- Worth It is back! - And we're in Louisiana! - And we're eating shrimp. - We're literally on a
shrimp dock right now where shrimp is coming off this boat, and we might eat it later. - [Steven] That shrimp?
We'll eat that shrimp? - [Andrew] It's a distinct possibility we will eat that exact shrimp. - Yum. I love shrimp. ♪ Is it worth it? ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Make it worth it! ♪ ♪ Make it worth it! ♪ ♪ Worth it! Worth it! ♪ - Today on Worth It, we're going to be trying three different shrimp dishes, at three drastically
different price points, to find out which one is the
most worth it at it's price. - [Andrew] Who doesn't love shrimp? - [Steven] Who doesn't like shrimp? - [Andrew] Shrimp is
universally loved, I think. For our first stop, we're
going to Lil' Dizzy's Cafe in Treme, New Orleans, to see owner, Arkesha, and Chef John to try their fried shrimp Po-Boy. - Oh ho ho ho. - This is actually my
first time in New Orleans and I'm very excited to try a Po-Boy. - As somebody's been here before, welcome! Welcome to our city! I've only been here a few times. (upbeat music) - Lil' Dizzy's is a Creole
soul food restaurant. This is a third generation,
black-owned restaurant where the food is always hot
and straight from the pot. - The Po-Boy. It's like something that's foreign to people who are not from this area. - It is. It's a sandwich, but it's called the Po-Boy. - What makes a great Po-Boy? - The bread. New Orleans was a small, European town with fresh bread everywhere,
just like Europe. French bread is kind of a crispy exterior with a soft interior. You have to have the combination of both. - What kind of shrimp are
you using in this Po-Boy? - These are Louisiana shrimp. Down here in the south,
we got the best seafood. We use a medium to jumbo size shrimp, 'cause you want it to be full. You wanna have nice sized,
golden shrimp on that Po-Boy. That's gonna guarantee if you're gonna enjoy that Po-Boy or not. - One thing we pride ourselves
on here at Lil' Dizzy's is using fresh Louisiana Gulf Shrimp. This is Sportsman Paradise. It's a ton of seafood here. Why buy seafood from anywhere else? The other side of it is fried shrimp Po-Boys should just be cooked to a golden color. It doesn't have to be
anything more than that. - [Arkesha] We're gonna take the bread. It's always a 10 inch
piece of French bread. We're gonna put it on the
grill 'cause we toast it. That's the best way to
start off with Po-Boys, is to toast your bread. Once your bread is toasted,
you're going to fully dress it. So you're gonna line mayonnaise. Then you're gonna top with lettuce, some beautiful tomatoes, and a few pickles right on top of that. And then you're gonna
wait for them to come out with the fried shrimp. Marry those two together. Cut it in half and wrap it up. - Is there any other way a customer can customize a shrimp Po-Boy? - I mean, the standard
shrimp Po-Boy, to me, is fried shrimp, golden fried, dressed mayo, lettuce, tomato, pickle. If you get a traditionally
dressed shrimp Po-Boy, put a dash of hot sauce, maybe a little bit of ketchup, you'll have a perfect Po-Boy. And if you ask anybody in New Orleans how do you rate a Po-Boy, it's how much mess you
can make while eating it. That's what determines a good Po-Boy. - [Steven] Oh. How sloppy it can get. - Is sloppy good or is sloppy bad? - Sloppy's great. - You are the messiest eater I know. - Okay, fine. Yes, I belong here. (cash register chiming) - All right, Steven, are
you gonna do any condiments? - Uh, yes. - What would you like? - Both. - You're doing both at the same time? (both laughing) Cheers, Steven.
- Cheers. It's good to be back. Mm. - That's really good. - Yeah. I thought it was
gonna weigh me down, you know? I thought it's gonna be heavy.
- Yeah. It's somehow very light, but very full and
satisfying at the same time. - Yeah. - It has a great thickness to it. This is the right
thickness for a sandwich. - Can I just say something about the way that this
visually looks though? - Yeah. - You know, like a really good pillow will form to the shape of your head? - [Andrew] Okay. - In the same way that this bread is cuddling the ingredients. This is a damn good pillow. - Did you save room for dessert? - I did. Hold up. - French bread is very
important here for us. In order to make the bread pudding, you have to start off with
some stale French bread. - [Chef John] It's all of the things that you wouldn't put
in any particular dish, but they all come together
and make a perfect dish. We use fruit cocktail and fruit juice. You're gonna make a custard first. Milk, egg, sugar. And we don't cook it or anything, but it's the basis of a custard. The bread, it'll absorb all the liquid. What we call the custard, that's made. The bread should be stale. One, because that's how
grandmother always did it. But two, it's always a
influx of bread here. Why use the fresh bread when it's always stale French bread? - I actually really love bread pudding. It's everything that's good about a cake without all the trouble of a cake. - Huh, yeah.
