- We're back for part two of our Worth It Taiwan series.
Today, we're doing soup.
- Taiwan style.
It's amazing 'cause it's so hot in Taiwan,
and yet, they love their soup here.
- It's eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner,
so many great dishes to try.
But before we get there,
Steven where are we?
- We are here at the Jingzaijiao Tile-paved Salt Fields.
Is that right Inga?
- Jingzaijiao.
- Historically one of the earliest
salt-producing areas of Taiwan.
Ocean water comes in, the sun evaporates it,
and you're left with salt.
Speaking of salty liquids.
- Sweat?
- No. - Oh.
- We're doing soup.
- Today on Worth It,
we're going to be trying three Taiwanese soups
at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most worth it at its price.
- It's so windy.
- The typhoon just passed.
- We're heading a little bit north of the city of Tainan
to where, Inga?
- We're going to Chiayi to have some fish soup
at Lin Cong Ming Yu Tang.
- Lin is my last name, and cong ming is smart,
so we're just going to, like, the smart version of me
fish place. - Oh wow.
That'll be a extra special treat.
(jazzy music)
- Taiwan is very hot.
- Yes.
- [Steven] Soup is a very hot food.
Why do Taiwanese people love soup so much?
Taiwan was a poor place.
It's easier to feel full adding soup to the meal.
We've been serving this soup for the past 60 years, since my grandfather's time.
What's special about this is we cook 100 servings in one go.
The taste can only be acquired by using such big amounts of ingredients.
The essence of the abundant ingredients is condensed in one bowl of soup.
- What kind of fish is in the soup?
We mainly use silver carp and salmon in our soup.
Silver carp is a native Taiwanese river fish.
Our salmon is imported and it's quite popular among gourmets.
Our broth base is made with pork bone and water, cooking from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m.
Meanwhile, preparing the rest of the ingredients.
Napa cabbage
Garlic
Onion
Scallion
Non-GMO tofu
Next step is chopping up the fish and deep-frying them.
Why is the fish fried and then added afterwards?
There was no refrigerating to preserve the fish back then in Taiwan.
My grandpa opted for deep- frying to dehydrate the fish.
It also helps to absorb the broth when submerged in the soup.
I noticed that customers can come back with their bowls
and get more broth.
It's a tradition of the restaurant.
We strive to treat our customers like family. You should eat to your heart's content at home.
It's also thanks to the continuous support of our customers that we can cook in such great quantity.
That allows a continuous flow of soup for everyone to share.
(cash register dings)
- Ooh!
- Oh...
Yay...
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
- What's the plate for?
- For the fish bone.
- Oh, fish bones. - Oh...
- Is this your beer?
- Yes, it's my fish beer.
- Cheers, Steven.
(bottles clink)
(trumpet music)
Look at that logo.
Fish soup beer, I am blown away.
- Cheers in Mandarin is...
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
Is that right?
(Andrew speaks in foreign language)
- Okay, that was very unexpected.
Wow, again.
- Wow, a thousand times.
- This is very refreshing.
- It is.
- Give me one word.
- Wow.
- [Steven] So this is the marquis piece right here.
I'm just gonna bite into this.
(Andrew groans in satisfaction)
- This is like a dish that dares you
to want something else.
You want vegetables?
Boom, we got it.
You want tofu?
Forget about it.
You want pork?
We got it right here.
You want fish? Boom.
Fry it? We can do it.
- Yeah, when she was listing the ingredients,
it was just like the NBA All-Star Game.
And here we have the tofu!
Next up, cabbage!
- Y'all ready for this?
(Steven laughs)
Chiayi is also very famous for turkey meat sauce over rice.
Customers always get the combo of turkey rice and fish head soup in here.
Turkey rice.
I love how this soup, with all of this stuff,
they were like,
"Nah, you still need some turkey rice."
- That's right.
If there's one thing we learned here in Taiwan,
you cannot leave a restaurant hungry.
They will assault you with food.
In the most lovingly way possible.
- Yeah.
(upbeat music)
Mm, it's just turkey meat and fat on a bowl of rice.
It's great.
If you weren't an adventurous eater,
this would seem like a scary bowl of food,
but it all just kind of blends into this big soft hug.
I don't know.
It tastes nice.
It's a kind taste.
- That's exactly how you say it in Mandarin though.
- Really? - Good eat, right?
Good taste.
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
- Means good eat, good taste, yeah.
- Let's spread the kindness.
(Andrew slaps hand on table)
- Once I finish this meal,
it will be so long until I get to eat this again.
And that makes me sad.
- I know, this whole trip is actually just--
- It's sad. - The worst.
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
- That soup was incredible.
In the rainbow of soup to stew,
this was somewhere in the middle in like the--
- Stoup? - Stoup
section, yeah. - There it is!
- So before we get to our next soup,
we decided to get some treats
at the Garden Night Market in Tainan.
- [Steven] This is my favorite treat at Night Market.
It is a peanut roll with ice cream and cilantro.
- [Andrew] What?
Cilantro in a dessert?
I guess it makes sense,
we put mint in desserts,
and that's just
another green leaf. - Oh, I didn't even
think of that.
Cheers? - Cheers.
- [Steven] Huh?
Huh? - Oh.
I like dessert cilantro.
So our next soup is actually going to be hot pot.
- Hot pot fact!
- Archeologists have found pots from two thousand years ago
that may have been used to make an early iteration
of hot pot.
These were found in the Anhui province of China.
- Wow, old hot pot.
Dude, hot pot for me,
every Thanksgiving in the Lin family,
we always, always, always eat hot pot.
- It would make sense that soup was one
of the oldest things humans ate.
- Yeah just water, throw some stuff in there and eat it.
- Tomorrow, hot pot.
Inga where are we going?
- We are going to A Yu Niu Rou Sha Sha Guo
to eat some beef soup.
- That's what I'm talking about.
Beef soup.
Get that hot pot, throw some beef in there,
throw some soup in there, throw some veggies in there.
Whatever you want, we're gonna eat it.
(Steven coughs)
Excuse me.
I choked on a peanut.
Why do you love hot pot so much?
Life is perfect while you enjoy this pot of delicious broth and beef.
Room temperature beef shabu-shabu is known for its freshness.
The cattle are raised in the mountains all over Taiwan.
Then butchered in the government-run slaughterhouse in the Shanhua District of Tainan.
The beef comes straight from there after being butchered and inspected.
- How often do you get the deliveries?
Every meal.
Every meal?
For example, the beef served now during lunch was butchered this morning.
Therefore the beef has this natural sweetness and QQ (chewy) texture.
We saw that it arrived by taxi.
Is it always come by taxi?
We paid the cab to pick it up because we're too busy in the store.
That's so cool, the meat takes a cab to every meal.
(everybody laughing)
It takes about 6-8 hours to make the broth.
The first layer of ingredients is beef bones.
Second layer is stacks of beef brisket.
We use about 264 pounds of brisket for the broth.
Topping the pot with one bag of vegetables and fruits each.
There's also vegetables in the dish already?
The vegetables in the small pot is to bring out the taste of the broth.
Cabbage is the star of the pot.
The vegetables really complement the broth and make the hot pot perfect.
For someone who's never had hot pot before,
how do you eat it?
Dip the beef in the boiling soup around 3 times/5 seconds and it's ready to eat.
I always recommend eating without condiments first.
For the second bite, try the beef with a bit of our special sauce.
My husband is in charge of extracting the prime cut out of the beef.
The freshly butchered beef is quite soft and requires great skills with the knife.
He is so good with the knife! Every piece comes out with the same thickness!
You also have this pork rice.
It's free for all the customers?
My husband is a generous guy.
He wants the customers to have the rice to go with the delicious beef shabu-shabu.
Perfect combination!
(everybody laughing)
(cash register dings)
(jazzy music)
(Andrew and Steven speak in foreign language)
We've eaten a lot of beef on this show,
but this is some of the prettiest beef I've ever seen.
The color is ridiculous.
Cold-brewed oolong.
This is one of the coolest things.
It's like, tea snow globe.
And it's got the net in the--
- [Steven] No way!
- [Andrew and Steven] Cheers.
- Mm.
- [Andrew] You wanna start with this one?
- [Steven] Let's do it, the shoulder cap.
- Cheers, Steven.
- Whoa.
- [Andrew] One, two,
three. - Wow.
Going in.
One.
Two, oh no!
(Andrew laughs)
- This smells incredible.
- Cheers.
- Oh, that's nice beef.
- We're just getting to eat really nice steak.
- Yeah. - With soup.
- And you get to eat it the second it's done cooking.
- Mm!
- I'm gonna try the same piece of meat this time,
but now dip it.
Shabu, shabu.
Ooh.
- Shabu.
- That rocks. - Can I get in there?
- Yeah.
You should absolutely. - All right.
One.
Two.
- Whoa. - Three.
- Like you're baptizing the meat.
(Steven cheers)
- [Andrew] The dip is awesome.
- Okay.
That's doing it right.
- There's two great ways to enjoy beef.
You either cook it very briefly
or you cook it a really long time.
This is the best of both worlds.
The quick cook beef and also the super long cook beef.
- 'Cause the soup is a 10 to 12 hour,
steeped in beef bone soup.
- But enough about beef.
Pork break. - Pork break.
(Andrew and Steven groan in satisfaction)
- At first this did not make sense to me.
But it's because the beef is so precious,
it breaks up the flow,
so I don't just crush my plate of beef all in one bite,
like I want to.
- Well, and also, this bowl of rice is bringing me
more comfort than my body pillow.
- What?
- I've had the same one for over 10 years.
It's hard to sleep without it.
- [Adam] Change pillows
more frequently. - Wow.
- No, I wash it.
- That explains a lot about you.
- It's like a teddy bear.
We all have that, like, item.
- Yeah but now mine is in my parents' attic,
because I stopped sleeping with it after the age of eight.
- Why would you give up something that's so comfortable?
- All right, we're gonna have the broth now.
We've finally reached the soup part of the meal.
Ooh, the smell though.
- Cheers.
- Ooh, that is nice.
It's not so beefy, actually.
It's got like--
- Fruity flavor.
- Yeah. - Like, apples or something.
This is the best way to close out this meal.
- Yeah, this nice gentle landing.
It's like when you have a delicious sauce
and you want a piece of bread to mop it up
to get all of the sauce.
Here, you just drink the sauce.
(patrons talking in background)
- Hot pot.
- That hot pot was so good.
Okay, so we've come to Taichung for our final soup.
But before we have that, we're gonna have some cold drinks.
