- All right.
Steven, Adam, here we are.
The season finale.
- That's right.
For this episode, we are doing something crazy
that we've never done before.
Two high priced meals against each other,
Omakase hot pot versus a big meats baller board.
♪ Is it worth it ♪
♪ Make it worth it ♪
♪ Worth it worth it ♪
- So the two restaurants in today's episode,
were actually filmed for two separate episodes originally,
but we had to pause production due to COVID-19
and we decided that
we'd like to still share these restaurants with you
and that they would actually make a great comparison
in one video.
So we'll be hosting this episode with me in the Highlander,
Steven and Adam at home,
showing you these restaurants which actually make,
for a very interesting comparison.
- You may not think that a hot pot and a meat board
would make sense together.
However, they're both incredible steak experiences
and both of them, you sit down
and don't have to make any decisions.
Today,
on Worth It,
we're going to be trying
two delicious beef dishes
at two drastic price points
and finding out which one is the most worth it
at it's price.
All right.
For the hot pot, we are headed to New York City.
And where are we going today, Andrew?
- We're on our way to a place called Shabu Shabu Mayumon.
We're gonna speak with Mayu and Junki,
and we're going to have a very special hotpot dinner.
It is
omakase style.
- That's right.
We're gonna get some premium beef
and they're gonna be doing the dipping for us so,
we literally cannot mess this up.
Well, unless you can't transfer the food to your mouth,
which in that case is on you.
(bright piano music)
- Here we are at Shabu Shabu Mayumon.
Thank you for having us.
What style of restaurant is Shabu Shabu Mayumon?
- We offer like a omakase style of the shabu-shabu,
a type of that Japanese hot pot.
The way of the cooking
with the swishing the meat in the dashi broth,
then dipping the sauce and then eat.
The omakase, it's like type of tasting menu.
- And I've heard omakase being referred to sushi.
Is it common to see omakase for shabu-shabu?
- Not really. (laughing)
Only two locations
offer like a shabu-shabu omakase, even not in Japan.
- [Andrew] What is the menu consists of?
- So, it comes three appetizers first.
After three appetizers, beef,
and then soba noodle and dessert.
- We just focus on paying attention to detail
and also like the service for the guests.
'Cause, the idea from shabu-shabu,
it's like a home style.
- I just want customer enjoy the food and the time
cause like I do everything
so you don't need to do anything.
- So this is your shabu-shabu place then?
- Yep.
- Then the name of the restaurant is named after you?
- Mm-hmm.
Mon means, the end of the nickname in Japanese.
Like Stevenmon. (laughing)
(contemporary music) (clinking)
- Thank you for coming.
We're gonna start with sake.
It's apéritif.
Thank you. - [Steven] Thank you.
- Cheers to that. (Mayu laughing)
- Tastes like an Apple!
- Yeah. (Mayu laughing)
It's so fruity.
Wait, I thought you said the hot pot
doesn't come until later.
- It's not the hot pot.
So, it's assorted mushroom.
This is ponzu.
- [Steven] Should we begin?
- I think we better.
Because we've got a lot of courses to get through.
I like that
we're starting off
a meat centric menu
with a very meaty substitute.
- This is our yuba.
Yuba is basically tofu skin.
- This is interesting.
She's dipping tofu skin
inside liquid tofu skin.
Why is that?
- It's just makes it soft.
- This is very reminiscent of the tea ceremony:
taking your time,
really valuing every ingredient.
- So it's a one bite.
- [Andrew] One bite!
Cheers Steven. - Cheers.
- I got the word to describe that, contrast.
- [Andrew] So the hot pot has arrived,
but we still have
one more appetizer. - [Mayu] Right.
- [Mayu] Dashi is a kombu broth
Kombu is a kind of seaweed. Shrimp and caviar.
- [Steven] Thank you.
- [Mayu] It's also another one bite.
- That was truly spectacular.
Wow!
- I gotta say that the flavor of garlic and caviar together,
I think is not very common, but it is really delicious.
So you've brought out the next section of the menu.
Right? - Yeah.
- This is A5 Miyazaki Wagyu ribeye,
which come from the Japan
and that's a highest quality.
And then we use Washugyu.
Washugyu is a crossbreed of
Tajima beef and Angus beef from Oregon State. And pork belly.
- [Steven] Why are you swishing the meat like that?
- [Mayu] Faster and equally to cook.
First piece is A5 Miyazaki wagyu ribeye,
with Karajiru sauce.
Karajiru is a soba dipping sauce.
- So soft.
- [Mayu] It's melting in the mouth?
- It absolutely did melt in my mouth.
Yeah.
When you're cooking in the broth,
what are you looking out for?
- It's not the, how long it is.
So I'm just looking at
the color of the meat.
Washugyu with a Karajiru.
