Nick DiGiovanni - I Ate The World's Best Sandwich

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Watch to the end to see me try the #1 sandwich in the world!

This is the number one rated sandwich in the entire world, and we're going to compare it to this fried chicken sandwich people wait three hours in line for, this award-winning burger that's limited to just 12 per day and everything in between. And we're starting in Japan to try a Wagyu-Katsu sando, one of the most famous sandwiches in the entire world with my friend Bayashi.

Hi! Nick's son choose meat. They make their Wagyu-Katsu sandoes out of all four different types of meat, but we get to choose which one we want. This is Ozaki beef live eye, Ultra Wagyu dry age, Kobe beef dry age, and then last, Ozaki beef tenderloi. All four look so incredibly delicious. This one is looking good, beautiful.

Yes, let's go. Okay, let's go. Come to the kitchen. I cannot wait to see what the cross-section of this Wagyu looks like. Wow, beautiful. That is amazing. Another slice.

He's now cutting the piece that we're going to use in the Wagyu Katsu Sando. I am so hungry right now. You'll see he's gonna do this with precision. The first thing he's doing is cutting off the rib-eye cap. Hey, it's a good shape. The last step here to prepping the meat is to cut it down into a nice square shape. Because you'll see at the end with this Wagyu-Catsur-Sando that it's going to be a nice, perfect shape.

The Wagyu is ready. These are our portions of meats. Okay, next, Japanese eggs. Wait, what? That's how you crack eggs? I don't know how I feel about that. Oh my gosh, look at the yolk. That is the most vibrant egg yolk I've ever seen in my life. What an amazing, amazing color. He's going to make sure this gets an even light dusting of flour so that the egg can stick to that flour.

Then into the egg and finally into the homemade breadcrumbs. The fact that they're putting in that extra effort to make their own breadcrumbs is one of the reasons you could argue this is the best Wagyu Katsu sando in the world. Okay, now you're prying. And these are not gonna fry for long. I'm so hungry. It looks so perfect. It's time.

Okay? So crispy. We've got the perfectly crispy Wagyu Katsu, you've got this beautifully toasted white bread and of course their secret sauce. A homemade katsu sauce. A lot of vegetable, a lot of spice. So much flavor. And then bread. Last step, trimming the side.

It's common with the Wagyu Katsu Sando to clean up the edges like this. Here's a preview of what that wagyu looks like inside. Is it okay to give my cameraman a taste? Okay, let's go. Try. Thank you, Nick. I'll get back to work.

He's cutting it into four cubes so he can share Bayashi. I love how you're plating this. That's so cool. Done? No doubt. Final step. The gold. Oh.

It's a say! That was so much gold. Kampai. Al-pie. Mmm. Wow. I don't know that there's anything that can make that better. Amazing.

I want to do one quick test to see if somehow my Osmo steak seasoning can make this taste better. Will you try? Yes. Just a tiny sprinkle, not too much. Wow. Good? Very tasty. Very good.

More. You want more? Yes, please. Oh, that's good. That's really good. If you ever need it, you can buy it online or in stores at Walmart. I think it's the best seasoning in the world, but does it make the Katsu Sando any better? Better.

Amazing. Thank you. Actually, do you think this is the best Wagu Katsu Sando in the world? Yes. Let's go see if our next sandwich can somehow beat this. Next up is a French dip sandwich made with thin sliced roast beef and a hot beef broth on the side for dipping. And for this sandwich, I brought along my friend Sean.

Hey, what's going on guys? Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Welcome to my restaurant. Hey, let's do it. Just for quick context here, Hank also makes cooking videos online. One of your most popular videos ever was your French dip sandwich.

Yeah, that's very true. And now you've literally made a restaurant that has possibly the most famous French dip in the world right now. Talk us through it. We start with the baguably the most important part of any sandwich. This is Frenchette baguette, crusty and crunchy and rustic,

but they're also, yeah, even they smell nice. Question is, do they smell as good as Sean? I haven't sniffed Sean yet today. So we cut them in half. I'd imagine you need like an architecturally sound structure. Yeah. Right. Especially for a dip. Right. You want a bread that's got the basis

to be able to still be kind of crunchy and chewy after you've dipped it. It's not just a soggy mess. Every morning this gets delivered fresh, and we cut them all in half that same day, and we sell out of them that same day. First thing, you get your bread, nice horseradish aoli.

What's great is it looks like the perfect consistency. I love that you can also see the chives in there. It gives a nice pop of color, it just shows a little bit more effort. What happens next? Next step is caramelized onions. Each onion, we reduce enough to where each sandwich has two onions.

I think what I realize is the more caramelized an onion is, the better it is. Caramelized onions could be like, I just put onions in a little. pan with butter for two seconds. Or they could be like, I spent three days waiting for these onions to caramelize. They're easily the most deeply caramelized onions I've ever seen.

This is the most marbled meat you can get in America. It's rated by the USDA. It's like the top 1% most prime of prime rips. And we cover it in compound butter. Compound butter's got sage time, oregano garlic, and rosemary. And it's softened and rubbed all over the prime rib. Throw it in the oven, roast it,

and then it goes on the deli slicer, and we shave it really, really thin. Now you get a little au jude bite. Oh, thank you. Okay, here we go. In your mouth now. Yum. Good work, Sean.

You want me to do one for you? There you go. Oh. Is that nice? Tell us how you feel. Instantly tired. Like in a dream state almost. Yeah.

I love that. I'm floating in the kitchen. This liquid that you just dipped are beautiful bites there in. This is the au jus. That's the au jus. It reduces all day while we're cooking sandwiches. And now it's kind of at like its perfect state.

So you all understand this broth here is basically the second half of the sandwich. French dip. So now more of the au jus goes in here, and this is staying nice and hot over the grill. You're going to use this to heat up the meat again. This is genius. So you dump the meat in the pasta baskets right here. I love this system. Yeah, but you don't want to overcook it. So this only goes in for like maybe a second. So you kind of let that drip. Boom. You don't want to make the bread soggy. The mega caramelized onions that we showed you guys before, We just spoon those all over the top. Oh, yeah.