- That's right.
We're going to Ten Ren,
one of my favorite places in the States, so.
About to be having it here in Taiwan,
where it's actually from.
- So we've got oolong tea, and a black tea boba.
Confession time.
I'm not the biggest fan of boba.
- That's fine.
- I just, eating while drinking, I don't--
- Isn't that what soup is?
- Soup is drinking while eating.
It's completely different, don't get it twisted.
- Cheers.
(glasses clink)
Mm.
- That's what I like.
Unsweetened, nice ice tea.
That's all I want.
Instead of another soup fact,
we're actually gonna have a boba fact.
- [Steven] Boba fact.
- Boba tea was invented in the 1980s in Taichung.
- Oh, some genius out here put boba and milk tea together.
There're controversies around
who actually invented boba milk tea.
There's multiple reports of different people, so.
- Interesting.
We're now on our way to Gubami,
where we're going to see Chef Chen
to try her beef noodle soup.
- [Steven] The iconic dish of Taiwan.
- We've had it a few times off-camera so far,
just for our crew meals and such,
and it's usually a very inexpensive dish.
Five or six US dollars equivalent.
But today's is going to be a little more deluxe.
- It's gonna cost around 30 US dollars,
which is a lot for beef noodle soup.
But it's gonna be really good.
- Gubami is beef noodles in Taiwanese dialect.
- Why do you think Taiwan loves
their beef noodle soup so much?
- It's fast, and also it's luxury.
You have a big bowl of noodle soup and meat.
I never really see restaurants can do all three good.
I wanna do things the best,
so when I do noodles, I want to find out the best formula.
We test with different flours
for almost, six months I would say.
We want the noodles to be al dente in the middle,
but also the outside can absorb a little bit the soup.
We use the Japanese wagyu beef shank
and also we have a condiment of smoked bone marrow
and on top of it, we have some shabu shabu of the beef shank
to give two different textures of the meat.
- What is your background in cooking?
Like, where did you come from?
- I learned in Paris and I traveled to States a little bit,
and then I come back.
I started my French restaurant 10 years ago.
Very fine dining, it was my dream restaurant.
But it's in Taichung, it's very weird.
I think Taiwan people, they like something casual.
I want to do something smaller and now I have the bar,
I have noodle shop.
I always just trying to do something I like.
(Chef Chen laughs)
It looks like very refined, but I didn't do it on purpose.
I just trying to make it good, and then it becomes this way.
- [Steven] Mm.
(cash register dings)
- Look at this.
That's not soup.
We have tofu skin, cooked in some of the beef stock.
This is the radish with lemon and olive oil.
Zucchini, confit in goose fat.
Some kind of green bean and beef mushroom deliciousness.
- I know there's a lot of delicious stuff in front of us,
I cannot wait for the soup right now,
but I will be patient.
(jazzy music)
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hold on the soup.
(Andrew laughs)
That is damn good.
(Andrew laughs)
- [Andrew And Steven] Green bean.
(jazzy music)
- Oh, I did not think that was gonna taste like that.
- What?
(Andrew laughs)
- It's a smoky, porky, green bean.
Tofu skin.
- That looks super juicy.
And meaty.
Cheers.
- That's the best one.
- No, this is the best one.
- No, no, no, no, no, no.
- [Steven] Zucchini.
- Confit in goose fat.
(jazzy music)
Every time I eat something green,
I expect it to taste like a crisp vegetable.
Instead it tastes like a fatty animal.
This is awesome.
- Wow, finally the beef.
(jazzy music)
- Oh!
- I'm ready to eat some beef noodle soup right now.
- Ooh, thank you.
All right. - Smell this thing!
- Oh...
- I can't believe this.
I can't believe this.
- Yeah. - I can't believe this.
- [Andrew] This is a $30 bowl of soup.
- Broth cheers.
(jazzy music)
(Andrew exhales)
- Okay.
- I didn't think a beef taste could be refreshing.
- Yeah, shabu shabu?
- Yeah, let's do the choice cut meat on top.
(jazzy music)
- Wow.
- Very flavorful beef, okay.
- Jeez!
That is good.
I literally just ate a pastrami sandwich in one bite.
- Yeah.
- And the juices of the soup just bursting out.
Inga have some.
Come, come, come.
- This is so good.
(slurping sounds)
- Those are great noodles!
Springy, chewy.
Look at that beef.
Wow.
Holy crap, I didn't think it was going to be that soft.
What? - Yeah.
(crew laughing in the background)
- It's like softer than taffy.
Softer than, it's somewhere...
- You gotta be kidding me!
- Okay, let's add the bone marrow.
This is like buttering already buttered bread.
(slurping sounds)
(Steven exhales)
- Gah, whoa.
Including all the steaks we've eaten,
this beef, best beef taste I've ever tasted.
And the best part?
You get to eat noodles the whole time.
It's like usually a steak,
you're just eating steak.
Pretty fun, but okay.
Noodles the whole time?
(both laugh)
- Yeah, I've had a lot of beef noodle soup before,
and it's never bad, it's always satisfying and comforting.
But this one is like,
a boy was born in Akron, Ohio,
awarded him the chosen one in an ESPN magazine
when he was 14,
turned out to be a great basketball player.
- Who is this?
- LeBron James.
- Oh, goddammit.
Every time.
- Gubami.
- One of the best soup dishes I've ever had,
one of the best noodle dishes I've ever had,
one of the best beef dishes I've ever had.
- I like what you did there.
- Before we get to our Worth It winners,
Andrew, what was your favorite thing that was not a soup
in this episode?
- The craft beer at Smart Fish.
- [Steven] Oh.
- I never thought I'd see a beer with a fish soup logo.
What was your favorite non-soup thing?
- Beef taxi.
There's not even a escort.
Just beef in the taxi, beef out the taxi.
- Okay Steven, which soup was most worth it to you?
- I thought Smart Fish soup was gonna be my winner
when we ate there,
I thought the beef hot pot was gonna be my winner
when we ate there,
but Gubami is my Worth It winner today.
So beefy, just so much thought put into it.
- My Worth It winner goes to Smart Fish.
- Oh. - Fish soup was crazy.
Truly one of the most unique dishes I've ever eaten.
- Inga and Annie?
- Gubami.
- What?
Adam, who's your Worth It winner?
- [Adam] Gubami.
(Andrew sputters) (Inga laughs)
- I've never been so,
this is a Worth It first. - I win today!
- That's it for Worth It Taiwan soup.
We have one more episode in this miniseries coming up next.
Steven, what is it?
- Chicken!
(upbeat music)
We're in Taiwan!
We're back with a three-part mini-series.
Joining us on all of our episodes,
our friend, translator,
- [Andrew] Fellow Buzzfeed producer,
- Inga Lam!
- Taipei! (laughing)
- We're gonna be seeing some great modes of transportation,
some fun games, some tricks, some treats,
and some delights.
You know how you know we're in Taiwan?
The beautiful 101 Tower.
And because it's steamy,
which is perfect for the first food
that we're doing in our trip: dumplings,
a food that's often cooked with steam.
- Great transition.
Today on Worth It, we're gonna be trying three dumplings
at three drastically different price points to find out
which one is the most worth it at its price.
- I am so excited to do dumplings.
- So excited!
- I feel like we've been talking about this episode
since season one.
- One of my goals this trip is to brush up on my Mandarin
because I have the Mandarin skills of a four-year-old.
(Andrew chuckling)
My goal is to get it to a five-year-old
by the end of this trip.
- That's a very good goal.
- Thank you. - Yeah.
Dumpling Number One.
- We're going to see Ms. Liu in her restaurant
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
How's that? - Is that good?
- Good! - We're gonna get some
fifty-cent pan-fried dumplings.
And it's-- - Have we ever had a price
so low on Worth It?
- No, we haven't!
That is a drastic price point.
(Andrew laughing)
(high-spirited piano music)
You've been making dumplings for 30 years.
I'm just curious what you think makes the perfect dumpling.
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
- What types of buns do you serve here?
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
- And which one is your favorite?
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
(laughing)
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
- We've heard that the dough of your buns is very delicious.
What makes it so special?
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
How many should we have?
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
(Inga laughing) Oh, three?
- You know how you're actually in Taiwan?
- How?
- Dumplings.
- And motor scooter sounds.
- [Steven] It's a beautiful noise.
- So, not only are we having dumplings,
but we're also having...
- Soy milk.
So, we noticed you're actually making
your own soy milk here.
Can you tell us about how you guys make that?
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
Cheers.
Oh!
Jeez! - What?
I didn't know that's what soy milk's supposed to taste like.
Kinda like a peanut butter drink.
- Uh-huh. - Like that's how nutty
it tastes to me.
Inga, how's the soy milk?
- I'm like almost done with it. (laughing)
- Oh my gosh. - Really?
- I really like soy milk.
This is really good.
- It's like the first time I had full-fat milk.
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - You know?
Adam, try some soy milk.
(laughing)
- Yeah. - Okay.
- Let's get to the buns. - Let's get to the buns.
Pork, cabbage, chive.
Look at the bottom crust.
It's like a little, "Hi! I'm crispy."
(Steven laughing)
Cheers.
(groovy music)
(Steven laughing)
The dough is so good.
What was the term for chewy?
- QQ.
- QQ? - QQ?
Is that an actual term?
- Yeah.
- This is so QQ (Inga laughing)
- I don't know how to describe the weight of it but...
- It's pleasantly plump.
- Pleasantly plump.
- Okay, the pork bun.
(Steven chuckling)
(groovy music)
Oh.
- Whoa!
- That's my favorite.
Adam, you wanna take a bite?
- You know my problem with burgers?
- [Adam] Oh!
(Steven and Andrew laughing)
- You're playing a game of, like, Jenga and Tetris
as you're biting into it.
With the bun, you're not losing anything.
- Lastly, the cabbage.
I love the shape of this one.
It looks like a clam.
- This is 50 cents.
We just ate three dollars of food, by the way.
- Okay, this one might actually be my favorite.
Dammit!
(Steven laughing)
I don't live in Taiwan!
50 cents?
I don't even have to be hungry.
(Steven laughing) It's just,
it'll be foolish not to.
- The pleasure you get out of chewing really good
- Good dough. - Bread.
- Yeah.
- Oh my gosh.
- QQ!
I think you need to open this in America.
I can give you my address, just open up shop next to me
'cause I need to eat this on my way to work, please.
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
(Inga laughing)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Inga laughing)
(Ms. Liu speaks in foreign language)
That was a dumpling.
Well, it's actually a bao, but bao's a dumpling.
- QQ is my new favorite food terminology.
It's quite warm here in Taiwan.
- It's very warm. - So, I think before
we have our next dumpling, we need a refreshing treat.
We're in Taiwan.
What kind of treat should we have?
- Shaved ice!
- [Andrew] We're going to Showa Ice.
- [Steven] The Chinese name is
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(cheerful music)
- This looks awesome.
This is one of your favorite desserts, right?
- Not this specifically, - Yeah.
- But shaved ice in general. - Shaved ice generally.
- [Inga] So, there's two types of shaved ice here,
the classic mango chunks on top of milk shaved ice
and then chocolate shaved ice with whiskey.
It's really good, but it tastes really different.
- Ooh. - I'm going full mango.
- Oh, wow.
This texture is very surprising.
- Oh, the mango!
Inga, get in here and try this mango.
This is like Garden of Eden mango right here.
- This is so sweet.
(cheerful jazz music)
- Of course that tastes good.
You drink whiskey with ice?
- Yeah. - And chocolate.
Chocolate works.
We're eating a food that's cooked with steam,
and now we're eating ice.
So, we're just exploring all the,
I'm gonna call that the states of matter.
- Yeah. - Do we have any chemists
in the room? - Oh, excuse me.
- All right, chemist.
- Give me a fact!
- Dumpling fact!
It's not a dumpling fact.
- Oh?
- It's related to dumplings though.
Dumpling-related fact.
- Dumpling-related fact.
- Because most foods humans eat are soft,
the body and brain have learned to like the novelty
of an opposing texture, like crunch.
Even after all that effort to make a perfectly QQ dough,
it's still worth it to add the crunch on the bottom.
- Back to the perfect food, man.
- All right, we're off to our next dumpling spot.
- We're gonna go see Mr. Chen
in his steamed dumpling restaurant.
Inga, what's the name of it?
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
- Good work!
- Nice!
(lively piano music)
- How many dumplings do you think
your restaurant makes per day?
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
Wow. - A day.
- 5000 a day.
- And they're all made by hand.
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
- What makes a really great dumpling?
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
- When customers come here, are they only eating dumplings
or are they ordering other things as well?
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
So, we should order a few more things as well?
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
(laughing)
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
That's right.
(cash register dinging)
We've built out our meal with some extra stuff here.
- We have. - Let's dumpling it up.
- They make 5000 of these,
a literal army of dumplings
in one day. - Yeah.
It feels like I'm fighting an army of dumplings
with my mouth.
- Boom.
Dip.
(string music)
- That's incredible.
- Oh, wow.
- Dumplings I've had in the past,
once it's steamed, it becomes loose around the filling.
- Yeah.
- But these are tight and dense and still juicy inside.
- So juicy.
- Let's do a side dish break.
- [Steven] I vote century egg tofu madness.
- [Andrew] Yeah.
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Mr. Chen speaks in foreign language)
(laughing)
- Wow!
- Whoa. - Wow!
- [Steven] That's not what I was gonna do.
- [Andrew] Wow! (laughing)
- Okay.
- Yay! - Okay.
- Wow, (Steven speaks in foreign language)
- Do you know what I realized?
- Yeah.
- Egg, nature's dumpling.
(Steven laughing)
- Wow. - Whoo!
- Cheers, Steve. - Cheers.
To a hundred years.
Oh, yeah.
Hold that up, hold that up!
- Yeah, that's what the egg--
- This is egg and you can see through it.
- It's very jelly.
- [Steven] All right, so, here we have
the vegetable dumpling.
- Watching them make these dumplings was like magic.
They closed their hands and when they open it,
there's a dumpling.
It's really like someone's doing a card trick
in front of your eyes.
- Fun fact.
This is actually Inga's grandmother's suggestion
of where to eat. - Really?
- Yeah, my grandma was the one
who recommended this place to me.
- [Andrew] Good recommendation.
- It's so QQ. (Andrew chuckling)
- Think about the amount of work
that's put into these dumplings and how cheap it is.
That is the ultimate magic trick.
(Inga laughing)
- My mouth's so full!
- That pork dumpling.
- Like a Korean spa.
- Like a dry-cleaned shirt
steamed to perfection. - Steamed to perfection.
- Our next dumpling is also going to be steamed.
We're having the soup dumpling.
- [Steven] The Xiao Long Bao.
- That's right.
But before we do that, we're going to have
another Taiwanese dessert treat.
- SunnyHills Pineapple Cake.
It's one of my, oh my God,
it's one of my favorite places.
(playful piano music)
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
- Please enjoy.
- So, every time you come here,
even if you don't buy anything,
they will give this to you, like a pineapple cake
with oolong tea.
- That's confidence.
That's, like, we know how good it is
because you're definitely gonna get it.
- Yes, and you will.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- Cheers.
(playful piano music)
Ooh-long, right? - Good, right?
(laughing) - Golly.
- Pineapple cakes are really good.
Buttery and flaky on the outside,
and then you get that really fresh pineapple sweetness
and tartness.
- [Steven] Iconic.
- [Inga] Iconic.
- New York and cheesecakes.
Taiwan and pineapple cake.
- Yes, yes. - Or something like that?
- Yes.
Smell it.
- Hmm.
- [Inga] Right?
- Mm, okay, I see.
I get it, yeah.
I've never had pineapple jam-ified like this.
- So, you just pop the rest?
- Well, you might want to save to enjoy it
while you listen to this.
Dumpling fact!
(Steven laughing) Sorry.
- What is fact in Mandarin?
- Oh!
Fact in-- - Could you say dumpling fact?
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
- Doesn't Andrew do language better?
- Say that again?
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Andrew speaks in foreign language)
(bleep)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Andrew loudly laughing)
- In 2013 and 2014, chef-turned-writer
Christopher St. Cavish created a soup dumpling index,
measuring the thickness of the dough,
the soup volume, and the total weight of each individual
xiao long bao at 52 different restaurants.
This data was then calculated with the formula,
filling plus soup divided by thickness of skin
times a hundred to assign a score representing
the quality of structural engineering in xiao long bao.
- Look, quadratic formula was already hard enough.
All right, next stop.
We're going to a soup-er star--
(Andrew laughing) - Oh!
- Soup dumpling spot, Din Tai Fung.
We're going to meet the bossman, Mr. Yang.
It originated here in Taiwan.
They, right now, at this very moment,
have 164 locations worldwide.
That's at this moment.
- That's wild.
- By tomorrow, there might be 180.
(Andrew laughing) We don't know.
We're gonna go eat their Truffle Soup Dumpling.
Truffle.
Have you had it before?
- Not truffle.
I'm not boujee. (Andrew chuckling)
- I'm just gonna walk away from that comment.
(heavy bass music)
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
- Was it always soup dumplings?
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
How do you get the soup inside the dumpling?
- Yeah.
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
(laughing)
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
So, when it's steamed, it becomes liquid-y?
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
What's important about that pleating process?
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
How do you maintain such high quality around the world?
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
- This is the Taiho IPA.
It's locally brewed,
and it has a really strong flavor of fruits.
- Oh, the logo is great.
It's a tiger.
Cheers, Steven.
- Cheers.
- Mm that's good. - That's, like,
almost cider.
- So, then, for the pork xiao long bao,
the most important part is the soup inside.
It's sort of, like, the soul of the xiao long bao.
So, we lift it up from the top,
we place it at the back-- (Steven and Andrew hollering)
of the spoon-- - Sorry, the bottom
just sagged down in a very satisfying way.
- Yeah. - We poke a little hole inside
to let the broth come out.
- Oh, okay. - Okay.
- And then please take a sip.
- You're gonna wait for me or just eat alone?
Okay, great.
- I'm following instructions, Steven.
(Andrew exclaiming)
- Nice?
- Yes, nice.
- And then we can add a little bit of ginger
with the sauce on top,
and then you can enjoy the xiao long bao together.
- All right, together. - I'm gonna wait for you
to drink your--
Yeah.
- [Steven] I'm not good at.. how did you poke that so well?
(Andrew laughing)
- Would you need some help?
(laughing)
- Cheers, Steven. - Cheers.
(lips smacking)
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah. - That's really good.
- [Steven] It's almost cloth-like--
- Like a fabric. - The bottom of it.
- The broth has, like, a sweetness to it.
It's so good.
Do people ever eat it in one bite?
- Yes, they do.
But please be careful because it's really hot.
- Right. - Okay.
- Sometimes, you just gotta fly too close
to the sun though, so...
- I feel like I wanna feel it burst into my mouth.
- It is hot.
(laughing)
We've mentioned it so much in this video,
but I really have to bring it back to the QQ.
- Even though the dough is so thin,
it still is very satisfying.
- How do you attain that kind of texture
in, like, a film sheet.
- Adam, can you try this, please?
(laughing)
- Oh, that's good.
- Yeah, it's really good.
- This is our truffle and pork xiao long bao.
- Why do a truffles dumpling?
(Mr. Yang speaks in foreign language)
(cash register dings)
- [Andrew] Cleanse my palate.
(perky music)
- Before we get into the eating,
(Andrew laughing)
I do have to point out the pleating
- Yeah. - On this dumpling.
They're beautiful.
- Oh, yes.
(slurping sounds)
Oh!
What?
(Andrew chuckling)
- [Steven] Boujee cheers!
- Oh, sorry.
(laughing)
These are awesome.
Okay.
Last season, we ate soup that had truffle in it.
We learned that it has to be activated by heat and fat.
- Right.
- So, the truffle in a soup dumpling totally makes sense.
It really says something about this dough
that even though it's so thin,
you still get that QQ.
- [Steven] It's impossibly thin.
- Common complaint about our show
is that we always just put truffle in stuff
to make it more expensive.
- And we see you comment section, we see you.
- But these are about three US dollars per dumpling,
which is expensive, but for the taste of truffle,
how nice this is, I'd say that's worth it.
(laughing)
Show title, watch out. (laughing)
- They're doing truffle right.
- Yeah.
They're not doing it wrong.
(Steven laughing)
Adam, you wanna see if they're doing it right?
(laughing)
(Adam chuckling)
- [Steven] So, we're here at Raohe Night Market
because Inga suggested that we come
and eat their stinky tofu.
- The smell around the stall is quite stinky,
but once it's fried, it is much more subdued.
Cheers, Steven.
- Cheers.
- So juicy!
Holy crap!
Speaking of soup dumpling, there's a soup tofu.
- Try stinky tofu.
- Okay, so before we get to our Worth It winners,
what was your favorite thing in this episode
that was not a dumpling?
- My favorite thing was the fire hydrant soy milk.
(Andrew laughing)
at the (in foreign language) place.
The visuals of that are just astounding.
- My favorite thing was getting dressed like a scientist
at Din Tai Fung's central kitchen.
We went to this airlock that blew all the dust
and hair off of us.
And we got to see some really cool
behind-the-scenes stuff.
So, Steven, which dumpling was the most worth it to you
at its given price?
- My Worth It winner today goes to the pan-fried dumpling
at (in foreign language).
The value was incredible there.
The dumplings were amazing.
- The cabbage bun at that location was very nearly
my Worth It winner, but I have to give it to the
steamed pork dumplings at Location Two.
Like my fantasy of a dumpling is that dumpling.
Inga, who's your Worth It winner?
- I don't know.
It's so hard.
I wanna say two because it's my grandma's favorite,
but I think it's honestly one.
- [Andrew] Annie?
(laughing)
Adam says his winner's Din Tai Fung.
Next week, soup.
That's right.
Soup, again.
So soon, you say?
Trust us.
Taiwan may be the perfect place to have soup.
- Yes, so excited.
There's so many soups.
We have so many soups.
It's gonna be great.
- So many soups.
(Inga laughs)
(groovy music)
- "Worth It: Taiwan" is back.
- "Worth It" chicken.
Is that a chicken?
- Yeah. - Kind of.
- It's a rooster.
Which is a chicken.
- Is that a chicken?
- No, that's a pigeon.
We're here in Taiwan's garden night market.
We just picked up our chicken treats.
Tomorrow the journey begins.
We're going to three cities for three acts of chicken,
ending in a chicken finale like you've never seen before.
- Bok, bok, bish.
Leggo.
- Mm!
It's like a pancake.
- Today on "Worth It," we're going to be
trying three chicken dishes
at three drastically different price points
to find out which one is the most worth it at its price.
- So we're eating chicken, but our first chicken
is actually a soup.
I know we just finished a soup video,
but that's just how many soups there are here.
You can't escape the soup.
We're off to see the Chen family at Walking Su,
where we're going to be trying their sesame oil chicken.
- What is that in Mandarin, Inga?
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
(Steven speaks in foreign language)
- Okay, I'm excited to eat some chicken.
- Let's do it.
(xylophone music)
- Tell us about how this business got started.
(speaks in foreign language)
So this is a family business.
What do each of you do?
(speaks in foreign language)
Do you find it easy working together?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Steven] Sesame oil chicken.
Is that dish a classic Taiwanese dish?
(speaks in foreign language)
(laughs)
- What are those herbs adding to this dish?
(speaks in foreign language)
(cash register dings)
- [Steven] This looks incredible.
- We're got a couple additional accoutrements here.
The Thai basil sauce, the spicy fermented bean paste,
and sticky rice.
All right, let's taste the broth.
Sesame oil chicken.
Mm.
Delightful nuttiness of the sesame oil.
- Yes.
Super nutty.
- Super.
- It's got this hearty feel to it.
- Oh, yeah, this is hearty as (beep).
How was that?
- So incredibly juicy and tender and, ugh.
I'm going to smell the Thai basil,
because that's their specialty here.
- Whoa!
Smells like pesto.
- Yeah.
What?
- That is awesome.
That is like a salad dressing to dip your soup into.
Adam, you gotta try the chicken in the Thai basil.
- Ooh. (Andrew laughs)
- Want to try some rice?
- Oh, yes.
- Chicken, Steven. - Cheers.
- The thing I keep getting blown away by in Taiwan,
I go to a meal expecting one thing,
and then there's always all this bonus stuff
that just blows my expectations out of the water.
- Yeah, and even when they first started this restaurant,
this was a bonus dish.
- Right.
- Right, that's crazy. - This was a free thing.
- So there's a lot of herbs added to this soup.
It tastes like an elixir.
It just washes away all of the pain in your body.
Achy back, I got a soup for that.
Tired eyes.
- Soup for that.
- My foot hurts.
- Throw some soup on there.
- It's all the same soup.
It's very convenient.
Adam, you want to get some of this soup?
I'm pretending like Adam's over here,
even though he's over there.
- Hi.
(laughs)
- So our next chicken location is in Taipei,
but first we're going to take a countryside detour.
- Yep, that's right.
We're going to a scallion farm in Yilan.
And we're going to be making our own scallion pancakes.
Not just cooking them.
We're going to pick them ourselves.
- Scallions, yeah. - Yes.
- It's a chicken episode, it's a soup episode,
and now it's a pancake episode.
(upbeat trumpet music)
- What you see in front of you here is a scallion pancake,
but rewind three hours.
What did we do?
- [Andrew] We're in this unique valley
where you get different temperature winds
at different times of day,
which create a nice perfect humidity for growing scallions.
So today we've picked a bunch of scallions,
cleaned them up, chopped them, cried a little bit,
and then learned how to make scallion pancakes.
And here we have it, the spoils of our toils.
- Cheers! - Cheers!
- Mm.
- Oh, yo.
- Yo.
Okay, this is one of the best things I've eaten so far.
You know what time it is now?
Time for a Taiwan food fact.
The concept of "xiao chi," meaning little eats,
is popular in Taiwan, basically meaning snacking
throughout the day, often on street food, between meals.
- Of course, yeah.
In Taiwan, if you only eat three meals in one day,
you're just doing it wrong.
- We're actually on our way to a snack shop next.
Inga, where are we going?
(Inga speaks in foreign language)
We're going to see Reebok and Julia
and try their fried chicken.
(solemn piano music)
- What makes a perfect fried chicken to you guys?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Andrew] So what makes your Taiwanese
fried chicken unique?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Steven] What do you recommend that we drink
with the fried chicken?
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Andrew] What?
- This is not what I was expecting.
- You ready, Steven?
- I'm ready.
- This is called dining al fresco.
- So we've ordered the recommended sparkling wine.
Apparently, you only order by the bottle here.
- I like that.
- It's my speed. - Let's go.
Cheers.
- How awesome is this?
This is some riviera (beep).
- We got to eat this while it's hot, so let's go.
Ooo.
It smells so good. - Oh, it's so fragrant.
The garlic, the onion, this basil.
The meat inside is so soft.
- It's very pleasing.
- Very pleasing.
Like brûléed marshmallows.
Seriously.
- Oh man. - It's wild.
I thought QQ was only for dumplings.
- Whoa. (Andrew laughs)
- It's so soft.
- It's almost like chicken nugget-esque.
- You know what's crazy about this?
We've eaten fried chicken in Minneapolis,
where the restaurant thought, "You know what's actually
the best drink to have with fried chicken?
Sparkling wine."
And here we are in Taiwan,
and this restaurant had the same idea.
- I see, I see.
- If there's a restaurant on either side of the world
that is doing the same thing, it must be great.
(speaks in foreign language)
- I'm scared to eat this, because I'm scared
of how much I'll like it.
- [Andrew] Pork knuckle and radish cake.
- Wow.
Ooo.
Oh, man.
- Watch out, you're going to push me off my stool.
- Radish cake is a classic dim sum dish.
I've eaten this every time I go out.
You know, they bring around the carts
and they're all steamed, right?
It's still hot but it doesn't have
that break-through-the-crunch texture that this has.
- You could maybe liken it to a potato pancake.
That's so good.
- Yeah it's crazy. - Yeah.
How should we eat the pork knuckle?
- [Chef] By hand.
- [Andrew] By hand?
Just like an apple?
- [Chef] Mm-hmm.
- Okay.
Kind of looks like a donut.
- Oh!
Yours does.
- Mine does.
- Cheers.
- Oh my god.
This is like a pork donut.
Wow.
(Steven laughs)
- So this is actually cartilage, but it feels like fat
with how loosey-goosey it is.
- The gelatin is the jelly of this pork donut.
- Right.
- And to wash it down, sparkling wine.
- Oh, thank goodness for this.
- How awesome is this?
- Thank you. - Thank you.
- This was really good.
- Thank you.
(speaks in foreign language)
- We are at the Beijing hotel,
where they serve a boba croissant.
Yes, you heard me right.
Boba croissant.
(imitates whooshing)
- We got the matcha, tiramisu and the milk tea.
Which one do you want?
- My gut is going toward matcha,
but I'm going against my gut and going for the tiramisu.
- I actually knew that you were going to pick that one,
because it has gold flake on it.
(Steven laughs)
All right, I'll go milk tea.
Very satisfying to pick up.
Cheers.
- Cheers.
Are you going to bite into it?
- Yeah. - Or open it up?
- I'm going to bite into it.
- Oh. (Steven gasps)
This is just all of the textures.
This is nice.
It's satisfyingly squishy.
- I think there's a word for that, QQ.
- Ready for a Taiwan food fact, Steven?
- Taiwan food fact!
Taiwan food fact.
- Um.
- Up until the 1960s, the most common Taiwanese breakfast
was rice or congee.
Buns emerged as a popular Taiwanese food in the 1960s
when U.S. trade introduced wheat into the Taiwanese diet.
- Shouldn't that fact go in the dumpling episode
that we did?
- Well, it was more about breakfast.
I just wanted an excuse to talk about congee,
because it's just a nice, savory thing
to have for breakfast.
- This is a very good croissant.
- Yeah.
- I got a cake.
- [Steven] Oh, my.
- [Andrew] This boba croissant is part of a boba festival.
- Boba fest.
- And Inga's got the crown jewel of the festival.
And now it's time to take a little train ride.
- QQ.
(Andrew laughs)
You want to hear my boba rap?
- Yeah.
- How do you like your boba?
- Yeah.
- Eat it like a cobra.
- Yeah.
- My name is Yoda.
- [Andrew] Yeah.
- [Steven] And I like yoga.
- Now dab.
- Never.
- This is a train water bottle that they sell
on the train.
(imitates train chugging)
So once we get done with this guy, we'll be in Taichung
and we'll be eating at our final chicken location.
- We're going to go meet RuiHong at Yan Xiang Lou
to have Beggar's Chicken.
(uplifting orchestral music)
- What kind of cuisine is the food here?
(speaks in foreign language)
- Tell us about this dish, the Beggar's Chicken.
(speaks in foreign language)
- What happened to the beggar?
(speaks in foreign language) (laughs)
(speaks in foreign language)
I hope so.
(speaks in foreign language)
- [Andrew] Why bake the chicken in clay?
(speaks in foreign language)
How do we get the chicken out from the clay?
(speaks in foreign language)
Which one of us gets to do it?
- [Steven] I'll do the hammering, you do the hammer time.
- What?
You just automatically assume that you get to hammer.
(speaks in foreign language)
- You can both do it.
- Two hammers? - Yeah.
- Okay.
- Great. - Resolved.
Ooh, thank you.
Cheers to our final meal in Taiwan.
- Oh, no!
- I know.
- Cheers.
- Since this is our last meal in Taiwan,
we're blowing it out.
- [Steven] Let's do it.
- I saw a little sneak peek of what's coming upstairs.
It's going to blow you away.
So this is winter melon.
- [Steven] Whoa.
- Wow. - Wow.
- What?
Look at it coming out, pouring on the fish's head.
- These look too real.
Look at the scales on these guys.
- Honestly, every time I've seen a koi fish,
I've thought they looked like a tasty fish.
Cheers, Steven.
Fish kiss.
That's a good dumpling.
- Aw, fish super good.
- This looks like in "Hook," when Robin Williams
is imagining the food.
Have you seen this movie?
It's all vibrant colors.
Do yourself a favor, go watch "Hook."
You'll have a delightful time.
You'll be reminded of this moment.
- I'm going pink for my hair.
We might as well have just shot all three episodes here.
- Much like the origin myth,
first we're eating like an emperor,
and then we're taking a journey to discover the chicken.
- Food is all about storytelling.
Well, and taste.
(Andrew laughs) But also storytelling.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(Steven laughs)
- Ohh. - Ohh.
Hey, oh. - Okay.
What?
- Yes.
- What?
- [Inga] You guys can go up now.
- Hammer time? - Okay.
- All right, Steven.
I'm nervous.
- I am scared, too.
- [Both] One, two, three!
(clay shatters)
- Wow. - Nice!
- Looks like chocolate.
- Smells like dirt. - Dirt.
(laughs)
We just hatched our chicken dinner.
It was very dino egg-like.
- [Both] Mm.
- Wow.
Chicken cheers.
- Chicken cheers.
- Oh, that's good.
- What?
That is so soft.
- Some people say chicken's a boring meal.
I would say those people haven't had it--
- Deep-fried, baked in clay.
- Stuffed with pork and aromatics.
- There's pork in the chicken?
- Yeah.
- [Inga] So now she's just adding a sauce.
I think it's an oyster sauce slurry.
- Oh.
That tastes like my mom's fried rice.
Whoa, that was weird.
- "Mom?"
(laughs)
You know what this chicken is?
It's a time capsule.
For flavor.
Buried under dirt, much like a regular time capsule.
But it's also a dish--
- From the Ming dynasty.
Is there a letter written in there?
Like, "Dear diary, do I still taste good?"
- Yeah.
- Very soft.
At its core, this dish is just a plate
of really nice chicken.
So simple, so perfect.
We're going to take it back into artistry land now,
if that's okay with you.
- Let's do it.
What is going on right now?
- Yeah, dude.
(Andrew laughs)
Looks like a scene from "Nightmare Before Christmas."
This is too beautiful not to share.
I think we should get everybody in here
and we all take a bite.
Who wants a swan, who wants a pumpkin?
Cheers, everybody.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- What?
Oh my god.
It's red bean.
- Why? - Wow.
- Why?
- Not "why."
Why not?
Worth it.
Beggar's Chicken.
You know they say beggars can't be choosers,
but beggars can be chicken.
That was quite an experience.
Steven, before we get to our "Worth It" winners,
what was your favorite thing that wasn't one
of the highlight foods in this "Worth It" episode.
- The Pork Knuckle at Chu Zha Xiaoshi Dian.
Mm. (hand thuds)
- That's the knuckle.
- It was so good, I contemplated eating my own knuckles.
What was your favorite thing?
- Honestly, the hard ass rain while we were filming
location two.
We had a typhoon barely graze us, but we still got
some awesome hard rain, which I love.
- Which chicken was the most worth it to you?
- My "Worth It" winner, Walking Su sesame oil chicken.
- [Steven] Woo.
- If that chicken had been in the soup episode,
it would have won that episode, too.
- Wow.
- Comforting, exciting, inexpensive.
It was wonderful.
Who was your "Worth It" winner?
- Okay.
Walking Su, totally new experience.
- [Andrew] Yeah.
- Yan Xiang Lou.
If you could eat with your eyes, that place would have won.
But, because that pork knuckle was so effing good,
my "Worth It" winner must go to Chu Zha Xiaoshi Dian.
- Inga, "Worth It" winner.
- Two, Chu Zha Xiaoshi Dian.
With Reebok and Julia.
- [Steven] Annie?
- [Annie] The swan.
- Adam, who's your "Worth It" winner?
- [Adam] Fried chicken.
- Oo, the fried chicken.
Very good choice.
- All right.
That's a wrap on "Worth It: Taiwan."
- Very special thank you to the Taiwan Tourism Bureau,
that helped us out tremendously with this trip.
Couldn't have been here without them.
- All right, let's get out of here.
Bye!
(upbeat groovy music)
- Welcome back.
- Welcome back, Steven.
We're doing another three episode burst
before the new year rolls in.
You might be wondering why we're not driving.
Say hi, Devon.
Devon's up front driving
because we're picking up our special co-star today.
He's an avid fan of the show, from River Forest, Illinois.
His name is Jackson, and his visit is made possible
by Make-A-Wish.
- [Steven] What's up?
Nice to meet you
(parents laughing)
Hi, guys! - Hey.
- You ready to go? - Yes.
- [Steven] All right.
(grunts)
There's Adam, say hi.
- Hey. (Andrew laughs)
- Welcome to the car, Jackson.
- It's the worth automobile.
- That's right. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
I'm the pun master on this show.
- [Steven] I like it.
- But thank you Jackson for joining us
on our double cheeseburger episode today.
- Thank you for having me.
- You flew all the way out from Illinois.
- Yes. - The Midwest,
I like you already.
- Should we do the Today on Worth It?
- You don't know how to do that?
- Today on "Worth It", we're having
three double cheeseburgers at three addresses
at three different price points
to see which one is worth it.
- The most worth it.
- [Together] The most worth it.
- At its given price point.
- So that's at least six patties.
- Are you prepared?
- I'm hungry.
- Good
- So the first place we're going to
is called Burgers Never Say Die.
We're gonna see Shawn.
- This is a smash burger joint.
I love Super Smash, the game, Ultimate, and all.
You play Ultimate?
- Yes
- Ooh, who's your main?
- (chuckling) Oh my God.
- Donkey Kong.
- Okay, okay, I'm a Ness man.
- You're bringing all the co-host attributes
that Steven wants in me, but I don't possess.
- Hey, do you watch the NBA?
- Yes.
(all exclaiming)
- That's what I'm talking about.
- So your menu starts with the regular,
and the regular has two patties.
- Yes - Why is that?
- I like double cheeseburgers.
That's what I grew up eating.
It also works because it's a smash patty.
- [Andrew] And tell us what a smash burger is?
- [Shawn] It's cooked on a flat top, at very high heat,
and you just smash it down there, so it sears to the griddle
and the whole process probably takes a minute or less.
- [Jackson] What makes a really good burger?
- [Shawn] It's so subjective, like personally, for me,
I like burgers cooked on the griddle.
- [Jackson] What does the griddle add?
- [Shawn] You get flavor that's been there, the seasoning
from the food items other than burgers.
- [Andrew] What drew you to making burgers specifically?
- My wife and I, we were always really into burgers
and got into the food scene of LA.
Bringing together all the burgers we ate,
I thought, I wanna try making this burger myself.
I started in my backyard
with no intention of opening a restaurant.
For a couple weeks, I was just begging people to come
and try the burger; friends, coworkers, whoever.
And then, some people approached me,
asking if I wanted to open a restaurant.
And throughout my whole life,
I usually just jump in,
and I thought, let's give this a shot and see what happens.
- We have a sign right here that says, "always order two".
Why?
- It's an ode to the backyard.
People would order one, and they would regret it
and then there would be a long line or we had sold out, so.
- Is two still doable?
- I recommend two for you, yeah.
- What about you, do you do two?
- I do two, I've eaten like six in one day, so.
(laughing) - Oh my goodness.
- I mean we're gonna do six probably,
over the course of this day, for us,
so why not start with two?
- (sighs) Here we go.
(cash register dings)
- [Andrew] All right, Jackson, take it away.
- Worth-it, Double Cheeseburger, take one.
- Nice. - That was perfect.
That was better than I usually do.
Take two.
(clattering) (laughing)
So that Burgers Never Say Die,
they also have soft serve ice cream.
Insider pro tip;
you get your soft serve in a cup, order a soda on the side,
and then mix it for your own float.
What are the correct proportions for a float?
Does anybody know?
- The whole bottle. - It's a feel.
- Jackson's got classic root beer float.
This is Steven's--
- [Steven] I got chocolate--
- And a blueberry root beer.
Okay, when, when, when, when.
Cheers! - Cheers!
How do you eat this?
- Who thought of floats? - Ooh!
- Pour some soda on some ice cream?
That's like some,
the-parents-aren't-home, mischief (all laughing).
- [All] Cheers.
- The fries!
- Taste like McDonald's. - Taste like McDonald's, yeah.
- So these fries are fried in beef tallow.
Apparently this is what McDonald's tasted like
way back in the day,
before they switched to a vegetable oil.
Staying true to their motto,
we've two burgers for each of us except for you Jackson,
because this is your first time on one of these rodeos,
I don't wanna do that to you.
- Whoa.
- It looks the way a fast food burger looks in a commercial,
but this is how it is in real life.
- [Jackson] It smells good.
- Great bun smell.
Did you think you'd have to wait this long
before you actually get to take a bite?
- Can I point out one more physical attribute
of this burger before we bite into it?
Sorry, Jackson.
Look at the way it's like a lattice.
- [Andrew] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Crispy? - Very crispy.
But you can almost see through the meat.
- [Andrew] Like a spider's web.
- [All] Cheers!
- Oh, man.
Wow!
- It's crunchy too
- It's really crunchy. - Yeah.
- It's the essence of burger.
There's nothing extra.
There's not like strange sauces or condiments.
- Oh man.
- This might be the best burger I've ever had.
- Oh man.
- Like truly.
- Would you agree with that?
- Yes.
- This is one of my favorite ones.
- Swallow your food.
(Jackson and Steven laughing)
- Next burger, here we go.
- You would definitely be satisfied by one of these,
but you're gonna want two.
- I do agree.
Order two.
What am I doing with my life now?
I'm only slightly lactose-intolerant,
so low levels of cheese, that's fine.
Are you lactose-intolerant at all?
- No.
- You're a lucky person.
Oh, we had ice cream, too.
What am I doing? (all laughing)
- [Andrew] Jackson, what do you think
about the part of the show where Adam eats?
- He takes really large bites.
(laughing)
- I'm gonna finish mine before you.
- Of course.
I don't know if I could do that.
- What a cheeseburger.
- [Jackson and Steven] That was insane.
- We keep talking at the same time.
- Oh.
- Twins! - Look who is simpatico.
So before our next double cheeseburger,
we're actually gonna get another double cheeseburger.
We're going to this French restaurant
in West Hollywood, called Tesse.
I saw on Instagram, that for National Burger day,
they made, we're just gonna call it
a special dessert burger.
We reached out, and the pastry chef, Sally,
so kindly agreed to remake it, but double this time.
This might be the most visually
appealing burger of the day.
(charming old school music)
- Close your eyes. - Okay.
- Man, this is gonna blow you away.
Three, two, one, reveal!
(Steven and Jackson exclaiming)
- [Andrew] It's very realistic.
- Dude, is that a strawberry?
- [Jackson and Andrew] Yes.
- [Andrew] Two macaroons, chocolate ganache,
mango passion fruit cheese, strawberry slices, shiso leaf,
and a raspberry jelly for the ketchup.
- Wow.
If you did not tell me that was dessert,
I would not have guessed it.
- [All] Cheers!
- [Steven] How to eat this?
(mumbling)
- It's actually really good.
I mean it's chocolate and fruit, what's not to like?
- It's sweet and bitter at the same time.
- [Steven] That's the nosh.
- The tasting notes coming off of Jackson.
This isn't your first time, is it?
- No. - All right, I retire today,
you can have the--
- Do you know what time it is now?
- Yes.
Oh, you're asking me or Jackson?
- If you didn't know, I'd be concerned.
- Fact time.
- That's right, double cheeseburger fact.
- Double cheeseburger fact.
- One minute.
(all laughing)
Double cheeseburger fact.
- Bob's Big Boy, is credited with selling
the first double cheeseburger in 1937.
The chain's original name was Bob's Pantry
but after the double cheeseburger,
dubbed the Big Boy, was invented,
the restaurant changed its name to boast its famous burger.
The double cheeseburger became so famous,
they changed their restaurant name.
- [Adam] What about renaming this show?
- Whoa. - Whoa.
It would probably be called, Adam's Silent Bite.
- No, Adam's Big Bite.
- Adam's Big Bite.
Yes!
For our next double cheeseburger,
we're on our way to see Frederick and Max,
at Burgerlords, in Highland Park.
Similar to this double cheeseburger,
this next double cheeseburger's made without meat.
- I've never had a veggie cheeseburger before.
- Curveball for the episode.
- I'm scared and excited.
- Scared and excited is a good place to be with food.
Tell us what kind of restaurant Burgerlords is.
- The way I think of it, it's kind of a bizzaro version
of a traditional fast food restaurant.
You're used to a frozen garden burger, portobello.
This is the opposite, where everything is vegan, vegetarian,
except the beef burger.
- Do you think you're more popular
with traditional beef cheeseburgers
or with the vegetarian and vegan crowd?
- Honestly it's like 50-50.
- Yeah? - Yeah we look at it
every week.
- [Steven] How did you guys develop
the recipe for this patty?
- [Max] Everything kind of has its role.
The barley for chewiness, and cashews give it a nice crunch.
We're roasting all the eggplants,
slicing up the other vegetables.
Those get sauteed with all the spices on the flat top.
Cooking barley in a rice cooker, with kambu and miso,
roasting nuts, garbanzo beans, cashews,
and then it all goes into one batch, and just mixed up.
- [Fred] Once it's cold, it settles,
and then we're balling it like a traditional burger.
We roll it in Panko, then we patty it out,
so the Panko when it's cooking gives it a kinda crispy edge.
- [Max] Helps keep the patty from burning on the grill, too.
- [Fred] All of the work comes at the beginning,
so we can push it out really fast.
On average, I mean our tickets, are like five to 10 minutes.
It's like neo-fast food.
- [Max] It feels like fast food, it looks like it
on the exterior, but in the kitchen, we're cooking all day.
- [Steven] Now that you've explained all of this,
it feels like a burger joint
is the hardest thing to do for vegetarians.
Like why did you wanna tackle a burger joint?
- You know, there's the nostalgia.
You know, it's the experience of a diner,
a fast food restaurant, having fries and eating a burger.
It was also to create something that we didn't think
really existed here.
You know, when we grew up,
there was a lot of times we felt left out,
so we wanted to make sure that everyone felt
they had a good option here.
(cash register dings)
- So to round out our experience,
we also got the tofu nuggets and french fries,
lord-of-the-fries style.
- Lord of the fries, that's a good pun.
Have you read "Lord of the Fries" yet?
(all laughing) - Oh God.
- We can't take you anywhere.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- Ah, this is good.
We need napkins. - Oh my goodness.
For the first time in my life,
I have somebody who is also a messy eater.
Look at that.
- [Jackson] Cheese crust.
- [Andrew] It's got the cheese crust.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- [Steven] Veggie bumps.
- This is good. - Wow.
- It doesn't taste like plants at all.
It tastes like real beef.
- It's hot, cheesy, juicy, meaty, and yet there's no meat.
So when you think, "Man, I could really go
"for a burger right now."
Does this satisfy that feeling?
- 100%
(laughing)
- Are you gonna finish that thing Steven?
- I'm trying to.
- Put a little hot sauce on there.
- Ooh! - Ooh!
- Yeah, hot sauce me.
You know what, that's really good.
It's a nice little kick.
It really brightens the flavor of the burger.
- Oh, it has a good kick to it, that's good.
- It is like I'm in a different universe right now.
Vegetarian food, in this universe, is the norm.
- It does kind a feel like we're in a Twilight Zone set,
a little bit, just like transported back in time,
but to an alternate reality where everybody's a vegetarian,
and you know what?
Pretty good.
You ever watch Twilight Zone?
- [Andrew] Wow, that was a good bite.
- This is so good.
- Life blowing.
- Life blowing (laughing)
- Not just mind blowing
- Life blowing
- Life.
Oh my gosh, guys, I'm on patty number ten.
(laughing)
- That was eight. - Oh, sorry, eight.
- It was eight.
Yeah. - I can't count anymore.
That's how many patties I've had.
- Before we go to our last burger, it's time for one more--
- Burger fact.
- [Andrew] Double cheeseburger fact!
- Oh dang it. (laughs)
- Would you like to read the fact today?
- Sure.
The price of the Big Mac
when it debuted nationwide was 49 cents.
- 49 cents?
So you're telling me I could go to a McDonald's
with two quarters and come back with a Big Mac and a penny?
- Yeah, in the 60s, when it debuted.
- Oh, sorry.
- [Adam] That happened a long--
- Back in the 60s.
- Back in the 60s, right.
- We're on our way to Petit Trois,
where we're gonna see Chef Ludo,
and his double cheeseburger called, The Big Mec.
- And what is on this Big Mec?
- Well, it's a French Restaurant, so sauce.
- Petit Trois, it's a classic French restaurant.
The design and the food is very French.
- And so you have this burger.
How does that fit into that classic menu?
- In France, we eat a lot of steak hache,
you know, is a patty, so I decided to just do a burger,
like what Americans like, you know?
And look like a burger, too.
- [Jackson] What makes a really good burger?
- [Ludo] A burger needs to be crispy and juicy.
When I eat a steak or any meat, that's what I want.
I want the meat to be crispy
- It's called the Big Mec, styled after the Big Mac,
of course, right?
- Of course, yeah yeah, of course.
Mec, in France, means guys,
(speaks in foreign language)
French food is all about the sauce,
so what's very important for me to have my burger
in the plate, swimming in the sauce,
like when you eat a steak, so I decided to do
a classic French sauce, called Bordelaise,
beef stock with a lot of shallot and a red wine sauce.
We take like eight hour to do,
then after we have aged cheddar cheese.
How do you know if I'm going to put aged cheddar cheese
or American cheese?
Because I love American cheese.
- Really? - Oh I love it.
- You love American cheese?
- Oh we don't like American cheese?
Guys, come on. - Some people don't.
- When I think about French cuisine, I think fine dining,
or I think like kind of--
- Foufou?
- [Steven] Yeah, a little bit,
I mean this burger is not what comes to mind, right?
- My job as a chef is also to cook what people want.
And it's fun to mix American food with French cuisine.
I recommend to eat the burger with a fork and knife.
Very French foufou, like you say.
- You said that, not me.
- So it is fork and knife?
- In France, we eat our burger with a fork and knife.
Okay guys, sorry, yeah we do.
(cash register dings)
- [Steven] There it is.
- It's really unlike any burger I've ever seen before.
- Look at how it's plated.
- [Jackson] It's in a pool of sauce.
- Yeah, it looks like a lily pad in a murky pond.
- [Steven] Will you do the honors?
- Oh man, oh okay.
- [Steven] Everybody on the internet
is going to watch you cut this in half.
- We're losing traction here.
- Oh, god. (laughs)
- [Andrew] This is a $25 cheeseburger
that you're just hacking through.
- [Steven] Double.
- Stab through the whole thing to secure your bite.
What?
Oh god. (all laughing)
- I regret saying that I would be okay sharing a burger.
I'm gonna cheers? - Cheers!
- And then I'm gonna mop up some sauce.
- It's magical.
- Yeah. - Yeah, boy.
- Wow.
Oh man, that sauce.
- That sauce. - Is incredible.
- The patty is so crispy.
- It's juicy and crispy at the same time.
- Okay, if I were to go back to Burgerlords,
that was everything I want in a burger,
but it's vegetarian.
- This is everything I didn't know I wanted in a burger.
- Exactly, I don't think I've had a sauce like this before,
that is so rich and yet tantalizing.
- Yes, the sourness just makes you crave more.
- Yes, it does.
- Jackson's like, keep talking
while I eat the rest of this burger.
- (chuckling) He is destroying our burger.
- Is this what you thought an expensive burger
would look like on Worth It?
- No, I thought it would look fancier.
Most expensive burgers, like your episode with Keith,
it was a lot of ingredients, like foie gras and lobster.
This one just has beef and cheese and a sauce.
