‘Ugly Delicious’ is food for thought
Taste is more important than looks in new Netflix series from David Chang
Korean-American chef David Chang is out to challenge taste buds and minds in a new eight-part Netflix documentary series.
Called “Ugly Delicious,” the series, directed by Morgan Neville and premiering Friday, Feb. 23, shows Chang breaking bread with the likes of late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, food writer Ruth Reichl and chef Jacques Pépin as they discuss the intersection of food and culture in different parts of the world. The name comes from the hashtag the series’ star uses to describe nonphotogenic dishes that he posts to Instagram.
As he explains, #uglydelicious began as a joke.
“Everyone would make fun of me; they would say, ‘Aw, you only post ugly food.’ Yeah,” Chang said he would tell them, “but it’s really delicious.
“It later dawned on me that it had a lot of significance,” he said. “There was a point in my life where a lot of the food I grew up eating I was quite ashamed of, or I tried not to cook early in my career. I’m much more comfortable not only trying to make it, but understanding where it came from and embracing it, quite frankly.”
Chang grew up in Virginia eating noodles, kimchi and other staples of Korean cuisine as the youngest of four children of immigrants. After studying classic French cuisine, he decided to open a noodle bar in New York in 2004.
Today, the 40-year-old founder of what is now the Momofuku restaurant empire has opened his first restaurant in Los Angeles, called Majordomo.
The Netflix series aims to get people to reserve judgment by tackling misconceptions around food and its aesthetics, from street cart fare to fine dining. Every episode features three to five guests as it travels around the world, from Viet-Cajun cuisine in Houston to Neapolitan pizza in Tokyo and home cooking in Copenhagen.
In one clip, Chang is seen grabbing pho in Glendale with standup comedian Ali Wong, who worries that the food isn’t good because the servers are polite and the bathrooms are clean.
“I want to know what percentage that gave it five stars are Asian,” she said.
While visiting Beijing with Fuchsia Dunlop, a food writer who specializes in Chinese cuisine, Chang spits out dried deer tendon. Deer tendon? “Maybe what’s unusual to you is commonplace to someone else,” he said. “That’s part of what we’re trying to explore is to be cautious with throwing judgments out there and not to revert to your default setting, but try to keep an open mind.”