So much flavor in these onions, and they're cooked down so much that I see no reason to not just pile them on completely. Then all they need from there is cheese. So provolone cheese. You could have gone Swiss, right? I'm actually a fan of provolone over Swiss. I'm with you.

Swiss tastes like plastic, so I said it. Nick, you are so brave. I got no problems with Swiss. I don't have beep with suhuis. I just like provolone a little tiny bit more. No, you have beef with provolone. Oh. In the oven we go.

Boom. This is a convection oven. We do like 24 sandwiches at a time in here. Pranking out constantly. Sandwiches are now coming out. The cheese you can see makes it a little blanket. It protects all the other ingredients from falling out. These just go right on the cutting board. Look at the cheese. I mean it's still nice and cheesy obviously that's that provolone. We cut it in half. Get a nice cross-section. That's kind of a money shot. Look at that. Just a big beefy sandwich really is what it is. Let's show this guy too. I mean look at the cheese on that thing.

Plate like this. Usually we kind of like spread the fries around. Those aren't even really fries. That's like potato sticks. We cut them real thin. They're like potato sticks. People comment on that, but I'm sticking with it. I love these.

They stay crunchy forever. They're delicious. They're nice and seasoned. Oh my gosh. Right? They're incredible. Listen to the sound. There's a real crunch.

Last step, we fill this cup up with au jus. And you keep the aujou in this giant hot tea container. Yeah, it's a nice tea like cooler, but it's perfect for. It keeps it hot all day. Sean, I thought we'd share. Lucky me. I have to say, it smells so amazing. It looks so good.

We both played a hand in making these things. I've been dying for this moment. Oh, you're looking backwards. I'm going backwards. This man's crazy. Here it is. I'll follow you right behind. I'm going to dip backwards as well.

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There's so much love. each step of this. For me, it's a bite that makes me want to close my eyes and just sort of think about it. And just take it all in. Without focusing on anything else happening around. Stop talking. Me?

Because I'm trying to do the same thing, all right? I'm trying to bask in this over here. Nick, just, you're on the search for the best sandwich? Yeah. This is up there. This is one of the best sandwiches I've ever had in my life. That's great. I knew it would bang and it bangs.

I know we agreed on sharing, but if you don't mind, I'm just gonna finish this myself. Next up, we've got a fried chicken sandwich from the number one ranked fried chicken restaurant in all of North America, and I brought along my good friend Uncle Roger. We're gonna see how they make that chicken sandwich here before we eat. This here is their dredging station.

They're making so much fried chicken here that they're dredging it in basically a giant flour bathtub and they're able to keep it so incredibly clean because they have an automatic flour sifter that keeps that flour nice and smooth and perfect all day long. The way they dredge their chicken here is in a dry dredge, then a wet dredge, then back into a dry dredge before they fry. Notice how he's actually pressing the flour

into the chicken here. That's a really good way to make sure everything sticks and that you don't lose that dredge when you go to cook. Is there anything top secret? You can't show us. Oh, there's every single step. There's something top secret that I'm not gonna show you guys. But Uncle Roger looking for it.

You can look for it all you want. Now we deep fried chicken. Fui-oh, this is the best part. You can smell it. It's like a big hot chicken bubble bath and they have six of them in here. This is vegetarian people. Worst nightmare.

Uncle Roger usually eat like Japanese-style chicken cutsu. So Uncle Roger is excited to try how it's different. How do you know when it's done? We have a timer for it. In addition to that, we'll also temp every single piece too, just to make sure. You can tell this guy the head chef, because he got the most tattoo,

that the dress coat here. Mmm. Wow. So we get the finished product out of the fire. We dip it in our oil blend. After that, we put our dry seasoning on it, and then it's ready to go. This is going to be the medium spice level. This is going to be the most popular.

Which spice level are you going to go for? Cause the spiciest one. Don't be scared. Nephew Nick. We do hot ones together, remember? That is true. We did do hot ones together, and I believe I might have won. So for the spices, we are going to need a waiver for you.

We do have Habanero Ghost Pepper, Carolina Reaper, and Scorpion, Trinidad. We turned that all into a pace for you. Once you get to that Scoville level of above 2 million, you can start to hallucinate a little bit, which is the fun part. They're trying to kill me. The chicken, some coleslaw, and pickle. And wrap it up nice and tight, and here we go. Weyo.

You ready? Cheers, cheers. Cheers. Waiver. What? For the spices, we are gonna need a waiver for you. Uncle Roger not gonna sue you. I don't need waiver.

Ayah. I agree that I am eating the Howlin Plus heat level. And my own risk and certified that Howlin Race Hot Chicken will not be held responsible for any injury damage or lot of earnings cost during all after eating the Haolin Plus level. Fooyo, food is here. We did the medium sandwich here and I've got the Howlin Plus. It's black.

That's not even a golden brown fried chicken sandwich anymore. It looks so evil. Visually right away, I have to say this is a beautiful fried chicken sandwich. Uncle Roger excited to try this. Okay. Hmm. Oh, that secret spice blend really good? It is packed with flavor.

Have you dipped in the ranch, too? Mm. Wow. You meet it. Is it bad? Uncle Roger feel like I can free fire right now? Editor, put some Wii FX on that. Woo!

I have to drink the ranch to quench. The chicken cooked perfect. Yeah. Juicy tender. If Uncle Roger had to give this. a rating, what would he give it? Nine out of ten. You're going nine out of ten. Uncle Roger's a strict critic, too.

