This episode was filmed at the beginning of the year,

before we began social distancing, due to COVID-19.

- And, while we're currently practicing social distancing,

we wanted to share these great restaurants with you,

even though dinning out is not the same right now.

We're in Houston, Texas!

- We're doing breakfast sandwiches!

- The classic breakfast sandwich...

- Right

- What does that look like?

It looks like breakfast in a sandwich,

eaten for breakfast.

- I'm thinking, like, muffin, egg...

- [Steven] Mm

- [Andrew] Some cheese?

- [Steve] Have to have cheese.

- [Andrew] Maybe a ham or bacon...

- [Steven] Yes.

- But what if, breakfast didn't have the halves

of the sandwich closed?

- [Steven] What if it was on a donut?

- [Andrew] What if there were no eggs on it whatsoever?

Is that a breakfast sandwich?

We're gonna be finding out today, on Worth it!

♪ Is it worth it? ♪

♪ Make it worth it ♪

♪ Make it worth it, worth it. ♪

♪ Worth it! ♪

- Today on Worth It, we're gonna be trying

three different breakfast sandwiches

at three drastically different price points

to find out which one is the most worth it at its price.

Oh, and just wanna say off the top,

thank you to Toyota for making this season possible.

Okay, Andrew...

- Like I hinted at earlier,

the breakfast sandwiches this trip

are going to challenge your convention

of what a breakfast sandwich is.

- I always like the episodes where Andrew goes rogue.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- Andrew goes rogue, Andrew goes food theory mode.

Where are we going first?

- We're going to see Andrew and his mother Nga,

at Cali Sandwich to try their banh mi,

because banh mi, from what I understand,

is eaten at all times of day in Vietnam,

as well as breakfast.

(guitar music playing)

- Can you tell us a little bit about Cali Sandwiches.

- Oh, we started in 1993, yeah, that time we only

sold sandwich only.

We sell about 700 bread a day.

- [Andrew] Your previous restaurant sold

700 sandwiches a day?

- [Nga] Yeah, yeah.

- [Andrew] So you still only make sandwiches,

what do you guys sell now?

- We have pho, we have egg rolls, uh, spring rolls,

we, we have branched out, so stir fried food.

- Cause Cali Sandwiches, in Houston,

is one of many Vietnamese restaurants,

what is it that makes your food, you know,

a little different, a little special?

- [Nga] We make fresh everyday, we make everything here,

we get here eight o' clock, you know,

and then we start, you know, cook everything fresh,

by the second day, they're not fresh no more.

They say that's gonna be too much work,

I say, "I don't want people who, you know,

eat one time, and they say 'bye, bye'."

The meat some places, they buy already cut,

but we don't want it like that.

- [Andrew] Yeah, you guys are

very well known around town.

Like everybody I've asked who says

"where should you go for banh mi?"

Everybody says " Cali Sandwich"

- Really?

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- Thank you.

- Oh, I didn't know that.

(laughs)

- [Andrew] Yeah!

- [Steven, Owner] So once they grill the meat,

they cut off all the chars,

she doesn't wanna put too much char

cause it's not really good for you.

- [Steven, Host] But then why do you char it?

- [Steven, Owner] So you get the flavor, smoke it.

- [Nga] You put on oven, it not fry good.

- [Andrew] Our video is about breakfast sandwiches,

I actually learned recently that Vietnam,

people eat banh mi first thing in the morning.

- [Nga] This morning, I walk in,

I was so hungry, and I had the half sandwich

with the thin pork, oh my, it made me so good, yeah.

- [Andrew] So that was your breakfast today.

- [Nga] Yeah.

- [Steven, Host] How do you spare your

breakfast sandwich though, it's a,

it's a sandwich you could eat kinda on the go?

- [Andrew] You guys offer a lot of different versions

of the banh mi, which ones should we try today?

- [Nga] Uh, combo and the grilled pork.

- [Steven, Host] Uh, how much is the banh mi?

- Banh mi is, uh, $3.69.

- What?

(laughs)

(cash register ding)

- Wow, thank you.

- [Andrew] Thank you so much.

- Cheers!

- Cheers, Steven.

- Mm.

- We got their Thai iced tea that they make in house.

- Good morning, Andrew!

- Good morning!

- Good morning.

- Good morning, sandwich!

- Good morning, sandwich.

- We got a grilled pork, and we have a combo.

So why don't we have half of each,

start with the grilled pork.

