Frozen vs. Fast vs. Fancy Food Taste Test

Today, we're trying your favorite dishes at various price points. Let's talk about that. Good Mythical Morning. And welcome to the season 24 finale! What? Already? So fast. What? And hey, even though this is technically the last episode of this season, we are still gonna be right here next week and the week after that with brand new episodes, including a look back at the best moments of 2023 and some all new marathons. That's what we're doing over the next two weeks. And then we're gonna be back with season 25. Oh, really? We're gonna keep going? Yes, we're gonna keep going, baby. And that'll be Monday through Friday, starting on January 8th, 2024. Yes, but I would like to take this opportunity to address a mistake that I made the last time we did a Naked Foods episode. When we tried Chase's favorite dishes around LA, I said there were only two things I love, eating delicious food and accidentally stabbing you. Yeah. Suffice it to say, my family wasn't too happy with me when I got home, so to set the record straight, there are three things that I love, eating delicious food, stabbing Link, and of course, you, our lovely loyal fan base of Mythical Beasts. Okay, good job. And I agree. So we put out a call asking for your favorite foods and now it's time to see what your tastes taste like. It's time for Naked Foods Mythical Beasts edition. Naked. Today, you'll be tasting some favorite dishes submitted by the Mythical Beasts at low, mid, high, and fancy price levels. Each round, you'll pick your favorite and by the end, we'll see how expensive your Mythical Beasts taste is. And up first, this is country fried steak. Oh, this is country fried steak? Look how naked it is. This is a favorite of Ashley, Cal, Ty, Ava, Bobby, Lorena, Lexus, Lucas, and Mikayla, but only Mikayla claimed that country fried steak is my absolute favorite thing on Earth. Look at that, we're giving y'all shout outs. This is a smaller one, looks crunchy on the edge. A good test of a country fried steak is can you fork it? You don't need to have a knife. It's not, well, it's not done well if you ain't a knife. You know what I mean? Well, it might be done too well if you need a knife. That's some thick gravy. Now, it's still got gravy even though it's naked because it's part of the dish. It's pretty good, that first one. I didn't think it was gonna be that good, but I think it's probably like Hungry Man or something like real cheap, but it tastes good. It is decent, but I don't think it's great. Now, this gravy has like. Stuff in it. What is that? It's a piece of ham. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna scrape even more of the gravy onto my bite. It's got a very meaty taste because of that ham that's inside the gravy. I'm now realizing that the first one was breaded and then like kept for a while. It's just probably been frozen. This is a lot more meaty. I love the gravy, but something about the. It tastes a little different than what I'm expecting. The steak is just not awesome. This is super breaded. And it's tall. Got a lot of breading on it. I love the look of it. This is what you would get if you asked somebody in North Carolina to make you a country fried steak at home. Very homemade feeling. Lots of. Lots of oil in there. Lots of country, crunchy fried oil. Hmm, that's good though. Now, this one, it looks like a fish. It's got a tail on it. Yeah, it's a fish, Link. I mean, it does have a. I think the way that they've like pounded the meat and then the gravy's got a lot of. Rosemary. Green specks on it. It's rosemary? Very, very strong on the rosemary tip. Woo! This is probably the fancy one. It's so rosemary-y. If I was blindfolded, I'd be like, wow. Can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm going all the way back to this weird one. It's not weird. Hmm. That's an interesting. It tastes more like country fried steak than a lot of them. I know. The breading is very peppery. And I don't know when the meat stops and the breading starts. That's what you want. Three, two, one. I'm doing it. I'm going with, you know, I think it's probably the cheapest frozen thing, but. I think this is the best representation of a homemade. This is good, too, though. Country fried steak. I'm gonna eat more of it. Stevie, what did we do? Link, you've chosen the cheapest frozen thing. I don't even care. It's not bad. Our low price point. The brand is Fast Fixin' from the grocery store. And it's $1.80 per serving. Wow. Hey, Fast Fixin' does a good job. Michaela, note it. Note it. And then, Rhett, you've chosen our mid price point option, House of Pies for $14.95. Class of Pies. That's good House of Pies. Second one in is the fancy option from DuPars for $34.95. Nope. And then, finally, our high price point from Millie's for $18.99. Too much rosemary. I actually did not dislike this one. Yeah, this is better, but not as good as this. But that one's the best one. But this one, this is the story of the moment. Story of the moment. $1.80? Fast Fixin's, the story of the moment. These are soup dumplings, and they are a favorite of Amanda, Deanne, Eden, Jessica, Lauren, Vivian, Allison, Carol, Cleo, Eliza, Emily, Julia, Christine, Madison, Marilyn. Those are all women. You don't know that. I don't know