- All right Steven, this will be our
final Worth It episode for 2019.
- [Steven] Today on Worth It,
we're going to be trying three fried chicken sandwiches
at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most Worth It at its price.
- I think we're experiencing, at the moment,
a little bit of a fried chicken sandwich craze.
We thought we'd investigate the issue
and do fried chicken sandwiches ourselves.
- I like what you said, "investigate."
- Oh look at that, fresh asphalts.
- The way you say words (laughs)
- It's look golden and delicious
the way fresh fried chicken does.
Doesn't that look delicious?
That looks tasty,
what?
So the first place we're heading to is
The Window At American Beauty.
Chef Elisha is going to be showing us
their fried chicken sandwich.
American Beauty is a steakhouse.
And during the day, they have a to-go window
that does things like burgers, fries,
fried chicken sandwiches, obviously.
- I like that a lot, it feels very New York.
I don't know where I'm going with that.
I just like New York.
(atmospheric music)
- What is The Window? - So The Window
is our daytime operation where we serve delicious food
at a very affordable price.
- [Steven] As I understand it,
this chicken sandwich is under six bucks?
- [Chef Elisha] Yeah, it's five dollars and 50 cents.
- Wow. - That is crazy.
- I don't know if I'd say we're competition
with fast-food, but we're trying to hit around
the price point of the regular fast-food chains.
We're making everything in house
and I get to deliver hospitality to our guests,
whether they order a fried chicken sandwich at the window
or they're ordering our steaks at night.
So we butterfly the chicken so it spreads out,
we pound it so it's the same thickness around.
- [Andrew] I saw that you were also scoring the meat
before you were pounding it.
- [Chef Elisha] By scoring it, we're both helping
the buttermilk and the seasoning penetrate,
but also we're getting a little more surface space,
so a little more crunchy parts.
And then we just fry it.
We have the awesome Martin's Potato Rolls,.
The jalapeño aioli, which gives a little bit
more fat and some heat.
And then we have this very simple slaw
that gives a little freshness.
Just cabbage, some carrots, red onion,
and a very simple red wine vinaigrette.
- [Steven] Is that what you would
say makes a perfect fried chicken sandwich?
Is it the balance of all of those things together?
- [Chef Elisha] For me, I think it's
really the combination of it all.
It's an evolution while you're eating it.
And as it goes, it's kinda all compliments itself.
And I think that really makes for a better
and more enjoyable eating experience.
- Order for Worth It.
- That's our order!
- Thank you guys! - Thank you.
- Oh, that smells amazing. - Oh!
- Sorry, I just want that. - That was a hard hit.
There's something about food in a box
like this that I just love every time.
- Mm hm. - It's like
the American Bento Box.
- Nice. - Do you eat Ketchup
with your fries? - I do.
- Okay, hold on, I got you. - All right.
(squeaking)
I took a fry, I mean what? - What?
You're lucky I don't dump this ketchup
on your head. - Do it, I dare you.
Fries. (video game music)
- Mm, incredible fry.
It's crunchy like cereal is crunchy.
- Okay, lets go sando' time.
- Oh, look at that. - Whoa!
It feels fluffier than I thought.
- That's that potato bun.
Cheers. - Cheers.
(upbeat music)
- Mm! - Mm.
Yeah, that was a really good first bite.
- Wow.
- Mm!
That was a really good second bite.
- I have a feeling every bite is going to be good.
- What I'm realizing about this bun,
it's so soft and fluffy that it's doing its job
in like making the fried chicken
the real star of the show.
- So this is the, "why are we having
fried chicken sandwich" question, you know?
'cause we've done fried chicken before,
but the bun just dials the whole thing back
into like soft doughnut territory.
- Mhm - Which I kind of like.
- You know what this does kind of remind me of?
- [Steven] Tell me. - I think you're going
to be mad that you didn't think of this.
- No, I think it's going to be less exciting than I thought.
- The peking duck bun that we had in New York.
That soft, squishy bun with a delicious meat
and condiment and crispy vegetable.
Plus the cucumber and the sauce
that adds a little sweetness. - You're right, okay, yeah.
- American Beauty, what a beautiful time in America.
- That's too easy for you, I'm disappointed.
- Okay, so before our next proper
fried chicken sandwich, we're actually gonna
have a bonus piece of fried chicken.
(sighs) Friend of the show,
David Chang, has a number of fried
chicken sandwich shops called Fuku.
