Dinner Mate (2020)

Beautiful drama with unique storyline

Such a Refreshing drama.Totally loved it. Highly recommended to those who want to watch RomCom with a different kind of Storyline. Chemistry between leads was Fantastic (had butterflies in my stomach most of the times). Mature leads has taken this drama on another level.Love their acting . Supporting cast's characters were amazing with their own interesting stories . We can learn from this drama while enjoying it.One of the best drama of 2020.OSTs are beautiful. Can't deny that this is a binge watch.I enjoyed it till last episode.I want to rewatch it. At last,GO FOR IT!!

Btw you are going to crave for food in each episode so.. Prepare something to eat while watching it. XD

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I love this show for the storyline, the acting, humor, and connections to the human feelings. It’s a drama that because it’s so well acted, especially the FL, it makes it engaging and fun to watch. Every single episode so far is delightful yet suspenseful in the middle ones (I’m on ep15). I like the writing and directing...great cast overall, especially the ML and FL. In fact, I read that the actress projected for FL declined. As I watch this current one (Seo Ji-Hye), I am absolutely mesmerized by her acting and her delightful, yet earnest strong character is key in success of the story. I’m hooked and so will you be ?

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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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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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Ah, que drama mais doce! Acabei de terminá-lo e saio com o coração quentinho. A história é super simples à primeira vista – dois estranhos compartilhando refeições – mas abre espaço para diálogos maduros e muito bem construídos sobre relacionamentos amorosos, família, saúde mental e, principalmente, superação de traumas e mágoas do passado. Comédia e romance na medida certa para balancear alguns temas mais pesados; aliás, reforço o quanto o roteiro é maduro e não trata o espectador como uma criança, já que traz resoluções convincentes, realistas e bem redondinhas para os conflitos mais densos apresentados ao longo do drama.

Acompanhei esse drama assistindo a dois episódios por semana e achei esse ritmo ideal; acredito que esse não é um roteiro que segura uma maratona desenfreada (pode acabar sendo monótono para quem quer assistir tudo de uma vez). Ele é perfeito pra ser aquela pequena dose semanal de "quentinho no coração". A trilha sonora animadinha colabora bastante pra construir essa atmosfera confortável.

Bom, e pra quem é fã de Pousando no Amor, esse drama é um presente! Primeiro por ter a Seo Ji Hye mais uma vez na nossa frente e muito bem valorizada com um personagem e texto bem construídos. Além disso, Dinner Mate tem dois excelentes momentos de referência à Pousando no Amor; um logo no primeiro episódio, e uma outra cena que me arrancou muitas risadas e trouxe uma nostalgia gostosa.

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This was really very classic and decent drama till episode 11
The 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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