that. Morgan. And Ben, who said eloquently, It good. So, we're not using a chopstick? I've been told that there's not all the same ingredients in each one of these, so don't let that throw you. Judge each one on its own merit. It good. It is good. It just got a little shrimpy. I think it's shrimp and crab in that one. I like the twisted dumpling nature. These are a bit flattened. I don't know if they've been stored in a stack, but I think so. I like these even better. More soup. A little tough, but actually the first ones, both of these were pretty tough. Well, if you don't eat a dumpling right off of the line, you might have a hard time. This one looks like it could be a little jellyfish. Don't say that. Don't mess it up for me. But it's not a jellyfish. It actually looks like a hat that a jellyfish would wear. A little jellyfish hat. I feel like we're stepping up. Now we're in a great place. You're exactly right. Each time we're stepping up. This was good. This was gooder. This is almost great. I would say those two were tied in my mind. All right, now these are meatballs. Yeah, what is going on here? What is going on here? Marinara is what's going on. What in the world? What a weird choice. I can't even tell you what the, I mean, it's not that it's bad. It's just, it's weird. Is it deep fried? And there's just cheese in it. What is this? Oh, you know what I think it might be? Isn't it a soup dumpling? Those grilled cheese soup dumplings. It's almost like something that the kitchen made for us one time. Like from Trader Joe's? I mean, it's a fabulous thing, but it's not. You realize what it is. It gets really good, but it's not in the right category. Okay. Three, two, one. Whabam! You know it. We agree. Not even close. These are good, and I think I know what it is. What is it? Din Tai Fung. Oh no, you guys kind of crapped on Din Tai Fung. That was the first plate. What? See, that's why I knew they were good, but what's happened is they dried up a little. That was our high option for $19, and it was crab and pork. They're great. The ones that you picked, however, are our mid-price point option, Mason's. I've never been to Mason's. It's in Highland Park. Mason's. Yeah. It's just pork. It's all brick. For $13.95. So gotta try Mason's. So I don't have to wait in that long-ass Din Tai Fung line to get some good dumplings? I guess not. There's good dumplings all over town, man. Of course, the second ones are our low-price point option from Trader Joe's, and it's chicken. I can't believe you said those were as good as Din Tai Fung. Well, I think- They dried up. I think it's also the ingredients, too. You know, it's like, having different ingredients throws your mouth off a little bit. And the Trader Joe's ones are good. I'll accept it. And then finally, I thought that you were gonna recognize these because we experienced them together, although the form factor is different than I recall because this is the fancy place, Beauty in Essex, grilled cheese and tomato soup for $25. I knew I'd had those in a place that was so beautiful and sexy. And the sauce, the sauce is in a- Beauty in Exus. Exus. It's the tomato soup. It's a tomato soup. And you dip it and put it in there. It doesn't come on. It is very, very good, but it just feels like it's coming from a different place. I'm ashamed of us. This is butter chicken. Ooh, yeah. This was so many people's favorite that we can't even name them all, but Anna did make sure to tell us that, quote, any butter chicken is just gonna rock my world. I know you love some butter chicken, Rhett. I do. I didn't even know it existed until I went to that restaurant up at Big Bar, the Himalayan restaurant. Without rice, it's interesting, you know? That's a great sauce. Chicken is just the chicken. Not too much to comment on. You got some big pieces of chicken here, Link. Heads up. It's very creamy. I'm trying to cut the chicken with my spoon. I'm gonna just cut the chicken with my whole mouth. Oh, shoot. Could've been worse. Good Lord. That is amazingly good. That is really good. Wow. That sauce has got that cream going on. And I can tell that the chicken is like, that's like a big old piece of chicken thigh. It's so real. Oh my gosh. This is so much better than the first one. Why don't you just dump it out? Just show us how much you love it. Now, this one is redder, smaller, and sadder. This has got came in a plastic bag written all over it. More aromatic. It's not bad at all. It's just not what it needs to be. We got like a tandoori thing going on. Yeah, you see how the blackened pieces? We'll move this over here. Like it was grilled and then just put into the butter chicken sauce. So I'm interested in this. Yeah. Tandoori. Dory went to the beach. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, got a base tan. I don't know, man. This one is just next level. The chicken is great, but the sauce. Oh man. Wherever this is. This is what makes butter chicken better than chicken tikka masala. This is what I've been looking for. It's what they've done with this. I need to start going to this place. All right. I mean, listen, we're not. Three, two, one. Good gosh. Well, you've both chosen our fancy option from Spice-A-Fair for $32.95. Spice-A-Fair. And you know, we've been experimenting with our fancy pants situation. And we thought today we could do a little fancy pants France. So there's a little costuming for y'all. And I don't know, just like. Thank you. Just do something French. Ha ha. Rhett? Oh no, I gotta come back from the basement. Man, so dark down there. So this costs $40. I would pay $100 for this. Well, $33. But yeah, it's pretty pricey. The first bowl is our mid price point from Indymex Eats for $15. The third bowl in is our low price point grocery store brand, Saffron Road for $4.99. And then the last is our high price point, Star of India for $17.95. They do it a little bit different. I wouldn't starve India in ways that I didn't expect, but this is a real deal right here. Oh my goodness. This is birthday cake. And it is a favorite of Jamie, Valentine, Hal, and Kyle. Okay, Link, this is not gonna be easy. So grab that tray. I'm gonna, so I'm gonna keep these cakes intact because I want the crew to be able to enjoy them. I'm going to try to get a full slice. Okay. Of each one that we can share because we're buddies. This is a fitting way to wrap up season 24 with a celebratory cake, the death of a season. It's a birthday cake. There you go. I did it. Nice. Okay, all right. And let me. I'm an icing guy. Let me get a, good gracious, you're not even, there's not even any cake in your bite. Oh, there's like chocolate chips in some. Oh, that's good icing. Oh, it's good icing. And the icing in the middle is, I think that's chocolate chip cookie dough. It's freaking a layer of cookie dough. Oh, no. This might make me like. If you don't like that, then you don't like life, man. I love it. It's not gonna get better than that. I don't know, this one looks amazing. This one's gonna be a little bit easier. When a cake's that white, I get a little scared. I can't. There you go. It looks like wedding cake. Okay. It's so light. Okay, kind of loser. Oh, it is very light icing. Very spongy cake. It's a loser. Nothing to write home about. I hate it. Now, how are you gonna get into this thing? Into that one? Link. From the top, maybe down to the bottom. If my two cuts so far have not impressed you enough, you wait until I get hold of this next cake. This birthday cake over here. But I might have to stand up. Going for the purple. You gotta approach a cake with confidence. A lot of people are too dainty when it comes to just getting into a cake. You gotta just do it. You never stop. You never stop the movements. You just keep going and you just. Raise it up, raise it up. Grunt, grunt, grunt. Oh, you're coming out, not up. Ooh, Lordy. What did you do, dude? I don't even know. I tried to help you. All right, there it is. You gonna take some of that big icing ball there? I am. It's okay. The cake itself is really good. The icing is just. Normal. Boring. This is incredible. I don't know how they did that. Okay. Well, they put a whole layer of cookie dough in the middle, so it's like everything else is just a win. Now, Link. That last one. But maybe this one's gonna. It's just from the grocery store, so let's just dig in. I mean, what? This one could be amazing. Don't judge a cake by its cover. That takes me back. That's like something my mama would have gotten. Don't throw your mama under the bus. It's good. I think it's better than this one. I think it might be. Which is better than that one. This first one, though. Hallelujah. Three, two, one. Oh, sorry. We wanna let the crew enjoy that, you know? That was sort of the idea. Where am I gonna put this? Anywhere but right on top of another cake. Yeah, okay. You have both chosen our fancy option from Buttercake Shop for $125. Worth every penny. Be right back. What are you doing? It's over, dude. I came back with a hook. What, were you gonna beat me with that stick or something? Yeah. The second one in is our. I blew up a balloon and it took me away. I don't know if. Oh, that's sweet. Mid price point option from Gold Star Bakery for $25. The next is our high price point option from Sweet E Bakes for $59. And finally, our low price point option from Whole Foods for $15.99. It's a good cake. Not bad, whole. Now today, the lowest possible total combined was $26.27 and the highest was $217.90. Rhett, your Perfect Mythical Beast meal total was $186.85. Okay. And Link, yours was $173.70. Wow. Pretty pricey. We started off really low and then we revealed our true fancy tastes. Yeah. Thanks for your amazing dishes. Thanks for an amazing season 24 and thanks for an amazing year. We couldn't do this without you. So thank you for making us a part of your daily routine. Be sure to come back here on Monday for our first Best of 2023 episodes. Thanks for subscribing and clicking that bell. You know what time it is. Hey, I'm Heather and I'm going into work here at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where we thank you for being your mythical best. Now it's time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality. Love it. Love what you do. We love St. Jude. Thank you for your work for kids. Click the top link to watch us match crew members to their Roman empires in Good Mythical More. And to find out where the Wheel of Mythicality is gonna land. Thanks so much for another wonderful season. We cannot wait to start doing it again on January 8th for season 25.