- Is grocery store sushi really as bad as we think it is?
- Let's talk about that.
(upbeat music)
Good mythical morning.
- Did you know that in order to become
a traditional Japanese sushi master,
or itamae, some people have to train up to 10 years?
- Yeah. It's like a calling, one might say.
- Well, and when you say that your calling
is to eat only the fanciest of sushis.
- Yes. - Well, okay.
So you're not open to grocery store sushi which,
the ingredients may be 10 years old.
- Well, I doubt that, but I mean,
that's what we're trying to decide today.
You see, when it comes to sushi
and the items you may find on a sushi restaurant menu,
there are options for every budget,
but just how much does the price correspond to the taste?
It's time for Naked Foods, Naked Sushi Edition, Naked.
All of the Japanese-American sushi restaurants
we're gonna try today will be naked.
- Naked.
- AKA no fancy plating, no added garnishes,
no gentle music playing to influence our tasting experience.
This way we can truly judge the dishes
solely on how they taste.
- Yep.
We're gonna be sampling sushi restaurant dishes
from four different price points.
They are the grocery store frozen or refrigerated section,
the local fast casual restaurants,
like your food mall court.
I meant to say mall food court.
- Hey, I understood.
- Or counter order joints.
And then you got sit-down restaurants, and finally,
several fine dining restaurants in the LA area.
- And it's worth noting that many of
the fine dining sushi restaurants only offer omakase,
meaning the chef decides what they're gonna serve
based on what is most fresh.
So for the sake of the comparison,
we're only ordering from restaurants
that offer a la carte menu items.
- And each round we're gonna pick
our favorite dish individually.
Then Stevie is gonna tell us where each dish came from
and how much it costs so that we will know, in the end,
how expensive our taste in sushi is,
and which dishes are worth paying for.
- All aboard the sushi boat.
(Link mimicking boat horn)
- These are gyoza.
There's a crunchy, darker one.
- [Rhett] This is super crunch.
- And more of a shiny lighter one.
Ooh, a really white one.
And then a really dark one.
- [Rhett] I can't even get my--
- Now this is the one,
and I'm not saying this item.
I'm saying this round is the one where frozen
and refrigerated could give you
a run for your money, I think.
Is it hot? Is it real hot?
I want to get burned. Is it real hot?
- It might be too out for you, but it's just right.
That's not bad, but it could be frozen.
- I'm gonna put mine in your lap.
- Thanks. It's on the floor now.
Somebody needs to make a memo about picking that up.
- And then you got this one.
- Is that what you do? Do you guys have memos?
- This one is much plumper and immediately better.
There's like a freaking meatball in there.
- I like this style much better though.
- [Link] This one's kind of small and gelatinous-looking.
- I like the, I don't know what kind of wrapper
you call this, but.
- You kind of have to use your teeth like scissors
if you want to eat half of it.
- I think I might like the taste of that one.
That's mine.
I'm leaving mine on the front.
- Okay. I put mine in your lap or the floor, usually.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And then we've got this really crunchy-crunchy.
Mmm! Mmm!
- It's like the Fry Daddies got ahold of that one.
- Ooh, ooh, it's spicy, too.
Ooh!
- Is that spicy on--
- It is spicy.
Let me go back to this one.
Okay.
- [Stevie] Hey, whenever you're ready.
'Cause you're picking your favorite.
- I'm ready. - Just go ahead.
Just casually go ahead.
- Three, three.
- [Stevie] You know how much I like counting down. Okay.
- I did not think you would agree with me.
I felt sure, and this is a close second for me.
- I like this style more than the hard fried one.
And this one is succulent.
- Really tasty. - There's a succulence to it.
- And the soy sauce is nice.
- [Stevie] You guys have both chosen
the grocery store gyoza.
- I knew it could happen, and I'm glad it did.
- Hey, well, they're doing it right.
- [Stevie] It's Ajinomoto beef gyoza
for about $2.08 cents per serving.
- $2.08, yeah.
- [Stevie] The first one is from Crazy Rock'n Sushi.
It's our fast casual, and it's $7.50.
- I mean, it's okay.
- The second one is Koi Kobe-style potstickers.
- They put koi in there?
- [Stevie] (laughing) No. The name of the fine dining place.
And that's $23.
- It's not as flavorful as the grocery store.
- No, it's not.
- [Stevie] And the final one, from Fry Daddies,
is from our sit-down place,
Kabuki Japanese Restaurant in Burbank for $8.50.
- I liked those.
(upbeat music)
This is shrimp tempura.
- You sure it's not tempura?
- No.
- This is a longy.
