Can I make a better burger than the most expensive burger in the whole city? Over here, we have the cheapest burger we could find in the city. This is $4 from 7-Eleven. Over here, the most expensive burger in the city, also my favorite burger in the entire city, from Petit Trois, fancy French chef Ludo Lefebvre. This thing costs $37. And yet to be seen is the one right in the middle, the one that I make myself. What happens when you remove the ambiance from food, when you remove the clout, when you remove the name brand? Today we’re going to find out because a blind damn it, I gotta stop calling the judges blind. And I am going to have a judge blind taste test each and see if my food can compete with the best in Los Angeles, or maybe the cheapest option will actually win. Find out because this is, and then. We can ADR in the name of the show. We’re gonna call it like, Naked Burgers with Josh. Naked, naked. I feel pretty confident in beating the $4 7-Eleven burger. And also you might look at that price and go, most fast food burgers are cheaper than that. You’re correct. I don’t know what to tell you. We wanted to buy one from a store. We wanted to get the absolute baseline. Also, it’s quite thick, and it is going to match the size of the other two burgers. And I’d be lying if I said that I did not really want to, I’d be lying if I said I did not, I would not, here we go, I would not not be lying if I said that I did not not want to beat, the most expensive burger in LA, the Big Mec from Petit Trois. It is truly my favorite burger in Los Angeles. It’s got this like foie gras infused bordelaise sauce. It’s got like house ground patties, two beautiful slices of American cheese, this silky brioche bun. It is such a good burger. I can’t compete with that in terms of good product. We’re trying to use the most baseline product that you would at home, but I’m going to try and use some really chefy tricks right here to try and make the best homemade burger possible. So, if manners maketh man, condiments make burgers. That’s why we are going to make two right now. We’re doing a jalapeño lime donkey sauce, just a little bit of acid, a little bit of brightness in there. Donkey sauce, of course, Guy Fieri’s famous condiment that people were mad about and they’re like, donkey sauce is basically just mayonnaise. It’s like, what do you think every single sauce is? It’s all mayonnaise, baby. Speaking of which, go to sporked.com, find their rankings of the best burger sauces if you want to make the perfect burger at home. Bacon jam, we’re doing it right now. We have a blender, we’re gonna throw some tomatoes in that, but first I want to get some of this bacon rendering. This is normal bacon from the store. We’re gonna slice this as thin as possible, because here’s the thing, I love the flavor of bacon on a hamburger, but I do not like just having giant, thick, especially bacon strips on a burger, because I think they obstruct from the texture. To me, you want to like, really break this down. I’m going to get it crispy. Going to get some onion sautéing in the fat. Get some tomatoes working in there. A little bit of sugar, a little bit of vinegar. Sweet, spicy, smoky. We’re going for absolute flavor bonds here. There we go. This is, I could not cut through a single pig carcass. I could barely cut through one strip of its flesh. You want some solids to soak up the flavors, right? You know what I’m saying? Cause onions are solid, but they’re very porous. And when you put them in flavors, all those just get inside the cell walls, and then you get to crunch through the flavors instead of just slurping them. Is this adding up for any of the other chefs in the room? You know what I mean? Onions are just, it’s like flavor solids. Because otherwise it’s just flavor liquids, and you want to be crunchies over slurpees. Thank you. God, culinary school, man. If you don’t got really, really good tomatoes, a great way to make them good is to like process them, do some cooking with them. So, we’re going to do that. We’re going to chuck them into a blender. Tomatoes on a burger too, they’re, they’re too watery. You got to get some of that water out and we’re certainly going to get some of that out. We’re gonna chuck a little bit of vinegar in there because sours is good. And then we’re going to hit it with that with some sugar in the pan. Is bacon going good? Bacon’s going great. I gotta fiddle with this, you just gotta fiddle with the knobs. You guys ever do, this is the cooking equivalent of when you go to a crosswalk and you know you pressed the button already, but it hasn’t gone in a long time, so you go and you just furiously press the button a couple times, and then it does make it go faster. Sometimes you gotta fiddle with the knobs in your pan. Just gonna blend this up into a tomato slurry. And then this is all going to cook down. Yeah, nice little pink slurry in there. Crank it up. It looks bad now. It’ll look better later. Our homemade burger has many similarities with everybody else’s homemade burgers because we only have one burner that works and every stove at home only has one burner that works. Oh, you have other burners that will certainly turn on, but would you really say they work? No. Fresh raw garlic is delicious in mayonnaise. I’m a big fan. In France, they call this aioli. And here I call it donkey sauce. That’s American, God dang it. A little bit of Worcestershire sauce. Guy Fieri’s official recipe for donkey sauce is Worcestershire, mayonnaise, additional olive oil for some reason, and roasted garlic. We are using raw garlic. A little bit of whiskey. We’re using Dijon mustard. I like that. It’s just a nice additional little peppery kind of horseradishy flavor in there. Yummy yummy in my tummy and a little bit of hot sauce just because like I cannot make a burger sauce without adding just a little bit of chili making it a little bit orange. Yes. All right, cool, cool, cool. Nice. Get the onions in there. Bacon’s nice and crispy. Never use your knife blade to scoop up ingredients. We’ve taken the tomato slurry, and this looks terrible. It’s gonna look so much better, and we’ve added it to our onions and our bacon. We’re gonna take a little bit of sugar, add that in there. The sugar is really gonna make it that sort of jammy texture. We’re gonna take a little bit of salt. I got it. No, no one lift a finger. It was right there. Josh! Just hold it together. We just talked about this. The fact that like, you don’t seem to have any idea of object permanence. You will see an object right in front of you, and then, yep. This morning, I almost like called Julia into the bathroom to ask where the toothpaste is. It was where the toothpaste always is. The counter. Next to the toothbrushes. What we’re gonna do, we have two condiments, right? I don’t wanna put lettuce and tomato on this. We have our bacon jam, we have our donkey sauce. The burgers are gonna be really juicy because we’re using really fatty beef and we’re gonna do a smash burger. So, now we need a sop, right? A, you guys know wine sops from the Middle Ages? They would put bread inside the wine to soak it up and they said it would actually make the wine taste better or they would call it a toast. That is why we use the phrase toast like at a wedding because they used to physically put toast in wine. We’re making a sop right now and I’m doing it with breaded onions. One of my favorite things on a burger, we’re gonna take an onion. We’re gonna mandoline it out, super thin. And I think my commitment to architecture, is gonna make me beat this very expensive hamburger from Petit Trois, which I cannot stress enough, is an absolute delight. But I think you put some little tips and tricks and a little bit of love into it, and I think that’s gonna give us a victory. Oh yeah, mandolines. Mandolines, very dangerous. I have shaved off fingerprints many times on these before, so use the Mythical Kitchen oven mitt to protect your hands. Why, dude? Josh! It’s an oven mitt! It can’t cut through the oven mitt. I had, I had requested buttermilk to dip the onions in, and now I will not be doing that. I’m merely going to add a bunch of Tony Chachere’s to some flour, and the onions are wet enough. The onions are wet enough right now. I know, I’m sorry. Thank you for the buttermilk. We can take the buttermilk home. You want to make biscuits later? Sorry, the Tony Chachere’s. I forgot about that. It always hits like a ton of. Buttermilk matzah? No, the buttermilk makes it not matzah. Well, I’m sorry, Nicole. All right. Where’s the guard for that? Bring back the N95s! I’m just gonna sploop these in here, and then I’m gonna give him the old, like, pickleball treatment here. I’m trying to dust the flour off so he don’t just get biscuits in the bottom, because it’s Passover and Nicole can’t eat the biscuits. Golly. There we go, this is perfect, this is perfect. Yep, simple homemade burger. There we go, splishity splash this around. That’s perfect, that’s perfect. Those are gonna fry about three, four minutes. Give me a sec, I’m just caked right now. Onions are looking pretty good. And I’m pulling them, I’m pulling them. Boom! Nice little onion strings, going to act as a perfect juice sop for our hamburger. Nothing raw on my hands. Don’t breathe, run! We have some 70/30 quarter pound patties right here. We got a nice big grocery store bun that has been toasted in butter, we’re gonna do like a half smash burger right here. I think this is where we can kind of compete with that fancy burger, so we’re taking super fatty beef. We’re smashing it down I know I’ve talked a little bit of smack on smash burgers before, but I have since seen the light and come around. I’ve also seen the light on a bunch of black pepper on burgers. I used to say stuff like, the black pepper will burn and get bitter. Because I heard somebody on Food Network say that, and then I made it, and I was like, yeah, this tastes great. Why not keep doing that? So, we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna get a fair amount of oil in this pan. I know even though it’s a 70/30 burger, we could just use that fat as its own lubricant in there. Pop that down real quick. Just get a light smash. We’re not trying to go crazy, but I do want to make sure we get all of those crusties. There we go. It’s probably fine. What I think is gonna happen, I think the fancy burger is going to be quite identifiable as the fancy burger because they got some like red winey sauce on it. However, I think our judge is gonna prefer mine. So, I think we’re using big, bold, Guy Fieri flavors. I need to wash my hands cause I put raw beef on it. Go away! I said no paparazzi at my birthday. Spread some mayonnaise on the top. We’re also just gonna put some pickles on there. That’s gonna be good. Should flip these hamburgers. There we go, that’s a beautiful sear. Not an ostentatious amount of crust. I’m actually gonna kind of shut off the heat. We’re gonna put on two slices of white American cheese. Just let that melt. We’re gonna stack the burgers on top of each other. Yeah, we’re, we’re getting schwifty here. Oh, how is a judge gonna think about the $4 7-Eleven burger? No one’s like going to 7-Eleven, getting a burger and being like, yum, can’t wait for this. There’s food at 7-Eleven that is delicious. The hamburger, it just certainly ain’t one of them. We’re gonna put some of that tomato bacon jam. This turned out incredible. I think they’re gonna taste that and they’re gonna go like, kind of tastes not, not great. That’s what they’re gonna say. And then we’re gonna stack those fried onions on the bottom. So, we’re gonna take those greasy hamburger patties and that is going to sit on this bed of onions and it’s almost gonna like hydrate these fried onions right here, which I think is gonna be really freaking good. I should have made a simpler burger. I have regrets now. All right, burger patties are cooked. That’s perfect. Should I do it? Should I just put it on? Put it on! Put it on! Alright, cool. Awesome. I’m gonna take a couple pickles. Pickle. Pickle. Pickle. Pickle, pickle, pickle. I made a hamburger. There we have it. We got my best attempt at a delightful homemade hamburger to see if it can compete with the most expensive burger in Los Angeles and see if our judge can taste the difference between this, the cheapest, and the most expensive. Gwynedd from sporked.com and also an episode of Jeopardy! and you won that episode? I absolutely did not, but thank you for asking. Do you understand what your task is today? I understand that you’re going to be feeding me three burgers while I’m wearing this blindfold. I am going to tell you how good they are and whether I think that they are. The cheapest burger in L.A., the most expensive burger in L.A., or Josh’s special homemade burger. Okay. And we got the first burger coming up, and you might be asking, surely I could have fed myself. Nah, I don’t want you to be fooled by the texture. Okay, wait, gentle, gentle. Okay. It’s kind of rubbery, a little bit. It tastes like it doesn’t have a lot on it. It’s, are these just all plain burgers on buns? No, they are certainly not, but I’ll give you a little hint. Okay. That one is, no secrets, you’re missing there. Okay. So this is a little dry. I’m gonna have to take a minute to chew and swallow it. Yeah, yeah. Hey, someone throw, hey, throw me the Gatorade bottle. Okay. Do you want like a, a squirt of water in the mouth? I don’t know, I don’t trust myself. Can’t do it. Hand it to me. Okay. What’s the, it’s a. Is it a sporty? It’s like, yeah, yeah, it’s like how the athletes have it on footballs. Is it open? Yes. Okay. That helped a lot, thank you. Okay. Okay, good, I did it. Gwynedd, are you ready for burger number two? Yeah, I think so. Beautiful. Okay, this one’s a little bigger. If I had to estimate, I’d say, like, three and a half. I’m gonna kind of smash it down, like, a little bit. This one, I have to, okay, kind of just wedge it. Oh, whoa. Kind of just wedge it in there. Oh, my God. Okay. This is a very different experience from the last burger that I just ate. It has so much flavor. It has like flavors I can’t even identify. Wow, are you ready for burger number three? Nope. Alright, this, also you’re having a good time? This seems fun. Yeah, I am actually. This is how I’m gonna eat every meal from now on. My desk is close to yours, I can make, I can sway it during lunch. Thank you. I’m getting, like, the, the burger itself is like, maybe a little more cooked than I would personally prefer it to be. Gwynedd, do you think you can give each of these burgers a score out of ten? Yes. Burger number one, I’m going to give a three out of ten. I’d say that’s even generous. Okay, I know, I was like, I’m like, so, I don’t want to be rude. And burger number two? Burger number two, I’m giving a ten. Holy smokes, burger number three? A nine point, nine. I always did a point. I always like a, I always do points. A nine. Do you wanna do point? If that’s a nine, if that’s a 9.9 burger, that’s a 9.9 burger. A 9.5 Burger. Gwynedd, which burger do you think is the most expensive burger in Los Angeles? I think it’s going to be burger number three. Gwynedd, please remove your blindfold. You are absolutely correct. Burger number three. This is $37 and that’s before tax and tip. It also comes with fries but the tax and tip’s like a $50 burger at the end of the day. This is my homemade burger. You are tasting a bacon tomato jam and then a little bit of jalapeño donkey sauce on there. Just a little fried onion string to sop up the burger fat. And then this is from 7-Eleven, you gotta microwave it. Oh, my God, it really is. Yeah, so the texture thing, I mean this is hard. This is like almost solid on the bottom. Yeah, definitely. Listen, to get the meat cooked through you really gotta nuke that bun. Oh, no. Oh, no. I’m absolutely flattered though, this means so much to me. This is like 70/30 commodity ground beef, nothing special on there, just a little bit of chefy tricks. A 10 out of 10 burger. It’s absolutely incredible. So, you scored this burger a 9.9, you scored this burger a 10, but you can still identify that as the most expensive burger. Why is that? I also, I gave this a 9.5 9.5, sorry. To be clear. I feel like I’m familiar with like the sauce that’s on it It reminds me a little bit of there’s another place in L.A. called Fought My Father’s Office that has a burger kind of like this and has a very similar sauce and that is like a notoriously expensive burger, this tastes like an expensive restaurant burger to me and this tasted like something wholly special. I’m beaming right now, man. I’m not coming down from this high. It’s also the janky energy drink that I drank, it had a skull on it. What kind? I don’t know, but I’m gonna start doing jiu-jitsu now. Damn, I better watch out. Gwynedd, thank you so much for stopping by Mythical Kitchen and for giving your expert opinions. Check her out over at sporked.com Like we all say in Mythical Kitchen, keep cooking or don’t. It’s so good. See you next time. Slap some sauce on your burgers. Go to sporked.com for their best burger sauce ranking.