GMM 2640: Fried Street Food Taste Test

Which street food from around the world deserves the gold? Let’s talk about that. Good Mythical Summer. The twenty twenty-four Summer Olympics start this Friday in Paris, France. But more importantly, the twenty twenty-four Street Food Eat-lympics start right now, right here in Burbank, California. Yes, yes. There he is. There he is. Mister Hilt. We’re expecting big things from him. When it comes to nations establishing their global identity and reputation, world class street food is on its way to replacing world class athletes. Look it up. It’s true. Yep. So as we embark on these Eat-lympic games, it’s time for the opening ceremony and the lighting of the Eat-lympic cupcake. Yup, there it is. And with that, let the games begin. It’s time for the twenty twenty-four Summer Street Food Eat-lympics Savory Event. Day One. Okay, boys, today is the first day of the week long Street Food Eat-lympics in honor of the thirty nations expected to win the most medals at the actual twenty twenty-four Olympics, according to the Nielsen forecast, every street food you’ll try will come from one of those countries. Yes. Each day, you’ll be presented with three heats of street foods and you will award each dish a score from one to ten. Is there a breeze in here or is it just me? Look at the way he looks at the flag. Is he gonna be doing that the whole time? All week? Let’s find out. Okay. I understand, Stevie, that the foods being represented today were carefully selected by members of the Mythical crew using a strict set of criteria. Is that right? That is right. The street foods in these Eat-lympic Games qualified based on their scores in four different categories. Eye catchiness, mouth wateringness, novelty and ingenuity and untapped popularity. The winners will receive the bronze, silver and gold medals atop the prestigious Eat-lympic podium. And our opening ceremony is not quite done yet because Eat-lympic representative Chase will now take the Eat-lympic cupcake on a truly epic journey. He heard his name, and looked up. Thanks. There he goes. Oh, don’t put it out. Don’t put it out. Don’t put it out. Can’t wave that flag now, can you, buddy? Okay, let’s begin. The first heat. The first heat in the savory games are the top qualifiers in savory fried foods. Beginning on Rhett’s side, we have the donug from Australia, which is an extra large chicken nugget in the shape of a donut. What? Then we have the lángos from Hungary, which is a deep fried flatbread often made with potato that’s usually topped with some combination of garlic, sour cream, and shredded cheese. Yes, please. And takoyaki from Japan, which is a snack in the shape of little round balls containing pieces of octopus. Okay. You don’t seem too enthused about that one. Yes. But can I interest you into, into. Yeah, you can interest me into it. A chicken nugget shaped like a donut. How is this even formed, Nicole? I mean, is it like ground chicken? Don’t you remember the episode when Lizzie McAlpine came on the show and I pretty much made this? Oh, yeah, yeah. It’s pretty much the same, but they just do it in Australia. What’d you put on it? You don’t remember? I remember. Is this béchamel? Yes, it’s a dijon béchamel sauce. Dang. That’s a pretty dang good. I gotta tell you, I was pretty excited about it. You don’t like it? But it’s bordering on too big for a nugget. And that’s coming from me. You know what I’m saying? It’s reconstituted. It’s like a chicken loaf. I like it. I’m not saying I don’t like it. It’s exceeding the acceptable size of a nugget. This is like a breast. It’s like a normal serving size of chicken, so. I’m just saying that the ratio of the inside of ground chicken to the outside of fried chicken. Is not ideal in this particular arrangement. I never eat ground chicken, period. You eat nuggets. I eat ground turkey. You eat nuggets, though. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. See, this is drawing your attention to the groundness. Well, let’s move on to this one. What did you call this, Stevie? The middle one? Lángos. Lángos. I’m probably saying that wrong, but I’d, like, put a little bit of an accent on it. But it’s from Hungary, and that was the wrong accent. I don’t know. It seems pretty simple though. It’s just like flat bread with sour cream and cheese on it, right? Yeah, it’s a yeasted flatbread, and it’s a really delicious. I’d like one piece right now. Can you cut me a piece? Oh, man. I keep. No. You only cut us two pieces. Oh, man. We asked. Whatever, it’s not that important. You can have the rest of it. That’s really working for me. That’s coming together in a lot of different ways. I keep thinking it’s gonna be sweet because it looks like what I used to get at the state fair, which is where