- Hey, it's Andrew, Steven and Adam.
Before we get started,
this episode was filmed at the beginning of the year
before we started social distancing, due to COVID-19.
- Yes, we are currently still social distancing,
but we wanna share these great restaurants with you.
Even the dining out is not the same
as it usually is right now.
- Today, we're doing rice.
♪ Is it worth it ♪
♪ Make it worth it ♪
♪ Worth it ♪
- Potentially the most anticipated episode of Worth It ever.
- By who?
- By me. - Okay.
- By me.
By yours truly, rice is my favorite carb
and potentially my favorite dish.
- And before we get started on today's adventure,
special thank you to Toyota,
who hooked us up with this Highlander
to be the new Worth-It-Mobile this season.
- Today at Worth It, we're gonna be trying three rice dishes
at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most worth it
and it's price.
- I'm thinking about rice.
We've eaten it so many times on this show.
It's an ingredient.
It's a dish.
It can take so many forms.
Say rice, and then I'll say a thing.
- Rice. - Noodle.
- Rice. - Porridge.
- Rice. - Pudding.
- Rice. - Cake.
Wait, reverse it now.
Sticky. - Rice.
- Fried. - Rice.
- Crispy. - Rice.
- Nice. - Rice.
- We're eating it. - Rice.
Okay, so where are we going first?
- We're on our way to Azuma Restaurant.
We're gonna see owner, Hideki
and general manager, Hitoshi.
- I'm very excited because this restaurant
was actually referred to us
by our good friend, Sean Miura.
He will be joining us for the tasting.
- He said they make the most fantastic Onigiri.
(bright upbeat music)
Here we are at Azuma Restaurant.
- With our good friend, Sean Miura.
- What's up?
- How did it feel recommending a restaurant to Worth It?
- It's pretty stressful.
Cause you don't know if it's going to be good enough.
And then also you don't want people to show up
and make it harder to get into.
- Oh, I see.
- You're walking in the door
and there's a really great energy and vibe to it.
It's kind of like a cheers feeling.
- Can you tell us a little bit of
the background of Azuma?
- We purchased this restaurant 2002.
It was owned by a Japanese national.
Built by the Okamoto family, in the early 50s.
- And why has it been important for you guys
to maintain this restaurant as an Izakaya?
- We liked it for one.
Izakaya style is the analogist to the Spanish tapas,
lots of little things.
But in addition to that,
we have the regular menu items.
- Asparagus beef is very important out here.
Sashimi salad.
- And what makes a really good Onigiri?
- Rice is very important.
We are using Hickory rice.
Simple but tastes really good.
- It's best to start with like a plain Onigiri,
it's just going to be this triangle.
That's a little bit thick.
That's like just the right firmness.
Have maybe a little bit of salt and the piece of seaweed.
But otherwise it's just gonna be
this nice, subtle flavor because it's just straight up rice.
- [Steven] Whoa! This a giant.
- So this is their most standard version.
No filling, it's not grilled rice, salt, seaweed.
It does have a satisfying haft.
- It has the weight of a perfectly shaped snowball.
Like I wanna throw this at somebody.
- Yeah. - Cheers.
- Oh, The rice is naturally sweet.
- Where are you getting sweet?
- Are you tasting salt?
- I'm tasting salt.
- I'm I confused?
Wait, Adam, please confirm for me.
Maybe I'm crazy.
- I got too much seaweed.
It just tastes like seaweed.
(all laughing)
- Amazing how satisfying it is.
Because it's just, it's so few elements.
- It's really a satisfying.
- Wait, eat that now.
- So this is takuan,
It's like a pickled daikon.
- Love that.
That's sweet.
- I think we're gonna find out in this episode
that my taste buds are broken.
- So those are the base I wanna give you.
Yaki Onigiri, Yaki comes from the verb Yaku,
which means like to grill.
It's just how you get like takoyaki.
It's how you get okonomiyaki.
It's how you get soba.
- [Steven] Fun fact.
- So what they're gonna do is they're gonna brush it
with the soy sauce based sort of mixture.