It's so simple that you don't need anything else.
How is it?
- I can see why you'd use a fork and knife.
(laughing)
- So how do you feel?
- Food coma. - Food coma?
- So now's the time.
You know what time it is.
- Double cheeseburger dance time.
Go!
(laughing)
Double cheeseburger, hey!
Oh!
- Before we get to our Worth It winners,
what was your favorite thing today
that wasn't a double cheeseburger?
- The dessert at Tesse.
- Oh yeah. - That was good.
- You just stole my answer.
- My favorite thing today that wasn't a double cheeseburger
was our co-star Jackson.
- Aw. - Aw.
- And that fact that I didn't have to eat alone
with Steven one more time.
I think we'll start with you today, Steven.
Which double cheeseburger was most worth it to you,
at its given price?
- Burgers Never Say Die.
The texture of the patty was what I try to accomplish
when I add chips to my burgers.
Crunchy, crispy, juicy.
- Hold on, rewind this back.
You put potato chips on your cheeseburgers?
- Yeah, great double cheeseburger.
But I gotta say my worth-it winner
just barely goes to the Burgerlords.
- [Andrew] Oh the vegetarian double cheeseburger.
- That redefined what a double cheeseburger could be.
Next up, we got Andrew.
(Andrew groans)
- I love all of these places.
Burgers Never Say Die, probably the best straightforward
cheeseburger I've ever had.
Burgerlords, I think that's where I'd go if I wanted
to hang out with people.
Am I gonna say my worth it winner is Petit Trois?
I think I am.
When I think about it, I start salivating.
I think it's the Bordelaise sauce.
- Did you see that coming?
- No.
- I thought he was gonna choose Burgers Never Say Die.
- Yeah, me too - Look.
Obviously, they were all great burgers.
- Okay, before I say my worth it winner,
how could you not pick the last one?
I mean you're the hype beast of food.
- (laughing) What?
- You're a very fancy boy, you know?
- Hot dog, you picked the high-priced one.
Steak, high priced.
- Wow.
If you actually go back and tally the ones I pick
the high-priced one, though, it's not that often.
- Sushi and burger.
- Okay, all right, I'm out of here.
- Jackson knowledge of the show is coming back to haunt us.
- Just kidding, I love you, buddy.
- I love you too, bro.
- All right, Jackson. - Okay.
- No more beating around the bush.
Who's your Worth It winner?
- [Jackson] So the veggie burger,
it was a new experience for me.
I'm going to start ordering veggie burgers,
so Burgerlords is my Worth It winner.
- What?
(Jackson and Steven exclaim in excitement)
Are you kidding me?
That was a good fake out.
Adam, who's your Worth It winner?
- [Adam] Burgers Never Say Die.
- Annie, who's your Worth It winner?
- Burgers Never Say Die.
- All right, we've got a good mix here.
But all we know for sure is that Andrew lost today.
- I did not lose.
- This has been quite the journey.
- Thank you for having me.
- No, thank you for flying all the way out here.
- It was worth it.
- What?
Show name, watch out.
(laughing)
This Worth It winner decision is going to haunt me forever.
- So you wanna change it?
- I take it back, it's--
(upbeat music)
Back for another episode of Worth It.
- And we're not just noodling around here,
but we are covering noodles.
- Noodles.
We've done many types of noodles in the past.
Pasta, spaghetti, ramen.
Today, we're focusing on non-Italian noodles in Los Angeles.
- Today on Worth It,
we're going to be trying three delicious noodle dishes
at three drastically different price points
to find out which noodle is the most worth it at its price.
Okay, so we're sticking specifically to Asian dishes.
The first place we're going to, where are we going?
- We're going to Lao Xi'er Noodle House
to see Joe and Ellen,
and we're having their Wife's Special Noodle dish.
- Sweet.
Very, very sweet.
Like, the story is sweet.
- It is actually a sweet story.
(upbeat jazz music)
How did you come to start this business together?
- It's his dream.
- I can't find my favorite noodle in LA.
- It was different than what you were used to?
- Very different.
He wanted to keep the original style from my hometown.
Shanxi Province, northwest of China.
- [Andrew] I'm curious how many styles of noodle
there are from your hometown?
- [Ellen] More than a thousand different.
- More than a thousand different styles?
- Yeah. - That's a lot.
- [Ellen] The cat's ear noodle, Mau Er Duo
also in my hometown we make a lot.
Most of the time we make it with lamb or beef soup.
Actually, it's very similar to, like, macaroni noodle.
Knife-cut noodle is a flat and thick noodle.
That noodle we usually make stir-fry.
- We are focusing on the Wife's Special Noodle dish.
Could you tell us what is the story behind that dish?
- Introduce this.
- She's my wife.
(both laugh loudly)
(Joe speaks in foreign language)
- [Ellen] The noodle is called Helao-style.
It's a long and thin noodle.
The machine push it to the pot directly,
so it's very very fresh.
It really only take two or three minutes to cook it.
The first sauce, the beef
taste will be a little bit spicy
and the tomato with egg,
we just use tomato fried with egg.
A little bit sour tasting.
The ground pork just soybean paste with ground pork.
- [Andrew] If I'm understanding this correctly,
in your hometown it's common to eat
each of these sauces with noodles.
Sometimes people will combine two,
and you had the idea to put all three together.
- [Ellen] Yeah.
- Why was that?
- [Ellen] The flavor will be more complex
- [Joe] Because I like this flavor.
Together have a vegetable,
and a meat, have a sour, have a salty.
One bowl is great.
(cash register dings)
- You guys also make dumplings here.
Do you have a recommendation on which one we should try?
- Yeah, lamb dumpling, I like.
New item for me.
- [Steven] I'm gonna do it with vinegar and chile oil.
- Dumpling cheers. - Cheers.
(laughs) Go to the bath together.
Come on.
- [Both] Mm.
- I have to have another.
- Share some with...
Oh there it is.
- Mm. - Want one Annie?
It's a very soft lamb flavor.
- [Steven] Very light.
- Yeah.
Yidi hasn't had one.
- Actually, the most important thing
about this dumpling, the wrapper.
- Which is the same dough as the noodles.
- This is a lot of food.
- This is a fun amount.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
(slurping sounds)
- Delicious noodle, yeah.
- I always love a noodle
that you can just stuff in your face.
- [Adam] You guys are monsters.
- Are we monsters? - I'm sorry.
- I see Annie going like this with the headphones.
It's all right, it's a lot of slurping going on.
- I honestly have never heard of tomato egg before today.
- This is kind of crazy because it's like combining
all of these flavors from my childhood.
Just all of those things are just like, whoa.
You just like (exhales).
- [Annie] Steven, that's Ratatouille.
- That's Ratatouille?
I still haven't seen that movie.
(slurping sounds)
- A thousand types of noodles, approximately.
- So comforting.
Very, very good noodle dish.
- Before we go to our next noodle place,
we're going to a place called Bistro Na's
that does Beijing specialty desserts.
- Yes.
- And this place is recommended by our good friend Yidi.
Do you want to finish that before we,
yeah this is the biggest Lazy Susan I've ever seen.
- Choo-choo.
- Okay.
I said, "Yidi, where should we get some deserts?"
And she said, "You have to go to Bistro Na's."
Why is that?
- They have food from my hometown Beijing.
I eat here a lot to cure my homesick,
and their dessert is something I grew up eating
so I figured you guys should try it.
- [Andrew] Wow.
- [Steven] Okay.
- Here you go, guys.
- So this is how Yidi lives.
I know exactly what I want,
but I want to ask Yidi what we should eat.
- The donkey roll.
- [Andrew] The donkey roll.
- [Yidi] Yes.
- [Andrew] Okay, do you want to start with the donkey roll?
- That's not the best one Yidi, you're wrong.
I'm a sesame roll kind of guy.
(soft jazzy music)
- Mm.
- Mm, good.
- Before we enjoy the rest of these deserts,
let's enjoy a noodle fact.
- Noodle fact for your noodle.
- Oh wow, aren't all facts noodle facts?
- Yeah.
- Because they improve your noodle.
- I did that joke just now.
- The Chinese, generally speaking,
don't dry their pasta, but Italians do.
- I've never made that distinction.
- For our spaghetti episode, we saw spaghetti extruded
but they allowed it to dry before boiling.
Whereas at Lao Xi'er, it extruded straight into the water.
I think it's because it's not optimized
for that al dente flavor that you get from drying.
- It explains so much of why I like
Chinese noodles more than pasta.
- Yeah?
- 'Cause they're just--
- Squishier.
- Squishier, yes.
- So for our next noodle stop,
we're going to see Bugra at Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine
where we're going to be trying their Big Plate Chicken.
Before we have that,
we're gonna eat the rest of these desserts.
- Okay so cut the camera, let us go to town.
- I like it.
- Mm.
(upbeat instrumental music)
What is Uyghur cuisine?
- The Uyghur region is located as
middle point of the Silk Road.
It's influenced by the Persian,
the Indian, Turkish and Chinese.
Many people ask, "You guys have kebab,
and you guys have some wok dish?"
"How did you invent this?"
But actually this is original Uyghur food.
Our chef, Alerken, is going to do all dishes today.
- What are the highlight dishes of Uyghur cuisine?
- In ancient times, the Uyghur people do kebab in desert.
So you make a fire, and you make that tower,
and its shape is like that fire.
Polo is very traditional braised rice and meats,
carrots, raisins together.
Manta, it looks like Chinese dumping but bigger.
The dough is very thin.
It's stuffed with beef and onions and spices
- So talking about the Big Plate Chicken.
So I imagine it's big.
- Yes, it's huge.
- I thought this was a noodle episode, Andrew.
- This is a noodle dish, right?
- Of course, yeah, it comes with noodle.
This is like very typical Chinese and Uyghur fusion.
We fry the chicken with the oil, and peppers and spices:
cinnamon, cumin, star anise, sichuan pepper.
So this is spicy.
We put the potato and we braise half an hour.
We also make the handmade noodle.
Noodle, it should be chewy.
We make the noodle with water, salt and egg whites.
- Egg whites in the dough? - Egg whites, yes.
Because it makes it really chewy, and it's thick noodle.
This is the difference between Big Plate Chicken noodle
with the other noodle dish.
It should be thick and wide.
- [Steven] I noticed with the Big Plate Chicken,
all the noodles are covered by the things on top.
Why are you trying to build this mountain of meat
on top of the noodles?
- Because the Big Plate Chicken, it has soup,
so when you eat the noodle, mix it with the soup.
