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Relaxing type drama but not without flaws
I was really looking forward to this drama because I love Song Seung Heon, and I became a fan of Seo Ji Hye in Crash Landing On You. Seeing Ye Ji Won in the cast list was also a plus for me. I had a slow start due to having to watch on my laptop but I really did like the first episode. The cinematography was well done and the music was pretty good. The first several episodes were really great and I felt very relaxed watching this show. There were things I enjoyed about it, but there were a lot of criticisms as well and the plot just wasn't that great. I'd like to see SSH and SJH paired up in something better than this because the chemistry between them was pretty good.So here come my nitpicks: I wasn't excited about the ex-lovers showing back up in the plot and annoyingly they never went away. That was a pretty old school trope/cliché - the ex that won't give up even though that person is in a new relationship. No Eul also seemed to be way too young to have been in a relationship with Hae Kyung - especially for such a long time. There are a lot of times that age gaps don't bother me. This wasn't one of them. It was awkward. I thought both exes were overly clingy and that the main leads coddled them way too much. It interfered with their relationship to the point that I was annoyed. The main couple were also mature age-wise but the script-writers kept blocking any scene they got cozy in with stupid interruptions that would have been understandable if it was a drama about a much younger couple. Add in to that a year time jump at the end where Do Hee starts acting a bit wishy washy about marriage...I was just super disappointed in the ending. There should have been a bigger payoff for all that frustration.
SSH, SJI, and YJW were the high points of the show. I think Son Na Eun and Lee Ji Hoon are both horrible actors and really dragged the show down a lot.
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Repetitive and poorly researched.
I know I only have two more episodes to go (each 'episode' is split into two smaller minisodes), but I just can't take watching this any more. Unfortunately, this means Dinner Mate takes the title of being the first drama I have ever reviewed where I have outright dropped the series.The premise of Dinner Mate is wonderful - a rom com based around two strangers slowly bonding and falling in love over a series of lunch/dinner dates. Sadly, that isn't what you get. The drama is instead somehow focused around two side characters - the ex-partners of both the male and female leads - and although I can't go into much detail due to spoilers, their inclusion in the series is completely unnecessary at best. I found myself getting frustrated almost every time they came on screen, and it was exhausting watching them repeat the same lines, intrusions and mistakes over and over and over again. Towards the end of the series, these scenes become so frequent that the relationship between the main couple ends up taking a back seat entirely.
The drama also swings wildly between surface-level comedy and serious - REALLY serious - topics such as eating disorders and obsession. It handles the comedy well, but (excluding the incredible performance from the male ex-partner Jung Hae Hyuk) does really poorly handling the serious stuff. Another reviewer said it felt like whoever wrote the show did no research into the topics they were covering, and I completely agree - the portrayals of therapy, abuse, anorexia and other mental health conditions were egregiously wrong at some points, and outright harmful at others. For example: eating a really good meal in a therapy session cannot "cure" a disordered relationship with food, but the show proposes this several times.
Finally, I think when a relationship between a side-couple becomes more interesting than the relationship between the main pairing, there is a problem lol! We get to watch a romance between two unlikely side characters which I won't spoil but absolutely adored, and is what helped pull the score I gave acting up to 3 stars. It's such a joy watching seasoned/older actors get to show off their skills on screen when a script allows them to, and this was no exception. Since we are talking about positive things, I also LOVED the soundtrack to this drama; I actually have some of the songs saved permanently to my Spotify (Dinner Mate, More Than Words and several of the instrumental tracks). They play them to death during the show, but because the songs were so good I didn't mind at all.
TL;DR Dinner Mate is an unfortunate case of a great idea carried out by a team who were unable to bring it to life. With the drama's story veering so far away from the main couple, we don't get much time to see their relationship build and so you're left with something that feels rushed and a little lost. Had the series focused less on how much "drama" they could squeeze from the constant issues the two ex-partners cause, and instead focused on the 'two strangers bonding over food' premise that they built over the first two or three episodes, I think this would have been a much more enjoyable watch.
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Story was alright, Seeing Seo Ji Hye in a new light, awful second leads
What worked:I started out really liking the premise and the buildup of the story. Like the slowburn romance between Hae Kyung and Do Hee and the concept of food as a healing "device" for people who were heartbroken/suffering in some way. I liked both Seo Ji Hye & Song Seung Heon. The former I was glad was getting out of her usual "cold, elegant" second lead sort of status, the latter was charming. Together I liked their chemistry. Lee Ji Hoon was also good here though I was thoroughly creeped out by Jaehyeok. Never been a fan of Na Eun's acting and disliked her and her character here.