They have an off menu, mega spicy, fried chicken
designed to taste better as a cold product.
It's like a food pun but in the language
of flavor and temperature.
- It sounds more like an oxymoron.
- It's like a fun-- - You'd have to be
an oxy-moron to eat this.
Aah! - You know what's terrifying?
Black gloves that come with your food.
Here it is, oh, whew!
Put your gloves on. (laughs)
This guy's walking his dog and is just looking
at three guys putting on black gloves.
(dramatic music)
Oh my god! It looks upsetting.
- Why! Oh!
- It looks like mummified meat.
- Why is it so dark? (laughs)
- Adam, I wish you had that
bottle of ranch on standby.
- Oh! (laughs)
- I thought we were just dipping!
(laughs) Adam!
This is so bizarre. - Oh, it's cold!
(laughs) Cheers!
(dramatic music)
Oh, it's not too bad.
Oh!
- Oh, it's like cinnamon-sugary too.
- Oh! - Oh!
- It's bad.
- There's pickles that you can have
along side (sighs).
(sighs) No, I don't like this.
- Give me the fact! - Okay.
Hot-cold fried chicken fact time.
Mm, that's good, an ice, slush drink.
- It's making it worse. - Can you say
Hot-cold fact chicken time? - Hot-Cold Fact Chicken time!
(laughs) Oh, wow!
- The chemical in spicy foods that
makes something spicy is capsaicin.
Capsaicin is known to increase energy, reduce appetite,
increase salivation, and release endorphins.
(Laughing)
- Ability to taste reduces in higher temperatures(above 86F)
as well as lower temperatures(below 68F).
Oh! - I think this chicken might
be right in the center.
You're still going? - Oh my goodness!
- So we're on our way downtown to Pikunico.
We're going to see chef Kuniko
and have her fried chicken sandwich.
- Okay, is it spicy. - No, it's okay.
- Okay, good. - Yeah.
(atmospheric music)
- Pikunico means picnic plus Kuniko.
So everything is in a to-go box and you can eat outside
of the restaurant, like a picnic.
- Why did you choose fried chicken
as the cornerstone of the menu?
- I grew up with it.
My grandma never liked cooking, so we'd always go buy it.
(laughs) When I came here,
I ate this southern style fried chicken,
with thick, thick crust and
I loved it,
so I did a hybrid.
Light, as Japanese, but also with a crunchiness.
Normally it's a wheat flour,
but we do brown rice and potato starch.
That's maybe the most special part of our fried chicken.
Our fryer don't carry any gluten.
A lot of my friends kids, they're are serious allergy,
and they never eaten fried chicken.
So I said, you can come here.
- [Andrew] Why did you want to offer a sandwich option
for your fried chicken?
- [Kuniko] I'm trying to belong here.
- [Andrew] Do you ever find those in Japan?
- [Kuniko] I don't believe it's a popular thing.
Japanese just pack rice balls,
and fried chicken, and pickles.
And that's our picnic.
But a lot of people said, "Kuni, come on,
"like you're living in the United Sates,
"everyone loves sandwich, come up with a great one."
I wanted to make the sandwich as special as I could.
We created a bun which carries turmeric.
The turmeric is antiinflammatory.
So you can lessen your feeling
of I'm eating fried chicken today.
To me, sandwich is about combination.
The soft bun, crunchy chicken, acid from lemon vinaigrette.
I want it to have everything in one bite.
- I mean you say one bite, but I've seen the sandwich,
and it's quite tall, how do I eat that with one bite?
- Smoosh. (laughs)
- We've come for the sandwiches, but we also got a salad
that we're going to try first.
- [Kuniko] I like my seaweed and cucumber salad.
Our seaweed is from Japan and it's salt cured.
The texture is not like dehydrated,
like wakame, like paper thin.
It's very meaty and satisfying.
I eat my salad everyday. - Cheers.
(atmospheric music)
- Mm! - Wow.
- I'm not sure I've ever had this type of seaweed before.
It is denser and meatier.
- Pause button, back to the sandwich.
She gave us good advice to smoosh.
- Look at how juicy the chicken is.
Do you see the juices coming out?
It's the hidden benefit of the squish.
- Cheers. (chewing)
- That's awesome. - Wow.
- That's a face wiper, for sure.
It's a very good sandwich.
- Dude, the star of this fried chicken sandwich.
