Ugly Delicious

I am blown away by Ugly Delicious. I've finished season 1 and can't wait for a season 2.

Each show focuses on a single food item or topic and David Chang travels America and the world exploring it, discussing its history, it's rise and development.

For example, the episode on fried chicken wasn't content to just show David Chang eating some fried chicken but he dives into the history of it, teaches us why it's a racial food and why some people won't be seen in public ordering it. I had no idea. I just thought it was delicious. The episode on Chinese food, discusses why Chinese American food is completely different than the food in China and how western tastes are coming to change over time.

This is a far cry from a typical food show that just glorifies a few chefs or is endless shots of food porn. Give it a watch!

I loved this show. The fist 6 episodes were great, though the last 2 were less so. In particular I thought the episodes on pizza, BBQ, Viet-cajun, and fried chicken were excellent. I liked that this was not a cooking show - that it was about what food means and about some of the best, most iconic examples of the subject food without getting lost in a Gino's vs Pat's type debate.

I want to like this, I really do, but why does so much of this need to be about race. I have no problem discussing the origins and what the food means to that particular ethnicity, but this goes way too far. I'm white and I felt so much unneeded guilt. They completely broad brush that every white person thinks and acts the same way and does not appreciate Asian culture and thinks the food is weird. They say Americans will not eat traditional Asian food, but that doesn't make them hate a culture or ethnicity. It just makes them human and their culture is not used to that type of food.

And David Chang makes himself a complete hypocrite when he says it "pisses him off" when White people say they like Chinese Food, but have never had traditional Chinese food. Skip 5 mins and he is talking to a WHITE Chinese food expert in China. She has him try traditional Chinese food and he spits it out right in front of the chef who prepared it. WTF!?

I am an amateur home cook with a strong fetish for cooking shows and shows about food and in my opinion this show is one of the best I have ever seen. I love how it explores dishes and topics from a vast array of perspectives, I love how honest it is and I admire how open David change is. I always believed food is one of the most powerful things on earth and this show is both a prof and an explanation to that. Cant wait for Se 2!

Due to Netflix I am sure that David is getting a global audience, which is great. All the places he and his crew visit to find the perfect food is fantastic, the in depth commentairy about the topics are insanely well done as well. Almost a 10/10 for me, giving it just 1 minus point. This is for the 'racial' topic, something that is truely an american thing. Not that this does not need to be mentioned, it just does not need to come back that much. It is a topic for a whole different kind of documentairy. Besides that, I am greatly looking forward to Season 2.