A taste of ‘Culinary Class Wars’ in Manila
If you found yourself wishing you could eat what the chefs on “Culinary Class Wars” were cooking, here’s your chance—and you don’t have to fly to Korea.
Your Local returns to The Balmori Suites’ Chef’s Table in Rockwell for the third time, and in this round, chef Patrick Go will be joined by four chefs from the hit reality cooking competition for a series of collaborations—the first Southeast Asian pop-up featuring “Culinary Class Wars” chefs.
It was Charles Paw, founder and CEO of Tasteless Food Group, who initiated the collaboration, connecting Your Local with his partners in Korea to make the event happen.
Dubbed “Mat Nam: Where the Flavor Meets,” the exclusive collab is off to a strong start with chefs Young Sook Lee and Jihyung Choi, two white spoon chefs from the show. (In “Culinary Class Wars,” the white spoon chefs were considered more seasoned, established, and experienced than their black spoon counterparts.)
Lee, who runs the restaurant Nakyung, is a master of traditional and regional Korean cuisine and the winner of the second season of “Korean Food Battle,” also referred to as “Korean Food War.”
Choi is the chef behind Lee Buk Bang, a restaurant that has made it to the Michelin Guide for five consecutive years. The Michelin Guide praises him for his modern, creative, and refined take on North Korean cuisine. “I’m the world’s first chef to do North Korean fine dining,” he tells viewers on “Culinary Class Wars.”
‘Unified Korean cuisine’
Hei said on the show, “I make food with North Korean roots that South Koreans also enjoy.” He calls it “unified Korean cuisine” and that’s what he brought to the pop-up.
We asked Choi what made him say yes to this collaboration. “Why not? That’s the answer. Look at this place. Beautiful area, beautiful space, beautiful team, beautiful customers. Why not?”
For Lee, Choi was the big deciding factor. She said through an interpreter, “I came here because Chef Choi was coming. If it were just me, I wouldn’t have been so confident but because Chef Choi is coming, I feel more confident to come. I always wondered how my food would be perceived internationally. I’d like to spread the message that traditional Korean food is good and flavorful.”
The rest of the chefs in the collab series will be coming on their own, but Choi and Lee decided to do it together. The two had gotten close while filming.
Choi said, “I’ve been a fan of hers for more than 10 years. Now, because of ‘Culinary Class Wars,’ I’ve become like a friend and a son to her.”
Lee shared, “It was a really long filming and it was wintertime and it was very cold in the studio. We had to stay there for 18 hours and I’m 70. Chef Choi would approach me and take care of me. We also connected through Korean cuisine.”
Two different styles
Go said, “They decided to come together and I think it’s a good thing because they have two different styles. It’s a good way to showcase what Korea has.”
For Mat Nam, Lee prepared a classic japchae. “I know Filipinos like japchae and it’s kinda common here, but for Koreans, it’s not daily food. It’s usually provided on good days, like when there’s a new baby or a marriage or a family reunion. Because it’s a good day, I wanted to serve a meaningful dish.”
Lee did not tweak her recipe for the Filipino palate. “I know Filipinos like salty and strong flavors but Korean traditional food is less seasoned… I want to bring authenticity to you so you can try what actual japchae is like.”
The traditional Korean banquet noodle dish had plenty of color—with different vegetables, mushrooms, and pork loin stir-fried in a soy-sugar sauce. The noodles were nice and chewy and the vegetables perfectly crisp-tender.
Her other dish was Mushroom Chicken Gangjeong—crispy fried chicken and mushrooms tossed in a sweet and spicy gochujang-ketchup glaze. “Gangjeong is the old way of cooking Korean fried chicken,” she said.
Lee got to share her passion for mushrooms at the pop-up (she’s the CEO of a mushroom farm!). Each ganjeong piece, whether chicken or mushroom, was a flavor bomb—crunchy, sweet, and with a nice kick.
1,000-year-old recipe
Choi’s Gochujang Dakgalbi-Chicken was a thing of beauty—a layered dish of gochujang dakgalbi-chicken, rice, curry, and root vegetables peeking underneath a crispy, delicate shard of chicken skin. The rice is green—the result of mixing perilla leaf and cilantro vinaigrette while the zucchini had been tossed in calamansi (Choi’s new favorite ingredient) and Korean chili flakes. All the ingredients come together for a perfect bite—a harmonious convergence of flavors and textures.
