Review of Culinary Class Wars Season 2

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

When it comes to blogging, or even watching movies and whatnot, I’ve been in such a weird headspace lately. I started a new job after quite a bit of a spell of not having any besides freelance and contract work, and now that I am actually working, I’m not watching as much as I used.

Part of it is fueled by my newfound YouTube addiction, but part of it just is that I can’t stay awake long enough to get everything I want done. I haven’t even been going to the movies lately to see them in-person because I simply am just tired after I get everything else done.

Call this a regular phase of corporate America and adulting, but I want to find a balance and go back more to the things I love. Sometimes life is simply trying to find a balance between the things that keep you alive, providing food, shelter, and warmth, and the things that you actually want to spend your life enjoying.

When Culinary Class Wars season 1 came out I was very much unemployed at the time, beyond my freelance and contracting gigs, so I had a lot more time to watch things. I enjoyed that first season a lot so when the second season dropped, I thought I was also going to binge watch it.

Spoiler: that did not happen. It took me a while to get through the entire season because of life and the various things that popped up during this time, but I was honestly fine with taking my time to get through this season. Some things in life, like a good stew, are meant to be savored.

Let’s get into the review!

As the white and black spoons are pitted against each other, drama heats up on the chef’s floor of Culinary Class Wars.

This season has the same premise as the first season: the white spoons are the chefs who are highly trained in cooking, whether it’s French, Korean, Chinese, or broader Asian cuisine, while the black spoons are considered to be amateurs in the cooking world. I wouldn’t actually use that word to describe them, as they’re highly accomplished in their own way.

Of the white spoons I only recognized the Venerable, but that’s because I’m very into Korean Buddhist cooking. That obsession began when I saw the Chef’s Table episode on Jeong Kwan a few years back, then when I was last in Korea we stayed at a Buddhist temple in Gyeongju that had the most incredible food. It was so good that I wanted to go back just to eat.

I recognized immediately Dweji-Gomtang in New York because I’ve been trying to go to Okdongsik in New York for years, but have procrastinated so hard that now the hype is going to make it difficult to get into there when I go the next few times I’m up. Culinary Monster I also recognized from his time at Atomix, which is why I was surprised that he was considered a black spoon.

Of the black spoons though I was really rooting for Brewmaster Yun, as she made the kind of food originally that I thought was more everyday and appealing to the average person. Elevating that kind of food to the next level takes some serious skill and work beyond being a basic home chef or someone who casually opened a restaurant, and I had mad respect for her.

Without going too deep into spoiler territory, this season did feel a bit more contrived for drama than the previous season. I think the show’s producers and whoever mapped this did a good job of switching up some of the activities they needed to be doing in order to progress to the next level, but some of these scenarios were so dramatic that I found myself sitting back and wondering if this felt less organic overall.

While I enjoyed all of the people on the show—there wasn’t anyone I openly disliked I would say—and what they brought to the table (literally), I thought that this season fell a bit short to me. Maybe it’s because season one had more distinct personalities? I feel like I could only truly remember a few people from this season in the end.

Overall Thoughts

I know I seem a little too hard on this season in this review, but I think that came with higher expectations going into it. After a show like this is propped up hard after the first season, which was really good, I think it has to be just as captivating, if not more, to keep audiences enagaged.

And sure there were a few people I’ll find myself following after the show, but less for this season. I really do find adding in a Buddhist monk to be an interesting addition as well, as that adds an element where they can’t use any form of meat, onions, or garlic due to the rules of Korean Buddhism.

I don’t know if I’ll revisit this season, but I think it was worth watching at least once! I had fun with it in that way at least, and it was quite entertaining in the moment.

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