A dish holds more than just the taste. Its presentation, scent, and texture all play a part in building up to the moment the food enters the mouth, is savored, and is then swallowed. Netflix’s “Culinary Class Wars,” is a cooking show where each chef competes with beautiful dishes that tell their distinct story. The show distinguishes chefs who are well-known from those who are underdogs by classifying them by color: white spoons and black spoons. “Black spoon” is a term to refer to unpopular chefs while “white spoon” refers to recognized and professional ones. After a series of rounds, the final two chefs, white spoon chef Edward Lee and black spoon chef Kwon Sung-jun, presented extraordinary dishes.

Leftover Tteokbokki Dessert by Edward Lee

The “Leftover Tteokbokki Dessert” is a reinterpretation of a famous Korean street food, tteokbokki. It combines chewy rice cakes with gochujang, Korean chili paste, and often includes various additions including cheese, ramen noodles, boiled eggs, and more. The fascinating aspect of Lee’s dish was his decision to make this spicy snack a dessert.

Lee started off by boiling the rice cakes and then pureeing, changing the solid food into a smooth pudding-like texture. After adding whipped cream and Italian meringue to the puree base, Lee formed the mixture in a cylindrical shape and froze it. By making caramel with gochujang, Lee transformed the traditional paste into a special mouth-watering sauce for a dessert.

“It’s always been the case that whenever I ordered food from Korea, they gave me so much food all the time that there were leftovers,” Edward Lee, finalist, said. “I’d always end up with two or three pieces leftover. Initially, I thought it was a waste to have so many leftovers, but I eventually came to see that that wasn’t the case. I reached the conclusion that the generosity of hearty meals, prepared with love and consideration for others is what Korean food is about.”

To pair with the sweet dessert, Lee made a makgeolli, Korean rice wine, with a twist. He added Chamoe, oriental melon, and minari, water celery, to add more flavor to the drink. The judges enjoyed the dish by starting off with a clink of their rice wine glasses.

Piedmont-style rack of lamb and lamb-heart ravioli by Kwon Sung-jun

As the final round started, Kwon’s real name was revealed. Prior to this, he was known as Napoli Matfia as all black spoon chefs used a stage name.

“You can say that I’m putting my life and my heart on the line for this dish,” Kwon Sung-jun, finalist, said. “I used lamb and pistachio to make this dish along with sage, which is bound to come to mind when one thinks of an Italian forest. The heart-shaped pasta you see before you was made by using a lamb heart and lamb shoulder rack pasta filling.”

In contrast to Lee’s dish, which was a dessert, Kwon’s was a very complex entrée. He made the sauce out of 1995 Barolo wine to symbolize breathing his life into his sauce.

“My favorite chef is Kwon Sung-jun,” Minho Chun (10), cooking enthusiast, said. “I was fascinated by his creative interpretation of pasta noodles because he represented his career through his design in the first round. Also, I found his unique plating style very amusing as it showed his devotion to cooking.”

After tasting both dishes, judges Paik Jong-won and Ahn Sung-jae were extremely impressed yet very unsure whose dish to vote for. Because the final round required both judges to vote for the same dish to announce the final winner, if the two judges voted for different dishes, the chefs would have to cook another. 

The final winner of the cooking show was Kwon.

“This is a dream come true,” Kwon said. “My daily routine isn’t very exciting. It involves traveling back and forth between my home and my restaurant. I’ve been questioning whether this is the right way to live or not. I came here to determine if dedicating my life solely to cooking was truly the right path. And now that I’ve won, I feel like the past ten years of going back and forth were definitely not in vain.”

Although the show only had one winner, it is irrefutable that both dishes were immaculate in creativity, presentation, and taste.