Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Take Out With Lisa Ling’ On HBO Max, Where The Journalist Examines Different Asian Food Cultures In America

We’ve seen so many food shows that they all blend together. But ones that are closer to documentaries than reality shows stand out because of how they integrate history and cultural change into the story of the food that lands on our tables. Anthony Bourdain perfected it, but people like Padma Lakshmi have carried on his legacy. Now, Lisa Ling has a docuseries about the influence of Asian cultures and cuisines in the United States.

TAKE OUT WITH LISA LING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “Sometimes in life, you find the most amazing things in the unlikeliest of places,” we hear Lisa Ling say in voice over as we see her walking into a convenience store. She finds a bag of “Malyn Shrimp Jerky” and plucks it off the display.

The Gist: Take Out With Lisa Ling has the journalist visiting different parts of the United States to examine how Asian cultures have not only influenced what Americans eat, but how big of a part they have had in how this country was built.

In the first episode, Ling travels to a small Louisiana town named Jean Lafitte, where immigrants from the Philippines settled centuries ago, when Louisiana was still a Spanish territory. The “Manila Men,” as many were called, established themselves by fishing and shrimping in the swamps of the Louisiana bayou. After taking part in a shrimp boil with the town’s mayor and a local historian, she joins the mayor and his father on the water to see where the “Manilla Village” was built. She has gumbo with a woman who came to the U.S. for work and hasn’t seen her daughters in five years, interviews a burlesque performer named “Grandma Fun” and more.

In the second episode, Ling gets personal as she and her family visit Hop Sing, the Chinese restaurant her grandparents owned in Sacramento. She talks about how, in her generation, she felt isolated as one of the only Chinese-Americans in her school, even though she was a popular kid. The Sacramento Delta is rife with history of Chinese immigrants and their families, including a town called Locke, where Chinese farm workers were able to build a town but not able to buy the land their houses were on.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Take Out With Lisa Ling is very similar in tone and format to Taste The Nation With Padma Lakshmi, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Our Take: Lisa Ling has become an expert documentary producer since her days co-hosting The View. which — this week’s guest-hosting gig notwithstanding — ended 20 years ago. And all of her expertise, both behind and in front of the camera, can be seen in Take Out With Lisa Ling. Ling is an ingratiating and engaged presence, displaying the curiosity that has defined her journalism career over the past two decades. And by taking on a topic that can hit close to home, we get some insight into her history that we may not have seen in her other projects.

While you can watch the episodes in any order, the first one listed is the Filipino one. And, yes, we get it; why start the series in a deeply personal mode if that’s not what the rest of the series is going to be? But, like Lakshmi did in her series, Ling is able to personally relate to family and cultural traditions from other Asian cultures, as well as the struggles with identity the ancestors of the immigrants to that area of the U.S.

It seems like the topics are going to be a bit varied; for instance, an examination of Korean food culture in America centers around Ling’s husband, whose family is from that part of East Asia. And in an episode where she visits the mostly-Latinx Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, she looks for signs of the Japanese community that once thrived there.

What we appreciated about what Ling accomplished, especially in the episode about Chinese food and culture, is that she didn’t lean on all the ways that the cuisine was Americanized. Sure, she mentions that she’s never eaten egg foo young in her life, among other little details. But she’d rather celebrate the historic paths that led immigrants from a particular region to settle in a particular spot in America and how that influenced culture, and that feels like a fresher take on the topic. At this point, we all know that much of Asian cuisine in this country was created here; we want to know more, and Ling provides that info.

Sex and Skin: None, but of course there are a lot of loving closeups of food being made and eaten.

Parting Shot: Over scenes of the people Ling interviewed, we hear voices say “This is us.” and “We’re survivors” and “We’re here.” All of it referring to the Filipino population in Louisiana.

Sleeper Star: In the Filipino episode, it’s about the food. They do talk about how Filipino food is hard to find in the US, and after seeing some of the dishes, we want to go find some (we can start with the fast food chain Jollibee).

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing that we could find.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Take Out With Lisa Ling not only is informative, but Ling’s recollections of her and her family’s place in the American experience makes the show even more engaging.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.