What didn't work:
I didn't really enjoy the scenes of Do Hee at her office/interacting with her colleagues. I found I didn't care for any of them, found them noisy and just fast-forwarded all their scenes. And I absolutely disliked the way her boss kept pushing her to Jae Hyeok - despite Do Hee's protests and mentions of how uncomfortable she was - and how he'd just turn up randomly at her workplace. He was so stalkerish and so creepy to the point that I had to drop the drama when he broke into her house. That shit is not funny and was incredibly triggering. And instead of telling Haekyung that Jaehyeok broke into her house, she tells him that everything is okay. EYEROLL.
The pacing/editing also sometimes didn't quite work for me. I found it boring/slow at some parts and found the romance quite slow to start up.
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It has romance, comedy and the actors have done a really good job. Just watch the only the first episode of the drama and you will know what I am talking about.
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SIMPLY NICE AND FLUFFY DRAMA WITH A SPRINKLE OF SLICE OF LIFE
This is a nice realistic and a bit fluffy drama with a bit serious life issue of psychologically sick and manipulative exes thrown in to deepen the lot.It is about two adults always meeting each other coincidentally at a crucial time in their life and making new bond over dinner as strangers, they enjoyed dinners despite their differences in taste and preferences without placing unnecessary burdens on each other so they gradually began to open up and told each other about their past hurts and unknowingly forming a deep bond and slowly began to heal each other, but their past relationship partners keeps dragging them back and trying to put a wedge in their new found love for each other with their obsessive and manipulative behaviors.
The drama built up slowly but became addictive for me and i enjoyed the simple story, the male carried the weight of the acting and portying of emotions in this drama but i didnt like the acting of the female lead as it wasnt so good for lead standard plus she was so tense and uncomfortable with skinship and acted liked she was being attacked in kiss scenes, i thought she was in her early 20s, was shocked she was a 35 year old woman, plus she had been in previous relationships in the drama, the second female lead has the same annoying character she took in Cinderella and 4 knights, it felt like a continuation of her selfish behavior there.
The drama ended nicely and happily and there was a bit of redemption for the antagonists.
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This was really very classic and decent drama till episode 11The story was good
The Romance was ok
The plot was connected well
Then
After that it became very annoying,
Repetitive , slow pace and nothing new
The most annoying episode ever was no. 13
The FL left him literally for no reason
Just following the frustrating rule of separation at every Korean drama
Inspite of she was the one who left him with no reason
Everyone around the Ml accused him of being the reason of this failure which annoyed me as hell
And was really illogical at all
I wanted to slap her so much
Many times I didn't recognise what does she want really
Her position was extremely fluid
Towards both men
Although she told her ex many times in a strict way she doesn't love him anymore,
But also her attitude towards her current boyfriend
Seems lukewarm and cold
I hated that her mother interfere her life many times
And At the beginning I hated both exs
Then I felt sympathy with the FL's ex so much and felt sorrow for what happened to him and hated his father a lot
And I hated the ML's mother and his ex so much
Both were extremely selfish and thought that saying sorry can fix everything
Even the side stories had a share of stupid separation
Many many stupid events had no need for it
like :
the gay character
The long length for many scenes
the repititive dialogue
scenes of the refusing mother to the ML
And definitely the accident scene
ONE TIME WATCH DRAMA
What ruined this drama that they insist to reach 16 episodes anyway
12 was going to be perfect
After EP 11 , I literally dislike it
I tripled the speed's watching and jumped many scenes
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I've read the manwha "Shall We Have Dinner Tonight?" even before my kdrama addiction has started. So I was kind of hyped about this drama. Also Before Sunset is like one of my favorite movies of all time & I'm bringing this up, because the manwha reminded me of that quite a bit. I'm saying it confidently that the writers have butchered the magic of the original. The witty dialog & the bonding over food is almost completely missing from the drama. What's funny though that I did not even mind while watching the first half. Episodes 1-9~ were very entertaining for me with a lot of charm, it felt like I was watching a light hearted romcom, where even the exes were interesting in their own way. I hate love triangles, but while watching those early episodes I thought that with a story sequenced like this having more aggressive secondary love interests was perfectly fine. Unfortunately the ratings were low & as customary with live filming, major changes were made. There are about 3 episodes where the focus is completely on Jung Jae Hyuk's (second ML)'s mental illness & not only that but our FL is also doing some incredibly stupid and frustrating things. Honestly at times I felt that the writer was just cruel to the audience.