Then they're gonna be grilling it.
Charred rice is one of my favorite flavors in the world.
You could have salmon.
Salmon's really popular one.
That's my personal favorite.
Umeboshi is like a pickled plum.
It contrasts nicely with the rice flavor.
- Steven, which one do you want?
- I saw the fish egg on the menu.
We're talking about contrast.
Look at that crust.
- And then just the smell you should
be getting this nice toasty.
- Yeah. - Cheers.
- It never gets old.
- Wow, that's almost like a fried rice, rice ball.
I mean, I guess it is.
- If you'll notice in one bite,
you're getting this crispy outside,
which is like totally charged to perfection.
And then inside is still this really nice rice
that's taken in the flavor of the soy sauce.
- I just got to the fish egg part.
Yeah, very fishy.
I get it though.
This is actually amazing.
- It does go with the toasted flavor of the rice very well.
It's so good.
Considering it is mostly just rice.
- Hey, not just rice, like rice is rice.
You're just Andrew.
- I'm not getting any of this.
(all laughing)
- No, I got you.
I know what you mean. - This is good.
- Thank you so much to Sean for guiding us
through our Azuma dining experience.
I hope to go there again with him.
- I know we're about to eat two more amazing rice dishes.
I have a feeling today.
They're all my Worth It winner.
You just literally cannot go wrong with rice.
- Steven, it's time for
a little rice fact. - Rice fact.
- And in fact, this is going to be a pop quiz rice fact.
How many cultivated varieties of rice
are there in the world?
- Oh no.
- Take a guess.
- This one's hard.
I'm gonna say 12,534.
- 12,000?
The answer is 40,000.
Yeah. - You know what?
I'll take that.
It's like I'm living in Pokemon Red.
I've only explored the 150 kinds of rice.
My rice index is, it's expanding.
- Well to expand our knowledge of distinct
and delicious rice types.
Our next restaurant is going to feature
a very special type of rice.
We're now on our way to Lukshon
where we're going to see chef Sang Yoon
and try his heirloom black rice.
- Very nice.
- Black rice.
(upbeat music)
- Lukshon was my first traditional restaurant.
I came from a world of very high end, French fine dining.
Lukshon is sort of my rendition
of how I perceive Southeast Asia.
The place is full of mystery and incredible history.
And this is where I interpret Southeast Asia
through a very modern lens.
My rendition of beef and broccoli complete change a dish.
And we do some things that are very, very traditional.
But there's a lot of things that we use.
There are tricks.
We use a lot of modern cooking technique that
was not available and it's not traditional.
We make something called puffed beef tendon.
And it will look like from afar, pork grind,
but we call it the bovine cousin to the chicharrone.
So I think authentic, but not traditional.
You get a taste of something that is so ancient
and it's still incredibly relevant.
The cuisine would not be possible with only old or only new.
They have to harmonize.
- So tell us a little bit about
this black heirloom rice dish.
- So the black rice dishes
is also another mysterious ingredient
that people used to call it, forbidden rice.
And I was like, "Why is it forbidden?"
The story is that it was only once available to royalty.
And if you were just a normal person,
you weren't allowed to have it.
Although it is not technically forbidden,
it isn't incredibly widely available even in China.
So I wanted to make a rice dish.
It was about the rice itself.
There's a small amount of Cantonese sweet sausage
called Lap Cheong.
The rice is the star of the show and not simply a side.
I think that's a complete different perspective on rice.
The thing about black rice is it's very forgiving
and that it can take on a lot of the heat from the wok.
The black rice actually just gets smokier.
So you get almost that light scorch,
that waft of smoke.
I've actually never seen black rice cooked this way.
- I'm willing to bet this is gonna
be a completely new experience.
Cheers Steven.
(upbeat music)
- It's a nice chewy grain rice - What? Yes, it's chewy.
Wow, I thought I was an expert on rice.
I don't know. - You've been stumped by rice.
- How do you describe that texture?
Is it springy, bouncy?
- Like seedy almost.
I wanna buy this rice.
