Metro K-Drama Round Up: See Our Editors React To The Finale Of Dinner Mate

Whether you’re a K-drama newbie or a veteran, we all love a good K-drama that features great food and interesting story. But as we move forward to our endless list of K-drama to watch, this trending K-drama series has definitely exceeded our expectations in terms of food and undeniable chemistry of Song Seung Heon and Seo Ji Hye.

As fans may know, this trending K-drama is inspired by a 2013 webtoon Would You Like To Have Dinner Together? starring Seo Ji-Hye—a familiar face we all loved from Crash Landing On You, and Song Seung-heon who’s surely going to be on our oppa watch list! Dinner Mate is a story about Dr. Kim Hae Kyung (played by Song Seung Heon) and Woo Do Hee (played by Seo Ji Hye) who ended up being actual ‘dinner mates’ after series of accidental meet ups in the most random food chains. As they continue to bond over food, they also have an agreement to keep their personal details unrevealed.

To give you a recap, last week’s K-drama Round Up was about the finale of Dinner Mate. While it all got us craving for that authentic Korean food, our editors give you a round of mukbang while talking about their reactions on the show’s finale.

Scroll down to find out more!

On the panel for this discussion: 

Geolette Esguerra: Metro.Style Editor-in-Chief

Grace Libero: Metro.Style People Editor

Justin Convento: Metro.Style Culture Editor

and Kate Paras: Metro.Style Beauty Editor

What do you love about this show?

Grace: Do-hee is a Digital Content Producer so I resonate to the character of Do-hee as well because that’s the kind of content that we do in Metro.Style. As for the guy, for Kim Hae-Kyung, it’s so nice how he relates food to healing, to therapy, like using food as a means to sort of get over your emotional wounds. And of course, the food that are featured on the show, talagang nakakagutom when you watch it. And I also like how the concept of ‘Dinner Mates’ parang sort of like a modern take on ‘Friends With Benefits.’ Parang no strings attached, you don’t even know each others’ names, but you go out with each other and you just basically enjoy each others company.

Kate: I just can’t get enough of it. I’ve been raving about it for the past days, as you guys know. What I love about it is it shows the importance of having a meal with people that you love, how sharing a meal is something so intimate and the show just really highlights that fact. How we’re affected when the person that we’re with isn’t necessarily enjoying what he/she is eating. So apparently, that has a huge effect on the other person. So it makes you more conscious about those things as well. And now, I don’t think I’ll ever have a meal with someone and not think about what the other person is thinking, you know. It’s more than just the companionship, it’s more of like, ‘what could this person be thinking about me as I take this spoonful of japchae?’ also, I would have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised by the leading man. I mean, this is the first show that I’ve seen him. He’s really good. Like I would say that I would watch his other shows, after this show just because I’m so convinced that he’s such a good actor in this particular show.

Justin: I super second that! I was just saying to the girls before we went live that I find him so cute. Especially for a 43-year-old. Wow, daddy! He’s got a good look and it looks like he has a nice body. I’m only in episode 5 but so far, I really loved it because I love watching them eat. It’s such an intimate thing to share a meal with someone. And it’s just so cute how serendipitous their chance encounters are. It’s like they’re really fated to meet each other. I also really loved how Seo Dan, Do Hee was her name in the show, how we see a different side of her. I’m assuming everyone watched CLOY, so we saw her as this kind of prim and proper, North Korean, conservative, we-were-promised-to-each-other kind of woman. And here, she’s like this super creative, super expressive kind of producer. And she’s so different from the character that I had previously seen her before. I’ve only seen these two dramas featuring her, and because of that, I’ll also watch more dramas with her. I’m convinced. Because before, I just thought that she was a pretty face. And then now, I can actually see that she’s really quite talented and multi-faceted in acting.

Geolette: That’s right! In fact, in this specific role she’s very empowered but at the same time, she’s not the usual tropes like manic-pixie dream girl, she’s not your super tough ‘I don’t care about love’ kind of heroine. So she’s just so natural, and you can totally imagine her as someone that you know or someone that you could be, because she’s contemporary, her ideas are sound. She communicates well, and she doesn’t get into these misunderstandings I sometimes hate in some K-dramas, where they just don’t talk because they don’t ask each other the right questions. Here, she’s just very upfront. So in the beginning, actually she tried to stop this whole dinner mate relationship. And she said—especially when she started to find out more about him accidentally. It turns out their lives are more intertwined and they’re more fated than they realized. She’s just very direct, she didn’t really want to know more about him, and she tried to stop it. So she’s just an interesting character! And of course, like Grace mentioned she’s also like us. We’re also content producers. We go on lives, we check out comments, we talk to everyone.

How do you feel about the theory about food being therapy?

Kate: That scene where Dr. Kim gets into his scrub and washes his hands and everything, that’s so cinematic. Like the way it was shot, in my head I was thinking, ‘oh my god, not another hot Korean man who knows how to cook.’ Lahat sila kailangan marunong magluto and I’m like, ‘okay, they’re another hot one to watch.’ And then the dish that he cooked was pretty simple but you could taste it through the screen, it was like some porridge of some sort, right? I felt like parang ang galing kasi the field was so specialized. He just won’t describe na parang ‘eat a lot of veggies or whatever.’ He’s like, ‘if you eat something hot, that tends to comfort the person.’ You know, something hot when the person’s not feeling well. So, that struck me. I tried to think of the times when parang I wasn’t just feeling well and then I just have a hot home cooked meal, it really made me feel good. As opposed to just getting takeout or fast food. The show just really gives you more thought and depth into the food that you eat, and you approach it now with much more meaning and mindfulness.

Geolette: And the people that you eat with, as well. Because that became a plot device when Do Hee’s boyfriend broke up with her, telling her that he didn’t enjoy eating with her anymore. I mean, how could you say that? That’s the worst that you could say—that you don’t enjoy eating with someone anymore. And that really means that he doesn’t want to be with her.

Justin: Yeah! It became a duty for him and actually, what I remember from the first scenes, remember when he was feeding her steak? This is after she was having ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ like looking at the store. And then a scene next was them at a restaurant eating steak, and he was dousing the piece of steak with pepper and basta ang dami, and he was trying to feed her, but she was so disinterested. She didn’t like how it tasted, she even blew on it, and she was like, ‘ugh.’ And that stood out to me because you know, food is such an intimate thing, eating dinner is such an intimate thing. You don’t have to like the same things, but it should come naturally. And that’s why it’s obvious, even just the way they’re eating together, there’s so much more chemistry between Dr. Kim and her, compared to her and her ex fiancé, who fell for the stewardess.

Grace: What I wanted to point out naman is, diba si Dr. Kim Hae-Kyung is the food psychiatrist, but I also like how Do-Hee is also teaching him stuff about food. Like there was one scene in one of the early episodes, where they eat at a medyo shabby restaurant, where they had sea urchin and then Dr. Kim said, ‘did you know that the interior of the restaurant and the cleanliness of the place matter?’ And then when he finally ate the sea urchin, obviously, he liked it, and then si Do-Hee, the look on her face na parang, ‘see! Don’t judge the place by how it looks.’ So, I really like that she was also teaching him something, and then she was speaking out the food that they were gonna eat. She was choosing all these rice bowls and then the rice bowls part is so funny because he’s so hesitant to try them, but he ends up liking them.

Watch the Metro K-Drama Round Up on 'Dinner Mate' finale below:

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Lead photos from IMDb