Hong-Cha, the “best food columnist in Korea” is a guest character in Netflix’s absurd comedy drama, Chicken Nugget. Jung Ho-Yeon plays the character in the show.
Choi Min-Ah turns into a chicken nugget after entering an odd machine at her father Choi Sun-Man’s company called More Than Machine.
Sun-Man and his intern Ko Baek-Joong, who is in unrequited love with Min-Ah, get to finding the solution to their impossible mess when things only get bleaker: Min-Ah gets mixed up with other chicken nuggets.
To distinguish Min-Ah from other seemingly exact types of chicken nuggets, Baek-Joong takes Sun-Man to the restaurant called ‘Baekjung Chicken Nuggets.’
It is the very same restaurant that Min-Ah brought all those nuggets from in the first place, but before she could enjoy any of them, she becomes one like them after entering a machine.
Baek-Joong knows a bit of the sketchy history of ‘Baekjung Chicken Nuggets,’ and how they have been selling nuggets for 200 years, which is about 150 years before the nuggets really became a common delicacy.
Baek-Joong knows that the current owner of the establishment might be able to instantly tell apart his chicken nuggets from the one that Min-Ah has transformed into, as it would lack all the features of their product.
However, they never get to use the owner’s expertise and knowledge as they are thrown out of the restaurant, thanks to their honesty about the absurd and unbelievable problem.
Enter Hong-Cha
All hope is not gone yet, as a savior emerges in the form of Hong-Cha.
She is Baek-Joong’s ex-girlfriend, a fact that even amid all his Lynchian troubles, Sun-Man wasn’t able to ignore, and instantly expressed his disbelief that Baek-Joong would ever be able to date a woman this out of his league.
And yet, Baek-Joong and Hong-Cha were an item back in the day — three years to be precise. Their romance bloomed inside a restaurant.
Besotted with Baek
She was besmirched by Baek-Joong’s honesty and simplicity within seconds. She was smitten by his way of eating and his knowledge about what he ate.
Both of them are passionate about food and that’s what initially made them bond with each other.
When she first shared her business card with him, Baek-Joong let out a little scream of joy, as he recognized her. He was already a fan of her Power Blog.
Things she liked about him
She saw him and appreciated him for being a man who was pure and clean.
She considers Baek-Joong to be the most perfect-looking guy in the whole world, and when she admits to out loud, to his face, the entire queue of people behind him collectively gasps.
Hong-Cha was in love with his fingers which she says were like fatty pork intestines. She compares his dark red lips to duck gizzards. She reminisces how his belly fat bulged over his belt like an oversized hamburger.
She can’t accept Baek-Joong as he is now; she thinks he’s gotten too skinny, which isn’t necessarily true, even if he’s trying to lose fat because he wants to be ripped as per Min-Ah’s preference.
Falling out
Their blissful relationship didn’t last long. The first rift in the relationship came when to horror one day, Baek-Joong ordered mint-chocolate-flavored items and consumed them with great delight.
Then one day when she was pouring sauce over fried pork he threw the sauce off her hand in an instinctive movement. He dips his pork.
The last straw was when he ordered the ungodly combination of pineapple on pizza. She was petrified by this and blamed him for doing this on purpose.
All these food crimes began creeping her out and she walked away. Baek-Joong also don’t stop Hong-Cha. He falls out of love with her and thinks that she doesn’t appreciate diversity.
Helping find Min-Ah
Hong-Cha is, as Baek-Joong believes and claims, the “best food columnist in Korea.” She held a grudge against Baekjung Chicken Nuggets because they refused to be interviewed.
So she posted everything she found out about them on her blog. Without her blog, the very exciting and suspicious history of the restaurant wouldn’t have been revealed.
At first, she refuses to help Baek-Joong and Sun-Man but after her ex-boyfriend begs her, she agrees to help and in a matter of few seconds, distinguishes between Min-Ah and the regular chicken nuggets.
As Hong-Cha walks away, she asks Baek-Joong if he wants to go to the reality TV show called EXchange with her, but he refuses.
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