THE WAY I ATE THIS SHOW UP! (no pun intended). I think you all knew this was coming. The way I talked about this show in my previous blogposts and podcast episodes - OF COURSE, I WAS GOING TO DO A REVIEW OF THIS SHOW! I mean I did announce that in a previous podcast episode a couple of weeks ago. SO, HERE IT IS! If you have never heard of Culinary Class Wars somehow, this review will be your introduction to it. This review will also be in podcast form as an episode which should now be up on the podcast. I knew going into this show, I would like it. I did not expect HOW MUCH I got invested and loved it. The reason I introduced the BREAKING WITH VARIETY series on here and the podcast is for people to know more about these shows. I have gotten questions and seen social media posts about drama watchers who have never heard or seen an Asian Variety Show/Reality TV show. This is why this series exists.
NOW I WILL SAY THIS HERE - I WILL NOT BE SPOILING THIS SHOW...I will not be talking about the winner BUT I will be mentioning certain things like a particular chef or a certain round. So, if even going into what a certain round is like if it was a team round, or something is considered a spoiler for you - I guess that means I did spoil it.
A QUICK SYNOPSIS OF CULINARY CLASS WARS - A culinary class war among 100 contenders, wherein eighty underdog "Black Spoon" cooks challenge twenty "White Spoon" star chefs, fiercely competing to become the best in Korea. (Taken from MyDramalist and I think it summarizes it very well)
You have to know right away that I LOVED THIS SHOW! I really have nothing bad to say about it but there are a couple at the end of the review. OVERALL, though, I had very minor issues with this show that really did not affect my score. A little background on me, I LOVE COOKING COMPETITION SHOWS! I think I have seen almost every popular one in America at this point. So, when NETFLIX announced this show, I IMMEDIATELY knew I was going to check it out and probably enjoy it. I loved watching the chefs cook and the food they produced. Overall, there isn't much angst with this show which always a good thing. I did have favorites and got very invested in this show. It had variety in each round and challenge that it didn't get boring to me. If you are looking for something new to watch or you have never checked out an Asian Variety/Reality show - try this one out.
WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS KOREAN COOKING COMPETITION SHOW
THE SETUP - You know when a show starts with 100 people and there can only be 1 winner, this show is about to be intense and brutal. The show started off with 100 chefs split into two groups. You had 80s chefs who were the black spoons. These chefs were ordinary people who cooked all over Korea. They might own their own restaurants or worked in various restaurants/cuisines and maybe were famous in their own communities. Then there were 20 chefs that were the White spoons. These twenty chefs were the celebrity chefs, the famous chefs. The show whittled down the 80 black coat chefs down to 20 and then pitted those 20 chefs against the 20 white coat chefs. Eventually getting it down to 1 winner of the entire show.
THE CHALLENGES - The show, I think, did a good job in creating the challenges. You had a good variety. Some were individual challenges where the chefs were cooking for themselves. Other challenges were team challenges where the chefs had to work together. Each challenge had a different meaning to the chefs like make a dish that represented their life. I thought each challenge allowed the audience to learn more about the chefs. This allowed the audience to discover favorites and get more invested in the show. I thought the challenges had enough variety in them that I did not get bored as the show went on.
THE FOOD - I loved the variety we got in the food made on the show. I think the variety was for a lot of different reasons. You had chefs from all walks of life. You had chefs with different expertise. You had chefs with different number of years of experience. All of this contributed to the variety of food we got. All of these chefs were talented. All of these chefs were creative. As the show went on, it was fun to see how these chefs handled the challenges and what they did to stand out. What chefs took risks and what chefs played it safe. I personally enjoyed the chefs more that took risks and had a humble beginnings background.
THE CHEFS - Like I said with the food, there was so much variety with the chefs. I personally always rooted for the underdogs or people that surprised the judges. I rooted for the chefs that were unexpected. You had to stand out because there was a lot of talent on this show. Some people surprised me because they came out of nowhere. I like that the show tried its best to diversify the group of chefs. You may think because this was a Korean cooking show, all of the chefs were Korean, cooking Korean food. That was not the case. You had chefs of different nationalities on the show. You had chefs that cooked Korean food but also Italian, Japanese or Chinese food. You had different ages and years of experience. You had chefs that were known on social media and chefs who were a lot older who might own a hole in the wall restaurant. You had Michlin winning chefs/ chefs who have been on television going up against mom-and-pop restaurant chefs. There was a chef for everyone to root for and get attached too.
