- Hello, hello, hello. - Still in San Francisco. - And my name is Steve-O. - And now it's time to not have spaghetti-O but to have spaghetti. - Today on worth it we're going to be trying three excellent forms of spaghetti, at drastically different price points to find out which one is the most worth it at it's price. ^- What is the singular of spaghetti? - Spaghet? - 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. - Pasta-bly? - Yeah, pasta-bly my favorite food. - So we're first headed off to a place called Barzotto. - We're getting truly an American classic, spaghetti and meatballs. ^(upbeat music) ^- I'm Michelle Minori, I'm the executive chef of Barzotto. ^Here in the mission and today we're gonna have ^spaghetti and meatballs. So Barzotto is a fast, casual concept where you can come in and get a great bowl of handmade pasta without costing an arm and a leg. - So I take it you make all of your noodles in house? - We do, we make everything here from scratch by hand. Starts with semolina flour, we get from Justo's, tap water and you actually need it in this machine until it looks like wet sand. We use bronze dies, so you know they get hot really fast. we have a really amazing pasta extruder, it comes out of the extruder it's got all these tiny little scratches on them. So we want the dough to be the perfect hydration so those little striations or scratches, just really catch that rich sauce. - [Andrew] So it's textured a little bit. - 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 nine inches. But ours we make it 18 because we want to be extra fun. (laughs) it doesn't have to be super Italian here. We also air dry our pasta for about an hour because you're never gonna 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 our meatballs. They're part turkey and part pork. We pour that rich marinara over them and we back 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. There's a really cool place in the fact that, you know, all of our houses are 20 bucks or less. All of our wine's 10 bucks by the glass. And you can't go anywhere in San Francisco and get a bowl of pasta for $14. That's unheard of. We want to make really good food and we want to give you really good service. - [Andrew] Here we go spaghetti. ^- And meatballs, cheerio. - Cheerio. I'm just gonna 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. (jazzy music) Oh damn. - Mmm, there is a bite to that spaghetti. - I'm blown away by this noodle. - It's the lack of slipperiness. - [Andrew] Yes, friction going in. - It's like when you're trying to climb a rope you need a rope with friction to climb it to the top. - Adam get right in here. We're not wasting any time this time. - And bring 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. - [Andrew] Meatball time. Oh yeah. - Oh, - [Andrew] Such a luscious meatball. I don't know what is better in this bowl, the meatball or the spaghetti? Ultimate pasta dish. - [Michelle] We also do a full roasted Porchetta, - Really? - Yeah it's the best in the city. - [Andrew] 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,
- mmm. ^- Here's the porchetta. ^- Oh, oh. - How could we resist, I can't believe you can also get this at a place where you get a $14 bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. ^Oh. - Long spaghetti, fresh pasta, meatballs, classic. - And the surprise porchetta. Pulling it out of left field. Pulling it out of the oven.
- The oven. So we're back in Los Angeles now. Spaghetti, - Fact. - Fact! ^Spaghetti fact. ^- Spaghetto is the singular form of spaghetti. ^- What no! - Did we already talk about this earlier? ^What is the singular of spaghetti. - So one spaghetto, plus another spaghetto equals spaghetti. - So now we're in Los Angeles, we're heading Downtown to a place called Cento pasta bar. It's actually a lunch pasta spot inside of a wine bar. - That's awesome, it's like a mullet. Pasta in the day, wine at night. Cento pasta bar. ^(upbeat music) ^- Hi so I'm Avner, this is my restaurant, ^it's called Cento pasta bar. Cento means 100. I find that pasta for lunch, 100 grams is the perfect portion. If not you feel groggy and weighed down afterwards. So our whole thing is we're only open for lunch, we do a hundred gram portions of pasta and at night they just do the wine bar. it's called Mignon wine bar. I change the menu every week, but we only keep one thing on the menu, its our beet spaghetti and that's what you guys are gonna be trying. - [Steve] Why beets? - I had to do vegetarian option. It 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 beets. They don't like beets because they think they're cooked wrong. So I clean the beats pretty well. I roast them until they're really dehydrated and their flavor is just concentrated. I puree it, I brown some butter in a pan, add a little poppy seed, it's a very traditional, Italian combination, poppy seeds, beets, add the puree, we only get Italian pasta. I find that the 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 too al dente but I make it al dente enough. The flavors kind of evolve in your mouth. - [Andrew] So fresh versus hard pasta? - There's no better, I don't think and there's no worse. It's all about what direction you're going. I find that hard pastas have again, the flavor of wheat far more than fresh pastas. With this one it's sweets because its beets. But it's also a deep flavor and I think the brown butter really compliments 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 'cause it's a really hot pasta, but some cold ricotta cheese on top. (upbeat music) ^- Here's to (clinks) beets. ^- Little known fact about me, bizarre last name, its Ukrainian, beets and poppy seeds are two of the most important flavors in Ukrainian cuisine. - I did not know that. It's like made for you. - It's enticing because I've never seen these two things in such a setting. - [Steve] Almost too pretty too eat. - So I'm gonna go in for the first twirl. Look at that, know how strawberries have those tiny little seeds on the outside of their skin, those little black specs? 