we get a lot of our street foods at state fairs. It was an elephant ear. Elephant ear. Yep. Like a sweet dough saucer. I really like cheese. I really like sour cream, though. I like garlic. Let’s bring this back in here. What’s the paper? So that’s bonito flake. Okay, then what’s bonito? So bonito’s a type. So it’s a dried fish, and they cure it, and they smoke it. And then they actually use this really cool tool to shave it super paper thin. And once it lands on hot food, it kind of dances on the food a little bit. Yes. I was noticing the dance. Yes. I gotta get used to this. I gotta prepare my palate for. I gotta get used to this. Oceanic tastes. You know how to get used to it. Very smoky. Probably not gonna happen again. It’s the bonito flake. Bonito flake is the smoky part that you’re tasting. It’s really good. Yeah, that’s not bad at all, once my body’s prepared for it. Okay. So we are giving Olympic, like, scores to these things. That’s tasty. All right. I’m really. I’m pleasantly surprised. And I’m doing it like they do for the diving. Like, it’s real hard to get a ten. Like, it hardly ever happens. You get a nine. Yeah. That’s, like, amazing. Six point two for the donug. I’m giving the donug. I respect the effort here. I really like the taste. I like the holdability. I’m gonna give it a nice six point nine. Okay. This one in the middle, which I think is called a Lángos. This is something that I would conjure up myself. Ain’t nobody getting their feelings hurt over here. It’s not. I’m not gonna make phone calls about it, though. I don’t have to talk about this later today. Do you know what I mean? And for that, I give it a seven point nine. Oh, crap. I was thinking seven point nine. I was about to say it, so I’m saying it. We’re in total agreement. Okay. Seven point nine. And then this one really surprised me. And there’s something about eating something on the street that you want to be surprised. You want to think, I might not like this, but, hey, I’m trying it, and then you get happy. And those bonito flakes do dance. Do you see that? Did you see the way they kind of dance? Like, once they start. So you’re. Look, look, look. Yes. And you’re watching it on the street. And you’re like. Whoa, how’s it doing that? And I’m not gonna talk about how smart octopi are. Don’t. Don’t. And the fact that their brain goes all the way into their tentacles. I’m gonna give it a seven point three. I liked it. I didn’t love it. I’ll give it a six point eight. This next heat includes the top savory sandwich qualifiers. Beginning on Rhett’s side. We have a mitraillette from Belgium, which is a sandwich with a baguette style roll, spice infused beef patty, Belgian fries, and an andalouse sauce. And a lot of potaters. Might I tell you about the other two sandwiches? Well, yeah, sure. Okay. You also have a bocadillo de calamares from Spain, which is a calamari sandwich, and French tacos from France, which is a sandwich with a flour tortilla, lots of condiments, meat, cheese, sauce, and more, folded into a rectangular packet and toasted on a grill. I’m told that they also. It’s like, French tacos is the singular and the plural of the sandwich. That’s how French works. I don’t understand what Belgium is thinking. Well, they like french fries on a lot of things. It’s a burger, right? This is just a burger. It’s a burger, on a baguette. Are they thinking something else? What are they thinking, Nicole? You know, as someone that is not Belgian, I can’t really tell you, but I know that french fries were invented in Belgium, so that’s pretty cool, right? So they put that stuff on everything. They can do it. Probably, like, cheesecakes and, like, ice cream cones and, like, a bunch of other stuff. Probably. Probably. Well, it works on a sandwich, which I would call a burger. It tastes exactly like it looks like it’s gonna taste. A little disappointing. Burger dry. The burger’s dry, but it’s also spicy. Yeah, it’s a spicy, long burger patty. Okay. Oh, it’s a long burger. Yeah, it’s long, but you can’t. Burger King is watching right now, and they’re like. Probably Carl’s Junior. Okay, but you know that calamari sandwich. Burger King. They like the long. Chicken meats. Right. They’ll do it long. Wait, wait, wait. Make sure to lemon it. You gotta lemon it. And you gotta prepare your body for ocean food. Lemon me. How do you prepare your body for ocean food? Start breathing out of one nostril? All right, body, this is ocean food. So it’s gonna taste like it’s from the ocean, and you’re not gonna think that you like it. Then you’re gonna have to. It’s not onion rings. It’s from the ocean. I don’t wanna bite. Oh, my gosh. It’s gonna be hard to chew. You can do it. I believe in you. I still feel like I’m in. This didn’t need to be a sandwich territory, or