We all have that one special place we like to eat.
Whether it’s a little ramen shop in the East Village or a rickety taco stand on Buford Highway, this spot has your go-to order perfected, right down to the mouthwatering garnish and extra sauce. You know the names of everyone who works there. You’ve visited through breakups, promotions, tragedies, and achievements. This place is a culinary secret you’re happy to keep, but even more excited to share.
And yet, your place, however magical, rarely gets featured outside of your local food magazine, and seems to take more convincing for newcomers to visit than it ought to.
Street Food aims to change that.
Documenting street-level culinary gems from around the world, the new Netflix series examines not only what makes local cuisine uniquely spectacular, but also how and why the people behind these dishes began cooking them in the first place.
Creators David Gelb and Brian McGinn say the inspiration for the series came from their time traveling as fine dining documentarians on their other Netflix series, the much-beloved Chef’s Table.
“We noticed that, whenever we were visiting a new city, the people that were showing us around and guiding us would always take us to the street food vendors that they love the most,” McGinn recalls for Mashable.
“It seemed as though there was an opportunity to examine these artisans, these craftsmen — because that’s really what they are, they’ve been doing the same thing sometimes 30, 40, 50, 60 years — and to examine their lives and their work with the same rigor we try to bring to Chef’s Table.“
“It was constantly a race to capture all these stories in the time that we had in each place.”
Visiting Thailand, India, Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore, Street Food: Volume 1 captures the culinary achievements and life stories of numerous chefs and cooks from across Asia.
Without top brass publicists or even a Zagat guide entry to steer them, Gelb and McGinn went about finding their series’ stars in the same way many foodies find their favorite dishes: by word of mouth.
“We started building this network of food experts, of food journalists, of people on the ground in these countries who then said, ‘Oh! Maybe you should check out this city!’ or ‘This city might actually be really interesting’ and they would kind of point our focus,” McGinn details.
“And then, within each city, we would do the same thing. We would find an expert, and then that expert would help us identify a number of vendors that we should look into. And so, it was this process of slowly gathering information.”
Once there, with the star chefs onboard and only five or so days to film, Street Food‘s creators didn’t need to find each city’s story, so much as try to keep up with it. For millions of cooks across the globe, serving their dishes isn’t just an art, hobby, or passion — it’s a critical part of their family’s livelihood.
“These people aren’t cooking for their own self glory,” Gelb notes. “They’re cooking for their families, sometimes just to survive.”
“It was constantly a race to capture all these stories in the time that we had,” McGinn adds. “It was different for every place and for every vendor. In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Mbah Satinem, who is the featured vendor in [episode 4], would get up in the middle of the night and start cooking her jajan pasar.”