It's crunch time.
Chefs known for their crispy, crunchy, and delicious fried dishes...
I'm trying, Guy. I'm trying.
Are about to fight, fryer with fryer.
[Jet] This is way harder than it looks on TV.
Oh, you think?
[Jet laughs]
But they better be prepared.
Chefs, stop working.
Never in the history of Triple G
have I ever stopped the entire production.
[Dan] I gotta get back to the drawing board.
Get ready for a deep dive into deep-fried Triple G games.
[Guy] Those look dynamite.
This is what eating fried food is all about.
Stand in the back, your fries are coming right up.
Good man, Hunter.
It's a Flavortown Fried Feud right now
on Guy's Grocery Games.
Don't do it.
I already knew, excuse me.
All right, so let's meet our chefs.
So first up, we have Zubair Mohajir,
executive chef who has cooked in kitchens around the world,
but has found the most success in Chicago,
perfecting his award-winning fried chicken sandwich.
[Zubair] I started off as a banker in Chicago,
wearing a suit every day, but now I'm in a kitchen,
coming home, smelling like fryer oil and spices, and I couldn't be happier.
In 2020, our Tandoori fried chicken sandwich was named one of the best
fried chicken sandwiches in Chicago.
Honestly, it's just a flavor bomb.
Thanks for having me, Guy.
- What's up? - What's up, buddy?
- How is it going? - Nice to see you.
- Nice shoe color! - You too! Thank you.
Thanks, I'm trying to match you.
I didn't get mine with the black.
And then, there's Fanerra Dupree,
chef-owner of a Brooklyn soul food restaurant
where fried food is ultimate comfort food.
[Fanerra] At Black Nile, we combine international flavors
with my Southern soul food upbringing.
Fryin' is a huge part of soul food.
It's crunchy, salty, fatty.
It's everything but a basic food.
Fanerra.
- Guy. - Lookin' good.
Next, we have Jet Simon, chef de cuisine
and first-generation Filipino from Minneapolis,
whose fried philosophy is all about being refined and balanced.
[Jet] Most people think fried food is about
greasy carnival food.
To me, frying food is about balance and refinement.
I've cooked a lot of fried food in my life.
I like eating it, it's a preferred method of cookery for me.
- What's up, Jet? - What's up, How are you?
- Nice to have you, buddy. - Yeah, it's nice being here.
And finally, Dan Kardos, the classically-trained chef who shares a rotating menu
of fried chicken sandwiches at his food truck in Stratford, Connecticut.
[Dan] My love affair with fried food
started as a very young man.
It's nostalgic and comforting for me.
I mean, who doesn't like the perfect fried chicken sandwich?
The craziest thing I've ever fried was tarantulas.
That was pretty crazy.
It's kinda like soft shell crab, to be honest with you.
[laughs]
That is a Stratford, Connecticut shirt for sure, dude.
That says Stratford, 100%.
Now I told my crew, chefs,
I said, "If we're gonna do a fried episode,
we need four real-deal fry chefs." Do you fit that bill?
Yes, chef.
And I know getting here was difficult,
and you must had to cancel some fryer commitments to be here.
[contestants laugh]
- Fryer commitments. - [drum roll plays]
Thank you.
We have two very intense challenges for you tonight
that will put your frying skills to the ultimate test.
Your fried dishes will be scored
based on taste, gameplay, and plating.
The lowest score, unfortunately,
after round one will check out
and the chef with the highest
combined score after two rounds
will get a chance to shop Flavortown market for up to 20,000 bucks.
And, ladies and gentlemen, that will buy you a lot of panko.
[contestants laughing]
[Guy] First challenge,
I want you to make the judges sweet and savory fried feast.
Okay, feast, a lot on there.
Which means you have to use your fryer basket, right?
Exactly. You know that.
I'm just making sure. I'm going through the details.
Well, of course, you're really gonna have to use your fryer basket
because you're gonna have to use your fryer basket to shop.
- Oh, man. - You see, this is Fryer Basket Shop.
-Hold tight. I'll be right back. -Phew!
This isn't the size I ordered.
These are the little countertop fryers.
You're just gonna have to make do.
There you go, chef.
- Thank you. - You're so welcome.
- There you go. - [Fanerra] Thank you.
[Guy] Oh, there we go. So go and step in the front of your carts.
Whatever ingredients you need to make this sweet and savory fried feast
must be able to fit in this single fryer basket
and you only get one shopping trip.
Thirty minutes to shop with your fryer basket,
prepare, and plate your sweet and savory fried feast.
You guys know how this works. In just a minute,
I'll say, "Three, two, one, go,"
and then you guys can take off.
Thought I had them, I didn't.
Once in a while, they win.
[Dan] This is Fryer Basket Shop
and I have to make a sweet and savory fried feast?
All of my feast has to fit into this little basket?
What am I supposed to do here?
It's like, "Dude, honey, I shrunk the shopping cart."
I'm thinking, I don't know,
breakfast, fried chicken, and eggs and, you know, oatmeal.
I got this little fryer basket in front of me.
What am I supposed to do?
Am I supposed to make a feast and jam it into this?
I'm thinking, you know, like, hit it with some spicy maple
and put that over the top.
