Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles - Okay, we're in Detroit. - And we're doing carrots. - This was Adam's idea. (xylophone music) Carrots! ♪ Is it worth it ♪ ♪ Make it worth it ♪ ♪ Make it worth it ♪ ♪ Worth it ♪ ♪ Worth it ♪ - So we filmed most of this episode at the beginning of this year but we had to pause production because of COVID-19. - So we weren't able to finish the episode like we normally do, so you'll notice some scenes are filmed here in the Highlander, while we're still practicing social distancing. - Today on Worth It, we're gonna be trying three different carrot dishes at three drastically different price points, to find out which one is the most worth it at its price. Adam found a very delectable carrot steak that happens to exist in Detroit. - Yeah a very exciting carrot dish at that last location and we're not just eating three carrots, it's going to be three dishes where carrot is the primary component. - Andrew, the whole internet knows about your love for carrot cakes. It's your birthday cake, whatever you wanna call it. - Whatever you wanna call it? The cake I eat on my birthday is a birthday cake, that's the only thing you ever call that. - Yeah, tell me about that cake. - Yeah I love carrot cake, I've had it every birthday my whole life and so the first place we're going to, we're going to have carrot cake. We're going to a place called Good Cakes and Bakes. We're gonna see April, the chef and owner. - Yeah and we're gonna get one of those nice slices. (upbeat music) - Good Cakes and Bakes is an organic bakery where everything is made in house from scratch and we do vegan but our baked goods are mainly like, Southern-type baked goods. Since 2012, eight years ago, people felt like Detroit was a food desert and now there isn't too much that you can't find. We're situated inside of five neighborhoods: Bagley, Sherwood Forest, Green Acres, University District and Palmer Woods. Sherwood Forest, that is where Marvin Gaye lived, Diana Ross lived there, Barry Gordon, all of the Motown stars but now, in this two and a half mile radius, it is the largest Black-owned building, owners, as well as businesses in the United States right now. So I've been baking since I was nine years old but I have an MBA in Corporate Accounting, I worked in Accounting for 17 years. One day in 2009, I decided to go back to school to get a degree in Pastry Arts. Brianne, one of our assistants, is going to walk you through and show you how we make our carrot cake. Our carrot cake is the best carrot cake you will ever taste, I promise you. - Really? - So what makes our carrot cake so unique? It is the different flavors, you will taste orange, you will taste lemon, you'll taste vanilla, you'll have the sweetness of the carrots but what helps give us the sweetness of it is how we allow the raisins to soak in hot water, so by doing that, you don't have to add as much sugar to it. By adding the flour in last and creaming the oil and the sugar, that's how you get fluffier, tighter crumb opposed to a dense cake and then it's topped off with a sweet and tart cream cheese icing. - I guess I should warn you that I've actually had carrot cake every birthday for pretty much my whole life. My mom has always made carrot cake. - I can't compete with your mom but I promise you, this'll be the second best carrot cake you ever had, I promise you. - Okay, looking forward to it. (cash register sounds) - Okay before we begin, wanna just give a huge shout out to the Midwest. Both Adam and me are from Ohio. It feels good to be back. - Cozy feeling. - [Steven] Cozies, yes. - Visually beautiful. It just has that golden hue to it. - [Steven] Looks very fluffy. - [Andrew] It's nice and firm. - Cheers. - It's pretty good. - The texture is very kind, it has the kindness of the Midwest in it. It's like soft, forgiving but also a little stern. - Depending on whose carrot cake it is, sometimes it can skew a little spice cake. This one is fruitier. - It's so bright in flavor, it really lifts my mood up when I eat this. - And the cream cheese icing has that tart dairy flavor that strays away from just straightforward sweetness and I think is fantastic in cakes. - How does this compare to your mom's carrot cake? - I think this is a very good carrot cake and if I was having a craving for carrot cake, I would be very happy with this carrot cake. - Are you saying though, that you can't beat your mom's carrot cake? I'm putting you on the spot, Andrew! We've got April right there! - Listening! - Listen April, this is an excellent carrot cake. - Thank you. So it's like second to your mom's, right? - Yeah. - Like this? - I will say, this is much better than my mom's carrot cake. My mom doesn't make carrot cake, so I can say that. Carrot quiz time! Adam has the answer. How much did the world's heaviest carrot weigh? - I mean carrots are like, a root and I've seen overgrown roots of trees look pretty massive. So I'm gonna go with something like, 63 pounds. - I'm actually gonna go bigger than that. I'm thinking the size of a regular adult human, so I'm gonna go 135 pounds. - 22.44 pounds. - No! I was gonna guess lower but you threw me off the trail, Andrew. So when I was born, I came out just under 10 pounds, so it's like two of me. - That is, yeah, that's a very big carrot. Okay, so our next carrot is actually going to be a carrot dog and it's a particular type of dog called a Coney Dog. So I didn't know this about Detroit but Coney Island-style hot dogs are very common here and that's a hot dog with chili, onion and mustard. - Oh, that sounds so good. I'm