- We are back!
It's your host Steven lim driving.
But also, we have another host driving,
Andrew Ilnyckyj.
- Adam, whose car are you in?
- I think I'd rather be in Steven's car.
- What!
- Dang, get wrecked! - I'm a great driver.
And why are we in two cars today, you might ask?
It's because we're going on a picnic.
- That's right, today on "Worth It."
We're going to be trying three picnics
at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most worth it at its price.
- That's why we're all driving separately,
it's because we're all meeting at our picnic location.
Picnics are having a little bit of resurgence right now.
It's a great way to meet up with people,
to dine outside in a responsible socially distanced manner.
This will be taking place over three days.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa!
We're about to picnic for three straight days?
Is this like Picnic-chella?
- Sure.
Our three picnics are not all strictly picnic-specific food,
but they will be foods that travel well
and are convenient to eat outdoors.
- All right, Andrew,
what is the first restaurant
that we're going to be enjoying today?
- First, we're going to see Manager Jana
at Zhengyalov Hatz.
An Armenian restaurant
that specializes in one dish only.
And the name of the dish is Zhengyalov Hatz.
(gentle music)
- Zhengyalov Hatz.
The translation is "bread with herbs."
It's a national dish.
We have few restaurants in capital of Armenia, Yerevan.
Same name, same dish. Here in Glendale,
we have a lot of Americans who love it as vegan food.
The dough is very simple.
It's flour, water, salt.
And the filling,
we have usually 12 different types of herbs.
Whatever we do in Armenia,
it's exactly same what we do here.
We don't use any machine,
everything goes by hands.
And to open the dough very thin,
it's not too easy.
That's how this restaurant was made,
to show customers the process of making the dish.
and we like it, we appreciate.
Because the dough so thin, it's not oven.
It just stove, flat stove.
It takes like 30-40 seconds.
One and another side
and it's ready.
I have a lot of customers,
Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
people take like 10, 20 breads by going outside
because it's nice and easy,
you don't get dirty, no greasy.
People who grew up in Armenia,
they grew up with this dish.
I have customers who come say,
"Oh, it's so good you open here, it brings back memories."
So it's a simple and it's a healthy dish.
- We're back, picnic season.
- Been a while since I've seen you in person.
Have you gotten stronger?
- I have, thanks for noticing.
- Yeah, you got a little buffer today.
- Not just today.
(both laughing)
We have a yogurt drink.
- I've had like the Asian yogurt drinks,
is this gonna taste like that, you think?
- I'm not sure, I've never seen this before.
- Cheers.
- (laughs) Wow!
- I thought I was gonna get milk or yogurt
and I got neither.
- It really has the same sort of like mouth drying
and puckering as Greek yogurt.
We're starting off with something very simple.
- Oh, but this is perfect picnic food.
Comes in a box, you could pick it up with one hand.
(classical music)
That is delicious!
- It's really good.
- Reminds me of the chive dumpling we had in Taiwan.
It's so dense with green vegetable.
- You know what is surprising about this?
It's kind of juicy
in a meat kind of way.
- To be honest, when I saw it I was like,
"Oh, I kind of feel like I'm gonna be disappointed
when I bite into that."
Just because I'm so precondition to like
order things with meat,
but this is very satisfying.
- We should have a picnic-ability.
Like, how much does it picnic?
- Reclined position, one handed.
- Does it picnic?
- This picnics.
- There's also dessert
- [Jana] It's just dessert with walnuts and honey.
- Oh my goodness,
look at the inside!
Oh God!
This is a fire hose of deliciousness into your mouth.
- I think this might be the most comfortable
we've ever been. - Asked me if I picnic.
- Steve, you picnic?
- Oh, I picnic. (Andrew laughs)
Adam, do you picnic?
- We're now in our second day of picnicking.
Now on day two we're really getting into
the elongated picnic mode.
But before we get there-
- [Steven] Picnic fact!
- Woven baskets were the earliest vessel
used to transport food
because they were light and versatile,
but also sturdy.