- [Andrew] It's like cake stew Mm. Oh yeah. - Wait, that's so good.
- [Andrew] That's so good. It's like if you had a piece
of pound cake, or a pie, that you had ice cream with.
- [Steven] Yeah. - It's the perfect amount of ice cream melted-ness into each bite, and that's the whole bread pudding. - Just the good stuff. - Yes. But then you also get these, like, really nice, dark, crusty bits. - [Steven] Yes, texture. - Where, like, the bread and the sugar is all caramelizing on itself. I'm stopping myself from
finishing the rest of it. - Oh. - [Steven] Shrimp fact! - Steven. We're here
at the historic marker for Manila Village. Manila Village was, at one point, the largest Filipino
community in Louisiana. That community operated this immense shrimp drying operation. This business was so big that Louisiana was actually
exporting dried shrimp to China. - [Steven] What? - But I have another shrimp fact for you. - [Steven] Shrimp fact! - [Andrew] According to the
Louisiana Shrimp Association, 85% of restaurants in
Louisiana use imported shrimp. - What?
- Yeah. Restaurants are supposed to, by law, disclose on their menus if the
shrimp they use are imported. - Oh.
- Yeah. Well, I can tell you now that all three restaurants we're visiting all use Louisiana Shrimp. If we came all the way here to eat shrimp, we gotta eat these shrimp. - [Steven] Oh, I like that. - All right, Steven.
Onto the next restaurant. - We are headed to see Chef
Hao at his restaurant Luvi to try his very special Golden Nugget. - Chef Hao also has an
extensive raw bar menu which we're also gonna be trying. I saw some photos of the restaurant and I'm very pleased to inform you that your hair matches
the interior perfectly. - Wait, what? - Yeah, it's total coincidence. - [Passerby] I like your hair! - Oh, thanks.
- Thank you! (upbeat music) - Luvi represent the
traditional Chinese cooking in the kitchen, like a home cooking style. Have a little of my
personal twist into it. - And so where do those
influences come from? - For me, is, uh, when I grew up and kids in China, Shanghai just always have the
home cooking savory food. At same time, I was a
sushi chef for 20 years in the United States. I always loved cooking. Always challenge it with something, new items and new product. Eventually, I figured out, say, Hey, you know, I found out
my own way to doing that. To me, my way is thinking is you eat your food you always look first; visual. Then after, you smell. Then the third things, you eat. Actually is how good taste
is about is only 30%. - So what do you plan on
making for us from the raw bar? - We try to use everything
people want to eat at a plate. I have many customer, they actually drink the
sauce with the bowl. - I am always tempted to drink the sauce. - Today, we gonna make
it like the tuna dishes with a strawberry, with
the goat cheese on it. The flying fish caviar. Little microgreen. Honey powder. Sesame seed. And we have a Creole mustard
smoke soy in the bottom with a California extra virgin olive oil. - Okay. I think I have
a new rule at Worth It. Serve me raw fish, you're the winner. (both laughing)
- Okay. - It is one of those dishes where like, I don't want to eat it.
- [Andrew] Right. - [Steven] 'Cause they've
actually put the strawberries up. - As soon as you touch
them, it's all going down. - It's over. You know what? I'm just gonna ruin it so that I don't feel
bad eating it anymore. Cheers. Mm. Typically, I would say no
strawberries on a dish like this, but, but it's working for me! - The ripe strawberry texture
next to the fish texture. Beautiful. I think I want to drink this sauce. - Sure. Cheers. - [Chef Hao] The salmon dishes, actually, we gonna using a Chinese chili
crisp, we homemade it here. We have 16 different spicing to it. We mix it with that. Then we top with popcorn sunflower seed and with a little bit
New Zealand sea salt. (upbeat music) - Yeah. Every time I eat salmon cooked, I'm just mad that I'm not eating it raw. People often propose, you know, if you could be any type of
animal, what would you be? - And what would you be? - I think I would be a bear so
that I could just eat salmon out of the river like they do. Where it just leaps up and you bite it. - Would you be bringing, like, a container of chili crisp with you? - If I was smart enough of a bear, yeah. - Yeah. - [Chef Hao] Then the third one, we're gonna make a lemon fish. We're gonna use the dragon
fruit, cherry tomatoes, yuzu, flying fish caviar, and we're gonna using yuzu vinegar and same time have white truffle oil and a little black volcano sea salt. - This one has the most fragrance by far, with the truffle oil. - Yes. Mm! Oh my god! - Treat it like a bowl of noodles. - I actually love the puzzle that he's performing with these. But these go perfectly together. - So, the dish we're trying today are the, the Golden Nuggets.