actually used to them with cheese on top as well. I love my Coney Dogs chili cheese style. - And so the next place we're going is a place called Nosh Pit, where we're gonna see Stefan and Karen and we're gonna have their Lady Fantastic Coney Carrot Dog. - Are we gonna say updog there? - What's updog? - Not much, what's up with you? (upbeat brass music) - We started out as a food truck doing vegetarian-vegan soups and sandwiches. Here at the restaurant, we are all vegan, all the time, so we're trying to do vegan food that is more vegetable based, rather than weird starches and stuff. - You know, because this is a carrot episode, I wanna check if either of you have a particular love or particular feelings for the carrot. - Oh you got! (laughing) - I was raised a lot by my grandmother. She was raised in the Depression era, where the vegetables that we stuck to were a lot of the root veggies, potatoes, onions, carrots, the things that kept. I have a particular love for root vegetables 'cause I find them more sustainable. - I noticed that Coney Island dogs are a big thing here. Do you know why that is? - Greek folks moved from Greece to New York originally. They invented slash perfected the Coney Dog, as they left New York into the rest of the US, they brought it with them and I don't know why it took root in Detroit. - It's a real thing here. - Coney restaurants are sort of the Detroit version of a diner. (upbeat music) - So we're having a carrot dog but I thought we should have a true Detroit Coney Dog first. We're at Duly's. Hot dog, chili, onions, mustard. - Cheers. - Steven, yeah. The way the bun is steamed, it's like a hot dog donut but instead of jelly, it's chili. - It is a Sloppy Joe for hot dogs. - Whoever thought that the best condiment for meat would be more meat was a genius. So this Coney Dog is two dollars. - [Steven] That's wonderful, that's home right there. - So tell us about your Coney Carrot Dog. - So I wanted something that was hot dog-ish. The shape is obviously the first thing (laughing) but then unlike a regular hot dog, it does have the sort of underlying sweetness to it but it also has a savory nature. I peel them and then I take a cuber, which is a little tool which has a bunch of little blades in it basically. It just puts small holes into the flesh of the carrot, so the marinade can penetrate a little better. I make a marinade and then I soak them for a minimum of three days. - [Karen] We do a mixture of grilling and steaming at the same time. - It's never going to be hot dog texture, it will have enough bite to it that it's not mush in your mouth but yet it will be cooked enough that it's not like eating a raw carrot. - And it's the timing too because we also have the chili. - [Stefan] It's lentil-based, onions, garlic, tomato paste, veg broth. - [Karen] Nowadays when people come in and they'll ask for something unique. You know, we have quite a few unique things but this is something that's familiar, they know what the flavors are. (cash register sounds) - [Steven] A delightful carrot dog. - So from this view, it looks like a hot dog. From this view, you get the center of the carrot. - Yeah, I'm very confused. I wanna eat it though. - Okay, me too. Cheers to you, man. I don't know why this wasn't more obvious to me but it tastes better than a hot dog because I mean, do you love hot dogs? I don't really love hot dogs. - I'm all about the hot dog. - I mean, let's face it, it's like the weakest sausage. (Steven inhales) - You're in Detroit man, you gotta be careful what you say. - I'm sorry but this tastes like much more than a hot dog. The carrot is also just the right doneness for me. I don't like a carrot to get too soft, I want a little bit of crunch to remain. - That crunch gives me that satisfying to my soul satisfaction. - Yeah. So they also have this mac uncheese. - One of the things that we're pretty well known for locally is our mac and cheese. It's again, completely vegan. It's cashew and potato is the base of the sauce. - Mac and cheese? - Mac uncheese. - Wait, how does that taste so accurate? - Wait, I'm confused, yeah. Now this is, this is a winner. I am slightly lactose intolerant, so. - Yeah there's no lactose here, so go crazy, Steven. - I'm going, I am going crazy right now! I have one more thing to say about the carrot dog. I don't think I've ever seen so much love and care put into the preparation of a carrot before. It is very good and it's also very confusing, like my brain is just like jittering right now. Carrot fact! - [Andrew] Carrot fact! - Rabbits do not naturally eat root vegetables or fruits. - What! - Whoa. Who founded Bugs Bunny? - When will we stop lying to children about everything? - Their diets are largely hay slash grass, as well as leafy greens. Now that this fact has come into my life, I don't think I've ever seen a real life rabbit eat a carrot but now we've gotta move on to our next restaurant. - Our final carrot. This is actually the carrot dish that motivated this trip to Detroit. - Yes. - Adam saw it and was like, we should do a carrot episode. - Carrot alert! - Where are we going now, Steven? - We're going to The Lady of the House and we're gonna see Chef Kate and her $20 carrot steak. That's right, $20 and it is a carrot turned into a steak. (birds chirping) - That is a loud bird. - [Steven] That is a very loud bird, hey! - [Andrew] It's that one. - [Steven] That one? - Yeah. Look at the bird. (birds chirping) (upbeat funk music) - So Lady of the House is kind of a new American, little bit of an Irish hospitality feel. We like to say it's like throwing