I know better than anybody out there how harsh of a critic Uncle Roger could be. You've critiqued my fried rice, my Vietnamese fur, my Thai green curry. You've critiqued pretty much everything you possibly can about me. So when you give a place like this in nine of ten, how do you think that makes me feel? The only point missing, Uncle Roger wish it a little bit crisper. They rubbed so much sauce on the outside of the fried chicken itself that by the time you sit to eat it, I do wish it was a tiny bit crisper, but it holds a lot more crisp than I would have thought it would hold. It's fatty, it's flavorful, it's crispy. It's so well-seasoned that I almost

feel like it's pushing the line of almost having too much seasoning. What? There's no such thing, nephew Nick. That I say you have too much money. Go get your next sandwich. It's time for a pinini at Italy's most famous sandwich shop. And I'm sure most of you guys know who Arak is. Hey guys. Everything here starts with the bread. Have you ever seen bread being made? Never in my life. This is called proofed bread. Check this out. Look at that. Oh my gosh, bro. It's full of air. Bro, it's moving. So we're gonna flower it up here.

All right. Watch this part. This is the best part. Bloop. Whoa. You go through a lot of these every day or? Got it. So he looks like he's stretching this bad boy out right now. Exactly.

We do want to get a little bit of the air bubbles out so it's not too tall. You're ultimately looking to land a beautiful, rectangular fecacha, just like these ones on this rack here. This is, how many sandwiches you think this is? It feels like maybe him and I didn't get off on the right foot. So the next step for him once he wants. once he's pressed it all out is to cut it into these perfect six rectangles, which he's then going to move over to this tray here, and he's going to stretch more.

People don't realize sometimes that something as simple as a sandwich takes this much time and effort. And this is just the bread. The only sandwiches I've ever had are made from Subway, so this is really a treat for me. We got some sprinkling of salt. Better hope that's awesome on my right. He's like scopting the bread right now. You can see he's even trimming off the sides to give those nice sharp edges. As a finishing touch, he's putting some olive oil on there. And then if you move on over here, they're all going to go straight into the

this giant oven and just for your reference Eric this oven probably cost more than your car what okay so he just slides them in like pizza yeah it's basically like throwing a pizza into an oven in the time it would take me to make one peanut butter and jelly he's making like 50 sandwiches after all the baking these should be beautifully golden brown bubbly perfect ficcacha rectangles there's a reason we just spent so much time watching the bread making at this sandwich shop look at how perfect this is look at the fluffiness and the airiness on the inside of this ficcacha that's good stuff now with our bread We can go to make some sandwiches.

Hi there. Hello, hello. People are very upset outside that they can't eat sandwiches. Oh my gosh, bro. There are people at the door, they're mad. They look like very upset Italians, actually. Yeah, they do. Wait, you gotta get shots of this.

Let's make a bunch of sandwiches. Let's do it. Fresh bread in the oven. You got the bread? Three minutes is gonna be nice and steamy, yeah. When you say steamy, you mean really steamy. Really steamy. What do you mean by really steamy?

We put a decent amount of olive oil on it, so it's nice and shiny. And are you ready for the steam? Here we go. Oh! Bada come a fuma! Dude! I'm so hungry right now.

Yeah. This looks amazing. Look at this. A little facial. As you can see, there are all different kinds of ingredients here. There's no single sandwich here that they get those two and three hour lines for. People love everything, so let's just make a bunch, yeah? Yeah, I'm down.

So look at this, Eric. They measure out all the meat that they put on their sandwiches down to the gram to make sure that every sandwich is exactly the same. It's sliced so incredibly thin to like this perfect amount that you can, can bite through it in the sandwich easily. So good. We put Strachino cheese first. Okay. Strakina is a mild cow milk cheese, truffle.

Then we put the capocolo on it. Capacolo. A little freshness with the arugula and a good amount of Italian olive oil. More olive oil. That's the third olive oil spray. That's crazy. Look at that.

Dude, that's beautiful. It's actually beautiful. The most popular sandwich that we have is La Paradiso, which starts with mortadella. Mortabella. Amazing. Nope. Cut it nice and thin.

I can almost see the camera through this. It's translucent, bro. It's so thinly sliced. That's the pistachio cream right there. Whoa. That is my favorite ingredient in this entire place. It's like peanut butter, but with pistachios. Dude, look what she's doing.

I never thought about making sandwiches as an art form until today. The attention to detail is crazy. This hits on all five tastes. So you've got salty with the bread and the meats. You've got bitter with the arugula. You've got umami with the truffle. And then that cheese has a nice mix of sweet and sour. This is the perfect well-rounded sandwich.

Could this inspire you to go home and make something other than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? No. Cheers. Mmm. Oh my gosh. I wasn't prepared for that. You want to switch? Yeah, you want a bite?

Yeah. Bro. Yeah. Slightly better than Subway. 100% verified the best sandwich I've ever had. Let's go to our next sandwich place. It's time for a barbecue brisket sandwich at one of the most famous barbecue joints in all of Texas. I've also brought along my friend Q,

because queue, barbecue, you get it? The first thing I see is lots of giant crates of wood. Is that where the barbecue brisket sandwich basically starts? Yeah, Posto definitely gives the color and the flavor. What kind of flavor does the brisket get from this wood? Something like cinnamon, like you can smell it. It actually, the meat will absorb it, but you don't want to overdo it.

You want to be able to taste the meat, but this type of wood is perfect for it. All of this wood that we're seeing right here is for just one week. One week. We got our wood. Now what? This is the pith house.

We got three here, the stew in the back. It's hot. It's getting hot. So now I'm going to set up the fire. You make a nice little bit. So is that too long ways and two cross? I always like to cook with the bark facing up. That cooks a whole entire pit.

Each of these used to be 1,000 gallon propane tanks. They converted them into smokers. Ooh. Brisket on brisket. No way, there's more. We also got some beef ribs here. That is nuts. Oh, man, those beef ribs.

I have never seen this much brisket in my life. Let's close them down. Oh, it's hard. They're heavy. We've got to build that muscle. Dang. Look at this. He's working out all day long.

Every day, baby. Yeah. Bulletproof. The biggest thing that I notice here is that underneath the brisket, there's no fire. It's crazy. The fire's all the way over there. It's pushing smoke all the way through.