The entire cast was great, perhaps the ML's performance is the weakest link. The OST is extremely repetitive, there was an episode where the the "Mokja nyan nyan" song was played like 6-7 times. The visuals were great, but nowadays that's true for all kdramas..
My suggestion is to keep watching until episode 11 & then just skip to episode 14 for the best experience.
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My main issue is with Woo Do-Hee, she's very selfish and seem to only truly care about her own issues and feelings. I don't understand why she gives her mother the cold shoulder for struggling when her husband is cheating on her as she's clearly a house wife and her whole universe is her husband who's absent and doesn't care about her. I don't understand why she's dealing with Jae Hyuk the way she is. She isn't helping anyone when she's not reporting him. He breaks into her apartment, she gives him a warning, then he goes to Hae Kyung to further ruin the relationship and she again lets him off the hook? You're not helping Jae Hyuk at all, he needs to be kept in a supervised mental unit. When she goes to the convenient store when Hae Kyung is drunk and LEAVE HIM THERE, I was like that girl is so damn stupid. Call a cab, get him home, do something, don't leave him outside all night when THERE'S A LITERAL STALKER ON THE LOOSE? Like damn thats poor character writing. She thinks she's smart, but she's impulsive and very self-centered. Seung Heon's character is the only reason I stayed. I love that actress, so it was a very frustrating to watch this unfold. Was this review helpful to you?
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This drama started with a promising story but the writer decided to make a cliche conflict which destroy the future of this drama. I really disappointed with how the writer depicts the exes of both lead. Also, other downside is from the music cut. The music transition between scenes is not that smooth. At first, i really like the female lead character because she is not a weak lead, but a strong one. Her character is a rational one, until...her ex comes in (first ex). The male lead character is a gem in K-drama land because not many male lead character is as mature as he is. Dr. Kim is a mature man with a great amount of patience for his girlfriend. Whenever the female lead starts to get anxious, the male lead is there to guide her. The male lead is always there for her, but is she? She is a selfish girlfriend and always pushes the male lead away no matter how hard the male lead tried to get close to her. The male lead, never, for once, had a doubt in their relationship, even from the first time they met. But the female lead had nothing but doubt, and that only goes away in the last 2 episode (after the exes conflict).
I get it, I understand her, at first, because she just got cheated on by her 2nd ex. But as the story goes on, I don't think that her way of trying to make it better by hurting the male lead is right, by trying to push away the male lead. I really hate the misunderstanding the female lead feels. She feels like she brings nothing but problems to the male lead which by the way, the male lead is okay with it. So, what's the problem? It's just a problem the writer wrote when he/she did not have any other brilliant choice of conflict, "just use the same old tricks, here comes the exes problem that will put your relationship on a test".
This drama had so much potential to make it to my best drama list along with It's Ok It's Love, but the conflict just take it all away. It's such a shame cause the leads chemistry is like no other. I rarely see the lead chemistry as mature as they are. That's why I put It's Ok It's Love as my first choice of best drama i've ever watched. The lead's relationship (in Dinner Mate) feels real, even if there is not much kiss or hot scene between the leads, but I can feel the warmth from their relationship. The kiss feels real, the touchy scene also feels real, except for one specific kiss scene (you'll know which when you see it).
My last thought of this drama, my regret for the writer is that it would’ve been better if the conflict is the build up of the leads romance. Because the two lead is someone who got hurt by their past (twice for the female lead), it woud've been better if the writer put more focus on the process of the lead getting to know each other. The exes story would be better if they are just one of the conflict not the main conflict. And it will be even better for the ending to show the leads marriage, not just a proposal. Actually, for me, it may be even better if the two lead got married throughout the story and the conflict are them trying to build a family together. Because, marriage is not the real ending in a relationship, and how they maintain their marriage is a great ordeal for this kind of story (like Tomorrow With You with less dramatic story).
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This drama is about two people who meet by coincidence and had a deal to be dinner mates no strings attach and they will will just meet to have dinner together and they also made a rule to never fall inlove with each other. Until one day Doo Hee confess that she breaks the rule because she's starting to like Dr. Kim and thats where the story rolls until Doo Hee's ex-boyfriend Jae Hyuk came out of the picture and wants her back. Their relationship becomes a bit messy and challenging but Hae Kyung makes sure to protect Doo Hee and their relationship from Jae Hyuk. This drama also tackles about on how to deal with a person having psychological problems like Jae Hyuk experienced.
I also love Nam A Yung and Keanu's love story here they make this drama more enjoyable to watch.
At first I say the story is just so so... but later on as the story progress I kinda like it and got kilig na. The drama has lots if emotions but all in fun it is fun to watch and I love to watch happy endings.
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