- One bite?
- Yes. (laughing)
- The texture is fluffy!
- When we do shabu-shabu,
we usually do like beef and pork
and some vegetable together so people don't get bored.
(growling)
- [Mayu] Washugyu with ponzu.
So I'm gonna make a hand roll now,
with Miyazaki beef. - [Andrew and Steven] Ooh!
- Thank you.
One bite?
- Maybe two bite. (laughing)
- The rice in the seaweed is a nice reprieve.
- That's our pork belly and the lettuce.
- This reminds me of...
bo ssam, Korean pork belly wrapped in lettuce,
but the reversal!
- [Andrew] And are we about to see tomato sauce go on this?
Oh, that's the tomato sauce. - [Wayu] Yeah.
Wow! - Really orange.
It snuck up on me. - [Steven] Yeah.
- So, all sauces are homemade and we have 12 sauces.
One is tomato sauce and one is vegan basil,
and balsamic soy sauce.
It's kind of Italian, French style.
But we use with some soy sauce,
still keeping like Japanese flavors.
(contemporary music)
- It's really good. - I needed that.
We've now entered anchovy and garlic
based sauce. - [Steven] Whoa!
(contemporary music)
I feel like I just snuck out to a different restaurant
and like ate something off somebody else's table
and then (laughing)
ran back into - Came back.
the shabu-shabu place.
- Wait, that's a
vegetarian wonton?
- Mozzarella cheese inside.
There's wonton, mozzarella cheese, and basil.
- So, is this a Chinese inspired thing
or Italian? (Mayu laughing)
- [Mayu] Chinese-Italian.
- Could a cheese dish at shabu-shabu
be better than all the meats?
- Maybe.
- Our hand roll with Washugyu.
- [Steven] Thank you.
- [Mayu] Also, it's a pork bell and spinach,
sesame sauce and yuzu pepper.
Fig sauce, blue cheese, basil, balsamic soy sauce.
- [Andrew] Adam, I'm gonna let you have this one.
He's stunned.
He's speechless.
He's just ratatouille'd himself.
(laughing)
- Washugyu with wasabi.
- That was the best one.
- [Mayu] That's a sukiyaki flavor.
- And what is Sukiyaki?
- A kind of, another Japanese hot pot.
- Oh, - [Mayu] Yeah.
so this is a play on another Japanese hot pot?
- In Japan, we put in the raw egg and then eat.
(contemporary music)
- The egg gives an even softer sensation in the mouth.
- Like, can we just drink this egg?
- [Mayu] Yeah.
- That's really good.
- So now we are moving to the soba noodle.
So, we make soba noodle here
and it's 100% buckwheat,
so it's kind of difficult to make.
- [Junki] So, the owner used to be a
soba artisan in Japan.
He taught us how to make it.
- So, the broth is the remaining soup from the shabu-shabu.
This is roast beef.
- So, is this a traditional flavor for soba noodles?
- [Mayu] Not really.
It's more like Vietnamese phở style.
- Oh, right.
(slurping)
Wow, those are great.
- Whoa!
Is it possible to be comforted
from something you were already comforted from?
You know when people say,
"I need a vacation from my vacation."
This was like comforting hot pot,
but then like comforted from the comforting hot pot.
- [Andrew] Yeah, I like that.
That's great.
- It's a tea, roasted green tea.
It's a hōjicha.
Hōjicha is a roasted rice tea,
and then red bean on the side,
and the soybean powder and
buckwheat seed on the top.
- Ooh!
It's like when you're eating
s'mores and hot chocolate and you're by the fire, it's good.
(chuckles)
- I'm blown away, overall,
by how gentle of a dining experience this was.
- This is actually like a fine dining steak experience,
but it just happens to be cooked shabu-shabu style.
- This was great.
Thank you so much. - [Mayu] Thank you.
- Thank you so much.
- That was insane.
I thought I knew what a hot pot could be but,
I was wrong.
- And it was so much more than just a hot pot restaurant.
- [Steven] Beef fact.
- This is actually a Worth It fact.
- [Steven] Worth It fact!
- Including this episode, there are 66 episodes of worth it.
How many episodes of worth it
feature the hosts eating beef?
- Wait, so did you just go through the library
and watch every moment of us eating something
and count every single time we eat beef?
- Yup.
- Respect. (chuckles)
My number is 13.
- My number is 19.
- 34.
- What! (laughing)
- It doesn't make any sense.
How's that possible?
- In the salad episode,
you guys eat two steaks.
In the pie episode,
you go to Pie and Burger and eat a burger.
(laughing)
- Whose fault is that?
- [Adam] Pancake episode, you eat a beef and cheese.
(laughing) - I forgot about that.
- Okay.
Well, that was an unsettling fact, Adam,
but thank you for that.