Just air flow. Cooking these brisket. Right now, I'm going to wrap this brisket and show you how we do it. That's a finished brisket. That's a finished brisket. Look at that. It is time to wrap. You spread pretty good.

We add some tallow. To make sure at the bark, it sticks kind of juicy chew. Look at that. Nuts. Now we wrap this really good, nice and tight. See, see? Like a baby. My brisket baby.

Gotta be gentle with it. So once we wrap them, we'll put them back. And we'll let it finish off. It takes another maybe two hours, depending on the sizes. So it's going to get even more juicy. It's going to get juicy. It's all going to be tender. Yeah.

The smell is just, I can't get over the smell. Now we're going into the restaurant. The doors just opened up. There was already a line out there this morning. and it's only 10, 18 a.m. You've seen lines that take a whole day. Almost a whole day, yes. Wow.

Yeah. So this is the moment of truth right here. This is a finished brisket, and he's gonna cut into it. So this is the perfect brisket. The layers of fat on the brisket on the decal, you can actually see them, they're there. He's got to cut up the lean part of the brisket because the other side of it is just full of juice.

It would soak the whole sandwich. I like that the bun is a potato bun. That's my favorite kind of bun for a burger or any kind of sandwich. First layer, sweet and tangy barbecue sauce. Pickles and then some sliced onions there. there. Brisket smacked on top. Nick, are we sharing this? No, we'll get our own. We'll get our own. It's time to have what many call the best barbecue brisket sandwich in the world. It looks like it. The craziest part is not only did they give us our barbecue brisket sandwich, but they also said we couldn't come to Texas without having a giant meat platter with sides.

It's insane. I'm going to cover mine with some homemade barbecue sauce. I'm feeling like a real Texan right now, Q, I'll be honest. Cheers. Oh my gosh. We don't even have to say anything. I know. I mean, hit me over the head with this giant. Beef, Rub, and wake me up. This is just not real. This is not real. If I was really going crazy, I'd open up my sandwich and add a little mac and cheese, creamed corn, a little more sauce,

and maybe even some potato salad. And then I would have something even more supreme. What do you call this? I don't even know. If cooked right, brisket should almost work like an accordion. So when I can pull this brisket apart, just like this, that's when you know you're dealing with the world's best brisket. Look at that.

My gosh. It falls apart like butter. This is a 10 out of 10 sandwich. 100%. I might call you barbecue from now on. Call me barbecue. Let's move on for some Bonme, the most famous sandwich in all of Vietnam.

And I've also brought along my friend Max because he loves Bon Me. And I am starving. So this is Stupolvalli. It's like traditional this in Vietnam. This is my mom recipe. We make it with fish sauce and coconut water, and then we cook overnight.

So most people are eating this kind of pork with rice, Vietnamese culture. Yes. But you found out that it tastes even better on a Bonnese sandwich. It looks so tender. Just going in with chopsticks here. Just look at that pork belly.

Just the perfect proportion of fat to meet with the skin over the top. Wow. Impossibly tender. So much flavor to it. Smells amazing. I'm just going to wait until I get the sandwich to try it first. Nick, I don't know if you should wait.

I have patience, Max. That makes one of us. The cool thing they do here is they don't serve the pork in the big pieces like Max just ate. Because it's so incredibly fall apart tender, they're mashing it up to break it up into those nice, smaller bite-sized pieces and make it really, really soft when you eat the sandwich.

It's not just the meat, they're incorporating all those flavorful brazen liquids as well. It's got your approval, Max. I could eat this by the spoonful. You gotta tell us about that bread. It looks so good. This is like a homemade bread. In Vietnamese, we call Bainme.

That texture. The first thing I notice here is that it's extremely light, and I feel like you're gonna get that crispy outside and then that soft, fluffy inside. Just look how delicate it is. In Vietnam, people used to eat this Bambay because it's very light, and also you can put a lot

a meat inside. When you eat it, it doesn't feel like it's heavy. I think the main key is liver paté. We make it with the pot-frette, pork river, and chicken liver. So basically, this paté is part of the sauce for the sandwich. Is that right? Exactly. What else goes into it? We'll put this homemade mayo. Look at the color. It's so vibrant. That does not look like store-bought mayo. I would eat a spoonful of that right now. And look at all those fresh toppings. I mean, the chives, hand-slice cucumbers. Check out the pickled radishes. Those look so good. That is also some of the freshest looking cilantro, which also happens to be one of my favorite things of all time. This is juicy Vietnamese minced pork.

You go one side, I'll go there. Wow. It's a little sweet. Almost has like a tacky exterior. I told myself I wasn't going to eat anything and wait for the sandwich, but that is... What's happening over here? This is a cute chicken. This is for another sandwich.

It's for a different sandwich, so Max, we don't get to eat this one. The best part besides eating it is building the sandwich. So we cut the bread first? Using scissors? Never seen that before. And then the next step is we're going in with that paté that we saw earlier. And now going in with the homemade mayo, still can't get over that color. I already love the fact that there are sauces on either side of the sandwich.

That's very, very important in the sandwich. I think what I love most is that they mixed up all that pork earlier to mix the juice and the meat together. Because normally you actually lose so much juice off of that meat. If we remember that big piece that you held up, all that juice kind of falls off. When you mix it into the meat, suddenly you've got this really juicy bite. My mouth is watering. This is the most excited I've been for a sandwich, I think, in my entire life. So afterward, we put some fried salad.

Fried shallots. And then chicken floss. Chicken floss. The best way I could describe chicken floss to all of you watching is chicken in cotton candy form. Frazy texture. This is Vietnamese herb. It's called Lhasa. Now we're adding the stewed pork belly.

Oh. The main event. It looks so juicy. I think this is going to change. the way I think about it on me. Yep. And as if you thought there couldn't be more flavor, now we're putting on some spring onion oil.

This is the crispy pork skin. Crispy pork on top for texture. Try how crunchy it is. After the Bami bake, we will put some veggie. 14 or 15 things go into the one sandwich. That's mind-blowing. So after we toast it, we'll put some chili. Are those chili spicy?

For you, it's spicy, but for me, it's nothing. Now cucumber, spring onion. Pickled radishes. And last but not least, a ton of of cilantro. I hope not too many of you watching this video taste soap when you taste cilantro or you're gonna be very upset by what just happened there. I'm very curious to see what the cross-section of this thing looks like. Look at all the layers. This is one of the most colorful beautiful sandwiches I've seen in a long time. It looks like a masterpiece. The texture when you crunch it Did you hear that? Yes. It's time for a bite. This is crazy. There's so much variety. This is my first bite of what I feel like is a true masterpiece of a bonding. It's just a different level. I usually don't love pattees, like

livers or anything like that, but it really adds this creaminess and this depth of flavor that combined with everything else just takes it over the top. It is a little messy. I hate using the word best because I use it a lot around you. I'm like, that's the best barbecue I've had. That's the best this. It's because I always bring you to all the good places. Right now, in this moment, this is the best sandwich I've ever had. Next up is a shaved cheese sandwich, which are very popular in Paris. And this is my friend Charles who says this This is the best sandwich in all of France. I'm sure you're gonna love it.

It's not too covered. It's good. We'll see it's very typical. You can pick different kind of cheese. You can try the cheese before. It's very special because they toast the sandwich. So I hope it's gonna be the best. Go.

Let's go, the bogus. The first thing that happens when you walk in here is they have two different cheeses sitting out and they're gonna let us taste both cheeses. And then you pick which one you want on your sandwich. I'm gonna ask him if I can mix the cheese. because that really upsets French people. They don't like that.

Can I, maybe I'll mix the cheese, yeah? No. Okay, so this is the first cheese. I think you try the Conte first. The Conte is a little bit like a Swiss. And then the other one? The second cheese is a little bit saltier, a little bit more flavor to me.

I like the second cheese better. So this is Conte. Oh yeah, he's got to get some too. Thanks. Even though he owns the place, he still needs to try and make sure he likes it. Which one you like? I think because you choose this one,

I choose the first one. The other one? May I please do everything and then the second cheese and then I'll go for smoke Spanish beef for the meat. And for me, I will have the ham, typical French, content cheese and salad, onion, tomato. All right, here's the best part right here. Oh, look at that. That is insane to watch. So much cheese too. Half of the entire sandwich is filled with cheese.

A lot of meat too. Lots of meat, yeah, that looks great. Ah, how does that all fit between two slices of bread? I don't get it. It's so massive. I imagine the cheese melted after it's toast. This is so much fun to watch. All right.

Oh, super heavy. It's heavy. I'm going to give this one the award right now before tasting of the heaviest sandwich of the video. Oh. Just look at that. Oh my gosh. Look at the cheese.

It's a mess in the best way possible. Yeah. Whose do you think looks better? I have a hard time being able to tell because I just don't know. Cheers. Mmm. Mmm.

The bread is crispy but soft. Honestly, just by looking at this one bite that I'm about to have next, you can tell how much flavor is packed into this sandwich. I think this is the perfect bite. I'm cheese, the bread. The best way to describe to you how much I like this sandwich here is maybe to put on some nice French music and we'll just sit here. Everybody loves the sandwiches, even the pigeons.

Take care because it's a little bit juicy. Yeah, it's really juicy. Oh no. Yeah. A lot of juice. Not on my new pants. I like yours better. A lot better.

Am and Conte, it's the best way for me as a French to do a sandwich. The caramelized onions, the ham, the cheese. Why don't you finish the sandwiches? I've got another sandwich to go try. For our pastromy sandwich, we're headed to Katz's Deli in New York City. And I brought my friend Kuzh because he's been here before and he knows what he's doing. What makes this so special? Because it's been here for a gazillion years.

Got it. And you walk in and you get a ticket. Okay. Do not lose this ticket. Major problems you lose it. What happened? $50 if you lose. Plus your meal, yes.

Plus your meal, salute. Put it right here. This place is so cool. This place is so unique. You'll see every celebrity on the wall. And for a New York City establishment, this is like a huge piece of property. This is the most famous New York City restaurant in the world. Hey, how are you?

We are here for the pastrami sandwich. That's what you're here for. That's it. That's it. I've never seen anything like this in a restaurant. There's wood chips all over the floor so that it soaks up all the grease and and the fat and you don't slip everywhere. Look at all the wood chips.

It's like a sandbox. Nick, eat it. No, not eating it. So how do we do the pastrami sandwich? But we gotta go get the pastrami. All right, we're gonna follow you. So it goes from cooking in there to this steamer right here.

And then you bring it over to your station and cut it. That is unreal how juicy that thing looks. Look at it glistening. This is one thing people love about Katz's as well is that it's all hand cut. Oh yeah, there's a little trick. You come here, you give them a tip in the jar, and then they give you a nice little slice

of Pesramas as well. as you wait. The bigger the tip, the bigger the pastrami. How big of a tip are you gonna give him, Kush? That's $20,000, that's nice, no? You really are, like a Picasso with the knife. Like... I got it, man. I've been doing this for 21 years. How many pounds of Peshrami you think you cut up?

Me by myself, I don't know, but we go through anywhere from 40 to 45,000 a week. 40 to 45,000 pounds of Bishrami a week. This is the best Pesrammer in the planet. Oh, hold on a second. I feel like he's still in my move here. Katz really invented the knife, throw. Nick just, you know, might have took it.

You didn't do it with the knife though. I do this every day, I don't, I don't miss. I don't even have to look at the board. See that? Got the rye bread? Maybe one of the most perfect slices of bread I've ever seen. So you gotta use your hand as a measurement, that way you can cut the meat.

It goes right there. We usually put some mustard on it. And there it is. That is the pastrami sandwich in all its glory. That's the classic one, just mustard pastrami and rye bread. That's it. I'm not going classic today though, because I wanna try it covered in melted cheese.