This will fit.
I'm going for it.
[Fanerra] It's gonna be so ridiculous,
trying to fit a feast in a tiny little fryer basket.
[Guy] What are you thinking?
Thinking this ain't gonna work.
- [Guy] I'm thinking you're right. - [laughs]
[Fanerra] I wanna do a fried chicken
with a crawfish and shrimp Cajun alfredo.
Trying to find seafood small enough to fit in this.
Here's some crawfish.
To me, a feast is a whole lot of different things
that you just wanna eat a whole bunch of.
This pasta is gonna be the foundation
of my entire fried feast.
Fried feast.
Feast to me has all kinds of components.
I'm thinking there's vegetables in fried.
I'm thinking there's sauce in fried.
I'm thinking there's multiple items in fried.
There's a lot of things that could be fried in a fried feast.
[Jet] All right, a feast means to me
that by the time you're done eating,
you could sit back and probably take a nap.
Shopping with this fryer basket,
you know, you're working with such small space,
you have to shop smart.
I immediately grab the two things of chicken, propped them up
so I could jam things in without falling over the basket.
I'm thinking fried chicken wings and shrimp
and a Filipino-style Escabeche sauce.
Filipino food is a heavy influence on who I am.
Getting some bell peppers.
In between eating all these heavy, fried things,
there's something nice and refreshing.
Look at this. Now that's a stack.
I'll give him that.
[Zubair] The past three years, we've been making this
Tandoori fried chicken sandwich and people love it.
So I'm thinking, Vindaloo-dredged fried chicken.
Vindaloo is pretty close to garam masala.
Now remember, you do have spices at your station.
Yep. Yep. I'm Indian, though. I use more than two.
[Zubair laughs]
How do you put me in the wildest grocery store on Earth
and give me a toy fryer basket to shop with?
I can't even fit my spices.
Fryer Basket Shop.
- How mean could people be? - [Zubair] Super mean.
[Guy] Key is feast here.
Think we're gonna lose someone based just off of feast,
the way I'm watching these baskets getting loaded up right now.
Under thirty minutes.
[Guy] Twenty-two minutes!
All right, chef. Tell me about this feast you got making.
All right, so I'm gonna do some sweet and savory oatmeal
with a sunny duck egg
and some beautifully-fried chicken.
It's a fried feast and you're making oatmeal?
Yeah.
It doesn't sound fried enough. You sure?
Can't go back now.
Chef, what's on the menu?
I wanted to make fried chicken
with a crawfish gravy and some Cajun alfredo.
Yeah, fry as much as you can, remember.
Where did we lose them on the frying part?
What's going on? Tell me about the menu.
I'm gonna do fried chicken and shrimp
with an Escabeche sauce like sweet and sour-ish.
Okay. And what else do we have going on that? That's two items.
Uh, peppers. [speaking]
Okay, yeah. A feast.
Feast has multiple items to it. Okay.
Chef, what's on the menu?
We're gonna do a fried chicken...
- Okay. - with a salad.
What is being fried, chef?
Chicken, chicken.
Chicken's being fried. That's the only thing being fried?
[Zubair] Yeah.
Okay, I'm stopping this production right now.
[whistles] Chefs! Stop, stop. Stop working. Stop working.
Y'all missed it.
It's a sweet and savory fried feast.
All of you are only frying one thing.
Oatmeal is not doing it. Pasta is not doing it.
Frying one item's not doing it.
You're in a fried feast competition, fry everything.
Okay.
Chefs, I'm giving you only five minutes.
Go back and do your shopping.
You could keep your proteins that you have
but the rest of your stuff, you're done.
Grab your baskets.
Fried feast.
What? I've never seen that before.
[Fanerra] He sends all of us back into the store
because we ain't frying enough.
This is crazy.
Fried feast?
It was rough, man.
[Dan] Maybe I thought what I was doing was gonna work out,
but it's clearly not what the game was really looking for.
And it's not what Guy wanted.
I gotta get back to the drawing board.
[Guy] Never seen it miss this bad.
Didn't see that one coming.
Let's welcome the experts with their eye on the fry,
our esteemed judges.
Now, first up, a chef who's bringing new noodle flavors
to South Dakota with his ramen shop.
The one and only wildcard himself, Chef Justin Warner.
Acclaimed chef and Tournament of Champions wildcard winner,
the one and only, Chef Nyesha Arrington.
And restaurateur, Triple G OG, and one of the tournament champions final four,
superhero Chef Darnell Ferguson.
Never in the history of Triple G
have I ever stopped the competition and made 'em re-shop.
When it says fried feast,
that means fried on fried on fried on fried.
[Nyesha] Makes sense.
Now, I think we'll at least be able to deliver a fried feast.
Definitely hungry.
- You're definitely hungry? - Yes.
I can't wait to see you go through this, Darnell.
[Zubair] Take two, we're going back to the grocery store
with the smallest fryer basket on Earth.
To make this more of a feast,
I'm gonna fry a trio of protein.
Guy says we can use proteins from the first shop
so I'm gonna grab lobster, shrimp,
and I have chicken at my station.
I love trumpet mushrooms.
