at the beginning of this year,

prior to when COVID had us pause production,

due to it being COVID.

(laughing)

- So, we weren't able to finish the episode

the way that we normally do.

So you'll notice scenes like this, filmed in the Highlander.

We're practicing social distancing.

- Quesadilla.

Are you excited for quesadillas?

- I am excited for quesadillas.

I think quesadillas are an all time great food.

- Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Before you get into your disposition

on quesadillas' greatness.

♪ Is it worth it ♪

(upbeat music)

♪ Make it worth it ♪

♪ Make it worth it ♪

♪ Worth it, worth it ♪

- Today on "Worth It",

we're going to be trying three quesadillas

at three drastically different price points

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

So, Andrew, when you hear the word quesadilla,

what happens in your brain?

- Melty cheese in my mouth, unrelenting deliciousness.

- Very poignant.

Unrelenting deliciousness.

I don't know what other foods fall in that category.

Where's our first stop?

- We're going to Tacos 1986.

Joy and Victor are gonna show us

their quesadilla Otto Bata.

Spoiler alert, it's on a corn tortilla,

which I've never had before.

(upbeat music)

- Tacos 1986, what kind of taco shop are you guys?

- We're a Tijuana-based tacoria.

I think we're representing Carne Asada and Adobada

from Tijuana.

Every tacoria down there has those two tacos.

- Where does 1986 come from?

- That was the year we were born.

I moved here about 10 years ago.

I was missing that style of taco, that style of execution.

And that's pretty much what sparked the whole thing.

- My dream is to see five, 10 year olds

eating our quesadillas and being like;

This is authentic, this is real a quesadilla.

- You said a real quesadilla.

I think I know what a quesadilla is, but I probably don't.

- My brother, have you had our quesadilla?

- I have not.

- I'm about to change your life.

It all starts in the handmade tortilla.

We got the finest tortilla lady, Leticia.

We'll start off with that.

- We completely stay away from drizzling cheese on top.

We like to melt the cheese first on the griddle,

so it's nice and crispy.

Then we slap the tortilla on top,

and then we flip it over.

You have a nice layer of crispy cheese.

- And the marinade?

- In the Northern region of Mexico,

we call it Adobada.

Down south, it's known as Al Pastor.

It's a rub that is used in the streets of Tijuana

to kind of preserve meat

that we make with chilies, garlic.

We put strawberries in ours.

- [Victor] Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Wow.

- [Joy] My goal was to make the most delicious one ever.

I think we accomplished.

- I think so.

(laughing)

- People walk in here all the time and they're like;

Is this the Al Pastor?

I'll get an Al Pastor.

And we're like, yeah, it's basically the same concept.

It's just a different flavor.

In our house, a taco is a handmade tortilla

with your choice of protein,

which can be beef, chicken, mushroom, or pork.

You want cheese on your taco?

That's a quesadilla.

- [Victor] It's not a taco anymore.

- [Joy] So we get that a lot.

And they all come with onion, cilantro, salsa, guacamole,

unless you specify otherwise.

(ringing)

- Two quesadillas right here.

- Thank you so much.

- Please enjoy.

- Cheers.

(upbeat jazz music)

- Oh, my God, whoa.

- Not what I expected at all.

I mean, I guess I've been eating

quesadillas wrong my entire life.

- I for sure have.

- I think my expectation was

I'm gonna bite and just taste a layer of oozing cheese.

- [Andrew] Right.

- However, in this quesadilla, it's oozing meat.

- Pork is so delicious.

It's very rich and meaty.

- Smoky.

- With the cheese and everything else.

And the tortilla is just the right subtleness,

but togetherness.

- Right.

- To hold all this together.

- Wow, you ate yours very quickly.

- I think we should get more.

- Really?

Yeah, let's do it.

What is the perfect order here?

- [Joy] Taco, and a quesadilla,

- And then a mulita,

and then a secret item that you don't know of yet.

- [Andrew] What?

- It's a flour quesadilla.

- [Victor] Flour tortilla with melted cheese,

a choice of meat.

My preference is a cardio Sada.

I want everything on it.

I used to love to walk on Molly salsa.

We top it up with a little bit of beans.

- [Andrew] Beans.

(laughing)

- Okay. - Okay.

- Beans, baby!

Fairs.

- Hmm.

- Call it, call it, game over.