I don't know why people wouldn't want it with cheese. You guys are crazy for not one. No, no, no, you gotta go traditional, cause. That looks insane. And what do we do, Swiss cheese, no? Swiss cheese. He's cutting up some pickles. Ah, so you guys are all done.

I'm going to treat some for strawberry today. The best way to do this, sit in the corner, back turn to everybody, and you can just munge, and nobody can look at you, and you could just devour. Where's a soda? Soda. Soda? Soda is a giant wall of sodas here. He recommended we try one of the Dr. Brown's Black Cherry Soda,

so I'm gonna get one for Kuzh as well. So basically, you got to crack open to Dr. Brown. That's just to prepare yourself. You look at the pickle, you're not going to eat that yet. You want to attack the cheese. I want to attack the O.G. Look at that sandwich and tell me why I wouldn't go for this one first. You got to be kidding me.

A little sip of Dr. Brown. I'm going to need a doctor after this one. Dr. Brown is truly the move here. You never had a Dr. Brown soda? It looks like Nick's not coming up for air. So we're looking at a fantastic sandwich. He's having a moment right now. I'm having a life-altering experience right now.

Since he's having that with the cheese, I'm gonna try the cheese. Let's see if I can change your mind. Look at the amount of bark on this one. The black char on the edge is called bark there. That's extra, extra flavor. The cheese does add an extra flare to it. That is phenomenal.

That is... I couldn't bite it off. Great pickle. I get it. I understand what's going on here. I love it. It's very clear to me that you need cheese on the patrami sandwich.

Cheese is good, but it just feels wrong, you know? It doesn't. It's like a moral compass with me. I'll show you a slice of pastrami here and how beautifully it tears apart so easily. I'm gonna be honest, I think I lost my ticket. You got cash on you? I'm sure you could bribe the door, man.

Next up is Vada Pao, India's deep-fried spice potato sandwich. And I've also brought along my friend Vic from the sidemen to help me eat. Let's go get it. Here we go. Oh, it's a push. This is raw. We both wore blue as well to match the hairnets.

How do we look? Ready to cook? I should explain. This is a spice potato fritter, so it's deep fried, and then it comes with all these different chutneys on it for different pops of flavor. What we're looking at here is a mix of potato flour and water. It almost looks a little bit like pancake powder.

So we got some masala, we got some chili powder. This is gonna give it that punch when you taste it. Because the potato on its own, it's not enough flavor, right? We need more. And if you're feeling really brave, you get involved in the spicy mix. No one knows what it is. I just know it's spicy.

No spicy mix, Nick? No for me. Why would you... Wow. You can spell the spice. That is, uh, I see why that's not in the food. What are we doing here? Let's just go in there.

So that will make you cry. That steam right there is dangerous. This now is gonna go on the side of the sandwich. It's time to assemble. Start with the potato, then we have potato batter, which gets fried in here, and those go in the buns with the chutney, easy. They use these nice soft, pretty classic white bread buns

for the sandwiches here. We're gonna cover the entire bun on every single side with butter. This is gonna make the buns crispy on the inside for some extra crunch. And then down with that green chutney, and then the sweet chutney on top. The sweet chutney has dates, mango, sugar cane, cumin, bit of chili, all the good things.

All the good stuff. And the last thing he's sprinkling on there is a spaced coconut. And in goes the fritter. The buns are served with a fried chili, which we may or may not eat. There it is. It looks amazing.

Yes. It's warm and it's also dense. Like you see this bun, you're like, this is going to be light. No, this has got some weight to it. Cheers. Well. Wow.

Two. That was true. Seriously good. I'm a big fan of this. Think of mashed potatoes with some really nice spice in there. And then it's crispy fried in the outside. And then you've got a hot, buttery bun with a few different sauces that all balance each other out really, really well.

And sometimes fried food tastes really heavy, especially when it's fried twice. This is so light and easy to bite through. I don't know how they've done that. I understand the hype. I do get it now. I really wish we could try these, but I think we are having some camera problem,

some technical difficulties. Yeah, actually, you've seen the time. You have to go as well. I have to get it. Okay, so yeah. We'll just fix the camera and go to our next sandwich place. Our next stop is for a burger that's been rated the number one burger in the entire world.

And this is my friend Patrick. He loves burgers. No-i- Yeah, yeah, you're right. So this is our homage to the classic Tavern burger, but our version leans towards Japanese flavors. This burger specifically, too, it's A5 Wagyu. It's not very traditional.

How many burgers do you make a day? 12 a day. That's it. No more. It allows us to offer something unique and then pivot to the rest of the main. They open at 4 o'clock and in 8 minutes, they've already sold out. And I've been told the record time is one minute.

This is some beef tallow. We want a really crusty my yard on the outside to complement the soft interior. This is Escheray French butter. Your butter basing your burger patty. Correct. Look at the butter on that thing. These buns are baked fresh daily for us.

The reason we steam it is just for a few seconds to reintroduce that squishy bun warm feeling. But then we clearly toast the outside so there's a layer of crunch too. I told you this is a Japanese-influenced burger. Parmesan is not a Japanese ingredient. But what makes it Japanese is that it inherently contains umami because of the cheese's aging process.

This goes in the steamer for one second, keeps everything still crispy, all the texture is still there. This is Bichitaan Aoli that we make from smoking oil with Beechatan, Japanese white oak. We infuse the aoli with that smoke and then toss that with cured napa cabbage to give it kind of like a special sauce quality. This is fermented Shoshito pepper.

We make kind of like a paste with it, and this kind of mimics. like the raw onion quality that you would get in a burger. We're just kind of brushing the bun with a little bit more of the rendered fat from the Waggio just to keep some shine, mouth feel, and just complement all the textures. And then on goes the patty with the cheese, of course.

