While there are many culinary greats emerging from Netflix’s "Culinary Class Wars 2" Hu Deok-juk stands out not as a new star but rather as a stalwart master of Korean Chinese cuisine. Born in 1949, his culinary career spans 57 years, including a 42-year tenure at Palsun, the Chinese restaurant in the Shilla Hotel. He remains an active chef, still working the wok himself. Just two years after taking charge of Haobin at the Ambassador Seoul Pullman Hotel in 2021, he earned the restaurant a Michelin star. Even today, he reportedly checks every dish emerging from his kitchen to ensure it is served at the perfect temperature. Chef Hu began his career in 1968 as a kitchen assistant in a hotel restaurant, enticed by the promise that he "could eat plenty of ham and sausage." Through grueling training that started with cleaning and laundry, and through tenacious research into culinary secrets, he became a master chef. He introduced the Chinese dish "Buddha Jumps Over the Wall," a Fujianese shark fin soup, to Korea in 1987. He transformed the landscape of Chinese cuisine here, which had been