In “Le Grand Chef” Seong-chan (Kang-woo Kim) and Bong-ju (Won-hee Lim) are finalists in a competition to ordain a national Korean chef. The two competitors are no strangers to each other and have a long history of rivalry. They both started their culinary careers at the same cooking school and they competed five years earlier to work as the head chef at a world-class hotel in Korea. During their first competition Seong-chan seemed likely to win the competition, but a blowfish plate that he made was mysteriously tainted with poison (guess who sabotaged the plate?).

After that competition, Seong-chan gave up the culinary arts and retreated to a small rural town to sell vegetables and work as a farmer. Even though he was content in retirement, a reporter comes to his home to encourage him to compete in the royal chef challenge. Eventually Seong-chan’s competitive spirit gets the better of him and he does enter the competition.

If this was the entire the movie, “La Grand Chef” would likely have been a smashing success. But, before you can say “champong,” several unnecessary sub-plot rears its ugly head. There’s the story of a death row inmate who holds the secret to making the best charcoal in Korea, an even more unnecessary subplot with Seong-chan and his beloved cow, and the wackiest of the bunch… the two rival chef’s grandparents and how one of them may have committed murder. The movie jumps back in time to tell this jarring story at the most inappropriate time, right before the finale. Lastly, if all these sub-plots weren’t distracting enough, the movie feels the need to inject the finale with unneeded patriotism.

When “La Grand Chef” focuses on the chefs and their amazing Korean dishes the movie is just a whole lot of fun to watch. If you haven’t ever tried a Korean dish before you’ll likely find yourself wanting to try one soon. If you have tried some of those Korean dishes before you’ll likely end up driving to your nearest Korean restaurant or Asian grocery store to taste some of those dishes again.

Ultimately, “Le Grand Chef” comes across as a promising dish, but the excess ingredients (sub-plots) ruins what would have been an otherwise thoroughly tasty entre. Damn.