- [Steven] Lets do it.

It is a lot lighter than I thought it was gonna be.

- [Andrew] Yeah.

- Cheers.

(crunch)

- Mm!

- It's the perfect sandwich, regardless of the time of day.

- That was really fresh.

You know the first thing I want in the morning

is to feel refreshed.

You get up, you wash your face, brush your teeth.

- Yeah, it's like looking in the mirror and...

(smacking noise)

Slap on your face.

- Yes.

- That's what having a jalapeno for breakfast is like.

- Hey, I got you, I got you.

(paper crinkling)

- Okay, I gotta wipe that down now.

- We're moving on to the combo.

- Woo!

- Oh.

- Wait a sec, wait what's in here again?

- Pate, pork roll, steamed barbecue pork.

- Steamed barbecue pork.

- [Andrew] And ham.

- [Steven] That's a labor of love right there.

(cash register ding)

Cheers.

(crunch)

The jalapeno.

- Yeah...

- Woo.

- This one's a little spicy.

You know what's interesting about jalapeno,

in a otherwise not spicy thing?

A jalapeno... (slurps)

makes you salivate more after your bite,

therefore making you want even more sandwich.

Oh! (slurps) Salivating,

I want some pate, rich pate, cool it off.

You eat that, but hey, there's a bite of jalapeno

still in there, circle of sandwich life.

- Couldn't have said it better myself.

(silent crunch)

Breakfast sandwich fact time!

Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo!

According to historian Heather Arndt-Anderson,

the breakfast sandwich has its origins in

early 19th-century London when factory workers

desired a quick and convenient breakfast

on their way to work.

The soft roll used for the sandwiches was called a "bap."

It's both a sad and a happy thing.

- Why sad?

- Sad because it was like "oh, no we don't have

time to eat breakfast anymore so lets just

package it in a way, so we can get to work faster.

- But a delicious thing was born.

- Yes.

- Okay, so our next breakfast sandwich,

we're going to see Mark and Drew at Squable,

where we're going to be having their

donut breakfast sandwich.

Of all the sandwiches we're gonna be having in this episode

this one definitely contains

the most breakfasty items, you know?

- All right, let's go to Squable, I, uh,

I do respect the name, great name, Squable.

(chill music playing)

- Could you just give us a description

of what kind of restaurant Squable is.

- A rustic, European restaurant,

with American influences, which gives us like

liberty to kind of play with cuisines,

like French cuisine, Italian cuisine.

- So you guys are co...

- [Together] Co-chef partners.

- Do you have different focuses here?

- I mean, I'm very much focused on the bread.

So I'm, you know, responsible for the donuts.

Mark is more responsible for the savory part of the menu.

- The mustaches, was that before you guys met or like...

(laughs)

Once you decided to start a restaurant together?

You were like, "this is the look".

- The last time we did a photo shoot, uh,

we said "next time let's do it with mustaches."

- [Andrew] So, bread and pastry is really intertwined

throughout this whole menu, right?

- [Drew] Definitely, we have these specific bread section,

but it finds its way in to like, pretty much half the menu.

- And, so with this breakfast sandwich

that we're having today,

can you talk about how that ties in together?

- [Mark] In a roundabout way,

the sandwich is like a croque madame,

but a little bit more playful.

- [Steven] And then, why use a donut?

- [Drew] So, we serve donuts for dessert,

as well, for dinner.

- [Mark] A big part of this restaurant is

making sure we utilize everything, as much as possible,

I don't like wasting anything.

And we were like "Well, what would be kind of interesting

to do and use the donut in more than one way?"

- [Drew] Generally, the ones that we use for brunch

come from the service before.

- [Mark] We more or less need like a stale donut

to be able to build a sandwich out of.

We tried doing it with like a fresh donut

it would be too hard to eat.

The sandwich is layered with a ham and cheese,

so we use country ham, with Gruyere.

You have a mornay sauce, which has a little bit mustard,

Gruyere cheese, Raclette cheese,

and there's a little bit of Parmesan milk in there,

from cheese rinds that we use.

And it was like "croque madame, put like an egg on top"

And I was like "that's gonna look really messy"

So we just started to like separate the two.

We confit egg yolks,

basically putting egg yolks in olive oil.

We use the egg whites in the sandwich

and then putting the egg yolk on top

because everyone wants to see that,

so we just kinda made it to where it's the star.

And then take the top part of the donut

and dip it in the maple reduction.