhood came from Japan,” he continued.

This trickled into Shabib’s adulthood, and he shared how: “The moment I started working my first annual leave I had to go discover Japan” and he has been going every chance he has.

During his time there, he would often walk around fascinated by the multitude of cultures. 

“Culturally speaking, I really love the way they hold their art and history in high regards. I love how there are museums everywhere,” he said

Speaking specifically of the Mori Art Museum, and reminiscing of how he would get lost there, something he defined as a “wonderful experience.”

To expand on the tenets of Japanese culture, he pointed out how the Japanese culture is “very similar to Emirati’s in the way they hold their elders to high regards, some of their work ethics, how they share experiences. There are a lot of similarities and overlaps.”

He drew comparisons between Japanese hospitality of serving elders first, something common within a Majlis, a communal space where a community can come together and socialize.

This bind to Japan and appreciation of the culture informed the parallels Shabib drew between salt beef and ramen.

Shabib shared with Arab News how he was watching a documentary about ramen and was shocked at how long ramen takes to prepare and make.

In a similar way Shabib was not fully aware of the effort that comes with the salt beef curing process as his experience as a customer never involved waiting too long for his meal–his ramen bowl or salt beef sandwich would usually be served within minutes. 

After drawing this parallel, Shabib admitted that “it would be very interesting to do a collaboration, because ramen is fast food in Japan or at least it feels like it and salt beef is fast food in London,” he said.

Salt beef can be defined as organic grass-fed brisket, mixed with spices and cured over 10 days and later cooked for 6 hours, also similar to how complex and lengthy the ramen broth process is.

Meat Melt began as an out-of-home brand, selling his sandwiches on Instagram, but his concept quickly gained recognition. 

“I understood the fundamentals of what Salt beef was but bringing that aromatic flavor was an additional layer. After experimenting, I made something that looked the part, it looked like salt beef but tasted, in my opinion, different but in a nicer way,” Shabib told Arab News Japan. 

He also drew a link between, how salt beef is a preservation technique almost in a similar way to how Emiratis typically salt fish. The salting is a way to preserve fish for the season where there are no fish” or the fish that is in demand is not available, he said.

Shabib’s passion for food coupled with the unexpected success that came during the pop-up with Yui, has opened the door to future collaborations.

He spoke with Arab News Japan regarding his next collaboration with a Spanish restaurant located in Dubai’s up-scale DIFC area, another experience that will allow Meat Melt to offer yet another multi-cultural dining experience while continuing to perfect his craft in the Japanese way that he ardently admires.