- [Chef Hao] Yes. - These fried shrimp balls. - So when I was a kids, my grandfather always taking me in a Sunday with the
day off from the school. He always bring me to
the, like a wet market. They sell shrimp. And what they do, they
make a shrimp toast. They using shrimp, and
a chopped real fine, mix a very light spice to it. Then they light fry it. Then soon they fry it, it's crunchy both sides,
very buttery taste to it. They have a lot of protein on it. In the United States, we don't
see the kind of dishes to it. Then I create a shrimp ball. First step, actually you need
to get, like, fresh shrimp. We got today using the
Louisiana White Shrimp. We using food processor. Mix it with little salt, little black pepper, we put a little ice in it. We blend it. What happened is we try to keep
the shrimp cold as possible. Then after that, we put
some egg white in it to combine everything together. Then, we form to shrimp paste. We using plastic wrap on the table, we put the shrimp paste on the table and we put the stuffing in the middle. - [Andrew] What is the stuffing? - [Chef Hao] Today, we
using the salty butters. In China, when we were the kids, we don't have a butter ingredients. What we using then? We using gelatin for the protein. - Oh, yeah. - From the pig feet,
from the chicken feet. But in the states, a lot of people hear pig
feet and chicken feet. Some, kind of mentally, just like, oh, I don't eat those things.
- Yeah. - [Chef Hao] That's why
we put a salty butter in the middle and a use a plastic wrap to roll like a ball. Then we roll into the diced bread. Then we fry the whole thing to try and make a golden brown color. Then we make a sauce with it. We using red wine with a blueberry, sugar, and little bit of sea salt. Then we consummate to a
very gelatin feeling sauce. Then we mix with the mayo. - The blueberries are really interesting. Is that influenced from
something in particular? - [Chef Hao] I'm trying
to make a prettier. Same time, I feel like they
have a natural asset to it. - [Andrew] Yeah. - [Chef Hao] Actually
balance off a little bit, the fatness. I using majority local product. Shrimp here, the industry is huge. - [Andrew] Right. - [Chef Hao] We have all
different type of shrimp. You can see a lot of
restaurant cooking Po-Boys, fry shrimp, barbecue shrimp, and actually the quality is very good. (cash register chiming) - Were you surprised by the bread on the- - I really was. 'Cause I, I was expecting,
like um, like a smooth ball. - Right, yeah. - But there's like bits of
bread, like actual bread. - [Andrew] Yeah. - [Steven] That are
coating this shrimp ball. - Oh yeah. I definitely got the best one. - That's the one I wanted!
That's the one I wanted! Okay, fine. Fight the
urge to one bite this. - If you could one bite that, I'll give you a hundred dollars right now. - I'm not going to
'cause I want to respect the the Golden Nugget. Ooh! Cheers! (both laughing) Mm! Oh yum! - Wow. - This should be in every
fried food fair in America. Global. Just make it all around the world. - This is very, like, I'm eating a thing with layers, you know? I, kinda, sorta wasn't expecting that. And this buttery shrimp, like
of course butter and shrimp. Butter and shrimp is so good together. What do you think of this sauce? - Fruit doesn't really, like, speak to me. But today, it has spoken. - The shrimp is very soft, but then the outside is so crunchy. It's so good together. This is probably the best
nugget I've ever had. - Whoa! - All right, Steven. Our last shrimp dish is gonna be tomorrow. So we're gonna wrap out tonight with a little bonus shrimp dish. We're on our way to a
place called Jacques-Imo's. It is a place that I saw
Anthony Bourdain go to on his television show 20 years ago. - [Steven] Must be legit then. (upbeat music) - All right, Steven, here you go. - What? - This is your shrimp and
alligator sausage cheesecake. - I don't know how to feel
about those words together, but I'm down to try. - [Andrew] I think the vibe here is, like, it wants to challenge your
assumptions a little bit. - It's very Adam. Adam is like, if you say something, he'll find a way to disagree with you. - [Adam] Absolutely not. - You just did the, you just did it! - He just went, absolutely not. Cheers, Steven. - Cheers. - Okay, it's good. Yeah, that's good. It's good. - Yeah. Okay.