It's like, amazing taste.
(cash register dings)
- [Andrew] I have never seen a teacup like this before.
- [Bugra] All are handmade.
- Wow.
- Handmade? - Yeah.
Flower tea, this is very common in my country.
This is also sort of my creation.
- Cheers.
- Cheers. - Don't spill the tea.
- Mm, oh yeah.
- Ooh.
- Rose.
- Is there cinnamon in here?
- Yes. - Cinnamon.
- Cardamom.
- [Bugra] Cardamom.
- You ready for some Big Plate Chicken Steven?
- Big Plate Chicken, here we go.
- My goodness.
Okay we got one noodle sticking out over here.
Should we start with chicken? - Yeah.
- Since this is Big Plate Chicken?
Wow that smells good.
(clicks tongue)
Mm, that's a little spicy, yeah.
- The taste that comes with it, linger.
- [Andrew] There we go, a noodle.
- Oh, I want one of those kinds of noodles.
That one's been sitting below the weight of the chicken
Got it, I got it here.
- It's delicious looking, right?
(laughs)
- Cheers - Cheers
Oh, man.
- Whoa.
- The noodle itself is very dumpling like,
- Dumpling like. - in it's softness.
- It's like you're eating a dumpling in one noodle.
- [Andrew] It really is like a soup at the bottom.
- I know, why don't we have a spoon?
- I think it's because the noodle is your spoon.
(spoons clank)
- (laughs) Sound of spoons.
- As we say that.
Thank you so much.
See this peppercorn here?
It's all going in.
Oh that's so good. - Really?
Okay I need to try it now. - You gotta do it.
Focus in on the tongue.
- The heat builds a little bit.
The numbing peppercorn is there a little bit.
- I love that, yeah.
- The addition of cinnamon
is really surprising and delightful.
- But it reminds me of Malaysian cuisine.
A lot of the dishes there are literally marriages.
There's no better description of this
than a marriage of dishes.
- [Andrew] It's delicious.
- I get it.
I get why they say stop noodling around,
because it takes a long time to eat a noodle.
Is that it?
Sometimes when you get out of a movie
and you're like, "I don't know what to say."
- Like when you finish a good book and you just need to
take a walk and do nothing.
- Or like a one and a half hour drive across Los Angeles
all the way to Beverly Hills.
- Cause that's where we're going next,
but before that happens--
- Noodle fact.
Historians believe that Chinese noodles originated
more than X years ago.
What is X?
- 1500 years ago.
- Now double that and add 1000.
4000 years ago. - 4000 years ago?
I wonder what the first shape was.
You find that funny, Annie?
- I never thought of that before.
- Yeah, what was the first noodle shape?
- Oh, noodle shape? - Oh noodle shape!
- I thought you were just talking about shapes.
- Yeah, me too.
- [Adam] China has been making bread
longer than they've been making noodles,
and noodle making stemmed from the ripping of dough
into boiling water.
- [Both] Whoa.
- Okay, going across town.
♪ Making my way across town ♪
Now we're headed to Crustacean,
a landmark Vietnamese-American spot.
We're going to be having An's Famous Garlic Noodles,
and on top of that, Dungeness crab.
The noodles are the creation
of the founder of the restaurant, Helene An,
and she's kept the recipe a secret.
So they are made in a secret kitchen
and we can't go in there.
- We'll be speaking with Chef Tony,
maybe he can spill the beans on these noodles.
- That's okay, I mean, Oprah actually filmed here
and she wasn't allowed in there,
so we're pretty much Oprah.
(everybody laughs)
(upbeat electronic music)
- I understand that your kitchen operates
somewhat in secret.
- Somewhat.
We have a kitchen within a kitchen.
That kitchen's for family members
and people that have worked in the restaurant
for over 10 years.
- Why?
- My boss, Chef Helene An, she first started
way back in the 70's in this little deli,
and slowly putting Asian flairs here and there.
She knew she was on to something,
so she wanted to keep it within the family.
We have about four items that come from secret originally.
The garlic noodles have been around since we've been open.
She saw that everybody loves spaghetti and Parmesan
so that was her inspiration.
She was just named the mother of Asian fusion.
This is the signature dish of the restaurant.
- Asian fusion has been looked at in a variety of ways.
Where I grew up, it was looked down on,
but you're doing Asian fusion,
and it's right here in Beverly Hills.
How are you able to flip the narrative of Asian fusion food?
- I think it was just something cool
for people to hate on fusion,
but the way I became very comfortable about it
is when I spoke with Helene.
She didn't really know what fusion was.
She was just like, "I'm just cooking
the way I want to cook."
Now we're grabbing from different regions of the world,
as long as you're doing it intelligently,
the end result should be pretty tasty.
- So this is our last stop in our video,
it's the three dollar signs,
but the noodles themselves are not really
the expensive thing here, right?
- Generally if you're getting a crab
you're always getting a garlic noodle,
but they're two separate items on the menu.
I would say 99.9% of people that get the crab,
they always get a noodle.
- To enjoy the noodles to their best.
- This is not a question, you have to get the crab.
(both laugh)
- Gotcha.
(cash register dings)
- Whoa.
This smells like my fire alarm is about to go off.
(laughs)
- Look at that.
It feels like something you shouldn't do at a restaurant
this nice but I do just want to go (throaty laugh).
- Caviar cheers.
- Oh man, that's so awesome.
- Actually, that makes a lot of sense.
- Here we go.
Ah, there's the hit of garlic.
It takes about two seconds.
- [Tony] One crab in the shell,
and one crab picked out the shell.
- Nice. - Wow.
And bibs?
No way.
- Yes!
This is way more simple than I thought.
- [Andrew] Right.
- Cheers.
- Oh yeah, that's really good.
I just want to eat this whole bowl.
- It's so fluffy.
Squishy, fluffy noodle. - Fluffy noodle, yeah.
I'm gonna do a little bit of crab.
- [Steven] Isn't this the life?
Pre-picked crab.
(sensual blues music)
- It's really good, right?
- This is my fantasy as a kid
of what a dish should taste like.
- This is so close to the buttered noodles
you would eat as a kid, right?
Add on the best version of a buttery thing,
buttery crab meat.
- Pre-picked crab, okay,
is like birds who get to eat food
that's already been chewed up for them by their parents.
- Talking about when a mama bird chews up food
and then throws it up into the chickling's mouth.
- The idea of having food prepared for you.
- It's a mothers love, right?
It's great.
- Now how do you make it, that's the question.
(somber blues music)
Long noodles, long life.
- Long day.
- That's what they say.
One thing that was your favorite thing
that was not a noodle today?
- The noodle extruder at Lao Xi'er Noodle House
that was like a old fashioned manual train cart.
- At Crustacean, below the floor, there's a fish tank
and there's a lot of beautiful Koi fish living down there.
Okay Andrew, which noodle was the most worth it
at it's given price?
- I'll give a honorable mention to
the Cat's Ear Noodle from Lao Xi'er.
My Worth It winner is gonna go to
Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine,
- Oh my gosh. - So good.
- Oh my gosh, I can't believe it, we agree for once.
I love Crustacean, and I was gonna say Lao Xi'er
because the vast experiences you get in one bowl.
My Worth It winner goes to Dolan's Uyghur Cuisine.
- Adam, who is your Worth It winner?
- [Adam] Lao Xi'er.
- Annie, who is your favorite noodle from today?
- Crustacean
- [Andrew] And Yidi, while we're in the neighborhood.
- Donkey Roll!
(laughs)
- Well that does it for episode two
in our end of year miniseries.
Come back next week for a very crispy conclusion.
- It also has soft ends.
- [Adam] Fried Chicken Sandwich.
- Aw, come on Adam.
(gentle piano music)
- All right Steven, this will be
our final Worth It episode for 2019.
- 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 it, 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 the idea is to deliver hospitality to our guests,
whether they order the 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 bit more surface space,
so there's a little bit 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.
(cash register dings)
- [Announcer] 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-hmm.
- 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.
I took a fry, I mean what?
- You 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.
- [Steven] 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.
- [Andrew] 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" as a question, you know?
'Cause we've done fried chicken before,
but the bun just dials the whole thing back
into like soft doughnut territory.
- Mm-hmm. - Which I kind of like.
You know what this does kind of remind me of?
- Tell me. - I think you're going
to be mad that you didn't think of this.
- No, I think this is 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. - Yeah, yeah.
You're right, okay, yeah.
(video game music)
- 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.
(Steven 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!
- Okay 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!
(Adam sneezes)
(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 86 degrees Fahrenheit,
as well as lower temperatures below 68 degrees Fahrenheit.
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 have serious allergy,
and they never eaten fried chicken.
So I said, okay you can come here.
- [Andrew] Why did you want to offer a sandwich option
for your fried chicken?
- I'm trying to belong here. (laughs)
- [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 States,
everyone loves sandwich, come up with a great one."
I wanted to make the sandwich as special as I could.
We created a golden bun which carries turmeric.
The turmeric is antiinflammatory.
So you can lessen your feeling
of I'm eating fried chicken today. (laughs)
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. - Yes.
- How do I eat that with one bite?
- Smoosh. (laughs)
(cash register dings)
- 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.
- 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 on, 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.
- [Andrew] It's not greasy at all.
- There's 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
and 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?
- [Adam] 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)
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.
- [Steven] I wanna know why you put a 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 into 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 a little bit of the tuna,
the avocado, the tortilla chips all together.
- Ohh.
Thank you. - Wow.
- [Steven] 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. - 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 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 ever seen.
It looks like a whole brain on a plate.
- Whoa. - Wow.
(upbeat music)
- Goddammit that's good.
Oh my God, that's good.
- [Steven] Look at how much avocado is in this.
- And this juice at the bottom is like spicy orange juice.
- This tastes more like a cocktail than this.
- Yeah. - Hold up.
- [Andrew] No Steven, you're a mad man.
(slurping sounds)
(Steven coughs) (Andrew laughs)
- [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 does. - 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.
(cash register dings)
- Okay - Here's the fried
chicken sandwich guys.
- Thank you - Okay, that's actually
not at all what I expected to see.
There's pickles embedded into the slaw.
- 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.
- Oh, these dishes are actually very similar.
There's like the fattiness and the acidity.
- Yeah - Fattiness, acidity
- Fattiness, acidity - Oyster
- 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.
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.
Was that too long winded?
- 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 one 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.
- Hmm 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.
- Aha.
- 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 smoosh-able.
- Yeah.
The smooshing 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 are 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. (laughs)
(triumphant music)