- Did you know that the Arby's A is
actually supposed to look like an oven mitt?
A cowboy hat?
I think it's supposed to be an oven mitt.
It's a cowboy hat?
Mother bananas.
Well, then, there you go.
Arby's is from the prairie.
I'm a food stylist.
Consider me a makeup artist for food.
I take boring, everyday, average food
and make it look amazing.
I'm gonna show you guys
how a food stylist turns a drive-through roast beef sandwich
into an Arby's Roast Beef ready for a commercial.
(upbeat music)
But first, have you liked, commented,
or subscribed to this show?
If you are watching this on YouTube,
have you clicked the bell?
Are you up-to-date on all the latest episodes
of Food Stylist Versus?
And if the answer to any of those questions is no,
what are you doing?
Get on it.
I'm gonna show you guys how I attempt
to replicate an Arby's Roast Beef sandwich.
What is the slogan?
We've got the meats?
We have meats.
We have the meats.
We have the meat sweats.
Guys, what do we have?
- [Man] We have the meats.
- I'm swimming in roast beef over here.
We've got a lotta options
and I wanna talk to you about all of it.
But first and foremost,
let's talk about fast food advertising,
and more specifically Arby's.
I don't know if
you guys have seen the latest Arby's advertisements,
whether a commercial or even on their website,
but everything's looking like top-notch these days.
One thing is for certain.
We, in the real world, cannot get our hands
on the same product that Arby's uses in their restaurant,
and I'm pretty sure that's the exact product
that the food team will use on photo shoots.
So everything that I have in front of me today,
well, most of everything, is store-bought,
just from a normal grocery store.
We went to Arby's and picked up a couple sandwiches
while we were there.
What you expect when you go through the drive-through is
not what you see on the commercials or the advertisements.
That's just the nature of it, you guys.
Here is a Beef and Cheddar.
There's some cheddar somewhere.
A double Roast Beef.
Oh, no, this is two Beef and Cheddars.
Okay, we're just going to Beef and Cheddar town.
One thing that I really liked recently
from the new Arby's advertisements is the beautiful color
of their Roast Beef sandwiches.
It is really lovely and pink.
It's rare roast beef, which is what you really wanna see.
I'll be honest with you.
In order to maintain this sort of look
on a sliced deli meat like that,
it probably has a lot of preservatives in it.
I'm not saying that Arby's meats have a
lot of preservatives.
I'm just saying, from a food knowledge perspective,
that meat that holds up really well
and maintains its color has to have a
lot of preservatives in it.
So the product that we were able to find,
which is just deli-sliced roast beef,
does not maintain its color very well.
That's because roast beef oxidizes really quickly,
and so that red color that it might have
when freshly sliced doesn't really hang around very long.
I'm gonna show you guys a little trick
that I just came up with to make the deli meat
that we got from the grocery story look
like the Arby's Roast Beef.
I have taken grenadine, which is a cocktail mixer
or a drink mixer, and it's bright red,
kinda like maraschino cherry juice.
And then I've also taken Kitchen Bouquet,
which is a browning agent,
and I've mixed the two together
and come up with this little concoction,
and I'm going to paint the meat.
Both of these products are completely edible.
However, it will change the taste of the meat itself.
So I do not recommend doing this for sheer enjoyment.
But we are not doing this for sheer enjoyment.
We're doing this for your viewing pleasure.
I really did try my best to find real-life options
that I would not have to fake,
but sometimes, at the end of the day,
to get the product that you want,
it has to be doctored up a little bit.
And so I painted that on,
and in order to not let there be any pools of liquid,
I'm just gonna sort of dab that up a little bit.
And even when you look at it, my paper towel,
it kinda looks like roast beef juice,
or blood, if you will. (ominous music)
That looks great and it's gonna hold up.
Kind of the biggest deal when preparing food
for food styling is that your food has to hold,
and sometimes food doesn't hold.
And in this case deli meat is one of those things,
but we are trying to conquer all of that.
I was lucky enough to have one
of our local Arby's give us some
of the actual buns that they used
for the Roast Beef sandwiches,
which is two thumbs up. (cheering)
Thank you for that.
I'm just gonna show you a comparison
of what we were able to find in the grocery store,
which is actually also a really nice bun,
but it's not quite the same.
There's definitely more sesame seeds on the Arby's bun.
And then these, it has the side where it's like
they were baked together in a row.
This one is really wonderful all the way around.
It's so even and cohesive.
Good job on those buns, Arby's.
I also bought some onion rolls
because that's the type of bun
that the Beef and Cheddar sandwich is on.
So we also got the onion rolls from Arby's.
This is a store-bought bun.
The only reason I'm using this bun
over the Arby's bun is because it has
more of that little onion topping on it.
Also this bun is a little bit larger
than the sesame seed bun.
So these two actually are more of the same size.
I just like cohesiveness.
Just the way it is.
So you guys, I am going to build the sandwich facing me.
This is very similar to the episode
where I built the club sandwich.