That's a long straightened shrimp tempura.
- There's so, (laughing) there's so much breading on this.
- How do they get the shrimp to lay out so flat like that?
- You gotta coax it. It has to do a lot of stretching.
- It's like a dog that's very much at home.
Now, these are just little shrimps.
These are just little pieces of the shrimp.
This is what I call Calabash style.
Not really though.
- [Stevie] What you call what style?
- Calabash style.
- Calabash, is what you're saying?
- Calabash is a bunch of seafood fried
like on the North Carolina coast.
- Uh, South Carolina. - Really?
- South Carolina coast.
- It's a town called Calabash and you go there
and there's all these like, Fry Daddy type
seafood on the pier type restaurants.
- You gotta be able to be seeing water,
like ocean water, in order to really be Calabash.
- [Stevie] Let's have our camping trip there.
- [Link] Very greasy.
- But here's the thing, Stevie.
Seafood is an aphrodisiac.
And if you're going, if you're waiting for,
if you're waiting for me in Link to make out,
that might complicate things.
- This one's a long and a flat one too.
A longy and a flatty.
- Stoking those flames.
Something happened with this one.
- Both of them kind of, yeah.
It tastes like something that they might
toss out of the back of the State Fair.
What's this?
Not another shrimp.
- That's pretty good.
- That's the best-tasting shrimp.
- Okay.
- [Stevie] You may stab now.
- I like this one the most.
- Coming back to it, this one is better than that one.
You should come back to it.
- Nope, I don't go back. No regret.
- [Stevie] Rhett. You have chosen the freezer section.
- Oh, wow!
It's good, man. I'm telling you.
- Seapak for $6.89.
Link Neal, have chosen the fine dining
Koi creamy shrimp tempura for $22.
You may do the fancy pants dance, sir.
- Look at this.
Look at him.
(classy piano music)
So fancy.
- Oh, I wasn't, I wasn't pelvic thrusting.
I was just losing my balance.
- That was a little too fancy.
- The one next to the grocery one is
from the sit-down place Izaka-ya Katsu-ya, for $10.80.
And then our fast casual, Crazy Rock'n Sushi for $8.50.
(upbeat music)
- You know what?
We wanna tell you about our very favorite
internet cooking show.
You heard of it? It's called "Mythical Kitchen".
We have nothing to do with it at all,
but we're just big fans.
Real big fans.
Want to take this time to just talk about it,
tell you how you should go over there.
You should check it out.
Mythical chef Josh and the kitcheneers
are just putting together food creations
like nobody's business.
Definitely not our, it's not our business.
- We don't have anything to do with it
from a business perspective.
- It's just independently, we're just,
from afar, observing and just thinking, wow.
So impressive, what they're doing over there.
They have their own YouTube channel.
"Mythical Kitchen". You should check it out.
Not on our behalf.
- This is tuna.
- Link, I know you're excited about this round.
- Uh, yeah.
I'm a little, I'm a little afraid of this.
I mean that, that one looks raw.
Well, these three are
completely raw, yeah. - And that one looks raw.
That one looks raw, and this one looks raw
except for like a, I don't know, just the crust.
- Now, you could dip it into soy sauce,
which will help you a little bit,
but it might cloud your judgment.
- I felt like I'm eating a tongue.
- I'm not a fan of that first one.
- I guess they're all gonna taste fishy, right?
'Cause that's kinda what it is.
- I mean, I typically will put.
- [Link] Oh, that was much easier.
- Soy sauce and wasabi on it, but this is better.
It's definitely more tender.
- This is the most bites of just sushi slices
that I've ever had in a row.
Two, I'm saying.
- I think I might like that one the best so far.
I don't know if I'm just getting used to it,
but look how dark this one is.
- That one tasted so much more fishy than these.
- But it's probably, I'm just gonna say,
I'm not gonna pick it because it's too fishy for me.
It's probably the fanciest one.
- I don't care. I don't like it.
Now that one had a little, yeah, it was like,
it's kind of like eating tender nothing.
A tender piece of nothing.
Mm, this one's got sesame seeds on it.
- Now, clearly this is a little bit more pleasing
because it's been seared and it's got sesame seeds on it,
but that's not what we're judging.
We're judging which one is,
I'm thinking about sashimi here.
I'm not thinking about seared ahi tuna
that goes on a salad in Santa Barbara.
- That tastes a whole lot better though
'cause they added something to it.
Seeds and heat.
So I mean, you're not gonna shame me into it.
- [Stevie] Well technically, yeah.
You have to pick the one that you like the best.
- That one.
- I'm picking the sashimi that I liked the best.
