George: From calorie count to portion sizes,
we wanted to find out all the differences
between Wendy's in Japan and the US.
This is "Food Wars."
In Japan, our Wendy's hamburgers
come in four sizes:
junior, single, double, and triple.
In the US, our burgers come in four sizes:
junior, Dave's single,
Dave's double, and the Dave's triple.
Look at the size of this thing.
In Japan, our nuggets come in orders of five and 10.
Our US nuggets come in four, six,
and 10-piece.
Our Wendy's drinks come in three sizes:
small, medium, and large.
And in the US we also have three drink sizes,
small, medium,
you've gotta be kidding me.
Look at the size of this thing.
This might be 40 ounces, Yuelei.
Only one way to find out.
Ho!
Oh, not quite 40.
About 36 or 37 fluid ounces of Coca-Cola.
And how big's a bladder?
This looks like more than I would normally pee
in the morning.
OK, let's measure our large drink.
It measures exactly 500 milliliters.
Our Wendy's fries come in two sizes.
Small and medium.
Our fries come in four sizes,
junior, small, medium,
pew, large.
Let's weigh our largest.
[laughs]
Roughly 180 grams.
It weighs 135 grams.
Japan's chili comes in two sizes,
medium and large.
And the US, our chili comes in two sizes,
small and large.
Let us weigh the largest now.
Including the paper cup, 430 grams.
George: Let's weigh our large chili.
265 grams.
In Japan, a Wendy's burger USA double
is 730 yen, or $6.38.
Our US Dave's double goes for $5.99,
or around 685 Japanese yen.
That's a 6.16% decrease in price in the US.
Let's make it a meal.
In Japan, if you're getting your burger as a set,
it includes a small fries
and a three-piece nuggets and a drink.
It costs around 440 yen more.
Our meals only include fries and drink.
So a small Dave's double meal,
and I threw in a four-piece
because we don't have a three-piece,
works out to $10.98.
That's an 8.12% increased cost in the US.
Mind you, we did get an extra nugget.
Speaking of nuggets, in Japan,
10-piece nugget is 510 yen,
which breaks down to 51 yen per nugget.
In the US, a 10-piece nugget is $4.29,
which makes it per nugget around 43 cents.
So per nugget average,
the US is paying 8.11% less.
A Baconator double in Japan
is 850 yen, or $7.43.
In the US, you get that same Baconator for $7.49,
or 857 Japanese yen.
So close. Only a 0.82% increase.
Here is everything you can get at the Wendy's in Japan
you cannot get in the US.
And here's everything at a US Wendy's
you can't get in Japan.
One thing I want to point out is that in Japan,
Wendy's is known as Wendy's First Kitchen.
First Kitchen is a Japanese fast-food chain,
and it was acquired by Wendy's in 2016
and became a hybrid of Wendy's and First Kitchen's menus.
And we call them Fakkin,
which is the abbreviation of First Kitchen
in a Japanese way.
It's like First Kitchen's "Fa"
and kitchen's "ki" and "n."
And say: Fakkin.
Repeat after me: Fakkin.
[beep]
Got it, buddy.
Very good!
So, here are our Japan's exclusive burgers.
So, this one is bacon mushroom melt,
and this one is just mushroom melt.
We have Wendy's bacon egg burger.
We also have Wendy's cheese bacon egg burger,
and this sauce,
tartar sauce. Umai.
Everybody's curious what this is.
This one is Wild Rock.
It's got no buns.
It's got two beef patties.
I think I should try this one.
Itadakimasu.
This meat itself has a good taste
and some kind of, like, peppery flavor,
but it's a little bit dry.
I wouldn't get this again.
And last things,
we have junior teriyaki burger,
and we have junior teriyaki cheeseburger.
The big bacon cheeseburger.
The big bacon double.
Look at this! Yep, one, two, three, the big bacon triple.
I mean, I don't know what angle is best to look at this at.
And then we got big bacons on the fancy bread.
This must be the big bacons classicses.
This looks like a big bacon --
look, it's got shredded cheese and stuff on this.
Everything's bacon something with these guys.
At this point, it's just like, how many slabs of meat
do you want on your bacon sandwich?
Two things you can get at a Wendy's
in the US you cannot get in Japan
or just the junior burger and the junior cheeseburger.