Meat really looks best when it's sort of folded over itself
and it gives it a really layered effect.
One thing that I definitely notice is
that the Arby's deli meat in the photo is
very, very thinly sliced,
but it holds together very, very well.
That is definitely a trick in itself.
So when I used to eat Arby's all the time,
the Roast Beef sandwich was not my favorite thing.
I used to order the Italian sub.
Well, you guys already know
how extra I am anyway about things,
but that was my favorite food.
As I'm adding my folded meat,
I kinda think about the motion of the ocean.
I know that sounds really cheesy,
but it's just sort of like the waves layer
on top of each other.
So basically the toothpicks just act as a support
and sort of a tack for the deli meat
that I've layered onto the sandwich.
And this little concoction that I came up
with for the roast beef looks super fantastic.
I have to be honest.
I know that it's not 100% the real deal,
but sometimes you gotta think on your feet.
So I have a couple pieces of scrap meat
that just aren't the dyed meat that I've worked on,
so I'm layering that in the back.
She is meaty, isn't she?
So the only thing I kinda see right now is right here.
I can see it doesn't fill that space,
so I definitely need to go back
and add some meat in the back.
I stuck a toothpick in the middle
to kinda give it some support,
so I'm just sort of threading this meat
onto this toothpick while also sort of folding it in layers.
Get this; I'm moistening my meat.
How'd you like that?
See, I can come up with my own cringeworthy stuff every
once in awhile.
If you've seen my video where
I style a roadside steakhouse plate,
when I oiled the steak, it makes it look more shiny
and more moist and more delicious.
But you can't really do that with deli meat.
It kinda actually has the opposite effect.
Right now, basically I'm just trying
to make it look cohesive.
I'd noticed that the top slice of roast beef
on the Arby's picture is flat up against the bun.
It's less distracting from so many folds of meat.
Y'all, this is so funny.
I'm looking at this sandwich, the meat folds,
and to me it looks like a stormtroooper mask.
Too bad it's not baby Yoda's face.
(angelic singing) Look at this magical
meat sandwich in all of its glory.
All right, you guys.
One down, one to go.
One thing that's pretty different
about the Beef and Cheddar is that
it has Arby's Sauce on the bottom of the bun.
If you watch the Whopper video,
then you know that condiments come last.
Except I'm gonna add a little bit of Arby's Sauce,
just to kinda give us somewhere to start with.
Make sure to comment below and let us know
what your favorite Arby's sandwich of choice is.
And if you have any
similarly related Arby's-themed fantasies,
please let us know about that as well.
Very interested to know about
your Beef and Cheddar waterfalls
or French Dip hot tubs or whatever it may be.
This looks great, and it is actually edible.
Even though we had to sort
of doctor up the color a little bit,
everything about these sandwiches are completely edible.
Except for the toothpicks.
I wasn't sure how I was going to do the whole cheddar thing
on the Beef and Cheddar, so I definitely got a couple
of sides of cheese from Arby's itself.
If you didn't know that you can order an extra side
of cheese from Arby's, now you do and you should,
because they never give you enough cheese.
But then also you can dip your Curly Fries in it.
That's just a little tip from me to you.
You're welcome.
So what I was kind of going for,
and in my head, the way I thought about the cheddar
on the Beef and Cheddar, was nacho cheese.
It looks great.
It actually is thick but also loose, all at the same time.
It kinda defies physics with its cheese-sauciness.
It's pretty magical, I'd have to say,
kinda like a unicorn, but cheese sauce.
Obviously this is room temperature cheese sauce,
it is not hot, for the purposes
of it not literally going everywhere.
I am gonna wait to put the top bun
back on the Beef and Cheddar
'cause I don't wanna mess up my,
it kinda looks like lava,
we're gonna go with cheddar lava flow, on top of this sammy.
But I love my little Arby's Sauce drips down here.
That's really cute.
I'll probably add a little bit more Arby's sauce
once we get it on our photo set.
Well, now that you have seen me build these bad boys,
we're gonna swap it over to
our Arby's advertisement photo set lookalike
and finish it up for you.
Okay, guys.
We are now in our Arby's advertisement photo setup.
To really set up the scene like an Arby's commercial,
we're gonna do just a couple other things.
I wanna add a little bit more Arby's Sauce
to my Beef and Cheddar,
and I'm just gonna get it straight outta the packet.
Now I'm gonna put my bun on.
No Arby's sandwich is complete without Curly Fries.
We picked these up from the frozen section
of the grocery store and cooked 'em ourselves.
I'm obviously trying to pick out the really curly ones.
Arby's Roast Beef sandwiches and a ice-cold Coke.
Okay, you guys.
Food Stylist Versus Arby's.
I think it turned out pretty great.
I was a little intimidated, but looks really delicious,
I have to say.
Why don't you comment below
and let me know what you thought about this.
Tell me how I did.
And while you're at it, make sure you're subscribed
to Well Done on YouTube so you can stay up-to-date
with all the latest episodes of Food Stylist Versus.