- 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 ♪