THE JUDGES - This show has 2 judges. Now, I knew only one of them because he is EXTREMELY famous in Korea as a TV Chef who hosts a lot of shows. I have watched a lot of his shows. That chef is Baek Jong Won. He has a lot of food shows even on NETFLIX. The other judge Anh Sung Jae isn't known for being on television, but he is known for being Korea's Only Michelin Three -Star chef. This was explained a little bit in the show, but you can even say that the show thought about what judges they were going to have on the show. Baek Jong Won is known as a television host who has traveled a lot and can relate more to the team that is the Black Spoons - you everyday sort of chef. Anh Sung Jae caters more to the White spoons - the celebrity chef or Michelin star chefs who are on that team. I thought that was a smart move. You needed two people who would look at different things, enjoy different things but were well respected in the food industry in Korea. The judges gave good insight and graded things in a different but were a lot of fun to watch because it was interesting to see how they differed but also what they both liked.
THE PRODUCTION - NETFLIX PUT A LOT OF MONEY IN THIS SHOW! The sets were grand. The scale of the show was massive. The show also showed that the production wanted to be as fair as possible, especially with the judging. They did blind tasting in some challenges when needed. It was exciting watching this show, to see what the next over the top challenge would show up. What ingredients would the chefs have to work with?
LOVING ALL OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS AFTER THE SHOW HAS ENDED - If you are anything like me, you will go and follow these chefs on social media. It has been a lot of fun seeing their posts after the show aired. You got premiere parties. You got reunions. You got memories from the show. I am curious what these chefs will do next like if they will join another food show or something.
WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER
GETTING A SEASON 2 - This isn't really a bad thing because it is a good thing that this show is getting a Season 2. I just have to wait for that Season 2 which will be hard to do.
SOME CHEFS PLAYED DIRTY - I won't say who or what challenge but there was one instance where the chefs played dirty. I didn't like that. It didn't need to happen. They could have just not done it and treated the other team as equals. It was the only time it happened in the show, and it left a bad after taste in my mouth with those specific chefs.
WANTED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SOME OF THE CHEFS - I understand that since the show started out with 100 chefs, the audience could not know about every chef on the show. Especially if the chef was one of the first to leave. I do wish we got a little more information about some of the chefs that got farther in the show. I felt like with some chefs we got a lot of information and other chefs; we got the bare minimum. It didn't seem even to me.
WISH THERE WAS A LITTLE MORE MENTORING BY THE JUDGES - One things I wanted as the show got to a smaller number of chefs; I wish there was a little more mentoring happening on the show. I mean you got two really famous judges - who couldn't they mentor a bit. You also got a group pf celebrity chefs (White spoons), why not allow them to mentor a bit. I would have liked to watch some more of that. It was a competition though so; I understand why there wasn't a lot. I just loved the wholesome moments we got on the show, I wish we got more.
MY THOUGHTS ON THE END OF THE SHOW (NO SPOILERS)
I was happy with who won the entire competition. The person who won wasn't my favorite from the beginning of the show BUT I grew to like them a lot by the end. I actually was surprised by the end because I did not picture either person who made it into the final to be there.
THAT IS MY REVIEW OF CULINARY CLASS WARS!
Culinary Class Wars - 10/10 (NETFLIX)
This Cooking Competition Show deserves nothing less than a 10/10. Could you go and nitpick things from the show? Yes, you probably could. Do you need to do that? No, you do not need to do that. Will you have favorites? ABSOLUTELY - Let me know who is your favorite? If you liked Culinary Class Wars and need more food related Asian reality tv shows - there are plenty of them out there like Delicious Rendezvous or Jinny's Kitchen (not cooking competition shows but still fun and entertaining). If you have not watched Culinary Class Wars yet, NOW is the perfect time to check it out on NETFLIX. OR you can wait until Season 2 starts and then dive in then.
Did you watch Culinary Class Wars?
What did you think of this cooking competition show?
Is it on your list to watch?
Will you watch this drama now after reading my review?
Do you agree with my review?
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