- It's a quiche. - It's not like, it's not like
- It's a quiche, it's a quiche - [Both] It's a quiche! - Everyone relax, it's a quiche. - Capiche? - If I didn't know what cheesecake was and somebody said cheesecake, this is probably what I would think of. Like, why would you assume that
a cheesecake would be sweet? - It's good. (upbeat music) - [Steven] We've made it
to the French Quarter. - That's right. We're on our way to the last restaurant. We're gonna see Alfred at Cafe Sbisa. A restaurant that's been
in this neighborhood since the 1890s. We're going to try their Barbeque Shrimp. Barbeque Shrimp, I just learned, is nothing to do with
barbecue sauce, or grilling. It is a New Orleans-specific dish. (upbeat music) - Cafe Sbisa is a Creole restaurant that has a little bit of
southern fusion to it. Great New Orleans touches. - For viewers who wouldn't know what classic Creole cuisine is, could you give us a few examples? - [Chef Alfred] Creole itself
is just New Orleans cooking with heavy emphasis on cream and butter. But we also feature a lot of great, local seafood, Barbeque Shrimp, which is a New Orleans classic. Everyone has its own special touch. We also have a dish on the menu that's called the Trout Eugene which is a true staple in this restaurant. It's been a dish that was on the menu since I came into the restaurant. Which features a fresh
filet of Speckled Trout. We are blessed with such
great seafood in our backyard, so we have great shrimp, crawfish tails, and crab meat, and a champagne cream
sauce that tops that. The Crawfish Beignets
are out of this world. Put a lot of creole spices, put a little bit of trinities, some crawfish tails, and served this with this
spicy remoulade sauce, and it's just, you know.
(Andrew laughing) - So we're gonna start
with a couple appetizers. - I did not know we were
including this in this taste test. I thought we were just going
straight to the shrimp, but I'm glad we're making a detour. - [Andrew] So we have the Fried Pickles and the Crawfish Beignets; which I'm particularly excited about. - 100 bucks?
- Stop. (both laughing) - All right, here it comes. Ooh! Mm. - Basically the second
shrimp ball of the trip. - Very doughnut-y. - You know what's changed, over time, about my dining preferences? How much I prioritize
ambiance for where I'm eating. Like it's always been important. I've always known that it's contributed. As I've gone on with my
eating-dining adventures in life, where I'm sitting and eating
has become so important to me. And this is an incredible space to sit in. Fried pickle, Steve. (upbeat music) - Oh, this should be in burgers. It's like they ask you at In-n-Out, you want your onions grilled? - It's like, how about you fry my pickles? - Yeah.
- Is that an option? - Look, we gotta move on before
I just demolish that plate. - I didn't really know
about Barbeque Shrimp as the dish of this city, and when I hear those
two words, I think, okay, barbecue flavor or on
a barbecue. And shrimp. - [Chef Alfred] Right, right.
- [Steven] Right. Skewer? - But I take it, that's not the case. - So, it's a New Orleans
style Barbeque Shrimp. One of the things that
you can get year round, in Louisiana, is shrimp. We have different shrimp in seasons. Brown shrimp season, white shrimp season, shrimp always gonna be available. It's a real versatile ingredient that you can almost do anything with. The first thing that we do
when we making Barbeque Shrimp is, you know, we have
to make a base first. We take Worcestershire, Crystal hot sauce, garlic, lemon, rosemary. And we take the shells from shrimp, and put all that together
with a bunch of lemon, and we let that reduce. And then once we get the
order for Barbeque Shrimp, we take those shrimp, we
put them in the hot pan with garlic, rosemary,
and black pepper first. We wanna bring in the oils
outta the black pepper, kind of toast the garlic
just a little bit. We use local beer, Abita
Amber, lager style beer, in that to kind of give it
a little bit of sweetness and then just let that
reduce just a little bit 'til those shrimp are just slightly done. Add a ton of butter into it. And that's going to really
bring that sauce together. And then once that comes together, we take and toast some French bread. And then we just plate everything up. And then from that, you just peel and eat. The great thing about this dish is, uh, it's a fun dish, so you have to really
get your hands dirty. (cash register chiming) - Let's get into this. - Yeah. - I'm going hands only. - Should I go like this? I think I'm mostly worried
about you splattering me. - You should be. I'm gonna go for the one at the bottom. - [Andrew] Why would you do that? - Because it's been soaking
up the sauce the most. - Okay, that is a good point.
