hello hello hello still in san francisco
and my name is stevo and now it's time
to not have spaghettio but to have
spaghetti today on worth it we're gonna
be trying three excellent forms of
spaghetti three drastically different
price points to find out which one is
the most worth it at its price what is
the singular of spaghetti
spaghetti this will not be a traditional
italian food
episode we are doing spaghetti as it's
made
in america it has become an american
staple possibly my favorite food
possibly yeah possibly my favorite food
so we're first headed off to a place
called barzotto we're getting truly an
american classic spaghetti and meatballs
i'm michelle minori i'm the executive
chef of bar zodo here in the mission and
today we're gonna have spaghetti and
meatballs so risotto is a fast casual
concept where you can come in and get a
great bowl of handmade pasta without
costing normally so i take it you make
all of your noodles in-house we do we
make everything here from scratch by
hand it starts with semolina flour that
we get from juice toes tap water and you
actually need it in this machine until
it looks like wet sand we use bronze
dyes so you know they get hot really
fast we have a really amazing plastic
extruder and it comes out of the
exterior it's got these tiny little
scratches on them so we want the dough
to be like the perfect hydration so
those little striations or scratches
just really catch that rich sauce so
it's textured a little bit yeah so not
super smooth like that stuff you find in
the store most of the time the noodles
have a specific length which is around 9
inches but ours we make it 18 because we
want to be extra fun
it doesn't have to be super italian here
we also air dry our pasta for about an
hour because you're never going to truly
get like an al dente pasta when it's
fresh so we make a really rich marinara
sauce and then of course we have the
meatballs they're tart turkey and par
pork we pour that rich marinara over
them and we bake them we drop our
noodles in the water and all of our
noodles cook around three to four
minutes and then they all come together
in the pan so that sauce really soaks
into the noodle top it with parmigiano
and fresh herbs risotto is a really cool
place in the fact that you know all of
our pastas are 20 bucks or less all of
our wine's 10 bucks by the glass you
can't go anywhere in san francisco and
get a bowl of pasta for 14 like that's
unheard of we want to make really good
food and we want to give you really good
service
here we go spaghetti and meatballs
cheerio cheerio
i'm just going to take a little bit just
the way that the noodle feels on the
fork you can tell it still has that
stiffness that structural integrity to
the noodle cheers
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oh damn
there is a bite
dude that's spaghetti i'm blown away by
this noodle it's the lack of
slipperiness yeah it's friction going
it's like when you're trying to climb a
rope you need a rope with friction if
you're flying away to the top adam
get right in here we're not wasting any
time this time you're bringing in the
reliever from the very beginning
so good this is the noodle and he is the
sauce and i'm latched on we move as a
unit meatball time
oh yeah
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oh
such a luscious meatball i don't know
what is better in this bowl than
meatball or the spaghetti ultimate pasta
dish i also do a whole roasted porchetta
really oh yeah it's the best in the city
is it the whole like half pig deal we
play on that so we fabricate our own
with a loin and a belly and then we
roast it oh man
oh god
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how could we resist
i can't believe that you could also get
this at a place where you get a 14 bolts
getting meatballs
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long spaghetti
fresh pasta meatballs
classic and the surprise porchetta
pulling it out of left field pulling it
out of
the oven
so we're back in los angeles now
spaghetti
fat fact spaghetti fact spaghetto
is the singular form of spaghetti what
no we already talked about this earlier
what is the singular of spaghetti
so one spaghetto plus another spaghetto
spaghetti so now we're in los angeles
we're heading downtown to a place called
chento pasta bar it's actually a lunch
pasta spot inside of a wine bar that's
awesome it's like a mullet pasta day
wine at night kendo pasta bar
all right so i'm abner this is my
restaurant it's called cento pasta bar
chento means 100 i find that for pasta
for lunch 100 grams is the perfect
portion if not you feel like groggy and
weighed down after work so our whole
thing is we're only open for lunch we do
100 portions of pasta and at night they
just do their wine bar it's called
minion wine bar i change the menu every
week but we only keep one thing on the
menu it's our beet spaghetti and that's
what you guys are gonna be trying why
beets i had to do vegetarian options
that wasn't just pesto i think everyone
does pesto so i really like beets but i
find that a lot of people don't like
beef they don't like beets because i
think they're cooked wrong so i clean
the beets pretty well i roast them until
they're really dehydrated and their
flavor is just concentrated i puree it i
browned some butter in a pan add a
little poppy seeds it's a very
traditional italian combination poppy
seeds beets add the puree we only get
italian pasta i find that their wheat
tastes better so i cook the spaghetti in
salted water and then i finish it in the
sauce so it picks up this beautiful
purple color i do it a little less than
two al dente but i make it all dente
enough the flavors kind of evolve in
your mouth so fresh versus hard pasta
there's no better i don't think and
there's no work so it's all about what
direction you're going i find that hard
pastas have again the flavor of wheat
far more than fresh pasta with this one
it's sweet because it's beets but it's
also a deep flavor and i think the brown
butter really complements it i put the
ricotta cheese on top just a dollop of
it on top and then some chives on top of
that so this is a really good contrast
because it's a really hot pasta with
some cold ricotta cheese on top
cheers
beets little known fact about me bizarre
last name it's ukrainian beets and poppy
seeds are two of the most important
flavors in ukrainian cuisine i know that
it's like made for you it's enticing
because i've never seen these two things
in such a setting almost too pretty to
eat so i'm gonna go in for the first
twirl
look at that you know how strawberries
have those tiny little seeds on the
outside of their skin those little black
specks hey doesn't that kind of look
like that cheers
oh man wow
hell yeah whoa i was not expecting that
at all no what you look at this and
you're like i'm about to eat some like
fruit gushers but instead you're eating