And I feel like this is just a place that can't do sashimi.
- [Stevie] It's a place called Sam's Choice.
(Rhett laughing) - Sam's Choice?
- [Stevie] Yeah.
- It doesn't taste bad.
- [Stevie] For $2.98.
So Link, you've chosen the grocery store version.
That's a deal.
- [Stevie] And Rhett, you have chosen
a little place called Nobu for 60 bucks.
Yes, you may do that fancy pants dance.
(classy piano music)
- That's what I do when I walk into Nobu.
- [Stevie] And it's actually toro from Nobu.
So it has like that fattier, high-quality.
- Oh yeah. It's like the belly meat of the tuna, right?
- [Stevie] Yeah, and then the first place is
the fast casual Crazy Rock'n Sushi for $7.50.
And then is the sit-down Izaka-ya Katsu-ya for $16.50.
- This was good.
The Crazy Rock'n Sushi is like, it's just too red.
- Too much, too often.
(upbeat music)
- These are rainbow rolls.
- Are they now?
- I'm gonna go with the salmon piece on each one.
- [Link] I'm gonna go with the avocado-y.
- [Rhett] Shrimp?
- Well, on this one and then on another, oh shoot.
- I'm trying to just do apples to apples.
- Is there a way I can yank the seaweed out
like a piece of tape and still eat everything else?
I'm a soy paper man.
- Okay, I'm just gonna eat the whole piece here.
- See, in that last round,
I just don't understand why you pay so much money
for something that all you did was pay somebody to cut it.
- Well, it's the quality of the of the meat
in the right kind of restaurant, though.
- Now this, there's some artisanal approach to it, you know?
- I like rolls better than sashimi, personally.
- [Link] Oh, look at this one.
This one's a little smaller and stinkier.
- [Rhett] This is fresher.
- Ooh, stinkier.
- A little salty though.
It's pretty. They did a really good job of presenting it.
Spit it out.
It's funny eating sushi with you.
- The seaweed is kind of like, overpowering in that one.
- Yeah, it actually was.
- [Link] Look at this one.
- Okay. That's well-balanced.
- Mm-hm. Let me get this right here.
I mean, there's so many,
there's so many pitfalls with sushi.
You gotta get it on these sticks and you gotta, like.
- Those sticks are hard.
- You know, it's like, it's not cooked.
So how are you gonna know if it's cooked enough?
- I do not like that last one.
- [Link] To me, this one is the best.
- [Rhett] Overwhelmingly the best.
- [Link] Yeah, heads above the rest.
- [Stevie] I don't really know what to make of that
'cause it's from the fast casual place, Crazy Rock'n Sushi.
- Crazy Rock'n Sushi's finally coming together.
- [Stevie] For $11.75.
So the first one is fine dining, Koi's, for $23.
And then the grocery, Ralph's, for $6.30.
- They did a really good job of making it look good.
- [Stevie] And also, might I say,
it was picked up by Matt Carney.
So I don't know if you felt that or tasted it.
- Oh yeah, a little hot dog on a stick residual.
- He licked it.
He's like a Postmates guy that licks the food.
- [Stevie] Maybe that was it.
And then the final one is from our sit-down place,
Izaka-ya Katsu-ya, for $15.50.
- I didn't like that one. - We hated that one.
- So Crazy Rock'n Sushi really came hard with the rolls.
- [Link] Yeah. Right at the end.
- [Stevie] Oh, I have to tell you
about your menu selections.
So the lowest possible total was $18.25
and the highest possible total was $128.
So Rhett, your perfect meal total was $80.72.
And Link, your perfect meal total was $38.81.
- Yeah, that's.
- And you even had one fancy round.
- I know, wow.
- You got out for under 40 bucks, man.
I doubled you up.
- Yeah, maybe one day I'll actually like it.
- Yeah. Baby steps.
- Thanks for subscribing and clicking that bell.
- You know what time it is.
- Hi, I'm Justin.
- And I'm Danielle.
- We're from Austin, Texas.
- And we're about to try umeboshi plums for the first time.
- [Both] It's time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality.
- (laughing) Yeah, I know.
- It sneaks up on you.
Click the top link to watch us get satisfied
by cutting weird objects with a really sharp sushi knife
in "Good Mythical More".
- And to find out where
the Wheel of Mythicality's gonna land.
- [Narrator] Ketchup is a smoothie.
- [Narrator] Yeah, I put ice in my cereal. So what?
- [Narrator] That makes no sense.
- [Narrator] A hot dog is a sandwich.
- [Narrator] A hot dog is a sandwich. (laughing)