(vibrant music)
- [Alvin] Hello there.
Welcome to the first episode of "Arcade With Alvin."
Today I'll be taking a trip down memory lane
and making the giant omelette from Neopets.
If you recognized that introduction song just now,
that's because it's from Faerie Bubbles,
one of Neopets' greatest games.
Neopets holds a very dear and special place
in my heart growing up,
so I thought it would be fun
to revisit those days of childhood and youth.
The giant omelette in Neopets is found
in the Tyrannian Plateau,
and every day, a player may approach
the giant omelette and take a slice.
The omelet you receive is quite random,
chosen from a variety of omelets,
as this omelet has been sitting there for years
with hundreds of toppings inside.
Sometimes you get a pretty normal omelette
and sometimes you get a wacky one,
which is why I'll be preparing
a variety of different ingredients,
such as cooking off these sausage patties here.
Whoa, start spittin' at me.
I'm searing about three to four patties in a pan
and just until they're golden brown
and chopping them up until they're small pieces.
Up next, I'm gonna be slicing
some baby carrots down the middle.
Baby carrots are found in some
of the omelettes given out by the giant omelette,
and, well, I was pretty much a baby when I played this, so.
I do have some experience making giant omelettes
so I'm gonna say this one takes about 36 eggs
after individually cracking every single one
into a bowl and not getting a single shell.
Good job, Alvin.
My weapon of choice to beat these eggs
is an immersion blender with a pinch of salt.
I have found that with a large quantity of eggs,
this is probably the best source of action.
No streaks, just yellow.
Now we're gonna go to the stove.
Into a giant paella pan,
I'm throwing in a whole stick of butter.
You know what they say, "More butter, more better."
Once the butter has melted and is slightly bubbling,
I'm pouring in all of the eggs
and cooking this omelette,
inspired by a French omelette technique,
over low heat, using a spatula to constantly stir the curds
and make sure that nothing is sticking or browning.
The giant omelette in Neopets
is completely yellow on the outside.
So I thought this would be the best course of action.
After about 10 minutes of slowly stirring,
folding and coaxing the curds into a soft shape,
I've decided that it's about 70% cooked
and it's now time to cover with a lid
to cook the rest of the way through.
That's Steve. He says, "Hi."
At this point, the heat is off.
So I'm hoping that the residual heat will cook it through.
But, after lifting it up,
it seems like this needs a little bit more help.
So I'm just gonna throw this in the oven
at about 250 degrees for five to 10 minutes.
As the omelette emerges, it is about 90% cooked through,
which I think makes a perfect soft omelette.
This omelette doesn't seem to be coming out so good.
We're gonna probably have to pivot
and build the omelette in the pan.
All right, here come the wacky ingredients.
We got sausage going down,
followed by a couple slices of pepperoni.
Then I'm gonna go ahead and top that with the baby carrots,
along with baby peas.
And on the other half of the omelette,
I'm laying down a couple slices of American cheese.
And for that Neopet signature
wacky ingredient, strawberry jam.
I chose to represent four omelettes from the giant omelette
that you can get in one single swoop,
and I'd like to think inside
the giant omelette everything
is pretty much mashed together.
Yeah, this ain't it, chief.
What, what, why are the eggs green?
So either I didn't add enough butter to the pan
or folding a gigantic, 36-egg omelette over itself
is too much of a task for little old me.
So I'm just gonna go ahead
and eat to make myself feel better
while I rethink my battle plan.
Hey, it's pretty good.
All right, that's it, that's the show.
See you guys next time.
Nah, I'm just kidding.
All right, new plan.
Instead of making the giant omelette from the Plateau,
I'm gonna make four flavors of omelettes
that I think represent the game in its best,
separately but together.
Here's what I mean.
I'm once again cracking a ton of eggs
but this time only 20.
Same course of action, immersion blender, salt
until we get nice and yellow everyway through.
Instead of cooking this in a pan
over a stove where things might stick and not come off,
I'm gonna take an old book out of my hat.
I'm gonna pour all these eggs
onto a Silpat lined sheet tray
and very carefully transfer this to the oven.
If you drop it, that's minus 5,000 Neopoint.
I can't afford that right now.
The oven is set to around 275.
This goes for about 10 to 15 minutes
to cook this through softly.
At about 70% of the way cooked through,
I'm pulling the omelette out
and adding the toppings this time
in more of a grid situation,
starting with the sausage and pepperoni omelette.
On the right, my left, goes the carrot and pea omelette
with the baby carrots and baby peas.
Actually, I think baby peas are just peas.
And on one edge of the pan,
I'm laying down a couple more slices
of American cheese for the cheese omelette,
and on the other end of the sheet tray,
I'm laying down strawberry jam,
followed by strawberries.
Pretty sure I'm gonna regret this,
but this would not be Neopets
if there wasn't something weird.
This striped version of the giant omelette now returns
to the oven for about another five minutes
so that it can finish cooking through
and everything is set.
But now that all of the toppings have baked in,
it's time to slice.
I decided to use a pizza cutter
to cut through this nice and cleanly
without damaging the Silpat.
The omelettes you get from the giant omelette all have
a signature rectangular shape.
So to achieve that,
I'm gonna fold each of these into thirds.
Omelettes can be fed to Neopets three times
before disappearing from your inventory,
so doing a triple fold with each omelette kinda makes sense.
And after each one is tucked and squared away,
I present to you four of the omelettes from Neopets:
the carrot and pea omelette, the cheese omelette,
the sausage and pepperoni omelette,
and the strawberry omelette.
I gotta say, looking at this shape does give me
a lot of nostalgia.
Coming home after school,
playing mini games for Neopoints,
refreshing the Money Tree page for free donations,
getting really excited when you
magically stumble upon a paintbrush.
But the real question is,
how do these omelettes taste?
First up, the carrot and pea omelette.
Yep, that's a little weird, okay.
How about the cheese omelette?
Hmm, okay.
Sausage and pepperoni omelette?
Now, this one, this is a good omelette.
I like this one.
And finally, my most anticipated one, the strawberry one.
Oh. (groans)
I'm gonna need some of those other omelettes back.
I was feeling satiated. Now I'm angry.
I actually have been playing Neopets
for the past three weeks every single day,
and I will say, it still slaps pretty hard.
Anybody wanna send me some codestones?