I'm gonna find out where they get this.
- They have a guy.
- I want that guy.
Get me that guy.
I'm gonna have some egg with it now.
- Now this is what I like to see.
Now that is the familiar taste I know and love.
- But then earthy, nutty, herbaceous, other rice flavor.
- I noticed every single grain of rice when I eat it.
Each grain holds up by itself.
- All of the other stuff in this dish stay very separate
until you get a bite from them.
You're eating it.
- Ooh, this is good.
- Whoa, that's also good.
- When I saw this bowl of rice,
my like mind, it gets stuck.
- It's like, you're looking at an image in negative.
Why is the white bar black?
- I shouldn't be eating it.
I guess that's why it's called the forbidden rice.
- Gosh, what a flavorful grain of rice.
- I think it has made me reconsider
my own personal rice options at home.
So used to just getting the one I grew up on,
but I think it's time to start buying other bags of rice.
- So we've had two savory rice dishes.
Our last rice dish is actually gonna be a dessert.
But before we get there, it's time for one more
- Rice fact.
While the Great Wall of China was being built
in the 15th and 16th centuries,
workers used a porridge made of calcium carbonate
and rice as a mortar the whole of the stones together.
Steven Lim who loves a good chemical engineering rice fact.
The foundation to my diet and the foundation to a mortar.
- I wonder if people snuck a bites of it
and inadvertently cemented their stomach's short.
So we're on our way to our last rice dish.
We're going to Auburn,
where we're gonna speak with chef Eric
and we're actually gonna be eating at the restaurant's bar.
The dish is white chocolate risotto,
which is the creation of pastry chef Dyan
also has white truffle on it.
- As somebody who has eaten rice his entire life,
this will be probably the craziest rice dish
I will ever eat.
(gentle music)
- Auburn is a modern product driven restaurant
that looks to de-formalize fine dining,
make it approachable.
- I mean the first thing I noticed was what you're wearing.
- Is this your daily work wear - Yeah, of course.
- Is this what you were wearing during service?
- It is.
I'll throw in a college shirt at night.
- So de-formalizing fine dining.
What does that mean at Auburn?
- To me, it means removing the rules
to begin to go into a fine dining
you're told how many courses you need to take.
Everyone takes the same thing.
- So you wanted to de-formalize fine dining.
And then if that's too formal,
you still have the bar.
- Exactly, we wanna make it energetic for everyone.
So where the dining room is tasting menu format,
the bars completely on a card.
We use the same products just in a different way.
So Sea Bream is a beautiful product.
This is from Japan.
It's very well treated.
So it's brought on the boat line caught.
So the flesh is pristine..
We really wanna highlight the filet in the dining room.
And then in the bar,
obviously the collar is typically an off-cut, more fatty.
So our bar gives us the ability to offer that to guests.
- We're gonna be having this risotto, which is a dessert.
- It is a dessert.
It's between a dessert and something savory,
which makes it very unique and super delicious.
- The white chocolate risotto.
- Yes.
- With white truffle.
I guess I'm just wondering how you came up with this dish.
- We were getting in these beautiful hazelnuts,
like the best hazelnuts that I've ever tasted.
And then we were getting in our orders of white truffles.
We use a very good risotto rice called Acquerello.
After they harvest it,
they age it for one to three years.
It enhances the flavor,
but also it makes it so the rice can absorb
as much liquid as possible,
but still maintaining like the structure of the rice,
where you cook it and it's not mushy and you eat it
and you still feel that individual grains of rice
in your mouth while you're chewing it.
- So we're here at the bar
of this beautiful restaurant that's behind this wall.
- I like that.
It's like an unplanned fine dining meal.
- Since it's a dessert,
I thought we should build up to the experience.
So first we're getting the crispy pig ear.
- I grew up in North Carolina.
We have a lot of crispy pork rinds.
We braise pigs ears for about 12 hours.
We slice them with dehydrate them and then we fry them.
And what we get is like a very puffed chicharron,
we top it with sea salt, vinegar powder,
and fresh black pepper.