And there it is. 12 a day. There you have it. Sipping guzzle burger. It's a beautiful, beautiful looking burger. Again, I think paying respect to what a tavern burger is was the big responsibility. Right. So we wanted to stay true to what people enjoy about it.

Just getting the ratios right. There is absolutely. Absolutely no question in my mind that this is the most perfect burger I've ever seen. Just look at it. It's shining beautifully. This is the first time I've ever stared down a burger and felt bad that I was about to bite into it. I just want to frame this and put it on my wall. Oh my. Oh yeah.

I can't say anything. It just melted in my mouth. The name burger isn't right for this. It's not. It's not right. It's not right. Even the sesame seed detail on here. I love it.

They're perfectly all spaced out on the top bun so you get an even amount of sesame seeds. Everything is so well balanced. The cheese isn't too cheesy. The fermented shishito peppers worked so well with all the other ingredients. This is honestly... Nick! I'm leaving. Let's go to our next spot.

We'll move on to a submarine sandwich, more commonly known as an Italian sub. And I've also brought along my friend Marquez to help me review the sandwich. I'm ready. They're famous for their homemade mozzarella, so they make all the mozzarella by hand in here. Have you ever seen homemade mozzarella? Never seen it.

Perfect timing, because I have to make a batch right now, so come this way. All right? I've never been to a sandwich shop where anybody makes their own mozzarella. their own mozzarella. We're doing the right thing. This is the cheese curd. Correct. All right, so you're pressing it to separate all the cheese

curd into like thin layers first. This is probably not how you thought cheese was made though. Honestly, I don't think I even had a preconceived notion. You could literally do anything with this and I believe you. Now we're gonna bring it together. So corral it, okay? Your job. You're all of it.

She's naturally coming together. Yeah. They wanna blend together. Oh, look at that. Starting to look cheesy now. I'm coming up with the stick, right? Yeah. I'm stretching a little bit with my hands.

Okay. All right. So now we're gonna stretch a little bit with my hands. one final time. Sweet. That's awesome. Look at that thing. Not only do you just make mozzarella, but you're actually going to braid the mozzarella. Correct. We always made braids. Why? I don't know. That was way before my time. Looks good. That's super cool. You're talking going back to the 1930s and... Wow, you're quick with it, huh? And right into the cold water or what? Cold water, yes, because we want to stop the cooking. There it is, the finish mozzarella.

Now this is the finished product that you would see in the window. You'd have it on the plate. You'd have it on the sandwich. This is it. That's the freshest you could possibly imagine. Oh yeah, it doesn't get fresher than that. Salty on the outside, milky, soft, chewy on the inside. It's delicious. This is gonna ruin all future sandwiches for me. Where does this go now? To make a sandwich.

To make a sandwich. All right, the Italian combo is two meats. Brutitaine, Super side. They both go very well together. The other one? Super side. Super side. Like Superman, but Super side. So it looks like you slice all the meat here to order.

Correct. Yes. And this is the mozzarella we just made. Yes, fresh from Marcus and Nick's hands. And you put Monterelle on every single sandwich that you make here, correct? Pretty much so. But if you don't like them, what's it up,

we have other cheeses. Yeah, it makes sense. But this is almost a given. So in this one, we'll do the roasted peppers here. Cool. Hot peppers. Hot peppers on the other side to mix it up. Love it.

Oil and vinegar. Oh, that looks so good. Gentlemen, cut it in a half. This week you guys share. Ready? Mm-hmm. Diving in. Hmm.

Mm. Usually, when the food's really good, I find that most people are pretty quiet. I just feel like already from the very beginning when I saw them making the fresh I knew that the sandwich would be really good because of that. When you make the cheese, the floor is really high, and this is really good. Have you told me that this should be my lunch every day for the next year?

I wouldn't be upset. No notes. Our next sandwich is Gordon Ramsey's Idiot Sandwich, named after the viral meme that I'm sure you've probably seen. So I'm here in London with my friend AJ to try it out. Hopefully Gordon's here. We start by taking a nice sesame bun. We slice the band in a house. Why did you pick me for Idiot Sandwich?

I got, you could have picked anyone, you know? So we're just in the buns in our wood oven just to get that nice kind of caramelization on it. Yeah, yeah. Is it hot? Bro, look at my eyes. You want to see the sand there instead? He's toasting the buns so that they can hold up when you put all the juicy meat on there and it doesn't fall apart.

This is science. It's nice and toasted and golden brown. So next we're gonna take our beautiful braced brisket. We're just going to cut a few slices to go inside our sandwich. Chef, do you mind if we let AJ maybe take one slice to test his knife skills? You want me to do it how I do at home? Because I think people are going to hate me. Absolutely.

I would have done it like this. Exactly. Okay. That's not working. Yeah. Oh, there you go. It's basically the same, right? And suddenly we need a new brisket. Next, we'll position our brisket on a tray

some of the bracing liquid of the brisket. Oh, oh. Yeah. Look at that. So the brisket's going to soak back up all that juice, all that flavor when it goes into the oven now. My mind has been blown. We're putting our brisket inside the jospat to reheat it.

So he gets all the smoke from the nice charcoal. Yeah, chef, yep. Close it. You might want to close it. Yeah. This jospher can get up to five to master this grill, you know, it takes quite a few years. This is so hot, AJ, you can see all the smoke coming through the top here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you doing? Oh! Nice and bubbly, look at that. Chef, what you done there is absolutely incredible. So we start with our base. We go with our barbecue sauce on the bottom, some of our homemade pebbles. We take our meat right in the center.

Wow. That we spoon some of those nice juices. Oh, chef, don't do it to them. Never go wrong with extra juicing. I love that. Couple more pickles on top. Oh. make crispy shallots be more barbecue on top okay you can't forget that come on and then all we're

gonna do is plate it and eat it let's go oh oh that's a beautiful thing right there chef you ready to eat i'm ready if i've ever seen a sandwich that looks like an idiot it's this one right here i like that they use a wood-fired pizza oven there's flavor from that and then they have this amazing charcoal grill so there's more flavor there and that's on top of all the other ingredients in this sandwich right here how do we even attack this we need these for sure we definitely need that you're right a lot soft than i thought it would be wow That's really good. Mix it in with the little fries?

