Social media trends may come and go, but food is forever. From restaurant recommendations to outright “food porn,” the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating appetizing content. But while some food influencers may make content just to fill the timeline, others are utilizing their following to pursue their passions in the culinary industry. Meet these five Asian food creators paving their own way offline and try out one of their signature recipes for yourselves.
H Woo Lee | @HWoo.Lee
“I’m a very big believer in learning something and doing it the proper way before I’m allowed to break the rules.”
— H Woo Lee (Photo by Brent Ferguson.)
Many novice cooks don’t have the tenacity to attempt Michelin-level dishes, let alone college students learning to cook for the first time. Most known for his ASMR-style, beat-for-beat editing and his penchant for gourmet dishes, H Woo Lee is running the gamut of fine dining right from his home kitchen. Lee started cooking out of necessity while in university, as food options around USC were limited to student dining and fast food. He never intentionally set out to make restaurant-quality dishes, just wanting to recreate food he wanted to eat — which happened to include things like dry-aged rib eye with foie gras sauce.
What started out as a necessity became a passion, with Lee taking the time and effort to learn from YouTube, cookbooks and through other cooks. While in school, he started Maru, a supper club operating out of his apartment where he hosted private dinners and tasting menus for friends. Lee didn’t think much of pursuing the food industry, instead pivoting to focus on his event planning career. It wasn’t until during the pandemic that he revisited food and cooking as a profession when his social media accounts began to grow. Some of his first forays into TikTok saw him cooking gourmet meals for himself, like freshly made squid ink pasta in uni cream sauce…
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