I'm thinking, dredge it in a pakora mix.
You really can't have pakora without chickpea flour.
For my sweet component, I'm gonna make gulab jamun.
A gulab jamun is a fried donut hole.
But in India, we soak it in saffron simple syrup.
[Dan] I'm back out in the wilderness with my fryer basket.
I need to really, really nail a feast.
What do I see? Some quail.
Next thing I do is grab some andouille.
And then, I run over to the produce section.
So many great things to fry.
Fried Brussels sprouts, peppers, kale.
Fry all kinds of stuff.
[Dan] I got the Brussel sprouts and the green beans.
So I'm just going to make a nice vegetable medley
and hit it with the sweet honey and put the quail on top.
At this point, everything is going in the fryer.
[Fanerra] So I got to think of a whole new game plan.
I'm not gonna leave anything unfried on this plate.
I'm gonna make a fried stuffing and crawfish croquette.
Then, I decided why not make a fried jambalaya ball?
The base of that is gonna be instant rice,
some fried chicken, and a delicious hot honey sauce.
[Guy] There you go. That's a few looking items that we're gonna start frying.
Chefs, you got one minute.
[Jet] I know I'm gonna keep my proteins,
the chicken wings, and shrimp.
Ethnic aisle.
Instead of making the Escabeche sauce,
I'm going to make Filipino-style adobo
which is, like, garlic, black pepper, soy sauce, and vinegar.
There's always gonna be sugar in this.
That's a quick thing I 100% know how to make.
I'm also gonna make maitake mushrooms.
I'm looking at the time, It's like,
"Dude, I need to get this feast plate ready."
All right, let's go. Chefs, you have 20 minutes.
Twenty left to go.
Twenty minutes. It's not a lot of time.
It's not a lot of time at all.
[Darnell] The key is you have to think outside the box.
[Nyesha] Absolutely.
The fryer box.
Chef, what's on the menu?
We're doing fried quail with fried Brussels sprouts,
fried andouille sausage, fried potatoes, and some fried beans.
That sounds like it would be good with a side of oatmeal.
[laughs]
My new game plan is fried quail.
It's gonna be crispy. It's gonna be crunchy.
Then I go into the buttermilk that has hot sauce, salt, and pepper
and a little bit of blackened seasoning.
My goal is to have them. be really, really crunchy on the outside,
and then on the inside, I want them to be perfectly cooked and succulent.
All right, chef. What's on the menu?
Deep-fried jambalaya ball, fried crawfish, and stuffin'.
Oh, I love that.
Hot honey glaze with some fried chicken.
Now that sounds like a feast.
[Fanerra] First, I'm gonna start on my chicken wings.
Put a little cayenne and smoked paprika.
Golden brown and delicious is the money when it comes to fried food.
Next, I need to focus on my fried crawfish and stuffing balls.
I get some chicken stock in that stuffing, toss it all together.
My philosophy on frying food is if it can fit in the fryer, you can fry it.
You just gotta make sure you get enough flavor in it and you're good.
[Jet] First things first, fry the chicken wings 'cause they take the longest.
I dredge them in cornstarch
and then I throw them in the fryer.
Just gonna do fried chicken wings,
fried shrimp in Filipino adobo sauce and a bunch of more veggies.
Next, I need to work my adobo sauce.
Filipino-style adobo is just sweet crushed garlic and oil.
Hit it with some vinegar and soy sauce and sugar.
Add some of this in there.
Just gonna fry them up,
but I also will need some for the sauce.
That's good.
Dredge the peppers and onions and just start frying them.
All right. All right.
For my fried chicken, I'm going to do a vindaloo dredge.
Vindaloo is made up of ten different spices,
so it's just a really big burst of flavor.
One of my strategies is to showcase different frying methods.
Going dry dredge with the chicken,
you're just gonna get a crunchier texture.
Pakora mix.
While my chicken's in the fryer,
I'm gonna work on my trumpet mushroom pakora.
It's gonna be the mushroom.
I love trumpet mushrooms.
It's a really meaty mushroom.
And so I'm thinking slice this baby thin,
and dredge it in a pakora mix.
What's on the mushroom, chef?
[Zubair] This is besan flour,
which is chickpea flour used for pakoras.
So usually we do onions and potatoes and things like that,
but I love trumpets, so going with trumpet.
- I do too. - Yep.
That's delicious.
So we brought these four chefs in specifically
because they're great fry chefs.
And this is a fried food feast.
And they went out and started shopping for some fried items.
But then they were getting pasta dishes
and they were getting oatmeal dishes
and all kinds of randomness going on, so I stopped it.
I said, "You're gonna have to go back out
and get items and make a fried food feast,"
which they've done and things are looking good.
Thirteen minutes to go.
[Dan] While my quail is frying,
I can get to work on my honey glaze.
The point of this is to make a sweet and savory feast.
The honey is gonna be my main sweet component.
I'm gonna hit it with a little shot of vinegar.
And then I'm just gonna zest a little bit of lemon into it at the end.
There we go.
What I would normally do is grill the andouille,
but honestly, I'm gonna throw them in the fryer.
I'm gonna fry them whole and then I'm gonna slice them afterward.