- Say it on three, one-- - Two, three.
- The pickles. - The bread.
Oh, defend your case because I think you're wrong.
- It's the sourness that makes you want all the other stuff.
- True, but come one, look at this bread.
It's squishy, has a nice bite, it's not falling apart.
- It's a beautiful sandwich.
The texture of this stuff, almost like moss-like.
You ever look at moss and think, I bet that's tasty?
- I never think that, no. - Really?
I think it'd be a cool texture to eat.
It's like a hanging garden.
- It's like that plant up there.
I think this makes like potentially
the perfect sandwich.
You've got this fried chicken that's delicious.
But then, the things surround it so you're not
feeling like greasy. - It's not greasy at all.
- The fried chicken is on this side, right.
So she's like, okay, what do I put on this side
to balance it out. - Sprouts, miso jam, pickles,
a little too far. - Oh, okay.
- Jalapeños on this side, boom.
I feel like we've said some good stuff.
- Ooh. - Dirty move Adam.
That's a dirty, dirty move.
Are you using the one that you
didn't already steal a piece of chicken out of?
I see, I know how you work.
Pikunico, what do you think? - The bread, it's so good.
- Ooh, I feel like a picnic.
Does that make any sense? - No.
Before we go to our next spot,
Fried Chicken Sandwich Fact time!
- Fried Chicken Sandwich fact.
- Though it's not currently on the menu,
for a time KFC offered the Double Down sandwich,
I remember that one.
Which consisted of two fried chicken filets
doubling as the bun
(the filling was bacon, cheese, and sauce).
I actually have a very fond memory of this.
- You actually ate this thing?
- I tried it. It was as amazing as it sounds.
- Really? I remember that thing, that was madness.
It's like, just eat food guys, what are you doing?
Is it even a sandwich at that point or are you just
picking up food?
Like if I just pick up a steak and eat it with my hand,
is that a sandwich?
If you have two of them.
We started this video at a steakhouse, now we're going
to a seafood restaurant.
- Oh, okay
- We're on our way to Son of a Gun, where Chef Greg
is going to show us their fried chicken sandwich,
and probably a couple other seafood treats.
(Electronic music)
- [Andrew] Is this modeled after a certain style
or like genre of seafood?
- Definitely, Jon and Vinny the owners are from Florida,
the vibe of it is the Florida fish shack.
- [Andrew] I wonder why you put fried chicken sandwich
on a menu of a seafood restaurant.
- [Greg] Well our menu is really diverse,
which is like the way we like to eat.
Living in Los Angeles, you have so much diversity,
there's amazing food in Korea town, amazing Chinese food in
San Gabriel, you name it we got it here.
So this is what influences our menu,
we're not an Italian restaurant, we're not a
French restaurant, we just take something that we're into
at the time and try to develop a dish.
- [Andrew] The tuna dish for example
- [Greg] Exactly yeah, that tuna dish is influenced by
Peruvian cuisine, first we take market avocado,
red onion, cilantro, and some tortilla chips.
Mix all that together, and then the tuna has been
pounded out in the carpaccio, so it makes the texture
of the fish really nice.
So that gets wrapped around the avocado mix, and then
the bottom of the bowl is a leche de tigre so,
you eat it with a spoon and get that little bit of the tuna,
the avocado, the tortilla chips all together.
- Ohh. Thank you. - [Andrew] Wow.
- This is delightful. - This reminds me of our
time at Pacific Seas, remember that?
I don't exist in this bar as you know me.
- We've shared like one donut.
(Clapping)
Wait, whoa.
- Thank you. - [Steven] Okay
These are the coolest straws I've ever seen.
- This is a drink you don't have to cheers.
'cause how would you?
- Like this. (Upbeat music)
- I'm concerned because I taste no alcohol in there.
But I definitely feel alcohol in here.
- [Steven] Alright, oyster time.
- [Andrew] Mmm, yeah. Mignonette me.
- [Steven] And then you want a horse radish or are you good?
- [Andrew] Yeah
- Cheers
Ohhh - Mmm. Hell yeah
- Okay turn it up - Oh my god.
I think oysters are the most Disney princess food.
It's like a spoon made of an ocean fish, and so it makes
me feel like I'm in a, Little Mermaid.
You get what I mean?
- No, I'm not, I'm not picking up what you're laying down
- People are shaking their heads but those people haven't
been having scorpion bowl
- [Steven] Whoa
- [Andrew] This is the wildest looking thing I've seen.