- Yeah! - But it's also the messiest
option you could pick. - I'm going for this one right here. - It's a good idea. Look,
we're gonna get messy anyway. - Ooh! Oh, it's hot. - Boom. That's a whole shrimp.
- What? - Whenever I'm in these
scenarios, I'm like, all right, touch whatever you need
to touch for the last time because for the next 20
minutes, it's only shrimp juice. - That was good - Head. Bye-bye. - You ever suck the head for juice? - Absolutely. (both slurping) - This brings me back to when I was, um, peeling shrimp with my mom. Is it crazy to eat- - Were were you that bad at it then too? (both laughing) - I'm gonna throw this back into the sea. - Oh, that I, yeah, that's
my plan. A hundred percent. - Okay, great.
- You gotta re-dunk. - All right. Aww
- Mm. - There's, like, a few moments on the show where I want to curse. I just want to say it. I, I, I can't. My mom's watching this video. I freaking love shrimp,
man. Is this a date spot? - [Andrew] Absolutely.
- [Steven] Okay. Just want, (indistinct) - I mean, it kind of depends
on the kind of person you are but this is the kind of spot
I would want to go on a date. - I like that, in a place like this, where it is a white table cloth with a lot of history, it also is a place that is
serving food that, like, helps you not take yourself too seriously. - Exactly. - It's like, it's accessible. It's something where,
like, anybody can come in. I could be eating with the president but we're both getting
our hands dirty here. And that's where you want to bring a date. - Exactly. There. We finally
got to the bottom of it. Do you want to split this?
- Yeah. - Do you wanna just grab the other side? - [Steven] Looks like a, a horse hoof. - [Andrew] It does. - And obviously,
- [Both] Yeah - Going back in. - Oh man. - Yeah? - Sorry. That was the best bite. (upbeat music) - Mm! Oh yeah. - That's so good. And you know you're getting
messy when you touch your napkin and then you're like, I can't
put this back on my pants. - No, for sure. My napkin
needs a nap right now. - My napkin needs a napkin. You know, I think of all
the food we've ever eaten on Worth It, this is the most appealing. - Why is that? - A-peel-ing.
- Oh my gosh! - Come on Steven, keep up. - Oh my gosh. - Cheers. Steven. We're at the end of our shrimp journey and we've come to Abita Brewing, which you'll remember. An Abita Amber Beer was in the
Cafe Sbisa Barbeque Shrimp. So we thought we'd take the trip out here to learn a little bit
more about their beer. What are you drinking there? - [Steven] I'm getting the
non-alcoholic root beer. - [Andrew] I'm drinking
one of their pilot beers, which is a small batch that
they brew here at the brewery and serve only in their tap room. We also got a tour from
the president of Abita and the founder, Dave. Showed us the whole
facility, how it all works. - [Steven] Brought me back to
my chemical engineering days. You know, distillation, thermal transfer, all that good stuff. - [Andrew] We got to go in the hop freezer and rub stuff together and smell it, which is my favorite thing to do. - [Steven] Of course, it is. - The hop flavor. Why doesn't more food have hop flavoring? All right, Steven, it's that time. Which shrimp dish was most
worth it to you at its price? - I'm going straight to the chase here. My Worth It winner goes to Luvi. Look, shrimp. All the shrimp we ate was delicious. But that Golden Nugget was special. The texture of it was
somehow shrimp, but custard? - It was, and I say this fondly,
almost uncomfortably soft. - [Steven] The whole
process was, like, genius. - [Andrew] He was like slapping
it in a bowl with his hand. - [Steven] That's the TLC. - I'm gonna have to give my
Worth It winner to Cafe Sbisa. - [Steven] Oh? - It's a really difficult
decision, honestly. Lil' Dizzy's and Cafe Sbisa, those are the images of
dining in New Orleans that I had before I got here. It's getting a Po-Boy and a classic meal in the French Quarter. But there's something about
the ambiance of Cafe Sbisa that really just captured me. It was delicious. Adam, who was your Worth It winner? - [Adam] Lil' Dizzy's shrimp Po-Boy. - That's it for this
episode of Worth It: Shrimp. - Next week, we'll be
traveling throughout the south. Feeling a little bit
piggy about what we eat. - Ooh (upbeat music)