- If there's anything this fact says about humans
it's that we were born to picnic.
- Weaving in general is, I think,
is one of the most impressive inventions.
The idea that you're taking a strand
and turning it into something with structure and strength.
I don't know if prehistoric Andrew
would have been able to figure that one out.
- I am most certainly sure
that prehistoric Andrew would not have figured out weaving.
We're now on our way to see Jihee at Perilla LA.
Which is not a restaurant,
but it's a to-go only business that sells Korean banchan.
And this particular business comes recommended to us
by our friend.
Sorry, a baby squirrel was just walking so slowly
across the road.
I always slow down for animals.
So Perilla LA was actually recommended to us
by a friend of the show, Rie.
Rie used to work with Jihee.
Rie said, "Oh, you're looking for picking foods?
"You gotta go to Perilla LA,
"it's-"
(soft music)
- I mean during pandemic,
I have a lot of time to think.
And I always have this idea of making Korean banchan
with the Californian produce.
Banchan is the little Korean side dishes
that can be eaten with rice.
So I grew up in Korea.
My grandma started a restaurant, very similar model.
They are known for their banchan.
I used to work at Rustic Canyon.
I learned a lot about how to treat great produce.
Basically, it's combination
of what I have learned at the restaurant
with a flavor that I grew up with.
I go to Santa Monica Farmers Market,
I have a relationship with farmers.
I always check with them
and they just tell me what's good in the season.
I do marinated okra,
that's like one of most popular menu.
Okra's not traditionally Korean ingredient.
I think it would be nice to add a char flavor.
And I use the vinegary soy sauce overnight.
And I also have an eggplant dish,
which is from my family,
that they actually use it even right now
at their restaurant.
So the only difference, I use serrano chili
and my mom probably use Korean chili (laughs).
And nori chip.
It takes over a day.
I use two nori sheets together
and add sweet rice porridge,
I spread it on top of it
and then I dehydrate and then it'd becomes like dry chips.
A lot of my banchan,
it looks really simple,
but I have to wait.
Like I ferment a lot of stuff.
It's amazing to see how flavor changes.
The good thing about my food
is you can pick up and then leave in your fridge.
A lot of my guests, they told me like,
"Oh yeah, I'm picking this up to camping."
And I was like, "Oh, that's actually a good idea,
"because it hold well."
I'm also learning 'cause it's not just about cooking.
I have to talk to customer,
they have a lot of question.
I have to post on Instagram.
I started cooking at my old apartment and there's no light.
I bought the white box and I took the photo from my iPhone.
It's all like learning process and I feel grateful
to do that.
- [Steven] Picnic day two!
- Day two.
When it's a picnic day, it's a great day.
- Perilla, if you remember our first time eating it
on this show, Korean barbecue.
- That's right perilla, a type of leaf.
Shall we napkin?
So Jihee's given us a bunch of different dishes.
I think we should start with one of her favorites,
the okra.
Cheers. - Cheers.
That is not okra.
It tastes like the word barbecue.
The delicious char.
- When you bite it, it's like pulling apart
and falling apart in your mouth,
kind of like the way that barbecue does.
- Yeah, I'm honestly shocked by it.
- Jihee, what did you do to the okra?
- What you're tasting is time,
and not T-H-Y-M-E.
Okay, chip break.
- Chip break!
Oh!
- Oh my God!
- Oh!
Bam!
- (laughs) Bam!
- Hey chicharron, shut up.
(Andrew laughs)
This chip is in town now.
It's seaweed chicharron.
- Yeah,
this picnics real hard.
- So this is cabbage layered with perilla leaf.
- That is delightful.
- I mean, it's really pretty much exactly sauerkraut.
- You know what we do next? - What?
- This egg looking thing that I think is egg.
- I mean, I never thought I would eat an omelet on a picnic.
- It's not just an omelet though, it's like a crepe.
- [Andrew] These green beans are catching my eye.
- Each of these you can just grab
very easily with chopsticks,
just go boom.
Done. Alright, so I wanna go to this one next.
It's like cucumbers, like kimchi, like pickled.
Is that pineapple?
- I think it's melon.
Picnic. - [Steven] Picnic.
Yo yo yo yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo!
- Okay, shut it down, this is the best one.
- That's got everything going for it.
It's pickled, it's a little spice behind it.
- Let's go to the eggplant.
Cheers, Steven. - Cheers.
If you like eggplant,
this is like the most eggplanty eggplant you can eat
in your life.
- If you wanna take a real trip, go back to the okra.
Back to where we started.
And this is how you picnic,
around and around you go.
- Sounds like what you're saying is that
this food picnics.
- This food picnics.
(soft music continues)
Okay, picnic day three.
And Steven and I are just along for the ride in the back
because at our last picnic,
we're gonna be enjoying some delicious wine.
So before our last picnic-
- [Steven] Picnic fact.
- Most historians agree that the word picnic
is derived from the 17th century word "pique-nique,"
though at the time it was used to describe
a social gathering that was more like a potluck
where everyone would contribute a different food item.
By 1802, the term and the activity
had made its way to London,
where a group of Francophiles,
people who love French culture,
established a "Pic-Nic Society,"
at which they were known to eat, drink,
and put on small shows and performances.
- I love how it was upgraded to a dinner
and a show outdoors.
- It also feels like
it was more of an outdoorsman's kind of club.
- Have you ever been part of a food club?
- I have not.
I guess this show is a little bit of a food club.
- All of our millions of viewers,
we're part of the "Worth It" club.
- This is our own "Worth It" society.
- Wait, now I feel like it's a cult.
- Speaking of Pic-Nic Society,
we're on our way to our last location now.
We're going to see Chef Curtis Stone
and his new pop up at The Grove called Picnic Society.
So at Picnic Society,
they have a number of curated baskets.
The basket that we're gonna have
features an assortment of charcuterie
that comes from Chef Curtis' other restaurant, Gwen.
- I love how they're paying homage
to the original Pic-Nic Society.
Kinda like fanny packs,
back in style, baby.
(upbeat music)
- I'm Curtis Stone and were in Picnic Society,
which is a pop up by Gwen.
Gwen's a butcher shop and a dining room.
And the butcher shop is sort of the heartbeat
of the dining room.
We pulled together a beautiful selection of meats,
game, Wagyu,
and we make all of our own charcuterie
What we were seeing at Gwen
was a lot of people were coming in
and buying things that would be sort of ideal for a picnic.
We sort of just got a little playful with the idea
and thought we'd do it as a business.
And then we got the opportunity
to come over here to The Grove
and do a pop-up restaurant.
So here we are.
We've a beautiful big patio here at The Grove.
And then we have a terrace up here on the first floor
which we call The Backyard.
It's really cozy but still very individual.
You know, when you think about a picnic,
it's actually a beautiful way to dine
because you really linger, you graze on the food.
We've got beautiful blankets, lawn games,
anything that you could imagine
to create the perfect picnic
is in this building. So there's a few ways you can go
about ordering your picnic basket.
You can either build your own
or you can let us build it for you.
So the Gwen basket
really celebrates everything about Gwen.
The big highlight is the beautiful selection
of cured meats.
Teresa is an incredible butcher
and she runs the butcher shop over there at Gwen.
She's also learned the charcuterie very, very closely.
She studied it, she's moved to Italy.
Wagyu bresaola, bresaola is air dried beef
and we sourced it
from Blackmore's Wagyu beef production in Australia.
- [Andrew] A couple years ago,
we actually went to Blackmore Farms in Australia
- [Curtis] Oh, no way! and had a chance to interview
Mr. Blackmore. - [Curtis] David, yeah.
And if it was a couple of years ago,
there's a chance you saw the steer
that you're gonna taste today.
It's a beautiful product, to start with.
And, hopefully, we make it even more special.
And what goes so brilliantly with cured meats
is wonderful cheeses. And then all of the things
that you'd expect to eat really well with that;
dried muscatel grapes, some crackers, some paste.
We make a chicken liver parfait.
I learned how to make it with Marco Pierre White
when I cooked in Europe
and it reminds me of my childhood
growing up in tough restaurants.
We make beautiful olive oil and sea salt stecca bread.
Dom is one of our incredible pastry chefs here
and he bakes that stecca bread
as well as making all the beautiful sweet things
that you can come and find.
Chocolate chunk cookies.
So we get big chunks of Valrhona chocolate.
I like to think the cookie is just there
to hold the chocolate chunks together.
Picnic Society, we would like to say
you bring your own weather to the picnic.
It's very true, you know,
like a picnic is meant to be a time that you spend
with people you care about.
And it's not meant to be rushed.
- I'm extremely comfortable.
It's not just this deluxe blanket
that we've gotten just for this occasion.
- What is this?
- This is made by Trilby Nelson.
And you can buy these Picnic Society
because you can buy everything you need for a picnic.
Look at this box.
- [Steven] It looks like a briefcase.
- You ready to pop it open?
- [Steven] I'm gonna pop it. - Three, two, one.
Okay,
so we opted to also buy a bottle of wine
and we have a nice Greek rose.
- [Curtis] Roses do that really incredible job
of still being light,
but they can hold up to that beautiful cured meat.
- And it matches my blanket,
come on!
Cheers, Steven. - Cheers.
To three picnics.
- Yo, that's nice.
- Whoa!
I just saw the chocolate chip cookie.
- That's for dessert, Steven. - Yeah, I know, but it's a-
- [Adam] You can start with it, it's a picnic.
- A picnic, no rules? - Yeah, true,
don't try to throw your rules on me.
I'm starting with a chocolate chip cookie.
- You wanna start with a cookie,
we'll start with a cookie.
- Oh my gosh.
You can't go wrong with chocolate chip cookies.
- It's almost like a chocolate panini.
Now let's get to some savory food.
I say we kick off the party with a little parfait.
- Oh, man,
that's good bread.
Look at this!
I don't think I've ever spread chicken on bread before.
My hearing just cut out for a second.
(Steven and Andrew laugh)
- Okay, so let's do cheese next.
So I love a cheese that's just kind of like butter.
So this one was a bloomy rind sheep milk cheese.
- I love cheese.
- We got some dried grapes here.
- So in Australia,
you remember the Museum Muscadelle?
That's wine produced from this type of grape.
- These grapes are crazy.
I think it's time for a posture change.
I'm leaning over.
- Steven, are you seeing the sunset right now?
Look at these clouds.
- Look at the mountains.
- It's time for some meat, I think.
- So, so good.
- It has this incredible like jamminess to it.
It's borderline fruit leather.
- There's duck speck in here.
- Yeah, so that's the darkest one.
This duck is the best bacon I've ever had.
- I want to pickle now
because I've had a lot of really fatty meats.
Pickle cheers.
- So, Steven, does this meal picnic?
- This picnics!
And I could do that because I'm outside.
That was a picnic trilogy.
- I've really developed a new appreciation for the picnic.
I think I'm gonna be picnicking a lot more in the future.
- It's time to tell me
which picnic was the most worth it
at its given price point?
- I think all three of these truly picnicked.
- I think my winner is gonna be Perilla LA.
Because I had no concern
about taking my time with that food.
And I think, for me, that's what's best about a picnic.
- You know, I really loved the Picnic Society
and those meats were just perfect.
But the question today is, "Does it picnic?"
And yes, while the Picnic Society does picnic,
and while Perilla LA does picnic,
Zhengyalov Hatz,
they really picnic.
You can grab and go, you can bring it to a hike,
you could bring it to the beach.
Adam, who's your "Worth It" winner?
- [Adam] Perilla LA.
- All right, that does it for "Worth It Picnics".
I'm picnicked out.
See you next week.
When we do "Worth It" savory pies.
Pie!
(upbeat music)