Dinner Review

Year: 2013

Language: Japanese

Episodes: 11

Genre: food, comedy, drama

Synopsis:

An Italian restaurant Roccabianca is in its prime when the head chef/owner suddenly collapses, leaving the restaurant to his inexperienced daughter Saori Tatsumi (Kana Kurashina) and his sous-chefs. Despite their hard work in keeping the business running, the restaurant has lost many of its clients. With profits deteriorating, Saori is forced to make a hard decision - to hire a new head chef. The team doesn't like it but is forced to go with the plan. 

The new chef is Motomu Ezaki (Yosuke Eguchi), a very talented man who doesn't seem to go along with anyone. But with some turn of events, Ezaki slowly earns trust and respect from his team. Together, they will make the restaurant bounce back to its original heyday.

Cheerfulnuts' Review:

Dinner is a food drama starring Yosuke Eguchi. He plays as the talented but eccentric chef Motomu Ezaki who is hired by an Italian restaurant after its head chef went into coma. I've seen both of Eguchi's works - Lunch Queen and Patisserie Coin de rue - in which he also plays as a chef, so Dinner doesn't seem foreign to me. I actually didn't really mind watching the drama regardless of the story. I like Eguchi and I like food. Watching a food drama is certainly a feast for the eyes.  I think no other nationality values food presentation as much as the Japanese do. It turns out that the drama didn't fail me. In fact, it has far exceeded my expectations. 

It was truly a joy to watch it! It teaches me about important things such as valuing your clients, loyalty, sense of camaraderie, and having a strong passion. It also has a lot of funny scenes that made my stomach ache from laughing. The plot is simple and the characters are really lovable. Even non-chef viewers can relate with the characters. The more I watch, the more the Roccabianca team grows on me.

The drama is episodic. I was expecting it to have one episode dedicated to each character like in the drama Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo, but Dinner only focused on some characters.

Spoiler alert: The ending is a bit of a disappointment. At least that is how I felt as soon as the drama ended. But looking back, I couldn't have thought of a better ending for the drama. It may not be the kind of ending that everyone will like or be comfortable with, but it is meaningful and has made the drama even more powerful about its message.

I highly recommend this to everyone!

Cheerfulnuts' Verdict:

10 out of 10 stars