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, okay I'm about to eat some fruit Gushers but instead you're eating a delicious earthy, slightly salty but like you know that poppy seed comes in and like. - Yeah, the flavor is actually like muted and deeper and richer here. - Also, I ate a bite of the beets and it looks like I just kissed somebody with lipstick. - Could I try to recreate that, let's check it out. Ready? What are you doing coming home with that pink stain on your neck? Smooching somebody on the side Steven? - Just smooching the beets. - Also the pasta, you really can taste the wheat of the noodle, it's not covered up by sauce. - Another one beets the dust. Hey, hey, hey, hey. - Nice. - Hey. This is wonderful. - Yeah this is alright. I had a really good time with you today. - Hey, me too. - Well, you can't beet that. (laughs) - 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 or superior. - Two sides of the same coin. - I'd almost say that I'm a fresh pasta this episode. - I would definitely take being the dry pasta. - You're definitely dry pasta of the show. - Yeah, and Adam in the meat ball. I want to tell you another spaghetti fact. - Oh yeah? - Yeah. (laughs) God. - Spaghetti fact. ^♪ Spaghetti fact ♪ ^- According to a 1975 etiquette guide, ^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, is slurping 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, ^but the new hotness, and 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 Manzke, I'm the chef/owner ^of Republique restaurant. Today we're going to make rusticello spaghetti. Republique is a fine dining restaurant with a casual atmosphere. Essentially Republique 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. - [Andrew] And so how does spaghetti and other pastas fit into that menu? - [Walter] 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 sent over uni. Then I have fresh truffles, they come directly from France. We cook the pasta properly. Prepared in a way that an Italian chef would respect it. Dry pasta, like rusticella, 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. Perfectly 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 fresh from the bones the shells from the lobsters. I'm gonna do two different things with that truffle. We're gonna grate some into the sauce. Cook in the truffle a little bit giving it texture and flavor. Finish it with butter then right at the very last second we put in the lobster meat and Santa Barbara uni, because we don't want that overcooked. - [Andrew] What is the flavor characteristic of uni? - [Walter] Uni has a bit of oceany brininess, it has very rich elegant texture, which plays very well with other ingredients like lobster. - [Steve] So how much is this spaghetti gonna cost? - The price of the lobster spaghetti with uni and black truffles starts at $38 for the pasta then a little bit of truffle. - [Andrew] How do you know when it's enough? - [Walter] When it's black. - [Andrew] When it's black? - [Walter] When it turns black, with the additional truffles shaved at the tail, only seven dollars a gram, you can have as much of that as you please. - This is 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, peeling back truffle like a blanket. - 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. - [Steve] Cheers. I feel like I shouldn't be eating this. - [Andrew] Yeah. - How intensely soft it is. - Yeah. - Can we go all at once? I want my mouth to explode right now. - [Andrew] Oh, I can tell the texture of this pasta is going to be awesome, it's so firm. - [Steve] You're only getting spaghetti? - I'm not only gonna go spaghetti Steven. - Oh two forks. - [Andrew] Yeah you gotta two fork this. - [Steve] Eight prongs. - You get a little bit of lobster, uni. And here comes a little truffle blanket for my sea friends. (classy music) - I'm living the life right now. (laughs) of luxury.
- I like that. The noodle itself is so good. - [Steve] Al dente. - [Andrew] Yeah, you know what that means? - To the teeth, that's what it is, like to the tooth. Yes, I knew that. - They use a dry pasta specifically for this 'cause it just serves it better. - I love that the spirit of this restaurant is literally push the boundary and don't 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. Get that lobster, go ahead and get that lobster. - I'm getting that lobster. This should be for Adam actually. I just took the whole thing, here, I'm giving this to Adam. - The spaghetti was the best part Adam. - Walter's wife makes the pastries at Republique. - That looks tasty. So it turns out the pastries at Republique are fantastic. MMM.
- mmm. Andrew, Adam what is the most worthy spaghetti to you at it's given price point, go. - My worth it winner was Barzotto in San Francisco. - [Steve] Wow. - That changed my perception of spaghetti and meatballs. - Mmhmm. - 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. - Its really hard 'cause all the spaghetti's were insanely delicious. I mean Republique's spaghetti for a dish that was hitting all the all stars, they were all working together so well and that's hard to do. I mean i also have to go with Barzotto. The bite on that spaghetti was just incredible. - Cento pasta bar is really a special place, it really feels like a hidden treasure. - [Steve] Yes. ^- Adam who is your Worth It winner? - What? - We really just went three way on Barzotto! (laughs) - They were all so good, this was honestly one of the closest episodes ever. - [Steve] For real you guys want to head back to Republique and get some additional pastries? - [Andrew] I'd rather go to bar Cento and guzzle some wine. (upbeat music) - [Man] Oh yes.
Note that she’s not at Barzotto anymore. Hopefully on to bigger and better things!
It looks SO GREAT! I used to live in the Mission and left as tech started to take over and I’m mourning the loss of eating at Barzotto. Can’t wait to visit. I hope it’s a good without Michelle. Anyone eaten there lately...?