His other dish was the Maekjeokgui, prepared using a 1,000-year-old Korean recipe. The pork belly had been marinated in soybean paste before being grilled. For Choi, the two dishes are a way to introduce Korean jang (fermented soybean-based sauces) internationally.
“You guys have Korean jang here in the market and I want to encourage you guys to use Korean jang because it has very good probiotics, it’s easy to keep and it’s a very good ingredient,” he said.
Choi’s and Lee’s dishes will be available only until April 23.
When you go to the pop-up, dig into the Korean chefs’ offerings, but for your sake, don’t miss out on Your Local’s dishes either. Go has created a fantastic new menu for Your Local’s third run at The Balmori Suites.
“The items are all new. We haven’t done these dishes anywhere else. My idea was doing something that we’re very comfortable with—strong Asian flavors while putting subtle Filipino and Korean ingredients so the menu is seamless. We try to make it approachable for everyone. Everything’s good for sharing. The goal is for the menu to be very communal,” he told Lifestyle.
MSG
Our table was obsessed with the dish called MSG (mantou toast, shiitake mushroom, gorgonzola, seaweed, parmesan) which is also one of Go’s favorites. “We don’t use MSG at the restaurant but we try to make natural flavors come out.”
The Mackerel (torched mackerel, kamatis sambal, coconut, citrus greens) is another favorite, as is the Halibut (steamed halibut, ginamos rendang, kaffir with sesame leaf and charred lettuce).
“I like doing a lot of curries in Your Local… Japanese curries, Malaysian curries; this is one of my favorites. I used ginamos from Bacolod because I’m from Bacolod.”
Another hit? The River Prawns (roasted prawns, torched mentaiko, soy brown butter sauce, ebiko). We also really loved the Palabok Rice (smoked fish fried rice, chicharon, Korean seaweed, dashi palabok sauce).
For dessert, we had YuzuMansi Cake (citron calamansi cake, salted cream, banana chips, local cinnamon) and Choco na Gatas v2 (burnt milk ice cream, toasted rice, chocolate mousse, rice crispies).
“This is version 2…. The first one was fruity. This one tastes like espasol, polvoron, dulce de leche,” Go said.
Your Local’s offerings complement the Korean chefs’ dishes. “I hope they get to try a few items from Your Local and a few items from the Korean chefs and get to experience the whole menu,” Go said.
Choi and Lee have enjoyed working with Go and his team.
“Chef Patrick is a great leader for sure. He knows what we need and he’s always prepared. He is a very nice person, a kind person, and he is very polite. He cares about all the details. Working with him and the team is a great experience for us,” Choi said.
Lee said, “I can’t communicate [because I don’t speak English] but we could work in the kitchen together because the food unites me with the team. We communicate through cooking. It’s fun working with non-Koreans. It’s my first time working with non-Koreans. I’m enjoying it.”
Go shared, “It’s an honor for us to see them cook. Their techniques, super galing. We’re seeing them cooking live… it’s super fun for us because we get to learn a lot. It’s good exposure for the team to learn from these Korean chefs.”
This is just the beginning. Because two more chefs from “Culinary Class Wars” are coming to continue the Mat Nam collabs and they will be presenting four dishes each.
Diners can enjoy the food of white spoon chef Kisu Bang of Gitdeun from April 26 to May 14. Then, from May 17 to June 1, it will be black spoon chef and “Yakitori King” Byung Mook Kim’s turn.
The chefs will be present at the pop-up for two days so time your visit if you’d like to meet them.
While the pop-up is running, Your Local in Legazpi Village is also open. Go said, “After our Balmori stint, we will be updating the menu. We’ll be adding several dishes from here. We like doing that—we put the past bestsellers from our Balmori pop-ups on the menu. This is a good testing ground for us also for new items.”
We asked Go what keeps Your Local coming back to Balmori. He told Lifestyle, “Of course the people. When we opened the reservations, almost all the slots were already full. We always appreciate how people react to all of our Balmori pop-ups. I’m very happy that people are excited to come here not just because of Your Local but because of the Korean chefs also.”
Mat Nam by Your Local is happening at The Balmori Suites (Hidalgo Drive Rockwell Center Makati) until June 1. For reservations, contact 0945-4270054.
