Lu Ching Lai is a white spoon chef in Netflix’s Culinary Class Wars, a South Korean reality competition series that premiered on Netflix in 2024. It is a cooking competition, but in the style of Physical: 100, one hundred of the country's best chefs are divided into two color-coded groups, White Spoon and Black Spoon, and gradually whittled down to just one person who will win the 300 million won prize.
Lu Ching Lai was born to a Korean mother and a Chinese father in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province. At 15, he graduated from middle school and worked in a Chinese restaurant to become his family's breadwinner.
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He worked his way up the culinary field. He had a good teacher and learned how to do it. By his mid-20s, he'd worked his way up to sous chef at another hotel in Seoul. Then he quit and ran his restaurant for a decade before returning to the Grand Ambassador Seoul to work in his restaurant.
Culinary Class Wars tells the story behind Lu Ching Lai’s personal life
As seen in Culinary Class Wars, Lu Ching Lai is a Chinese food specialist who has been in the business for 45 years. He has been cooking since he was 16, around 1975. Lai has his father's nationality, so he is Chinese, but he is also a citizen of Taiwan. His way of doing things depicts his mother’s Korean culture. Because of this identity, Lu Ching Lai had a confusing childhood.
Lu Ching Lai’s father passed away very young; hence, he had to get on the path of earning early on. On this, the chef said,
"Because I lost my father early on, I matured early and learned fast about how life worked,"
Hong Bo Gak is Lu Ching Lai’s Chinese restaurant located in the Grand Ambassador Seoul. It serves Chinese delicacies from Fujian Province. Established in 1994, it is still considered one of the best in Seoul by local diners.
Culinary Class Wars: Lu Ching Lai’s identity can be seen in his food
Lu Ching Lai has spent nearly two decades working in Seoul, Korea. The star chef in the Korean cooking show Culinary Class Wars jokingly described himself as "half-Soulite."
Lu Ching Lai is famous for combining Beijing, Cantonese, and Sichuan dishes. He says that Chinese food is completely misunderstood because people think it is mainly fried. It is more of a Korean thing. Interestingly, the Chinese do not seem to like oily food.
Lu Ching Lai's favorite dish is sweet and sour pork, which he fries one by one to make one piece of sweet and sour pork. He puts a lot of effort into frying the ingredients, which makes the dish crispy and chewy at the same time.
Lu Ching Lai is one of the individuals who has redefined Chinese and Korean cuisine. He believes that the trend for Korean-style Chinese food will continue to grow and develop into a unique global food phenomenon.
Lu Ching Lai, a veteran Taiwanese chef in Korea who appears on Culinary Class Wars as White Spoon, has a close apprentice, Park Eun-young, who is one of the few female chefs specializing in Chinese cuisine in Korea.
Culinary Class Wars is currently available to stream on Netflix.
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