THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS AND A BIG RANT SO HEADS UP!


I literally cannot believe this drama ended the way it did. It has a nice premise- was it the most innovative thing ever? No, definitely not. But it was good enough for a few episodes of a well written show.


MAIN CHARACTERS:
I personally enjoyed the chemistry between the two, even though I know a lot of reviewers don't agree.
It wasn't electrifying or overly dramatic but that atmosphere between the two seemed mellow and soft and that's good enough
for me. Eye contact was there.

Now onto the characters themselves: very 1D
There is not really any depth. I get the episodes are short but if you cannot give your main characters good motivations to do what they do then what's the point of the drama in general? Especially Jungwoo. So much talk about his past yet nothing concrete ever. It's so vague it's hard to feel anything for him or his story.
We don't even really know why he cooks in the end. 'Starving' is a big word, but he does nothing that gives us a sense of him actually coming from a poor background.
And he is a terrible person, straight up cruel.

(I don't understand how we're supposed to feel happy for them when they finally go out when a scene before we saw him signing a contract that would get his boyfriend fired. And he knew that and did it anyway.
Like I don't... Why? I didn't feel anything but hatred and sadness for Gun because that was always looming in the back of my head.)

In general: They're cute but bland.


THE SET AND PREMISE:
Now onto the set, a kitchen and a few other sets as expected. I think they should have gone more out on connecting the 'trips' to the dishes they were cooking and less to something Dogun just said- would have worked wonders for the plot and would have connected the characters better while also making them seem less 1D.
Why this ingredient? Why here? What's so special about it? What does that have to say about the character?

They talk about the dishes and the tasting quite often but we don't get the sense that they're really important to the characters. Well except 'I need to make this dish'. Which in itself doesn't mean anything.
Dogun does stuff to find ingredients but we never see any dish really 'getting together' so we automatically don't really care or feel any importance towards the receipt.


TECHNICAL STUFF:
The camera angles are nice, the colours are fine too. I'm personally not a big fan of overly soft lenses or filters so I found the general lighting okay but nothing special. It works for the show.


OTHER CHARACTERS:
The waiter is my spirit animal, that's all I will say and I'll protect him at all costs COME AT ME.
Jaehoon is fine too. I appreciate them having a few minor characters that are at least a little developed.
Laura... Now Laura is a character that could have been interesting if she wouldn't have been made up as the obvious mean villain. I don't see her as a calculated women or business thinking boss of a restaurant. She's just... Stereotypical and meant to be hated, which I definitely do. So they succeed I guess. I think they tried to give her a short redemption at the end but I couldn't care less. She did nothing to deserve it.


THE ENDING: (SPOILERS)
Muddled. I think that's a good word of describing it.
It doesn't make any sense to me either.
Jungwoo starts working as the head chef in the restaurant where he got Dogun willingly fired, knowing that only one of them could work there. And immediately after knowing what he did went on a date with him where they made their relationship official.

That's honestly so narcissistic I don't think I need to elaborate.

They fight but only for two minutes, before any emotional tension can even be reached it's already over.
Then they make up. They just do- no... No real explanation. They missed each other I guess. Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome in Doguns case?

They do the tasting- knowing how it would end, Dogun participated- despite also knowing that. And he leaves and it's suddenly fine now. It just... Happens. Everything just happens. It's all very passive on the characters part.
And Laura gets what she wants with no consequences. She gets rewarded even, because Jungwoo stays. Why? I don't know either.

It's... Terrible. I don't know how else to describe it. It's without a doubt the worst ending the writers could have possibly come up with.
There are so many amazing alternatives but no.


In general the series started sweet, went through okay and crashed itself within the last two episodes.


Thank you for reading kind stranger, I hope you enjoyed my review :)