And they'll have a crispy exterior and they'll be hot
and steamy and creamy on the inside.
I know that I'm gonna fry all this produce.
So the first thing I wanna do is knock out the potatoes.
It's time to start frying my green beans and my Brussels sprouts.
My chicken wings, it's golden, it's brown, and it's gonna be delicious.
Next, I work on my fried jambalaya balls.
I brown my sausage, I get some tomato base.
So then I combine that instant rice with my sausage.
It needs eggs, some shrimp.
Now, we're looking good over here.
I'm trying, Guy, I'm trying.
Those look dynamite.
Thank you.
Okay, what's going on with your sweet and savory?
I'm gonna do a simple honey garlic butter glaze on everything.
Okay.
[Fanerra] A little bit of butter and some sugar.
Vinegar for the acid, so that it's not all sweet.
I'm gonna make sure it has a little spice in it
so that's where my red pepper flakes come in.
Some honey and just let it sizzle.
And the last protein to fry is the shrimp
because shrimp takes no time to cook.
I decided to go very simple, I put them in cornstarch.
I'm relying on the flavors of my sauce to drive it all home.
My maitake mushrooms, I also coated them in cornstarch.
Maitake mushrooms are very meaty.
If it's a feast, you want to be full.
Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
While my chicken's in the fryer,
I'm going to work on my seafood.
With my shrimp and lobster, I dredged it
in flour, rice flour, and a dash of vindaloo.
So it's a little different from my fried chicken.
I really want to serve a sweet element.
So I'm going to go for gulab jamun.
What are these balls called?
Gulab jamun. They're a fried donut that's topped off
with a saffron simple syrup.
Great, great, great.
Four minutes.
[Guy] Four minutes! Four to go.
[Dan] I got my Brussels, I got my green beans.
I got my Andouille and I got my potatoes.
This is the base for a really, really good feast.
I want this honey to really just balance out the medley.
Next, I top with my fried quail.
Two minutes, chefs. Two minutes to go.
[Fanerra] I toss my fried chicken into the hot honey sauce.
I get my jambalaya ball and my stuffing and crawfish ball.
I have my sweet. I have my savory.
It's fried, and I think it's a feast.
[Jet] This is way harder than it looks on TV.
Oh, you think?
[Jet laughs]
[Jet] I'm plating my fried feast.
I reach into my bowl, like, bear claw, the veggies.
I top the fried veggies with the shrimp and chicken.
Definitely not the best-looking plate, but it sure is still a feast.
[Zubair] First thing is my fried chicken.
Next, my seafood, and then my gulab jamun.
The gulab jamun is the sweet component on my plate
and now I'm worried a couple of them are undercooked.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Chefs, that's it, stop working.
Good run.
[Guy] All right, chefs.
Time to take your fried feast to the judges.
Batter up, right this way.
All right, judges. This is it.
Game one of our Fried Feud.
Chefs had to prepare a sweet and savory fried feast,
using only ingredients they can fit
into the fryer basket in one shop.
Well, one shop-and-a-half.
[laughing]
Up first, Chef Fanerra. What do you have for us?
For my sweet and savory fried feast,
I did a deep-fried jambalaya ball, a fried crawfish and stuffing,
a fried chicken in a honey chili glaze.
[Justin] Fanerra,
I love the juiciness of the wing.
That thing is cooked very nicely.
This jambalaya ball is out of control delicious.
If I drag that around the plate,
that's the definition of sweet and savory.
I definitely see you in this dish.
It's really, really beautiful.
But the size of this, I could eat this in two minutes.
I want a feast. I want to take some time,
like, actually, like, having to eat it.
This is more of an appetizer.
All right.
Up next, Dan the man.
What do you got for us, chef?
Hello, judges. For my sweet and savory fried feast,
I went with fried quail, fried Brussels sprouts with crispy fried potatoes,
crispy fried green beans, some fried andouille.
To add a little sweetness, I took some orange blossom honey
and just hit it with a little bit of vinegar
and a little bit of lemon zest.
[Guy] Besides the plate,
is there anything you didn't fry, Dan?
Dan, quail.
This is like a feast fit for a vice president.
When I can take a fun leg bone like this and it just pulls right off,
this is what eating fried food is all about.
Thank you.
I love the orange blossom honey.
Oh, my gosh, the herbaceous notes that I get from there.
Like that sets it off, that brings a different element
to this dish that I really enjoy.
- Thank you. - [Darnell] And it's a feast,
- so thank you. - [Dan] Thank you.
For me, I feel like the Brussels sprouts retained a little bit too much oil.
Like when I bite that Brussels sprout, it coats my palate in oil.
[Dan] Thank you.
Great.
Up next, Chef Zubair. What do you got for us?
Thank you, chefs.
So everything on your plate is fried.
Fried chicken, fried lobster, and fried shrimp, as well, with a vindaloo dredge.
Trumpet mushroom pakora.
We did a gulab jamun on the side, which is a fried donut hole.
Enjoy.
[Nyesha] Chef Zubair,
this is phenomenal.
The texture and the spices come to life, great job.
Appreciate it.
Chef, thank you
for giving me different ways of frying on one plate.
I think the mushroom is amazing.