- First of all, that meat is delicious.

- Yes. - Second of all,

this whole thing is smacking.

I don't know how else to say it.

This is just all the slapping that's happened today.

- It actually tastes luxurious.

- Yeah. - With the beans.

- Should we eat more?

- What?

- We went from quesadilla to the secret menu.

I say we go back to the beginning just to have some tacos.

- Keep it going.

- The heavens are now bathing my taco in life.

Hm, bury me here.

- Andrew Nicki, 1990 to 1986.

(laughing)

- So "Tacos 1986" was amazing.

- And I appreciate his level of care to those details,

even to plating it in such a unique way.

- It feels like a mic drop,

but it's like a mic drop for every time you serve a dish.

- Quesadilla fact!

I'm just yelling in my bedroom right now.

In Mexico city, it is not uncommon for cheese

to be just an optional

ingredient for a quesadilla, what?

- Cheese optional, how does that?

But it's named after cheese, what?

- You know what it reminds me of?

It reminds me of like those protein style

burgers at "In and Out".

Bun optional.

For those who don't know,

can you explain that to people?

Protein style is when they

give you the burger patty in a lettuce wrap,

but really a burger is kind of defined by the bond.

This is wild. All right.

So next up is an old friend of ours and yes,

I'll call him a friend.

We're going to go see Roy Choy at "Cookie Tuckeria",

to eat their kimchi quesadilla.

- So you might recall we did a takeout episode where we

visited the Kogi truck. And in that episode,

Adam actually ate the kimchi quesadilla.

So the very same quesadilla,

but this time we're getting it from the "Brick and Mortar",

Kogi location.

(slow music)

♪ How'd I wind up back here? ♪

♪ I think I recognize this road ♪

- Kogi is a food truck that started about,

a little over a decade ago.

You know, a lot of people have dubbed it Korean and Mexican,

but it's really L.A.

It's not Korea, the country, or Mexico, the country.

It's us, like weird mutant kids, that were born

from our parents who came from those countries.

So this food is actually from Los Angeles.

We have four different types of tacos and then those all

turned into a burrito.

And then those all turn into a quesadilla.

(laughing)

So we're like a Russian doll of tacos.

The kimchi quesadilla was actually our family meal.

And we were just sitting there, you know,

waiting for people to order food.

And so I just started messing around making stuff.

We take the kimchi, we caramelize the kimchi,

almost like a jam.

We crisp the whole quesadilla up,

kind of like a pizza, and we take that,

we cut that in four slices, shingle them down.

And then we make a salsa Roja,

very similar to like a Neapolitan pizza. Right?

Very simple ingredients, very simple construction.

But there's like an alchemy and a moment in those 90 seconds

that you pull it out, right?

So it seems as though sometimes people

don't treat quesadillas with the same love

as they do a taco.

And I feel like you gotta treat a quesadilla

as if it was a taco.

So you have to make sure that every single bite is a

cohesive bite and you gotta treat it right

with a really good salsa.

- First stop, kimchi quesadilla.

- It smells very, when you get home,

and your mom's cooking,

and you're just like trying to guess what that is,

but then it's like three different dishes at once.

- Yeah. - That smell.

And it's like the kimchi and the cheese.

- We have our slices shingles here.

Would you like the first shingle?

- I would.

You know one thing I noticed about the interview with Roy?

He kind of talked about the food

as if it was like a living being.

I understand why.

- This is melting in my hand,

cheers, Steven.

- That was really great, and my first instinct was,

Andrew's gonna love this.

- I do love it.

It's interesting, it does have

the consistency of a Neapolitan pizza.

You've sensed the crispiness,

but it still has this like moist drip to it.

There's something about the creation of this quesadilla

that is a little intangible.

I don't know what it is.

I think it's that pizza moment magic

- Mm. - That we're always

talking about, when the quesadilla is just crispy

and melty enough.

- It is also the dichotomy of,

I'm using big words today.

It's the dichotomy of the two weird characters,

cheese and kimchi meat.

Like the unlikely duo in a buddy cartoon.

- Yeah.

Adam, unfortunately,

couldn't join us for this particular shoot.

So we're going to have our stand-in sound operator

take a bite of this last quesadilla.

Mike, come on in here.

(jazz music)

- Yeah, that was amazing.

I think we've pointed this out before the show,