"Dinner Mate" Delivers!

When I first read the synopsis for "Dinner Mate" or the longer "Shall We Have Dinner Together" it said two people meet and fall in love over dinner. I was like "ok, so they date?" what's original here? Oh, how I was wrong! This drama delivers on almost every platform for me in what I want to see in adult relationships in kdramas. They shared conversations. They had fun together. And I loved that the actors were able to genuinely bring laughter to these characters and tease each other mercilessly that by the end of the show you would have thought they were married already they were so comfortable with the other. So often in kdramas we don't see enough of the couple just enjoying themselves but Do Hee and Hae-Kyung had smiles and laughter so often.

Do Hee and Hae-Kyung meet under regrettable circumstances and due to a series of fate like events wind up just eating dinners together when they are both free. It didn't start with attraction. No long glances or looks. Just simple dinner. And we got to witness the respect and love for each other develop over these meals as their lives began to intertwine with each other and they brought their friends and family along for the ride.

Do Hee is the kind of character I adore. She's funny, insightful and not really afraid to call you out on your issues. I want to be more like Do Hee. Seo Ji-hye was not new to me. I had seen her in CLOY but I didn't really care for that character. She played Do Hee so well and I just really loved her in this role. There was only one incident that I felt Do Hee wasn't Do Hee but it worked itself out fairly quickly and I was back to loving her in one episode.

Hae-Kyung is simply the best boyfriend in kdrama land this year. He's sweet, funny, charming and sexy and while his profession probably allows him more insight into Do Hee than would be normal, he never once used it in nefarious ways. In one of the last episodes, he was so worried if she was okay or not and his only thought even though he was lying in a hospital bed was if she was okay and if she was okay then so was he. Song Seong-heon was new to me and now I want to see all his past filmography. He has fabulous comedic timing but also showed he can do despair and he played a man in love to the fullest and gave us some serious swoon-worthy action.

The side characters of her boss/BF at work played by Ye Ji-won and the homeless man Park Ho-san were interesting characters in their own rights. You knew there was a mystery there with "Keanu" and it was so fun to see Ah-Yeong fall for him as a homeless man. Like she didn't even care. The ending for them was sweet!

The office workers were great support characters and while Do Hee's mom was a bit too verbal into Do Hee's life in the end she was on the viewers side of wanting Do Hee and Hae-Kyung married.

The biggest negative to this drama were the exes. Jae-Hyuk was domineering and didn't take no from the get go but you had no idea he would have turned into what he did. I felt that he sort of dominated the last couple of episodes before the finale. Like it became about his healing and frankly, he was so such an awful person, I didn't care about his pain or his healing. I was glad the finale had minimal of him. That being said, the actor was really great with this type role.

No-eul was just a whiny, young thing and there is no way you can make me believe Hae-Kyung could have ever loved a person like that. I feel like the wrong actress was cast for this part. She looked too young and I couldn't see Hae-Kyung with her. She was such a narcissistic character but easy to ignore.

In the final episode, the show decided to take a turn towards the exes being interested in each other. I think that should have been the plan much earlier. They could have fallen in love while trying to break up Do Hee and Hae-Kyung and then realized they didn't really care about the exes anymore. That would have been a better story for the "romcom" this show was supposed to be versus the obsessive, I'm gonna kill myself in front of you man with mental health issues.

The soundtrack is also pretty great!

Watch the show for the love that develops, the genuine joy Do Hee and Hae-Kyung have for each other. The exes are annoying but in the end it didn't dampen my love for the show nor for the main couple. Completely satisfying ending.

My rating is 4/5. "Loved it but there were just one or two things that really stuck out as needing to be done better."