My first time ever having fried food with chickpea flour.
- Awesome, yeah. - Thank you.
I think the breading on the chicken needed a little help.
- You don't hear the crunch. - Right.
[Justin] Chef Zubair,
unfortunately, the gulab jamun is a little under,
and I think you know that, so it's retaining some mealiness.
I think it just needed a little bit more time to be cooked.
All right, not to be outdone,
the one and only Chef Jet. What do you got for us?
For a sweet and savory feast,
I made a sticky finger Filipino wing feast.
Something you'd eat while you're watching a Filipino basketball game.
So I have chicken wings, shrimp.
[Guy] Hang on a second.
Can you take me back to what? A Filipino basketball game?
Yeah, it's the national sport there.
Basketball is the national sport of the Philippines? Huh.
[Jet] The sauce is loosely based off of Filipino adobo
but I added more sugar to give it more stickiness.
Chef Jet,
you definitely did not miss the mark on fried.
Every single thing on my plate is fried and also sweet.
The first thing that strikes me about this is how this,
like, redonkulous, deep, intense sauce
plays so well with both chicken and shrimp and vegetable.
A lot of cohesiveness here and I like that.
I think you needed just a little bit of help
in how you breaded everything.
That's just fighting to stay on the vegetables.
Vegetables are harder to bread than, say, chicken is.
Yeah.
But the flavor of it is amazing.
And if this is what you're doing
whenever you go watch basketball,
because if this is there, I want it.
Okay, great. Judges, thank you very much.
Chefs, thank you.
Send you back to the kitchens.
We'll call you in a bit.
Good luck.
Anyone's recipe fried and true?
So I thought Fanerra's was the most delicious.
Yeah, 'cause that jambalaya ball was crazy good.
- Bam. - But it was just not a feast.
Jet had a lot of flavor going on.
I just wish he didn't put so much sauce on top of everything.
Thought Chef Dan had the best thought-out dish that we had today.
[Justin] While Dan did fry everything, it was unrelentingly salty
and that's for someone who... I love salt.
I love that Zubair gave us a real sweet that was fried.
In terms of the fried element, for me, was missing completely.
[Guy] Well, remember.
We've got taste for 20 points,
gameplay for 20 points, plating for ten points.
Total up scores, let's bring the chefs back in.
All right. Great job, chefs.
You rebounded really quick. Let's go from the top.
Zubair, gameplay, 13, taste, 14,
plating, seven, total, 34.
Jet, gameplay, 15, taste, 17,
plating is seven, total, 39.
Five points over Zubair.
Fanerra, gameplay, 14, taste, 16,
plating, five, total, 35.
One point over Zubair, four points behind Jet.
Dan, 16 in gameplay, 17 in taste,
seven in plating, for a total of 40.
Congratulations.
That means Dan's our winner of this round
and unfortunately,
the guy that I was so excited to see cook so much,
he won, just so you know, Best Fried Chicken 2020
in Chicago for a Tandoori fried chicken.
You know where you made your mistakes.
And it's something as simple as not having your,
I'll say donut, not having it cooked enough.
That can be what takes you down
but it was great having you, chef.
Thank you for having me. Appreciate you guys.
I'm going home, but I learned a lot here.
And at first, you don't succeed, you got to fry, fry again.
[Guy] All right, chefs, this is gonna determine
who gets to shop Flavortown for up to 20,000 bucks,
and who will get fried, [mimics drum roll] thank you.
[laugh]
Your final challenge, I want you to make a fried fish dinner.
A plate of fish so good, our judges will be tempted
to give you a perfect 50 on their scorecard.
Scorecard, card. Oh, that's right.
Hunter, cart. My lovely assistant.
Ugh.
Oh, God.
Hunter, what do we have here?
These are playing cards.
Oh, we're playing Go Fish.
Yes.
[Guy] Remember when you played Go Fish when you were a kid?
You had one and then you asked
the other person if they had one.
Okay, so we'll take...
Here, Hunter, I'll give you two. I'll have two, don't show it to them.
These playing cards have a fish on them.
Now if you could think of a fish that you think we might have,
we're gonna give you that card.
If you don't, you have to go fish.
Fanerra.
Catfish.
- Ba-da-bing! - [Hunter] Nice!
- There you go, chef. - Thank you, sir.
[Guy] Dan?
Halibut.
Go fish on that. You can pick one of these three cards.
Middle.
[Guy] Rockfish.
All right.
[Guy] Good choice. All right, two left.
Cod.
Go fish. You want the left or the right?
Hunter, your right.
Okay, Hunter's right. And you get rainbow trout.
Delicious.
[Guy] Not bad.
- There you go. - [laughs]
And the one you didn't pick was branzino.
Chefs, you've got 30 minutes to create your fried fish dinner,
featuring the fish that you selected.
Dan, you're leading this by one point, but you are leading.
I'll give you a key advantage. I said I might have an advantage for you.
Would you like either one of the fish
that the chefs have versus your rockfish
or would you like the branzino?
I hate being a mean person.
Okay, well. That's a good thing. It's not good karma.
Okay, that's good.
- [Fanerra] I know you want it. - Now you would take catfish over rockfish?