Look at this little guy. Look at this.
Literally every fast-food burger place
has a version of this.
Chicken!
[grunts]
The Asiago chicken sandwiches.
We got the Asiago chicken ranch classic club.
I said that in the wrong order, but you get what I mean.
Probably this one.
This is the fried Asiago club with bacon.
And then there is the spicy,
which I'm assuming is this one.
And then they got the grilled.
That's pretty good.
Don't like Asiago?
Wendy's got you covered.
So many chicken sandwiches at Wendy's
that of course are not Asiago'd.
This is the grilled chicken sandwich.
As you can see, it is grilled.
And then we have the grilled chicken big bacon.
Man, they must've gotten some deal on bacon for Wendy's.
Everything's got bacon on it!
I'm going to go ahead and assume this is the
big bacon fried chicken sandwich,
'cause it has bacon on it.
So you have the spicy big bacon cheddar chicken.
In Japan, our Wendy's have pasta,
which were originally on the First Kitchen menu.
So here we have ramen-style soy cream pasta
with spinach and ham.
Expires 2023,
January 20.
Joe, I'll keep this for you.
Nah, my guy, you can go ahead and throw that out.
And next we have ramen-style dandan soup pasta
with spinach and ham.
So, dandan soup is kind of like a spicy chili-flavored soup
with miso and pork mince.
Dandan soup and dandan ramen are very popular in Japan.
Tomato sauce pasta
with mozzarella and bacon.
All right, next we have beef cheek meat cream spaghetti.
Plastic.
Mm.
Next we have carbonara spaghetti.
Naotomo: Carbon-AR-a.
Carbon-AAH-ra.
Carbona-rrra.
A-rrra? OK.
Carbra-rrra.
[crew laughing]
It's got bacon
and this creamy carbona-rrra sauce.
Molto bene!
Last thing I have is spicy cod roe spaghetti.
So, spicy cod roe in Japanese is mentaiko,
and mentaiko spaghetti is also very popular in Japan.
Unfortunately, some Americans I know
don't like mentaiko so much
because of the texture and smell.
But for me, mentaiko,
it's super Fakkin delicious.
Uh, it's been a while since I got this one.
It's been, like, three hours.
Itadakimasu.
Mm.
Joe, try it out.
I appreciate the offer, George,
but you can go ahead and finish that,
'cause it looks Fakkin disgusting.
We got salads.
Over here on this end, the first one
looks like we got the Parmesan Caesar salad.
Comes with, of course, Caesar dressing
and what looks to be Parmesan crisps.
This next salad is ridiculous.
We're going to go ahead and put quotes around salad.
Wendy's has a taco "salad" that comes
with tortilla chips, sour cream, signature salsa,
and, if that wasn't enough, chili.
And before we continue,
you confirmed that the taco salad
is supposed to have chili on it?
They told you that.
Just gotta get the chips all around here.
I can't believe this.
This is so gross.
Signature salsa, then chili.
Oh, it smells so bad.
Oh, God.
Eh.
I'm just -- this is just like eating chili
with tortilla chips.
They said there was some salt --
I'm just pushing this s--- around.
On to the next salad,
the Southwest avocado salad.
Oh, my God, there's bacon on it!
That's weird.
That was in Dave Thomas' obituary.
"I want everything to be covered in bacon."
But yeah. Chicken, avocado, bacon, cheese, and some sauce.
This makes sense.
And the last salad,
apple pecan salad.
That smells.
Oh, 'cause it's got blue cheese on it.
Roasted pecan bits.
Pomegranate vinaigrette!
Mm. Apples are nice.
It's kind of nice to get a little bit of actual fruit,
something nutritious while doing this.
It's like my body's like, "What is this?!"
So, here are Japan's side menu.
We have a few flavor options for fries.
So we have happy butter flavor fries.
Happy butter flavor.
It has just subtle buttery flavor. Mm.
Burnt butter soy sauce flavor.
Rip it off. Bwah!
I don't know what's going on here, but it's pretty good.
Much better than this.
Savory steamed potato butter.
It gets quite strong buttery flavor.
Definitely I prefer this one
than the happy butter flavor.
This is not happy.
This one is chicken consommé flavor.
Mm.
This is the best fries I've ever had in my life.