Next up in this episode on beef,
we're gonna be going to Houston, Texas
to speak with an old friend of ours.
And we've made it.
We're back in Houston.
- That's right.
We're on our way now to a place called Georgia James,
which is run by chef Chris Shepherd.
Now you may remember,
a couple of seasons back for our pie episode
when we were in Houston,
we also saw Chris at his previous restaurant, Underbelly.
Chris has since transformed Underbelly into this new
restaurant, Georgia James.
So we're going back to the same physical place,
but for a wildly different experience.
- Today, we're getting something that is called,
the baller board.
- So you don't know the price of this when you order it.
Basically you ask for the baller board
and then they put
a combination of their best dishes on this board.
This might actually be the craziest thing
we've ever had on Worth It.
The fact that you don't know what it's gonna cost,
you just know that it's gonna cost a lot.
- I love it.
(bright upbeat music)
- First of all, thanks for having us back.
- It's good to see you.
- Georgia James is a steakhouse,
but what does that mean for you?
- I wanted to do a different style of steakhouse,
basically what it would look like
if you came to my house on a Sunday night.
How would I do the sides?
How would I cook a steak?
Sides are a little bit different,
but it's gonna be cast iron seared steaks.
- [Andrew] So, today we're having something called
the baller board. - Yeah.
The baller board is not part of your menu, right?
- [Chris] We don't talk about it.
- [Andrew] A lot of people are gonna know about it
after this.
- Yeah, yeah.
At Underbelly, you know,
we spent a lot of time just curating menus for you.
If you have a four top or six top or eight top of people
and they're just like, "We don't really know.
We just want to put a bunch of stuff together."
And it's like, "Okay, let's see what we're gonna do."
And then it became the baller board.
It's not the cheapest thing to do.
It definitely averages per person.
But I mean, if you're like, "You can't out ball me."
It's like, "Oh, okay.
Yeah, we can actually."
It's always like thoughtful and delicious.
You know, it's not just a bunch of stuff
thrown on the plate.
It takes four to ride, minimum of four people.
Even if you're three, it's still gonna be food for four.
You really don't get a choice in anything.
It's a really good way to eat.
So you're probably gonna get things that you
may and may not have tried
and thought you wanted, but you didn't.
- So coming in,
I don't know what it's gonna cost in the end?
- No, nope.
- Is there a range typically?
- Nope.
We basically just cost like whatever it is on the board.
So, it's clearly documented.
(laughing)
- I'm excited.
- [Chris] Greg Peters, who is the chef here.
And then Matt Coburn, who is the sous chef.
They're gonna put everything together for you.
- So you guys are gonna be making the baller board today?
- Yes, sir.
- Absolutely.
- How do you decide what goes on this board?
- So, nightly that falls on either one of us, the both of us.
Nothing is off the table.
There's steak, plenty of seafood, chicken, lamb.
Part of the mystique of the baller board is that
there are some items on there
that are not gonna be on the menu.
If we feel like buying things like foie gras,
having caviar in the building,
sometimes things like that
get purchased only for baller boards.
So pretty much every steak that leaves in this kitchen
is seared in a cast iron pan.
Nice sear, a nice crust.
- Restaurants use broilers or grills.
That steak is gonna leech moisture and blood and juices.
On a grill or broiler, all of that is getting lost.
But when we're cooking it in the cast iron pan,
all of it's staying in the pan.
So we're essentially building the flavor.
- [Greg] Every other dish kinda gets put on hold for that
three and a half minute plate up.
- [Matt] One guy is throwing sides,
doing a swoosh of whipped potatoes,
I'm slicing steaks on the back pass,
some guy is coming around with crab legs.
It's a - Yeah.
well oiled machine that just all comes together.
(clinking)
- We've come a long way on this show.
- In some ways, we've gone nowhere.
(laughing)
- Oh my!
- [Greg] All right, gang, how are we doing?
- I'm not sure.
It's like when fear takes away your appetite.
- Right? (laughing)
I'm here to give you a little rundown.
First up though,
we have some Alaskan King crab leg, cream collard greens,
whole roasted snapper filet. - What!
Heavy on the creole seasoning. - You missed it?
Heavy on the butter,
right there. - I didn't see it from here.
Next to that, we have some smashed fried new potatoes.
And then on top of that,
we have about our 20 ounce, 44 Farms tenderloin.
Top that with a nice piece of seared
foie gras and some caviar,
some smoked pork
and topped with a little bit of a ssamjang sauce.
So kind of a Korean influence on there.
The center of the board,
is our most unique steak here in house.
It's about a 95-day dry-aged long bone ribeye,
brown butter roasted mushrooms, loaded mashed potato.
Right here's our wagyu zabuton.
We have some roasted cauliflower
topped with a tomato curry.
That about covers it.