I'm gonna.
Chef, you gotta give him a high-five and a thank you.
He just did that 'cause I'm the soul food chef. I cook catfish.
- I know the game. - [Dan] Never.
[laughs]
Would you rather have the rockfish or the branzino?
Branzino.
I'll go get you the branzino.
[Dan] Oh.
Is that a trick? You really giving it to me?
- Oh. - That's so nice.
- I'm into good karma. - Thank you.
And, chef, I'll give you the choice.
You want the rockfish? Or you want rainbow trout?
I'll take the rock.
I'd take the rockfish in a heartbeat.
Look at that, everybody won here
all because Dan didn't wanna do something not nice.
I gotta be honest with you. And I think it's...
I've seen three chefs change before.
I mean, actually, I've never seen three.
I've seen two chefs change before but this is...
What's going on?
I'm sitting here talking about everybody exchanging this,
and one of you didn't want...
Hang on a second, what? I didn't say go yet.
Sometimes we get groups that are really sharp and, like, on it.
They just go, the whistle's already gone off.
[Dan] This is Go Fish and I have to make
a fried fish dinner making catfish.
I took this catfish from Fanerra.
[Fanerra] Where's my freaking fish?
[Dan] Because it has a really nice, meaty texture,
especially fried lightly in cornmeal.
Where is the quick grits?
Quick grits should be over on four.
[Dan] What really goes well with catfish is just a nice creamy side of grits.
Quick grits.
A beautiful, buttery sauce with a little bit of lobster broth in there.
Then I need to add some kind of vegetable to this dish.
I grab some kale and I grab some bacon
because who doesn't love bacon and kale?
A little bit of bacon.
Going into the second round and I got a one-point lead.
Oh, here we go, speed bump.
But this is anybody's game.
[Fanerra] Branzino, branzino, branzino.
I have to make a fried fish dinner using branzino.
And I ain't never fried no branzino.
Dan knew if the soul food chef had catfish,
he was going home.
But he better watch it, 'cause I'm coming.
A perfect fried fish has to have sides,
so I'm gonna do succotash.
And I want to do a deep-fried polenta corn cake.
I think I got this because I make,
like, 500 fried fish dinners a day.
I'm good.
[Jet] Rockfish.
On my trip to Japan, I had tempura-fried rockfish.
Sorry, rockfish.
So I said, "All right, I'm gonna do Japanese-style tempura
the way I remember it."
I'm grabbing sparkling water.
A, 'cause I wanna drink it. Two, it's perfect for my tempura batter.
Oh. Oh, my God.
For a really good tempura,
the tempura batter has to be kept cold.
Am I seeing some tempura batter going?
Oh, yeah. Yup.
Super cold, super effervescent.
Going into the hot oil really makes it puff.
[Jet] I know I wanna make a dashi-based broth.
- What are you looking for? - Wakame and bonito flakes.
[Guy] Okay.
[Jet] I'm grabbing wakame, which is a seaweed.
Get the mirin, mirin, mirin, mirin.
After you make the dashi broth,
you season it with soy sauce and mirin flavor.
Dope.
These chefs don't have that much time to cook.
- Less is more right now... - [Nyesha] Yes.
- because you don't have that much time. - [Nyesha] Yes.
- [Darnell] You want things fried perfectly. - [Nyesha] Yes.
[Darnell] You need to make sure things are cut the right size.
- A lot going on. - [Nyesha] Yes.
You know, if the fried food
doesn't kill me, the tension will.
Let's go to commercial.
[Darnell] Everyone's moving a little faster and tension's up.
Like, this is what you wanna see in the second round
when you've got 20,000 on the line.
Chef Dan, what's on the menu?
So we're doing fried catfish with fried kale,
some fried bacon, creamy grits,
and a little bit of lobster and crab rent butter.
Got it.
[Dan] The first thing I get started on is my grits
because I really want them to cook as slow as possible
and make sure that they don't come out mealy.
A little bit of butter, why not?
It's grits, you know.
While my grits are working, I get going on dredging my catfish.
I'm using cornmeal because it will add
a little bit of crunch to the finished dish.
I like to use buttermilk when I'm frying.
It acts as a natural marinade and it just really helps
to make an awesome, awesome batter.
I took this catfish from Fanerra.
The last thing I wanna do is go home 'cause I messed it up.
[Guy] Chef, what's on the menu?
I'm gonna do a whole deep-fried branzino. Some fried shrimp.
A fried polenta cake and a corn and pepper succotash.
Got it.
I know branzino, but I ain't never fried it before.
In my restaurant, we used to do a fried whole snapper.
I take that same technique and I apply it to the fried branzino.
I'm seasoning it with cumin and smoked paprika.
I know they'll give a nice round, warm element to the fish.
Then I dredge it in the cornmeal and flour mixture
and I drop it straight into the fryer.
I'm gonna start on my deep-fried polenta corn cake.
Dan is five points ahead of me but I'm the queen of this.
If I get that prize money,
soon, we'll be opening our second location for Black Nile.
And I'm gonna be teaching a foundational class
and help people see what soul food really is.
Chef Jet, what's on the menu, bud?
