Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook review – the heir to a legendary eatery … who sets soup on fire

It starts both very well and very badly does Awkwafina: The Unlikely Cook. On the one hand, our host’s absolute ignorance of how food works – or pans, or knives, or plates – has a refreshing authenticity about it. Too often in these shows, in which a celebrity goes on A Journey to acquire basic knowledge in what is generally considered to be a normal field of human endeavour, their lack of exposure to it or inability therein is pretended or hammed up. But actor, rapper and comedian Awkwafina – real name Nora Lum, which is what she uses for this series beyond the title, for reasons that will become clear – is the real, wholly baffled deal.

Non-game recognises non-game, and as a kitchenphobe myself, I see the truth in her crouched stance by the oven or hob, fearful yet hostile to anything they may ask of her. We see her pour milk over a couple of eggs she has just lobbed doubtfully into a pan, the tentativeness with which she approaches spatulas and ladles, the hatred in her eyes when presented with raw ingredients – it all speaks to someone who has remained truly untouched by the culinary arts and was, at least until a commissioning editor approached with an idea, happy to remain so.

On the other hand, the scripted voiceovers are bad. “I’ve been known to set soup on fire,” she says. “Which is impressive. As it’s a dish that’s mainly water.”

Fortunately, someone in charge evidently realises these things are letting the side down and reduces their number as the increasingly fun and more than occasionally moving series continues. Nora is, in a frankly unexpected twist, a descendant of “Chinese restaurant royalty”. Her great-grandfather Jimmy founded the famous Lum’s restaurant in Flushing in Queens, New York, in the 1950s. Her family – including her father and the grandmother who raised her after her mother died when she was four – worked there until it closed in 1982. Her grandmother, Powah Lum, is 91 in the show, and although she doesn’t leave the house much, is still a force to be reckoned with. When Nora asks why Grandma didn’t teach her how to cook, Grandma has a simple answer. “You too lazy.”

Whatever the truth of this, Nora is not a lazy presence on screen. She is a ball of energy and charisma, mesmerising in her intensity whether she is focused on mastering wok skills at the Culinary Institute of America (“This should be both harrowing and entertaining to watch,” she says, approaching the work station like a man walking up the line at Verdun) or exchanging gags with her Crazy Rich Asians co-star Jimmy O Yang, as they drive to Texas to sample the Asian-American fusion cuisines that are being invented beyond Manhattan’s Chinatown.

The aim is that she will open a restaurant. This soon changes to a more plausible pop-up restaurant, in nine months’ time. It will pay homage to Lum’s, and to the experience and heritage of the Cantonese, Korean (like Nora’s distaff side), and other immigrants who came to the US and made their way by setting up eateries and adapting their cuisines to local palates, while also introducing their adopted country to something new.

As she travels to various states and learns how to make bulgogi sausages in Fredericksburg, a Peking duck I would sell my soul to taste in San Francisco at Mister Jiu’s, or joint a chicken in 19 seconds with 80s celebrity chef Martin Yan, Nora and her companions piece together the wider immigrant story, of how the next generation were encouraged to become lawyers, doctors, professionals who could escape the relentless hard work of both kitchens and running your own business. Which they succeeded in doing, but at a cost: with no one to inherit them, most family restaurants, like Lum’s, disappeared. But what has been happening in the last few years is that the grandchildren are coming back – crucially, choosing to come back – to start new businesses, often in the old places and being proud to do so.

Grandma Powah sadly died just after filming, but she makes it to the opening night of Nora’s pop-up homage to Lum’s restaurant (“She’s a paid actor,” Nora tells customers, “but it means a lot”), with its walls lined with family photographs and menu full of the old favourites with modern twists. Grandma is a hard taskmaster, so the entire place waits with bated breath when Nora asks if she liked the food. “I ate a lot,” says Powah. “I am proud of you,” she says as she leaves. “All the time.”

This was a fine thing. I don’t need a second helping – unexpected pleasures should not be milked – but it was a fine thing.