You Only Have Tofu!

It's not as if I'm so into cooking reality shows. But I watched this one episode that almost had me gagging. No wonder they call it 'Infinite Cooking Hell', otherwise known as 'Round 5, the Tofu Challenge'. The eight chefs only had tofu as the main dish and literally had to cook it till they make it — to earn a spot in the Finals, of which Napoli Matfia/ Kwon Seong-jun already had a spot.  

OMG. If I had to do that, I'd be so f^&*ing done with tofu and never want to go near it again for the next year or so. Luckily I'm just a viewer. At least I know what else I can do with tofu besides the usual ways to eat them. Honestly, I like it as 'pidan tofu' or silken tofu with century egg. LOL 

I rooted for no one, and simply checked out the show's production standards, script and creative direction and how they adapted to audience reactions, or not. I certainly don't watch enough cooking reality shows to judge its entertainment value. After watching the whole thing, I still have no opinions if this is as good as Iron Chef or Master Chef, as this is uniquely Korean. None of them hold my interest that much.

When I'm not a cook or someone who's interested in cooking as a hobby, I'm not and never will be inspired to cook or replicate any dish from even a fun cooking show. All I could think of is, who's going to do the washing up? Come on, if you have a helper washing up after you cook, that's certainly going to make the whole thing a breeze each time you experiment with dishes or do a dependable meal. 

Does this slight dread of cleaning up explain why I'm also not keen to host any sort of dinner parties at home? Even if we get takeout, I'm not really keen to host more than two pax because I'll have to stay up till 2am after guests leave at 11pm. This isn't a college dorm or a flat I'm renting that I don't care about. I'm not leaving dishes piled up in the sink or food bits on the floor for tomorrow's chores. So if I do host, it's probably like four times a year out of necessity. I'm not a competent cook by anyone's standards, so it's not as if there's a golden ticket to my small flat. Hahahahah. 

What I do know is, at the end of this show, it doesn't make me want to eat Korean food any more than I currently do, or try Korean-Chinese food or anything that deep fried. I'm quite certain that I have no interest in gochujang, doenjang or ganjang. In fact, I'm more keen on the pasta dishes! Oof. Say, a simple aglio e olio. 

I was pleased to see white bibimbap (baekhwaban) chosen by chef-owner of Euljiro Boseok — Chef Cho Seo Hyeong. She went to Tongyeong and was surprised to see that the southern port city doesn't use gochujang in their bibimbap. I love white bibimbap and have eaten it loads when I was in the country. Although it's hard to find it in Singapore, sometimes it's annoying to have even Koreans tell me there isn't a bibimbap that doesn't use gochujang. At least people know that there is white kimchi (baek kimchi).

Tofu Crème Brûlée, anyone?