Now I'm going to introduce you
this spicy chicken breast.
Wendy's in the US also has baked potatoes.
See what we got.
Of course, there's your regular.
And this one, oh, yeah.
This one's got, like, chives and stuff in it.
If I was to stop here, you would go,
"Wow, what a tasteful selection of healthy potatoes."
But of course we don't stop here.
We move on to absolute baked-potato madness.
Ah, No. 1, oof.
Cheese baked potato.
Drowned this thing in cheese.
It's like -- ooh!
It's, like, caked to the side. Blech.
Ugh. Ugh.
Oh, God! [laughs]
The chili and cheese baked potato.
Blech.
If you are like me, you're wondering to yourself,
something's missing.
Something is missing from this potato menu, Yuelei!
Can you guess what that is?
The bacon cheese baked potato!
Oh, they got big pieces of bacon on this one too.
Oof!
You can get spicy chicken nuggets.
Yessiree Bob.
Seasoned potatoes.
All right, so fruit finally made the menu.
Apple slices.
It wouldn't be a Wendy's category
without the Baconator fries.
We need the bacon meter in this episode.
Last of the sides.
Oh, yeah.
Oatmeal bar.
Looks like a Clif bar.
Whoa, that's actually pretty good.
So, here are our Japan's exclusive drinks.
We have tapioca royal milk tea with brown sugar
and tapioca milk with brown sugar.
Tornado.
Mm!
This is amazing.
Simply amazing.
I love this.
So, here are our other drinks.
We have Pepsi, orange juice,
and ginger ale,
lemonade and melon soda,
peach tea and iced tea,
iced matcha, and this one is iced cocoa.
So, here we have our hot drinks.
We have Darjeeling tea,
and we have café mocha,
and we have peach tea.
Mm.
I like this.
And we have café latte
and cocoa
and matcha.
This is matcha, but it looks like
water from 100 years ago.
Our Wendy's has Frosty-ccinos,
which I'm assuming are Frostys meet Frappuccinos?
Frosty-ccinos?
But it does not appear that there's Frostys in this.
They have two flavors, vanilla and chocolate.
I'm assuming this is the vanilla.
Wendy's did smart on this one. It isn't that sweet.
I was expecting it to be, like, undrinkable,
but it's actually kind of nice.
All right, this one is the chocolate.
Yeah.
Also, it's a nice flavor.
'Cause of the Frosty-ccinos,
you know what that means.
At Wendy's you can also get:
booyah, Frostys.
They don't have these in Japan?
I feel like this is the staple menu item.
[laughs]
I love these so much.
Fantastic. That's fantastic.
Gotta go for the chocolate.
Don't bother finding me a spoon.
I'm just gonna do a little taste here.
That's great.
The Frostys are great.
It's like a milkshake, but it's super thick and delicious.
Japan, you want this.
Thick.
It is thick!
In Japan, we have floats instead of Frostys.
We have Coke float
and melon soda float.
Japan has an exclusive breakfast sandwich.
It's called the breakfast sandwich.
It's got tomato, lettuce,
and I believe this is beef or pork patties.
OK, whereas Japan has one exclusive breakfast sandwich,
we have way more.
Like all the fast food here in America,
we take our breakfast very seriously.
You can get yourself a maple bacon croissant.
It looks like it's a chicken sandwich
that of course has bacon and maple syrup on the croissant.
We have what just appears to be the bacon biscuit.
Bacon, egg, cheese
in the incredibly dry biscuit.
Bacon croissant.
I don't know about this one.
Moving on to the sausage zone of the Wendy's breakfast.
This is the special sausage biscuit.
No, no, no, no, no.
Here's what I hate about this.
Pick a drier thing to have for breakfast.
I feel like it'd be impossible to swallow a bite of this.
You're going to choke on it.
Here we go. See, this is what I'm talking about.
They might have gotten this backwards.
This is actually the better sausage one.
This at least has a better chance
of not getting stuck in your throat.
The sausage croissant also has egg. Thank you.
They have a few things that are honey-butter-based.
I am so glad that fast-food places
are introducing honey to their breakfast menu.
I think maybe it has to do with the fact
that chicken sandwiches have become so popular.
First one we got here is the honey butter biscuit.
[laughs]
Hey, it's just a biscuit with honey butter.