No right or wrong way to attack it.
Dig in and enjoy yourselves.
- [Andrew] Thank you so much. - Cool?
- [Steven] Amazing.
- Thank you all.
- Thank you. - Thank you.
I wanna talk about what we just witnessed,
which I would possibly say is the greatest show
I've ever seen in a kitchen.
- I legitimately forgot that there was a fish on this board
because I can't even see the fish on this board.
How about we start with that choice, rare,
- I like where
you're going with that. - [Andrew] piece of meat.
- [Stevens] Let's go.
Wow. (laughing)
- [Andrew] I'm wasting no more time.
- Cheers. (bright upbeat music)
Oh my God!
The crust is so insane.
- Let's compare the wagyu now to the Angus ribeye.
- Oh, whoa!.
Look at that.
- [Adam] Did you already eat it?
- Yeah, you're right. (laughing)
- Ooh!
This is super fun.
Let's get the tenderloin.
- Yeah, let's go to this tenderloin.
Do you want to shmear the foie gras?
- You know what?
This is worth it, baby.
- [Andrew] This is hedonism...
defined.
- Cheers.
(bright upbeat music)
- That tastes like, if a Cinnabon was meat.
(laughing)
I just had a brilliant idea.
Here's what I'm gonna do.
Potato, do you know what I'm gonna go next?
Caviar. (Steven mumbling)
- [Steven] Yeah.
Oh, you're a crazy person.
- We one ate a taco that was only this,
and that was the whole episode.
(laughing) (rock music)
- No, that is so true.
This wins it.
Like, of any dish we've ever had,
this is the most Worth It-esk dish.
I want some of the collard greens
'cause it looks like dip.
You know what?
Actually, because of that, I'm gonna dip wagyu
into the collard greens.
I think David Chang will be proud.
I can't.
I can't handle it.
My mouth,
it's just - Okay.
a lot. - I'ma eat some pork now.
- Oh, do you want to just share that?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh wow!
- Oh God!
It's like I suspected.
There's a whole ham on this board.
- This board is going ham.
Let's go crab with leg.
(laughing)
- How was that meet luge? (chuckles)
Oh my God!
- What did we forget?
- I forgot about the fish
for a second time. (laughing)
- [Steven] Fish, let's just get the fish.
- All right, let's get the fish over here.
It's so good.
- Oh, tender and smokey.
- This is what the baller board is all about.
Not caring what you're eating but it's delicious,
and somebody else had to care for you.
- You can't do that in literally
any other profession. (laughing)
- You don't go to a car dealership and you're like,
"Baller board my car!"
- Baller board me.
I do for a one sec I want to say something a bit serious.
I think the distinction to make here,
that's very important for the audience.
A lot of you guys say that, you know,
"Oh, those restaurants are just cheating,"
cause you know, they add caviar, truffle, yada yada.
This restaurant did every single aspect of this board
excellently. - Yeah.
And that I think is what makes this so worth it.
Oh, I haven't had cauliflower yet.
- I think there's four things on this board
I haven't even eaten yet.
- You know me, gotta end every meal
with the good old,
bone meat.
- Look at this, you're eating a big bone,
I eating a crab leg.
- This is the best piece of meat on the board.
- Okay, this is clearly too much food.
(chuckles) (clinking)
- So, Andrew, we've come near to the end.
What was your favorite bite?
- I'm gonna go with
maybe what will be a little bit more of an unsung hero,
and I'm gonna go with the lettuce bite
at Shabu Shabu Mayumon.
The way that a bundle of hot lettuce
can transport broth to your mouth
is really unique and I think quite delicious.
- All right.
So for me, it was also at Shabu Shabu Mayumon,
and it was the yuba uni.
Oh my God, I have a photo here of it.
It's one of those things where I wish I could eat my phone.
Andrew, which beef experience to you
was the most worth it at its given price point.
My honest answer is, Shabu Shabu Mayumon.
Like, you're getting some of the best food
presented in the best way,
but it's also very relaxed and intimate.
- You know, I could make arguments for both very easily.
If you have four people go with you to Shabu Shabu Mayumon,
the prices are pretty similar.
- We got some stuff at Georgia James that really
made our experience
quite a bit more expensive than it could have been.
- I think I gotta say
the meat board - [Andrew] Really?
'cause that meal,
it would feed six to eight people I believe.
And it would be just the most grand old time
with all that food in front of you.
- Adam, how about you?
- [Adam] Georgia James. - [Andrew] Really?
And that does it for another season of Worth It.
Given all the recent news and events,
what we've taken for granted
is eating at restaurants.
And so, I hope that everybody out there stays safe,
but also support your local restaurants if you can.
And also
thank you to all the people involved in making this show,
both in front and behind the camera.
See you next time.
(Worth It theme song)