It wasn’t a drama very big on story, but what made “Let’s Eat” (tvN / 2013-2014) a winner for me were the characters, natch. There’s something really appealing about each of the “living single”/officetel tenants living their lives as normally as possible, without any of the typical k-drama histrionics. Because it was so down-to-earth and very slice-of-life, more time is spent on character development which was a big plus!
Soo-kyung (Lee Soo-kyung, and yes, her character is named after her!) is a divorced thirty-something paralegal who loves nothing more than to eat, obsess over food blogs, and come home to watch downloaded episodes of the Walking Dead.
She is a tad litigious and distrustful, in contrast to her new neighbor, Jin-yi (Yoon Sohee). Jin-yi is an optimist, to put it nicely. She’s a super sweet girl who sees the good in everything, including paying for a utility bill. If she wasn’t so adorable it’d be annoying! Jin-yi also crushes hard on her next door neighbor oppa, Dae-young (BEAST’s Doojoon). On first glance, he is a bonafide bullshitter (and Soo-kyung is immediately wary of him), but he’s really just a handsome goofnugget who doesn’t fool around when it comes to food. Knowing that food is the only way to get her neighbors to bond, Jin-yi starts taking them out to eat and somehow our foodie neighbors grow to be a family that can depend on one another. The murder mystery they shoehorned into “Let’s Eat” did nothing for me, but a peek into the lives of these neighbors and contemplative moments were what made it worth it.
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(More) Reasons to Watch Oh my gosh, THE FOOD. I could not watch an episode without eating a sad cup of ramen noodles. I also believe food is a great introduction to culture, and Let’s Eat gives you enough of that. It might not be for everyone though, because the food scenes were at least ~3 minutes long. “Let’s Eat” seems like an attempt to cash in on the meokbang craze, which I never knew I’d be into until I saw Doojoon stuffing his face with pizza. Some of it is played to comedic effect, with Lee Soo-kyung eating tteokbokki in such a way that complete titillates her boss, Lawyer Kim, who’s harbored a crush on her since forever. (Unfortunately for him, he’s a little like the boy who doesn’t quite know what to do/say around the girl he likes, so he takes to pulling on her pigtails. Shim Hyung-tak is FANTASTIC in this role.) The next best character in this show was Che Guevara (or Barasshi), Soo-kyung’s puppy and number one confidant.
Honorable Mention: BOSS, if only for Tamayama Tetsuji and Takenouchi Yutaka. The latter ages like a fine wine, and I do not regret spending an entire summer watching as much of his dramas as possible. It was a blessed summer…