I mean, yeah, I'll have this anytime.
I'll have this anytime.
This one has some heft to it.
It's the hot honey biscuit.
Yeah!
A little chicken on there.
Yep.
I really like that.
This is the special chicken croissant.
So, here are our desserts.
So here we have Melotozzo.
So, Melotozzo are maritozzo-style pastries,
which are popular in Rome and Japan as well,
made with melon bread.
So melon bread is a type of sweet Japanese bread
which has a sugar cookie crust on the surface.
But what's funny is that
it doesn't have a melon flavor at all.
At all.
The reason it's called melon bread
is that it just looks like melon.
Does it look like melon?
It does in Japan.
Oh!
And this time,
First Kitchen made a maritozzo using melon bread
and mascarpone cheese whipped cream,
and it's called Melotozzo.
So here we have Melotozzo tiramisu
and Melotozzo matcha and Melotozzo plain.
So, actually, yesterday was my birthday, February 18.
Hey, it's your birthday! Happy birthday, George!
Thank you for your message! Thank you! Arigatou gozaimasu!
So this is my birthday present.
All right, so let's give it a shot.
Best birthday present ever.
Itadakimasu.
This is so good.
I can't stop eating this.
Mm.
So, Wendy's in Japan has a Japanese traditional sweet
since it has been a collaboration with First Kitchen.
So we have shiratama cream zenzai.
Ooh.
So it has three main ingredients, ice cream,
and sweet red beans, and the shiratama,
which is kind of like a mochi rice cake.
And my grandma likes this type of zenzai.
This is for you, my grandma.
And also we have mini pancakes.
In the US, we only have two exclusive desserts,
and they're both cookies.
And that's no disrespect to cookies,
cookies are great, but I want one of those
fun Italian ice cream sandwiches they had.
Anyway, you can get two cookies here in the US,
a chocolate chunk cookie and a sugar cookie.
Our Wendy's double burger is 578 calories
and 29% of your daily recommended amount
and 60% of the recommended daily sodium.
Our double burger, the Dave's double, isn't much better.
Ours is 850 calories
and way more fat. Over 70%!
But less sodium,
just a bit over half of the daily amount.
Still, not great.
Make it a meal in Japan,
and that increases the calories to 1,089.
That's 55% of your daily recommended calorie intake.
And if you make it a combo here, we chose the small
and took a few sips,
that's 440 more calories,
bringing the total to 1,290,
or 64.5% of your daily allowance.
In Japan, the single menu item with the most calories
is the eight-piece fried-chicken pack,
which contains [gasps] 4,018 calories,
201% of your daily calories.
In the US, our single biggest-calorie menu item
is the Feed the Fam deal.
A fam, yeah, right! This is all for you.
It is two spicy chicken sandwiches,
two junior bacon cheeseburgers,
and four small fries.
Total 2,780 calories,
which is 139% of your daily intake.
Japan's Wendy's doesn't disclose their ingredients list.
Why, Japan?
The US sure does.
Now, is there anything we should be looking out for?
Of course there is.
Let's start with sodium nitrate,
which is found in the Baconator's applewood-smoked bacon.
Sodium nitrate is a chemical that is used to cure meats
and gives meat that appealing pink color.
Perfect for bacon.
Also, get this,
it's super toxic.
It is restricted for purchase online.
People have accidentally eaten too much of it and died.
It's also been used in homicides. Yikes!
Sodium nitrate is on a list
of Japan's designated food additives,
but our Wendy's gets its bacon imported from Denmark,
where it isn't banned, but being reduced in use.
Our American cheese contains lecithin,
a common emulsifier that, according to one academic,
a worrisome number of scientific studies have suggested
that too much of it can promote depression.
[sighs]
The pickles contain polysorbate 80.
This is commonly used as an emulsifier in foods,
but in pickles, it tends to be used as a solubilizer.
Not how that's pronounced, sorry.
Which helps other ingredients in the brine fully dissolve.
Studies have suggested it can cause colon cancer in mice.
Not fantastic.
There is no info on Wendy's website
of where the pickles come from,
but we want to point out that polysorbate 80
is on Japan's list of designated additives.
And therefore, it's permitted to be used in Japan.
Carbra-rrra.
[crew laughing]
Naotomo: I want to try that.
[laughing]