a delicious earthy slightly salty but
like you know that poppy seed comes in
like yeah the flavor is actually like
muted and deeper and richer here also i
ate a bite of the beets yeah and it
looks like i just kissed
somebody with lipstick can i could i try
to recreate that let's check it out
ready
what are you doing coming home with that
uh pink stain on your neck smooching
somebody on the side stephen just
smooching the the beets also the pasta
you really can taste the wheat of the
noodle it's not covered up by sauce
another one beats the dust
hey hey hey nice hey
this is wonderful yeah
i had a really good time today
me too well can't beat that
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here we go
wow what a delicious feast we had it was
really interesting that he was saying
that dry pasta and fresh pasta neither
are inferior superior two sides of the
same coin i'd almost say that i'm the
fresh pasta of this episode oh i would
definitely take being the drunk pasta
you're definitely dry pasta yeah and
adam is the meatball i want to tell you
another spaghetti fact oh yeah yeah
oh my god
spaghetti fact spaghetti fact according
to a 1975
etiquette guy the proper way to eat
spaghetti
is with a fork and spoon you take a
large spoon you pick up some spaghetti
with your fork prongs and you twirl it
inside the curve of a spoon to create a
nice
wad to stick in your mouth how can you
decide the right way to eat spaghetti
and if you're doing that then you never
get to slurp wow it's starting rude it's
fun okay so our last spot i'm really
excited about this spot republique it's
an uni pasta we've had caviar we've had
lobster we've had truffle the new
hotness what we're about to hit up uni
lobster pasta and you choose the amount
of truffle that you want on that dish so
here we go here we go
my name is walter manske i'm the chef
owner of republique restaurant today
we're going to make rusticella spaghetti
republique is a fine dining restaurant
with a casual atmosphere essentially
republic is really two restaurants
during the day we operate as a cafe and
a bakery very informal but great quality
of food and a friendly staff and at
night it becomes much more formal we
have servers we have a beautiful wine
cellar much more on the high end the
heart and soul of republique is a french
restaurant but being los angeles we take
all the influences from everywhere and
so how does spaghetti and other pastas
fit into that menu pasta is obviously
something that everybody loves i try to
make pastas that are a little different
like taking live lobsters we work with a
japanese company to get santa barbara
uni then they have fresh truffles they
come directly from france we cook the
pasta properly prepare it in a way that
an italian chef would respect it dry
pasta like rooster it's not done in a
range of time it's done at an exact
second so we put it in boiling salted
water for exactly nine minutes perfect
al dente is the specific second when you
bite into the pasta and it just sticks
to your tooth slightly without having
any chalky dry feel so that happens at
exactly 11 minutes we back it off to
nine minutes because we want to cook it
in the pan so that the sauce is going
into the pasta we'll boil it and then
put it into a pan out of lobster stock
which we make from the bones the shells
of the lobster i'm gonna do two
different things with a truffle we're
gonna grate some into the sauce cooking
the truffle a little bit gives it one
texture and flavor finish it with some
butter and then right at the very last
second we put in the lobster meat in
santa barbara uni because we don't want
that overcooked what is the flavor
characteristic of uni uni has a bit of
oceany brininess it has very rich
elegant texture which plays very well
with other ingredients like lobster so
how much is the spaghetti going to cost
the price of the lobster spaghetti with
uni and black truffles starts at 38 for
the pasta
and then
a little bit of truffle how do you know
when it's enough when it's black
when it turns black with the additional
truffles shaved at the table is seven
dollars a gram and you can have as much
as that as you please this isn't the
most expensive dish of spaghetti i will
probably ever eat in my life we're gonna
pour some champagne with this because i
love champagne with everything cheers
oh feeling back truffle like a blanket
it looks like a little orange tongue and
if you look really really closely you
can tell that it's really just a cluster
of little spheres
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i feel like i shouldn't be eating this
yeah how intensely soft it is yeah can
we go all at once i want my mouth to
explode right now ooh i could tell the
texture of this pasta is going to be
awesome it's so firm you're only going
spaghetti oh i'm not only going to go
spaghetti stephen oh two forks yeah you
gotta two fork this
lobster
knee
and here comes
a little truffle blanket for my see
friends
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i'm living the life right now
of luxury the noodle itself is so good
al dente
yeah you know what that means to the
teeth that's what it is like to the
tooth yes i knew that use a dry pasta
specifically for this because it just
serves it better so i love that the
spirit of this restaurant is literally
push the boundary and not be afraid to
fail they're just pulling in the best
ingredients that are available i want to
eat the rest but i know i should save
some for adam can i eat one more bite
sure without lobster go ahead and get
that lobster oh i'm getting a lobster
this should be for adam actually i just
took the whole thing here i'm giving
this to adam
[Music]
also you ate all the spaghetti the
spaghetti was the best part adam
walter's wife makes the pastries at
republic that looks tasty it turns out
the pastries at republique are fantastic
andrew adam what is the most worth of
spaghetti to you at its given price
point go my worth it winner was barzotto
in san francisco wow that changed my
perception of spaghetti meals and i
thought i made pretty good spaghetti and
meatballs but they ruined my spaghetti
and meatballs i can't make spaghetti and
meatballs anymore it's really hard
because all the spaghettis were insanely
delicious i mean republic's spaghetti
for a dish that was hidden all the
all-stars they were all working together
so well and that that's hard to do i
mean i also have to go with risotto the
bite on that spaghetti was just
incredible shinto pasta bar is really a
special place it really feels like a
hidden treasure yes adam who is your
with it winner
whoa wow we really just went three-way
on barzotto
they were all so good this was honestly
one of the closest episodes ever for
real uh you guys want to head back to
republic and get some
additional pastries i'd rather go to uh
barcento and guzzle some wine
oh yes