for both of these in some ways. You know what I mean? Like. Yeah. A burger, and then I’ll just eat the fries on the side. Like, I’m not in that big of a hurry, you know? I’m in Belgium. I want to explore. I can have the fries. They’re perfectly. Pick up-able. Couldn’t chew it. I thought, the calamari’s pretty good, but again, I don’t need it on bread. I just want to take it and pick it up and eat it. I hope this one’s really good. This one’s from France. It’s a French Taco. Link, did you know? Fun fact. Every single medal in this year’s Olympics will have some of the iron from the original Eiffel Tower melted into it as part of it. The original Eiffel Tower was built for the eighteen eighty-nine’s World’s Fair. And they were just keeping it all these years, slowly melting them down? Waiting for the medals. That’s pretty exciting information. Now we’re somewhere. Is this a burger and a quesadilla in France? Oh, that’s nice. And it makes sense as a sandwich. It’s kind of like smashed burgered. As a crêpe, if you will, and there’s french fries in there and I don’t care. No, I prefer it. Is there something else? What’s the sauce? So it’s a cheese sauce and it’s cheese sauce, halal shawarma, and french fries in there. It’s very good. That’s not a burger. It’s not a burger. No. The only thing that we can say about sandwiches is whether or not it’s a burger. I know this is gonna have a happy ending in this round, so let’s start with some hardcore rating. I appreciate the effort here. I’m not a big fan of the form. Two point one. Two point one? Like, if you give somebody, just so you know, if you give somebody a two point one in the Olympics, like, even when someone, like, is doing, like, the gymnastics floor routine, and they fall and just roll several feet, and then they get up and they fall again, they wouldn’t give them a two point one. They’d give them, like, a four point two. There’s some minimum score that you give somebody. What’s the point of the? I don’t know. I’m just letting you know. The bottom art of the score? You could go do a cannonball for your dive, and they’d still give you, like, a three point nine. This is my way of saying you shouldn’t have shown up. Well, you heard it here. We gave our scores. Sorry, Belgium. Calamari. This is better. At least it’s not like a really strange burger. I’m gonna give it a Five point three. I’m gonna give a five point five. I don’t mind the taste, but it feels like it’s an unnecessary invention. But this. I will get another one of these. Very special. If I’m walking around the streets of Paris. Very portable. Well, yeah, you could probably. It’s probably tossable. Like, here, catch it. Seven point eight. Throw it back to me. Well, don’t. Seven point eight. Eight point three. Yes. Our July Pin of the Month is live, available only for the next twenty-four hours. It’s me and Rhett swimming in a giant cereal bowl bath. We did it in real life. Now you can wear it on your person. Twenty-four hours only. mythical.com Get it. This next heat includes the top qualifying street foods on a stick. In our research, we found that one country has mastered this category, as their stick based street foods scored the highest across all of our qualifying criteria. The Republic of Korea. Yes. Beginning on Rhett’s side, we have tteokkochi, which is skewered, and fried rice cakes with a spicy gochujang based sauce. Gochujang. Gochujang. You’re probably right. That’ll give it to you. I really like the texture of that. It looks like a belt. You know? If I got a really long one, I could hold my pants. I can get you a belt made out of this. That’s pretty cool. Let’s look into that for the Linkster. I like the consistency. I like the presentation on the stick. I definitely feel like I’m on the street. Oh, run along. Exchange a little cash, grab a little stick. Keep going. Poke your friends eye out. Seven point four. Six point two for me. No meat. No meat. Kind of needed some meat. There’s no meat here, either. No meat here. Stevie. These are tornado potatoes, deep fried spiral cut potato. Yeah, we’ve had these on the show before. Beautiful. My son Lando’s favorite reason to go to the farmer’s market. There’s a guy who does this. What does he do? Because I feel like I wanna take it and pull it. I don’t think that I did it right. Yeah, I think he. Oh, that’s nice. He unravels it. It’s like getting chips. I got a chip. And you can put stuff all over it, right? Like, shake stuff on it. If you wanted to, sure. We went a little bit simple. Could be a little. You could go with a garlic. You could go with a cheesy. You could go with the salt. You go with a pepper. I will say if you drop it, it could get away from you real fast. There it goes. You know, that’s the thing. I get excited when I’m out on the street, running from one cart to the next. I can sometimes look over, see something else, and the next thing you know, I’ve got this happening right on the plate. Right on the plate. Right on the plate. I mean, it. It looks like a farm implement. I love that. Or it could be some sort of a tree. You could decorate it. Talking about those discs that used to be behind the tractors. But they called them discs. Discs. Discs. They called them discs. Like, all the guys that we went to school with that, like, worked on farms. They would call them discs with a T. But I was like, they look like discs, and they’re like, it’s disc. Yeah. I was like, I don’t know, man. Who are we to say? I don’t know. I trust y’all. Disc. It’s really cool looking. It’s not colorful. I mean. But it could be. This is like a colorful belt ladder, and this is. This is like. You could probably get a belt out of that, too, Link. Maybe a necklace. More a necklace. Like a lei. A lei. I’m not as big of a fan of, just, I feel, like. Starchy. Just the fried potato of it all. I feel like I’m looking for something a little more interesting in my life at this point, you know? But when you get something else on the street, it’s good to have this with it. I’m not saying I don’t like it. This is a good street side. I’m saying it’s a six point four for me. Who am I to not love on a spiral cut tater? Seven point two. Okay. And then our last food on a stick is gamja, which is a hot dog wrapped in a sweetened and yeasted rice flour dough with a variety of toppings. This is a behemoth. Yeasted! Yeah! So, there is a hot dog in the middle of this? Yeah. There’s a hot dog in the middle of that. It’s a Korean corn dog, but it’s not corn. It’s. Potatoes and sugar. Sugar. There’s sugar on it, Link. And ketchup and mustard. Sometimes you can even do half hot dog and half mozzarella stick. It’s so good. Carney. I mean, how does this strike your fancy with all the experience you’ve got with wieners on sticks? When I used this, technology didn’t exist back when I worked at Hot Dog on a Stick. What’s the weirdest thing they would put on a dog? Just ketchup and mustard. I wish I had something better for you. But that was it. Nothing. Because it wasn’t on the street. It was in a mall. They don’t have to be in malls. Gotta be safe in a mall. This is good. There’s one on the boardwalk. The sugar is throwing me, though. Some of the best corn dogs, and I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Say it again. The Corn Dog Castle at Disneyland has incredible corn dogs, and there is a sweetness to the batter. There’s some sugar in there, and that is so now I’m thinking about it through that lens, through the Disney lens. I mean, it’s beautiful. It really. It’s physically and mentally challenging for me, you know, and those are things that I like, you know, keeps you young. And it’s good. It’s probably good for you. This’ll keep you young. This’ll keep you young. Eat them. Eat one every day. Processed hot dogs. A gamja dog a day. With sugar and fried potatoes. Keeps the cardiologist away. You know what I’m saying? Now that you’ve talked me into it, I’m gonna give it a seven point eight. The textures are just off the chart. I’m gonna give it an eight point six. Whoa. You went for it, Link. Even with the sugar, and, I mean, look at it. Yeah, it’s quite, quite the sight. All right, so our current top three, after all that tasting, are lángos with a score of seven point nine. Yes. French tacos with a score of eight point zero five, and the gamja hot dogs with a score of eight point two. Well, we got three more savory heats on Wednesday, so come back to see who takes home the gold in the savory event of the twenty twenty-four Street Food Eat-lympics. Yes! Chase. Whoa. Look, he’s moving a lot slower now. Look at him. Okay, I’m back. You guys can start now. Where’d you go? Did you leave Burbank? Yeah, I had to take this across the world. Oh, wow. Day one’s done. I thought you were gonna say you just went to Glendale, but you went across the world. Thanks for subscribing and clicking that bell. You know what time it is. Hi, Rhett and Link. I’m Mason. And I’m Mikayla. And we are from Pennsylvania. And we just got done trying the Monster Energy drinks, and y’all made a big mistake. But it’s time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality. What you gonna do about it? Well, we made the mistake. You know what? Well, we’re just gonna keep drinking energy drinks. That’s right. Click the top link to to watch us play Chug, Sip, Spill with new energy drinks in Good Mythical More. And find out where the Wheel of Mythicality is going to land. Don’t miss your chance to grab July’s Pin of the Month, available today only at mythical.com

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