Ah, oh. Oh, what happened? Wow. Oh. It just hit me. When I try something nice, it takes me away. Okay, okay, I took you right off the chair. I was about to run to the chef right now.

Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, go for it. Chef, chef, come closer, come closer. That was an excellent sandwich. Thank you so much. Glad you enjoy, Mike. Glad you enjoy.

I also like the attention of detail. I like that they have a sheet of paper that says idiot all over it, you know? Yeah, and we have a, ever gonna discuss the reason why you chose me because... Why I brought you for this one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it was pure chance.

You live in the UK. Yeah? You're a cool guy. Yeah. You like food. You're an idiot. This is a great sandwich, and if anyone watching, I'm not an idiot. I'm just, it was coincidence.

For our bagel sandwich, we're going somewhere special that actually makes their bagels homemade. And I brought my good buddy, Dr. Mike. Who's ready to eat some bagels? I've never seen an oven this size, first of all. We use so many seeds for our bagels. We have our own seed silos. Oh my god, God forbid a bird gets in here.

Look at these mixers! Oh, on any given day, Russ and daughters, we're making around 5,000 bagels. And we do everything, the traditional old school way. We start with really good quality flour. Then you go in with the malt syrup, lots of lots of sugar, and then that yeast, which remember is alive, and then tons of salt.

The water gets weighed and temperature controlled. These bagels were made yesterday, but they're gonna go into today's batch, because the activity in this yeast is gonna bring out the flavor, the texture, the aroma. It just looks so weird. It looks like this is not what you would do. You're right.

And it doesn't look like it's all going to come together, but trust me, it does. And now water. And the perfect pH, because it's New York water. So that bagel dough gets shaped into these long, even logs. That log now gets fed into this top section right here. This is basically a bagel shaper machine, correct? Exactly.

Oh wow, bagel shaping. Pasta extruder, but for bagels. Turning the big log into tinier little logs. And then they spin around this tube here, basically. And they come through the tube into here, and they're in the shape of bagels. Bagel skill at the top tier level. All those bagels, once they come out,

are going to go onto this rack right here. This now goes into what's called the proofing room. Like the sauna for bagels. It's very hot and wet in here. It's moist. Yeah. I feel the moisture. I feel the bagels enjoy.

While the bagels are in here, the heat is going to activate the yeast and cause the bagel dough to rise. Look at all the racks of bagels though. I haven't seen this many bagels before. If you look up close to the bagels now, they've formed their first layer of outer skin,

which is what eventually gives us a nice crust. Now we're finally going to the hot tub. It's like a bagel spot. The bagels are boiling and notice that the water is dark. Yeah. That's because there's malt in the water as well. The malt here is gonna give the bagel that nice caramel color. Once they've been boiled,

they're going to go quickly into this giant oven that we saw. earlier. And 15 minutes later, they're done. Look at those. Look at that consistency. They're beautiful! Now for the best part, choosing which flavor bagel we should use for our sandwich. I'm going to go sesame because I love sesame. This is the most exciting part. You've got to choose what goes inside your bagel. You got a lot of cream cheese choices here. Yes, everything has to be the right proportion because all the flavors have to come together. If you've ever had salmon on your bagel, which I love, it's already pre-cut, but here they cut it fresh. We slice everything by hand. It's a craft. It looks easy, but it's not. It takes months

to learn how to do this. You can see on here if you look at the right angle, every little individual knife cut that you've made. We like to say that a perfect slice is one where you can read the newspaper through it. This is the icing on the cake here. Look at how beautiful and silky smooth that salmon looks. You just know it's gonna be a good bite.

If I'm trying to be a little bit fancy, I like to put a few salmon eggs on mine. Do you mind if I do capers as well? Yeah. Look at that. Wow. I don't think I've been this hungry in a long, long time. Here we go.

Mmm. Oh yeah. Easily freshest bakel I've ever happened. Wow. By far. I mean, this is a real taste of New York. This is incredible. Let's go try our next sandwich.

For our final sandwich, I'm here in Paris, France, at La Porte Vandeaume to try the number one rated sandwich in the entire world. And I've got my old camera guy, Manny, to eat with me. What's up, guys? Just waiting for the bread. It will arrive about five minutes.

This feels like very classic friends. The manager is calling the bakery, because he doesn't have his baguettes yet, so he can't make any sandwiches without bread. The bread is coming, guys. Fresh? It's fresh, yeah, every day. I mean, look how much bread there is, too.

He's got bread in the front of the car. The whole passenger seat is bread. It's overflowing with bread. Oh my god. What? That's so much. This is the bread in a rental van. We're just dragging it along the sidewalk.

Okay, thank you. We got a lot of bread. That was the most exciting delivery of anything I've ever seen. The most amazing thing about the sandwich is it's the simplest sandwich in this entire video. You literally just have faget, butter, and ham. That's it. Listen?

Yeah. Crispy to make a jaumboe. You need good bread, good butter, and good ham. It's very easy. Bread, butter, generous, from the top. You need to report. Slices, okay? After you can add pickles, cheese, but I prefer like this.

Classic water. That's it. Yes. For me, yes. Let's eat it. Let's go. Oh yeah. That was really good.

Oh my god, you're big. That is how good the sandwich is. sandwiches. He's taking a big piece too. He's eating a lot of my ham. I'm not even gonna stop him because I respect that he knows it's good. This is dangerous. Oh God. He still had the piece. He's crazy. He's fine with a piece of hand. I mean, it doesn't get much better than this. Loaded up with butter, fresh baguette. We're in freaking Paris. I mean, I agree. Despite how simple this is, it's a sandwich that makes you want to keep eating. Mani, do you think this deserves the title of the best sandwich in the world? I don't know. Why don't you ask to be?