For weeks now, hit Netflix cooking competition Culinary Class Wars has been all our foodie friends can chatter about.
But it seems the 12-episode series that featured a whopping 100 participants is not without controversy.
Participant and renowned Chinese cuisine chef Jung Ji-sun is being slammed by angry Chinese netizens after they called her a “cultural thief” for alluding to the ‘silk pulling’ cooking technique as Korean.
‘Silk pulling’ involves boiling sugar into crystal threads using water and is often drizzled over sweet potatoes and yams in China.
Ji-Sun had applied the cooking technique over pork and black vinegar and her dish was a hit with the judges.
“Koreans are thieves!” read one furious comment, while another asked her to “Get your facts right!”.
Honestly, what good is a reality show without some drama, right?
It seems Korean netizens were also having none of the online bullying and quickly hit back with many asking the show’s critics to rewatch the episode again.
“That episode was clearly marked as Chinese cuisine. So what is all the fuss about?” read a reply.
Some even asked how Chinese netizens managed to watch the show with one sassily asking, “Are the subtitles not clear because you are watching it illegally?”
Netflix is not available in China though some have managed to get around it with the use of a VPN (virtual private network).
But the online vitriol didn’t stop there.
In the same thread, some accused Ji-sun of being a “hands-off chef” and making member of the production team clean up the sugar water left over from the dish.
Ji-sun has since responded and said that it was a rumour and that she had cleaned it up herself after finishing cooking.
Is it just us or is the online community trying to find their next reality villain for a Netflix spinoff?