Waffles and Mochi

Something truly special. ... This is all captivating for both adults and kids.

Waffles + Mochi strengths are legion. First of all, the title characters are absolutely insane and absolutely adorable. ... It’s built to get kids excited about cooking, but it’s entertaining enough for adults to enjoy. Warm, witty, and unabashedly brilliant, Waffles + Mochi is truly spectacular.

The series is good educational television, comparable to the best of PBS. Its eclectic form—animated musical interludes featuring Maiya Sykes and Sia as singing fruits; live-action cooking demos starring famous chefs and well-cast kids; stunningly deft explanations of non-American food traditions—mirrors the experience of scrolling through YouTube Kids.

A well-balanced mix of familiar ingredients: a fanciful set, documentary visits to far-flung places, real kids being real, comical or calming adults, and puppets.

Kids likely won’t leave begging for gazpacho or interested in award-winning restaurants or moved by celebrities they probably don’t know. But Waffles + Mochi works when its pantry-full of star ingredients strive not for name recognition but literacy, broadly construed: nutritional, geographical, emotional – a soup any open-hearted person can get behind.

I question whether preschoolers and kindergarteners, the seeming target audience, would be able to cognitively follow along with Waffle and Mochi's brimming half hour escapades. The loving intentions are clear, but the writers often play with too many lessons at once.

This is a big-tent show that occasionally gets too maximalist, and is at its best when looking closely at a given subject. Relative to other kids shows, it trusts its audience’s intelligence.