(upbeat music)
- Wow.
- Chips at a bar, I like it.
- This is strangest texture.
- It reminds me of like a packet
of ramen noodles before you boil it.
- Yes.
- Cheers.
- Wow.
- Wow, I can just eat that forever.
The thin ear kind of like tastes sweet against all
of the other stuff happening.
- That's crazy, whoa.
- And this is kind of like a salt and vinegar chip,
but on kind of like a porky puff.
- It's scary, cause
- You've got some shrapnel flying off the mouth there.
- The Sea Bream Collar is very unique, smaller, delicious.
We cure it in a mixture of salt, sugar and citrus farm.
Citrus and fish go really well together.
In California here,
we have very unique citrus called finger line.
It looks like little caviar pearls.
So we come up with a little bit of spice,
a lot of acidity, a little bit of funk.
It's not dressed.
It's very simply put on a plate.
- Cheers.
- Oh, god.
- When fish is good, it is the best meat.
- Oh my gosh.
- Oh, yeah. - Oh, man.
- Okay, that's heaven.
I could eat 30 of these.
Why would you want to order a dessert dish
of all things if it is white truffle.
- Well, I think if you're really interested in food
and you wanna try something that you haven't tried before,
it would naturally speak to you.
I think this is just something you're gonna have to try.
And you guys should just let me know.
- At first I thought,
huh, smells like a, kind of a nutty dessert.
And now I'm back into, huh,
it smells like I'm about eat pasta.
- I feel like the world just,
when like there's a portal.
- We're at the portal about just step into another realm.
- Yeah.
- All right Steven, let's step into that realm.
Cheers Steven. - Cheers.
In to the portal we go.
I feel like my muscles,
when I eat this are just expanding.
And I wanna stretch and I don't know causing that feeling.
- This is really good.
- It's a lot sweeter than I thought it was going to be.
I thought the truffle was gonna overpower all
the sweetness that happened.
The rice pudding vibes I'm getting
- It is like a very nice rice pudding.
- It's very comforting.
- Yeah, the truffle is not that weird in here.
I think it shares a nuttiness with the hazelnut,
which shares a butteryness with the white chocolate,
which goes with the vanilla broth
that the risotto was cooked in.
It's actually not very crazy at all.
- That's one of the most intelligent things
you ever did on this show.
Well done.
- I can't get over the idea that I'm just eating
a truffled rice krispy treat porridge.
Rice krispy treat with truffle.
- It's so good.
There's no moment of like,
I'm confused by what I'm eating,
but maybe it makes sense.
It's just like immediately delicious.
- I am completely satisfied with that rice journey.
- It was a very satisfying day of eating rice.
- What was your favorite thing of the episode?
That wasn't rice.
- My favorite part of the episode
where we talk about not the food,
the design of Auburn,
it reminds me of some Danish alternate life
that I'll never get to live.
How about you?
- My answer is tea salad at Lukshon.
The salad was maybe the best thing at Lukshon.
- Whoa, bold words.
- Yeah, all right Andrew,
which one was your Worth It winner?
- My Worth It winner is gonna go to Lukshon.
That black heirloom rice is so unique.
It tastes so delicious and different.
- You know what's crazy is
that I'm about to choose something
and that lives out the other one.
And I can't believe that other one
is not either of our Worth It winners,
because my Worth It winner goes to Azuma.
The rice ball, it is the simplest version of this dish
that could have been done.
My winner does not go to the grilled Onigiri.
- Oh, really. - It actually goes to
the plain rice ball.
It's the simplicity of it cannot be beaten,
but I can't leave Auburn's neither
cause that was spectacular. - Yeah, Auburn
is really next level.
Adam, what was your Worth It winner?
Adam says it's Auburn.
Man, Auburn was so good.
Next, we're going on a little road trip out of LA.
Road trip.
♪ Worth it ♪
♪ Make it worth it ♪
♪ Worth it ♪
♪ Make it worth it ♪
♪ Worth it ♪
♪ Make it worth it ♪
♪ Worth it ♪