[Theme from 'The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly']
This....f*ckin' machine.
uh... [laughs]
A couple months ago, the Buzzfeed offshoot brand "Tasty"
entered the wild wild west of ridiculous smart appliances
when they released their "One Top" induction hot plate.
Look, I love Tasty as a brand, I love their videos, their recipes,
hell, they basically pioneered an entire genre of cooking video
with their whole 'disembodied hand, birds' eye view' thing going on.
Um, and I copy that all the time, so I can't say shit.
But, this particular appliance was honestly just way more trouble than it was worth.
I should mention that I previously put out a video where I unboxed this thing,
but I couldn't get it to work because I'm a dumbass and didn't realize what induction cooking means.
Since this is an induction cooktop, it requires a pan that a magnet would stick to.
So I went out, bought a cast-iron pan, and now I can actually try cooking that steak again.
But - a different steak; it's not the same steak, that would be disgusting.
Despite correcting my mistake, using this thing was still kind of a f*cking nightmare.
Once I finally got it working, I attempted three different recipes,
and uh, basically just discovered several major flaws that still remain within the app and with the device itself.
My biggest, number one issue is probably this:
[One Top shuts off]
[Lindsay] Oh, shit!
[One Top turns on again]
[Lindsay sighs deeply]
it just kept shutting off on me.
It tripped the power strip it was plugged into, it shut off when it was plugged into the wall; it was just insane.
And the problem just becomes even worse when coupled with a multi-step recipe.
The next recipe I tried was a classic marinara sauce.
This was probably the most successful of the three recipes, but I use the term successful pretty loosely here.
I do have to take a moment here to appreciate
the additional one-top compatible recipes they seem to have added since I last took a look at the app;
and I also noticed a functionality I missed last time -
there's a really nice feature that they have that allows you to look at the ingredients
and export that directly into a shopping list,
Which, in theory, is great!
This is the entire setup that I have
to film this video.
And this is my - my third attempt at making just simple pasta sauce.
Just pasta sauce, this is my third try.
And that's because, all of a sudden, when you look at the app,
it shows you all of the ingredients,
and then for no reason it springs on you 'Oh the first step, by the way, cook an onion'.
Onion is not...on the ingredients list.
There's no onion on that list!
Clearly, it seems like they accidentally just forgot that ingredient when putting everything into the app
for that particular recipe, but it has a pretty catastrophic domino effect on everything else,
because without the onion, the app was forcing me to cook just garlic by itself in a pan for five minutes at 350°
which is just not going to work.
[One Top shuts off again, turning off my lights in the process]
You can't skip the timer, and because it's induction cooking, if you take the pan off the heat,
to let the timer run down, the heating element shuts off because it knows the pan isn't there anymore.
So, essentially, you are f*cked.
Alright, so here it is, the fabled onion that we're supposedly supposed to know to put in this sauce
even though it's not on the ingredients list.
My solution was to put the pan on the heating, let it sit there for about four and a half minutes,
and just run down the timer, and then throw the garlic in in the last thirty seconds.
Still not ideal whatsoever but I did manage to at least put the rest of the components in and finish the recipe.
[One Top shuts off....again.]
You know if the power stops or whatever and it disconnects with the One Top,
you can't just go ahead and restart the recipe from where you - from where you were.
You basically...
have to restart it all over again, so like that five minute countdown I wasted five minutes of my life on,
waiting for it to get down to thirty seconds,
uh....doesn't matter I have to do it again now, I can't skip that step,
Even though I now have a pan full of wine-y, uh, tomato paste-y, garlic mixture.
So...that is also extremely not helpful in this situation.
The last thing I tried was the caramelized French Toast recipe,
which is actually one of the more complex recipes in the app.
I'm on my final recipe that I wanted to try, which is the caramel french toast.
Can you guys tell I've given up yet?
So, this brown sugar was like hard as f*ck, uh so I put it in the microwave to soften it up a bit,
but it was still pretty brick-hard and I didn't want to melt it, so
I'm just kind of softening it up right now in this step that they're telling me to do
uh, to let the pan preheat and whisk all this stuff together.
um, while I wait for that to happen,
and like, their demonstration of it is very cute,
and they uh, they even like whisk the actual f*cking spices in - I mean
they, they like use a microplane for the f*cking nutmeg, like, COME ON bitch, really?
um, anyways, I'm just sitting here,
lovingly hand-breaking up this brown sugar into this mixture.
So it's all good, you know?
Having a really good time.
Um [laughs]
God knows if I'll ever actually put this video out
like, it's kinda funny, like....
...I don't know.
Oh my god [laughs]
So it just did it again, it just tripped this, this uh, this power strip over here.
Just so you know it is the only thing that is plugged into this outlet.
Um, the lights, which in truth aren't actually that powerful,
are plugged into separate outlets here...
and here.
maybe I just don't know enough about electricity.
Oh my god.
And it does this bullsh*t again with the timer which is going to kill me.
Oh Christ. Okay, here we go.
I'm just gonna start it now,
lest it decides to fuck me over royally later.
This is, uh... kind of a hot mess, but here we go boi.
So uh, these ones are a little bit questionable on the backside,
this one's a little bit burnt,
um, just because the pan was a little overcrowded at the beginning, but these actually look good.
Which I'm...pretty happy with.
Just trying to get a nice color on - oh, shit - on both sides, and then we'll be done.
All things considered this one actually didn't do too bad either -
until the f*ckin thing shut off.
Just tripped the switch again - AGAIN!
Jesus.
And, since I can't skip steps when I go to resume the recipe after it shut off,
I just had to finish cooking it on my stovetop so I didn't burn the shit out of it.
Overall, the recipes are amazing, they're all delicious, and I have no complaints.
But, if you're trying to cook it on this thing, uh, it's probably gonna be more difficult than less.
The fact that you can't skip steps is insane to me.
Just like...what if the power goes out? What if it gets unplugged?
What if it keeps shutting off for no reason, like mine did?
You know, it forces you to basically restart the whole recipe.
I can't even use it as a regular hot plate because it shuts off after using it for like ten minutes.
I don't know if other people have had issues with it shutting off like mine did,
but, uh, you cannot blame me for the absolute f*ckery going on in that app,
In a review from a professional chef for Wired magazine,
even THEY were forced to finish some of the recipes on their stovetop
because the One Top was acting strangely.
Hopefully, most of these issues can be fixed by updating the app itself,
since that is really where most of the issues came from for me.
I think my particular unit was defective since it kept shutting off, but
I'm really not penalizing them for that,
I think my main beef is with the app.
Unfortunately, this wasn't a great experience with the One Top,
I really don't think I ever want to look at this thing again,
But, uh, the recipes have always been amazing,
Tasty has always made great videos, and recipes, and just had these great ideas surrounding food
and just kind of changed the whole game in that way.
Which I love, but, uh...
Maybe just cook their recipes on a regular stove.
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