It looks like a whole brain on a plate.
- [Steven] Whoa. - [Andrew] Wow.
(Upbeat music)
- Goddammit that's good.
Oh my god that's good.
- [Steven] Look at how much avocado in this.
- And this juice at the bottom. Is like spicy orange juice.
- [Steven] This tastes more like a cocktail than this.
- Yeah. - Hold up.
- No Steven, you're a mad man.
(Coughing) (Laughing)
- [Greg] A lot of people have asked if
we could make a cocktail out of the leche de tigre
- I was saying, it tastes more like a cocktail
than the scorpion bowl - I said that, not you.
- [Greg] We take a free-range chicken breast,
brined overnight in some lemon and herbs,
bread it with a three-step breading process,
seasoned flour into buttermilk, and then we make crumbs
out of the flour and the buttermilk, so it gives it
a little bit of a crispy texture when we fry the chicken.
Then let it rest, let the juices reabsorb in, and then we
use red rooster aioli which is red rooster hot sauce from
Louisiana and it's not Sriracha, it's more like Tabasco.
And then we make a slaw with market vegetables,
we make some bread and butter pickles in house here,
so we'll make the dressing for the cabbage slaw
from the vinegar that comes from the pickles.
(Hoppy music) - Okay
- [Greg] Here's the chicken sandwich guys.
- Thank you - Okay, that's actually
not at all what I expected to see.
There's pickles embedded into the slaw.
- [Andrew] It's my kind of slaw.
Have you ever seen a more beautiful chicken sandwich?
commercial perfect.
Okay, I'm gonna split it for us.
You're gonna love the feel of this bun, I can already tell.
- Yeah? - Yeah. You're a big bun guy.
- Ohh. These dishes are actually very similar.
There's like the fattiness and the acidity.
- Yeah - Fattiness, acidity
- Fattiness, acidity - Oyster
- Fattiness, acidity - Fattiness, acidity
- Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
- You're gonna set me up like that, I'm gonna dunk hard.
How's that for a sports analogy?
Cheers Steven - Cheers
(Groovy Music) - Oh no. Mmm no.
You know you had a good time
when the sandwich is in shambles.
- What do you think about the texture of the fried crust?
- It sounds like you wanna talk about the texture
of the fried crust Andrew.
- Yeah. You know how there's different levels of crunch.
A crunchier crunch would be like leaves, high pitch crackle,
then there's also lower pitch crackle,
like stepping into snow.
I think this is more like snow crackle
and the other chicken we've had is more like leaf crackle.
- I wanna spend a day in your head.
Just like, what are you thinking?
(Groovy music)
- All right Steven - We did it again
- Not only did we have three fried chicken sandwiches,
but this also concludes a three episode set for us.
The first one had buns, the last on had buns.
In effect it was a sandwich of its own.
What was your favorite thing in this episode that was not
a fried chicken sandwich?
- The giant ropes that held the
hanging light bulbs at Pikunico
- Mmm yes. We don't often get to talk about restaurant decor
I kinda have a similar favorite thing
that wasn't a fried chicken sandwich.
The bathroom faucets at American Beauty.
It looked like a swan throwing up the water into your hands.
- All right, which fried chicken sandwich was
the most worth it at its given price?
- My Worth It winner goes to
The Window at American Beauty.
That fried chicken sandwich is everything I wanted
on a Martin's Potato Roll,
which is near and dear to my heart.
- You're not often wrong on the show, but you're wrong today
- Oh (bleep)
- My Worth It winner goes to
Pikunico, that fried chicken sandwich was so smushable.
- Yeah. The smushing today was pretty excellent.
Adam who's your Worth It winner?
- [Adam] Pikunico
Adam picks Pikunico.
A good
pick-unico. - Unico
- And that's gonna be it for 2019
Thanks to everybody who works on this show to make it happen
Most of them were not here
- And thank you all for watching
- Yeah - We appreciate it
We'll be back
If you wanna suggest a food, we do check our Instagram page
instagram.com/buzzfeedworthit
- And the comments of this video
- Comments of this video
- We're probably reading them right now
As you're watching this
I am also watching
Oh yeah what did we learn about fried chicken?
- Its delicious
- Well fried chicken sandwiches may continue to be eaten
the world round
at least we'll know that they taste good.
Solved
(Triumphant music)