a dinner party every night, what we wanna drink, what we wanna eat and what we wanna serve. We try to be no-waste, which means we're using every part of the animal, every part of the vegetable or fruit and really kind of make the things taste more like themselves. What a lot of people don't know is Michigan is the second most agriculturally diverse state in the country, so the produce that comes out of this state is really incredible. - So before we get to the main event, we've got three dishes, just to give us a little more taste of the menu. So we have shrimp butter, the Lady ham trio and the half sour cabbage. - So shrimp butter's really interesting. The thought behind it is what else can we spread on toast? It's like beautiful shrimp that's almost emulsified in butter with aromatics and then topped with butter. We've been making our own hams since we opened, right now we have our traditional Lady-style Parisian ham. I love cabbage and we've had a version of a cabbage wedge on the menu for a long time. This one gets a beautiful color on it with not much work and it already has kind of a funk and umami flavor in it. - Let's do it, so this is the shrimp butter. Oh whoa, whoa! - Cheers, Steven. - Cheers. (toast crunching) That's really good. - It reminds me of seafood-y cream cheese that you spread on a bagel. - Yes! - All right next up, what do we got here? - Lady ham trio with Parisian ham, Sassy Molassey and lamb ham. I forgot the taste of meat for a while. - [Steven] Oh 'cause you've been eating carrots all day? - Yeah. I didn't know lamb could be ham but this lamb is going ham. Now we're easing back into vegetables. - There's no mango in it but it tastes like mango. It's the miso. - It tastes like 60% of a Reuben sandwich. Now on to the main event. - The inspiration for this dish actually came from my time spent in Copenhagen. I was working at a restaurant called Relae. The way that they cook vegetables is just incredible and that same philosophy of just like, make the carrot taste more like itself. This became a challenge for me of like, okay, how can we make it worthy of a restaurant? They're peeled and then shaved very thinly, then we salt that, basically taking the water out, breaking down the cell walls, so it's more malleable for us to actually line it up and roll it. It actually gets rolled into a rose, tied and then basically low and slow, care and patience, based with butter for about 20 minutes. We also serve the carrot with Hollandaise, which is traditionally served with steaks, right? Or Eggs Benedict but treating it like a whole meal, like an entree, like a steak would be treated. The perfect texture has a beautiful crust and then that fine line of melting together from the butter and salt and kind of the layers forming together without being mushy. The attention to detail in the carrot and the length of time it takes to produce makes it sort of, ta-dah! (cash register sounds) - It's like a croissant of carrot. - I was thinking crab cake. - Yes. Shall we taste the sauce first? - Let's do it. Mm! - Oh wow, it's borderline cream cheese-y. Here are my layers, I'm gonna scoop up a little sauce. This really is like fantasy food. Like, they eat this in the Elven kingdoms in Lord of the Rings (Steven laughs) 'cause only they have the time to meticulously slice carrots. - Cheers. (Steven groans) I knew what would happen to it, I knew going in what we were eating, I've seen pictures of it. Had no idea that was gonna happen. It was the same feeling of when you get into a really good medium-rare steak and you feel the meat kind of give to your teeth. - Yeah. - That's not carrot. This transformation here is absurd, we're going from this root to this. It has the feelings of unfamiliarity and of familiarity. - Also thinking about carrots are usually the side dish or the after thought and here it's the centerpiece. You know, it actually tastes like carrot cake to me. There is carrot flavor, it's very buttery, it's a sour dairy flavor from the Hollandaise and then the pistachio is the nut that you usually find in a carrot cake. We're now just eating a savory carrot cake. - It is like cake, yeah, you're right. - It's wild, it's one of the best things I've ever tasted. - It's almost like perfectly cooked fish. - Not often do you get to eat foods you've just never eaten before. - Andrew, what was your favorite thing in the episode that was not a carrot? - Mm, very good question but I'm gonna go for the easy answer, which was the Coney Dog at Duly's. That was delicious. - I've gotta say the Midwest vibes. All right, now it's time that we've all been waiting for. What carrot was the most worth it to you at its given price point? - My winner is Lady of the House. I love carrot cake, I respect all carrot cakes and I'm gonna call that dish a carrot cake. It was the most unique carrot cake I've ever had. - My worth it winner, it goes to Good Cakes and Bakes and all of the carrot cake proprietors out there. Good Cakes and Bakes did it, they did it the right way. - Yeah Good Cakes and Bakes, it just made me feel good being there. - Adam, who's your worth it winner? - The mac uncheese at Nosh Pit. My carrot winner, Good Cakes and Bakes. - Okay, well that does it for this episode of Worth It. Look, we got more stuff coming down the pipeline. - Yeah we're just getting started. Next week, quesadilla. (rock music) ♪ Is it worth it ♪ ♪ Is it worth it ♪ ♪ Is it worth it ♪ ♪ Worth it ♪
B1 carrot carrot cake cake steven hot dog coney $5 Carrot Vs. $20 Carrot 4 2 林宜悉 posted on 2020/10/24 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary