$15 Spaghetti Vs. $143 Spaghetti

- Hello Hello hello. - Still in San Francisco. - And my name is Steve-O. - And now it's time to eat not

spaghetti

-O but

spaghetti

. - Today, on Worth it, we're going to try three great shapes of spaghetti, at drastically different prices, to find out which one is the most worth the price. ^- What is the singular of spaghetti? - Spaghetti? - This will not be a traditional Italian food episode. We are making spaghetti like they are made in the United States. - It has become an American staple. - Possibly my favorite food. - Pasta-bly? - Yes, pasta is my favorite food. - So first we headed to a place called Barzotto. - This is a true American classic: spaghetti and meatballs. ^(upbeat music) ^- I'm Michelle Minori, I'm the executive chef at Barzotto. ^Here at the mission and today we are going to eat ^spaghetti and meatballs.

So Barzotto is a fast-casual concept where you can come in and enjoy a great plate of handmade pasta without it costing you an arm and a leg. - I assume you make all your noodles at home? - We do, here we make everything from scratch by hand. It starts with semolina flour, we get it 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 heat up very quickly. We have a really amazing pasta extruder, it comes out of the extruder and it has all these little scratches on it.

That's why we want the dough to have the perfect hydration so that those little stretch marks or scratches can really trap that delicious sauce. - So it has a little bit of texture. - So they're not super soft like those things you find at the store, most of the time the noodles are a specific length, which is around nine inches. But we make ours 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 going to get al dente pasta when it's fresh, so we make a really nice marinara sauce and then of course we have our meatballs.

They are part turkey and part pork. We pour that delicious marinara over them and back them up. We drop our noodles into the water and all of our noodles cook for three to four minutes and then they all come together in the pan so the sauce really soaks up the noodles, tops with parmigiano and fresh herbs. There's something really cool about the fact that, you know, all of our houses are $20 or less. All of our wine is $10 a glass. And you can't go anywhere in San Francisco and buy a plate of pasta for $14. That's unheard of.

We want to make really good food and we want to provide you with really good service. - Here we go spaghetti. ^- And meatballs, cheerio. - Greetings. I'll just take a little bit, the way the noodle feels on the fork, you can tell it still has that rigidity, that structural integrity of the noodle. Health. (jazz music) Oh, damn. - Mmm, those spaghetti have a bite. - I'm impressed with this noodle. - It's the lack of slippery. - Yes, friction comes in. - It's like when you try to climb a rope, you need a rope with friction to climb to the top. - Adam, come in here.

This time we are not going to waste time. -And bring in the reliever from the beginning. - So good. This is the noodle and this is the sauce and I'm on fire. We move as a unit. - Meatball time. Oh yeah. - Oh, - What a delicious meatball. I don't know what looks better in this bowl, the meatball or the spaghetti? Ultimate pasta dish. - We also make a fully roasted Porchetta. - Oh really? - Yes, it's the best in the city. - Is that all like the half-pig deal? - We played with that, then we made ours with a loin and a belly and then we roasted it. ^- Oh man, - mmm. ^- Here is the porchetta. ^- Oh, oh. - How could we resist?

I can't believe you can also get this at a place where they give you a plate of spaghetti and meatballs for 14 dollars. ^Ah. - Long spaghetti, fresh pasta, meatballs, classics. - And the surprise porchetta. Taking it out of left field. Taking it out of the oven. - The oven. So now we're back in Los Angeles. Spaghetti, - done. - Made! ^ Fact about spaghetti. ^- Spaghetto is the singular form of spaghetti. ^- What no! - Did we talk about this before? ^What is the singular of spaghetti. - So one spaghetti plus another spaghetti equals spaghetti. - So now we are in Los Angeles, we head downtown to a place called Cento pasta bar.

It's actually a pasta lunch spot inside a wine bar. - That's incredible, it's like a mullet. Pasta by day, wine by night. Cento pasta bar. ^(upbeat music) ^- Hello, I'm Avner, this is my restaurant, ^it's called Cento pasta bar. Cento means 100. I think pasta for lunch, 100 grams is the perfect portion. Otherwise, you will feel dazed and overwhelmed later. So our thing is that we only open for lunch, we make 100 gram portions of pasta and at night they only serve the wine bar. It's called Mignon wine bar. I change the menu every week, but we only keep one thing on the menu: our beet spaghetti and that's what you guys are going to try. - Why beets? - I had to make a vegetarian option.

It wasn't just pesto, I think everyone makes pesto. 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 are undercooked. So I clean up the rhythms pretty well. I roast them until they are very dehydrated and their flavor is concentrated. I puree it, brown a little butter in a pan, add a little poppy seed, it is a very traditional, Italian combination, poppy seeds, beetroot, I add the puree, we only get Italian pasta. I find that wheat tastes better, so I cook the spaghetti in salted water and then finish it in the sauce to turn it into this beautiful purple color.

I make it a little less al dente but I make it quite al dente. The flavors evolve in the mouth. - So, fresh pasta versus hard pasta? - I don't think there is anything better and there is nothing worse. It's about which direction you go. I think hard pastas again have a lot more wheat flavor than fresh pastas. This one is sweet because it has beets. But it also has a rich flavor and I think the brown butter really complements it. I put the ricotta cheese on top. Just a spoonful on top and then a little bit of chives on top.

This is a really good contrast because it's a very hot pasta, but with some cold ricotta cheese on top. (happy music) ^- For (tinkling) beets. ^- A little known fact about me, strange last name, its Ukrainian, beet 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 tempting because I've never seen these two things in such an environment. - Almost too pretty to eat. - So I'm going to make the first turn. Look at that, you know that strawberries have those little seeds on the outside of the skin, those little black specks?

Doesn't that seem like it? Health. Oh man. - Wow. - Hell yeah. - Oh. I wasn't expecting that at all. - No what? You look at this and think, okay, I'm about to eat some fruit Gushers, but instead you're eating some delicious earthy, slightly salty Gushers, but as you know, that poppy seed goes in and you like it. - Yes, the flavor here is really muted, deeper and richer. - Also, I ate a bite of beets and it looks like I just kissed someone with lipstick. - Could you try to recreate that? Let's see it. Ready?

What are you doing coming home with that pink stain on your neck? Making out with someone on Steven's side? - Just kissing beets. - Also the pasta, you can really taste the wheat flavor of the noodles, it is not covered in sauce. - Another beet powder. Hey hey hey hey. - Nice. - Hey. This is wonderful. - Yes, this is good. I had a great time with you today. - Hey, me too. - Well, you can't beat that. (laughs) - Here we go. - Wow, what a delicious banquet we had. - It was really interesting that you said that dry pasta and fresh pasta are neither inferior nor superior. - Two sides of the same coin. - I would almost say I'm fresh pasta in this episode. - I would definitely choose dry pasta. - You are definitely the dry pasta of the show. - Yes, and Adam in the meat ball.

I want to tell you another fact about spaghetti. - Oh yeah? - Yes. (laughs) God. - Spaghetti fact. ^♪ Fact about spaghetti ♪ ^- According to a 1975 etiquette guide, ^the proper way to eat spaghetti is with a fork and spoon. ^You take a large spoon, pick up some spaghetti ^with the tips of the fork and twist it inside the curve ^of a spoon to create a nice little ball that you can put in your mouth. - How can you decide the correct way to eat spaghetti? - And if you do that, you'll never be able to slurp. - Wow, is slurping rude? - It's fun. - Okay, so our last announcement.

I am very excited about this announcement. Republic, it's a Uni pasta. ^ We've had caviar, we've had lobster, we've had truffle, ^ but the new heat and what we're about to reach for is the uni lobster pasta and you choose how much truffle you want in that dish. so. Here we go. - Here we go. ^- My name is Walter Manzke, I am the chef/owner ^ of the Republique restaurant. Today we are going to make spaghetti rusticello. Republique is an elegant restaurant with a casual atmosphere. Basically, Republique is actually two restaurants. During the day we operate as a cafe and bakery, very informal but with high quality food and friendly staff.

And at night it becomes much more formal, we have waiters, we have a beautiful wine cellar. Much more in the high range. The heart and soul of Republique is a French restaurant. But this being Los Angeles we took all the influences from everywhere. -And then how do spaghetti and other pasta fit into that menu? - Obviously pasta is something that everyone loves. I try to make pastas that are a little different. How to catch live lobsters. We worked with a Japanese company to send us to university. 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. Dry pasta, like rusticella, is not made in a time range but in an exact second. So we put it in boiling salted water for exactly nine minutes. Perfectly al dente is the specific moment when you bite into the pasta and it just sticks lightly to the tooth without leaving any dry, chalky feeling. That happens at exactly 11 minutes. We back it up to nine minutes because we want to cook it in the pan so the sauce goes into the pasta. We boil it and then put it in a saucepan with lobster broth that we make fresh from the bones and shells of the lobsters.

I'm going to do two different things with that truffle. We will grate a little into the sauce. Cook the truffle a little, giving it texture and flavor. We finish it with butter and at the last minute we add the lobster meat and the Santa Barbara uni, because we don't want it to cook too much. - What is the characteristic flavor of uni? - Uni has a little ocean brine, it has a very rich and elegant texture, which combines very well with other ingredients like lobster. - How much will this spaghetti cost? - The price of lobster spaghetti with plain and black truffle starts at $38 for pasta and then a little bit of truffle. -How do you know when enough is enough? - When it's black. - When is it black? - When it turns black, with the extra truffles shaved into the tail, only seven dollars a gram, you can have as much as you want. - This is the most expensive plate of spaghetti I will probably eat in my life. ^- Let's serve some champagne with this ^because I love champagne with everything. - Health.

Oh, peeling the truffle like it was a blanket. - It looks like a small orange tongue and if you look very closely, you can see that it is actually just a group of small spheres. - Health. I feel like I shouldn't eat this. - Yes. - How intensely soft it is. - Yes. - Can we all go at the same time? I want my mouth to explode right now. - Oh, I can say that the texture of this pasta is going to be incredible, it is very firm. - Are you only going to order spaghetti? - I'm not just going to eat spaghetti, Steven. - Oh, two forks. - Yes, you have two forks for this. - Eight points. - You put a little bit of lobster, uni.

And here comes a truffled blanket for my friends from the sea. (classy music) - I'm living life right now. (laughs) luxury. - I like that. The noodles themselves are very good. - Al dente. - Yes, do you know what that means? - To the teeth, that is, like the tooth. Yes, I knew it. - They use a dry paste specifically for this because it works better. - I love that the ethos of this restaurant is literally pushing boundaries and not being afraid to fail. They are simply sourcing the best ingredients available. - I want to eat the rest but I know I have to save some for Adam. - Can I have one more bite? - Sure.

Get that lobster, go ahead, get that lobster. - I'm going to get that lobster. Actually, this should be for Adam. I just took it all, here, I'll give this to Adam. - The spaghetti was the best part Adam. - Walter's wife makes cakes at Republique. - That looks delicious. Turns out Republique's cakes are fantastic. HMM. - Hmm. Andrew, Adam, which spaghetti is most worth it to you at the listed price? Ve. - My penalty winner was Barzotto in San Francisco. - Wow. - That changed my perception of spaghetti and meatballs. - Mmmm. - And I thought I had made somePretty good spaghetti and meatballs, but they ruined my spaghetti and meatballs.

I can't make spaghetti and meatballs anymore. - It's very difficult because all the spaghetti was incredibly delicious. I'm talking about Republique's spaghetti for a dish that was hitting all the stars, everyone was working really well together and that's hard to do. I mean I have to go with Barzotto too. The bite of that spaghetti was simply amazing. - Cento Pasta Bar is truly a special place, it really feels like a hidden gem. - Yes. ^- Adam, who's worth the winner? - That? - We really just did three things with Barzotto! (laughs) - Everyone was so good that this was honestly one of the closest episodes of all time. - Do you really want to go back to Republique and buy some extra cakes? - I prefer to go to the Cento bar and have some wine. (upbeat music) - Oh, yeah.