Rockfish tempura, simmered daikon,
some fried shishito peppers.
Hopefully, it's good.
You better know it's good, buddy.
You never know what's gonna happen, so...
The first thing I do is simmer the dashi broth,
so I add the seaweed to the water.
Gives it some kind of seaweed flavor, right?
Once it comes to a simmer, I add the bonito flakes.
Bonito flakes, dried fish flakes from Japan,
they add, like, a umami, fishy flavor
to whatever you're adding it to.
I'm making a pseudo dashi.
Now I gotta break down this rockfish and fry it.
This fish is whole.
Right, I'm on a time constraint so I have to break this fish
down like a barbarian.
The tempura batter, I'll just throw in AP flour, cornstarch, and soda water
and I keep it over ice so it stays ice cold,
which retains all the air bubbles
and it keeps it crisp in the fryer.
Is that batter as thick as you wanted it?
When I went to Japan, there was a tempura dish I got
that was super, super glassy, unlike any tempura I've ever had, but...
Okay, make sure you sell it to the judges that way.
[Jet] I will.
Chefs, we have 13 minutes left in the competition, 13.
[Dan] While my catfish was frying,
I can get to work on my kale.
I figure I got to have some kind of vegetable.
And since this is a fryer episode,
kale it is, right in the fryer.
So I'm throwing some bacon in the fryer.
I basically just wanted to get it crispy,
adds another component to the kale
so it's not just you know, dead green, lifeless,
little bits of crust on the plate.
I know I wanna make a crab and lobster butter
because it goes really well with fried catfish,
and it's gonna go well with the grits.
This is just a little bit of lobster bouillon.
And we'll put a little bit of umami bouillon in there.
Basically what umami does is keep you going back for more.
And I need the craveability in this dish
so the judges keep going back for more
so that I can hopefully pull off a win
and buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend.
Me and Julia have been together for four years.
I gotta propose to this girl. I gotta go home with a check.
She can't be walking around with some little rock on her hand.
Hi, Julie.
I add my Dungeness crab and I kind of just fold it in.
I just want it to sort of just sit there and just bathe in this butter.
[Fanerra] A dinner needs sides.
I'm making a succotash as my side.
I start with my peppers and my onions, saute it in a pan.
Those tomatoes, once they're bursting,
and the judges are eating them, it's gonna round out that
plump sweetcorn, and finish it with some basil and butter.
If Guy want a dinner, he getting a dinner.
I'm making shrimp to go alongside my fish.
I dredge it the same exact way and drop it in the deep fryer.
- [Guy] How we looking, chef? - [Fanerra] Good.
And my hot sauce going. Fried fish got to have hot sauce.
I'm making a red onion chipotle hot sauce.
The red onion plays really well
with the chipotle and the smokiness.
[Jet] If it's gonna be a meal, I want differences in textures and flavors.
I am gonna get some daikon simmering to go with the sauce.
I have fried fish.
So I want the daikon to be soft.
Not only do the textures work, but the flavors should work well with everything, too.
Some crispy fried shiitake, it gets, like, super umami-centric.
It's pretty dope.
This is harder than I thought it was gonna be.
I mean, I'm doing this because I know the money
would help our family out a lot.
Renovate the new house we just bought.
Dude, I think that's the most important thing.
I'm gonna use these shishito peppers.
So I dip it in the tempura batter
and just blindly frying them up.
[Guy] Ninety seconds, chefs. You have 90 to go.
[Dan] The first thing I get on my plate is my grits.
Next, I'm gonna add my crab butter, fried kale, and bacon.
Then I add my cornmeal-fried catfish.
Golden brown, really crispy, just perfectly cooked and succulent.
[Jet] First thing is I pour the dashi broth.
Little splashes, sorry.
Grab the pot of daikons.
Fish looks great.
I'm gonna hit them all with some salt.
And then finally, shishito peppers.
Dude, that looks dope.
[Fanerra] First, I smear my red onion chipotle hot sauce onto the plate.
Then I place my polenta cake.
Next to that, I put my whole fried branzino.
Right in the middle, snuggled real good, I put my succotash.
I'm seeing fried. I'm seeing fish. I'm seeing dinner.
Five, four, three, two, one.
And chefs, that's it.
Well done.
I gotta tell you I thought it was only Superman that could fry.
Let's take it to the judges, right this way.
All right, judges. Here it is, game two of the Fried Feud.
It was Go Fish.
Each chef picked which fish they'd use for their fried fish dinner.
Fanerra, branzino. And that's a big branzino, tell us about it.
For my fried fish dinner, I decided to keep the branzino whole.
I did a succotash, a fried polenta cake,
and where I'm from, fried fish gets hot sauce, so I made a hot sauce.
Fanerra, wow! When I flaked this fish open,
it was just like steam erupted from it
and that's a sign of like a delicious, good fish.
I put the succotash in my mouth, my palate was so excited.
It's very summery, the basil, the basil loves corn.
The grit cake, for me, though.
It needs a little more flavor. It needs salt, some cheese.
It just needs to be able to be able to pop with flavor to really stand up to this.
Up next, Chef Jet. Rockfish, tell us about it.
So I made a tempura rockfish.
There's a dashi-based tempura sauce.
There's crispy fried shiitake mushrooms. Soy-simmered daikon.
I like your tempura. It's got lacing to it.
This guy, I mean, it's still shatter-crisp.
I also like that you kind of took rockfish
and you went to Japan with it.
Most people don't know that rockfish fisheries
were mostly started by the Japan and the Soviets in the '60s and '70s.
So I think that there's a lot of sense
that's being made in this dish.
[Guy] Thank you, professor.
The rest of Gilligan's Island. Are they still there?
[laughing]
The shishito pepper ate a little less crunchy
than my tempura beautiful fish.
And the mushrooms, for me, they read almost dehydrated on my palate.
Like they were a little bit overcooked.
Chef, this broth is super tasty.
I love it, man. This is a great-tasting dish.
It's just missing the little bit of nuances
that you need to make this an excellent dish.
[Guy] All right, not to be outdone.
The points leader, Chef Dan. What do you got for us?
For my fried fish dinner,
I have cornmeal-fried catfish with buttery grits.
Also have on there fried kale that I fried before the fish
and a little bit of crispy bacon as well.
Chef Dan, I have to say, I mean, from the start,
you had a vision and you executed it, right?
This dish I have here in front of me looks
like something that you've practiced a few times.
Your fish was cooked excellently, seasoned well.
I love the texture that the kale brought.
I love the saltiness that the bacon brought.
Thank you.
This is the kind of dish that I would cook at home, like, this is comforting.
The fried kale was magnificent.
I thought everything just hit really well together.
[Justin] Dan, I feel like I got
just a little bit catfished by this dish.
I look at it and I'm thinking,
"Oh, man, there are so many things that I just can't wait to love."
But you know, it's difficult when you're frying.
You kind of have to speculate. "Well, does this have enough acid to work with that?"
When I go for the salt and then I get the richness of the grits,
I think just one little lemon on this
and I probably would have loved the whole thing.
All right, judges. Thank you, chefs.
We're gonna have some debate, some scoring.
We'll call you back when we have a decision.
Nice job. Thank you.
All right. Fanerra, what'd you think?
She did a great job.
She did enough frying that the breading was so great.
But the grit cake needed a whole lot of flavor.
What'd you think of Jet's dish?
I thought Jet had a very cohesive dish.
I feel like Jet could learn that phrase,
"Just because I can, doesn't mean I should."
And I just don't feel like there was enough reward for the efforts.
Chef Dan, he made a big move to get that catfish.
Was it worth it?
Acid could have changed the whole game for me.
Yeah, totally agree with you.
Pop off acid, a little bit of cayenne pepper, and heat
would have really taken that to the next level.
[Guy] Let's score 'em up.
[Guy] A big round, we asked for a fried fish dinner.
And the scores are in, let's take a look.
Chef Jet, 39 going into it. In the second round,
17 in gameplay, 15 in taste, seven in plating,
total 39 or 78.
Fanerra, 35 in your first game,
17 in your gameplay, 17 in your taste, seven in your plating,
for a total of 41, giving you a total of 76.
Dan, that leaves us you. You've got to have a 38 or better,
16 in gameplay, 15 in taste, eight in plating,
for a total of 39, and by one point...
[Fanerra] Wow.
Congratulations, Dan.
Thank you. Thank you.
[Guy] You're welcome. You're welcome.
Jet, I tell ya, a nice, nice consistency in what you did.
Fanerra, you did a dynamite job.
Thank you very much. Give it up for the chefs.
[Fanerra] Thank you.
[Jet] The scoreboard was pretty tight.
Losing by just one point is a real bummer, just by one point.
[Fanerra] Even though I took round two,
it wasn't enough to win the whole thing, but they barely beat me out.
The winner of the Fried Feud is Chef Dan. Congratulations.
Thank you.
All right, man, what'll you do with the money?
I'd like to buy an engagement ring.
- For who? - For my wonderful girlfriend.
- And what's her name? - Julie.
Julie. Hi, Julie.
Would you say hi to her and tell her how much you love and miss her?
Aww.
Love you, Julie.
All right, bud. Let's go shopping.
- You ready to make some money? - Yeah.
We got a few options here.
First option is, I got a nice big fat check sitting behind the door over there
that has your name on it.
And we could just cut all the shenanigans
and just get Julie that ring she wants.
I'm taking it.
You wanna hear the rest of the options?
Nope.
[laughing]
Listen, I watched this show so many times.
I'm worried I'm not gonna get the hints.
You don't wanna hear about the other options?
No.
[laughing]
No. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I just wrecked it.
"Do not tempt me with any more of your evil ways, Guy Fieri."
[Dan] Yeah, man.
All right, you sure?
I'm, yes, I'm sure.
All right, you went from fried to the bride.
Show 'em the check.
$14,500.
Give it up to our winner, that is hysterical.
- Hey, guys. - [Guy] All right, get that check over here.
Oh, my God.
Well, Dan. I tell you what, $14,500.
It's got a really nice ring to it.
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
We'll see you next time on Guy's Grocery Games.
Adios!
Thank you.
Get it? Nice ring to it.
[Dan] Yes, yes, yes. [laughing]