Dine With Love Review

Dine With Love (陪你一起好好吃饭) is indeed a nice surprise for a romance drama. Frankly speaking, I didn’t expect it to be good. I was expecting it to be just another average rom-com together with all the tropes that we have watched countless times. Well, the tropes are there but the execution put this drama above the bland and ordinary. It has a 16-episode format but each episode is over an hour long compared to the usual 30 to 45 minutes length for Chinese dramas. So, what is so special about this title? Find out more in my Dine With Love review below.

My rating: 8/10
Episodes: 16
Type: Office romance
Aired: February 2022
Images Credit: MGTV Weibo

The Cast Of Dine With Love

• Kido Gao Han Yu as Yu Hao
• Jade Zheng Qiu Hong as Su Ke Lan
• Wang Pei Han as Han Meng
• Harrison He Lei as Jin Xuan / Director Jin
• Lu Lu as Gong Wen Xing
• Bai Xin Yi as Zhang Bi
• Ren Jie as Su Mama
• Yang Xue Er as Shen Zhi Lin
• Dai Ting Rui as Li Xun

Main Characters

Yu Hao

Yu Hao is the CEO and a shareholder of a grocer and delivery platform dealing in semi-cooked meals and fresh produce called What To Eat. He is a workaholic and slave driver. Yu Hao appears as cold and heartless to his staff but hides a hurtful past. He is a cat lover.

Su Ke Lan

Ke Lan is a staff in the PR Department of What To Eat. She is a capable and smart employee but prefers a less hectic working life in order to take care of her sickly mother. Ke Lan is warm and sincere. She is also a rational person with a cheerful and tough appearance despite her circumstances. She is not someone who would freely share her burdens and would rather cry in private. Ke Lan loves cooking and is a talented cook.

Supporting Characters

Han Meng

Han Meng is Ke Lan’s best friend, colleague, and neighbor. They have known each other since their schooldays. Han Meng is fiercely loyal and protective of Ke Lan. She is an expressive and hot-tempered lady.

Jin Xuan / Director Jin

Jin Xuan is a food program director in a video production company. He has an unkept look with longish hair. He seems unapproachable and temperamental but is a caring man. Jin Xuan is attracted to Ke Lan at first sight while What To Eat is one of his program’s sponsors.

Gong Wen Xing

Wen Xing runs a restaurant and is Yu Hao’s uncle. But they are more like brothers as they are of the same age and share the same birthday. Wen Xing is an easy-going man who is generally jovial with little temper.

Zhang Bi

Zhang Bi is an actress and one of the hosts in a program sponsored by What To Eat. She likes Yu Hao and is trying hard to pursue him. Zhang Bi is young and immature.

Su Mama

Su Mama is Ke Lan’s mother. She is a widow. She is also a sickly woman who is diabetic and needs dialysis twice a week. Su Mama shares a very close bond with her daughter.

Shen Zhi Lin

Zhi Lin is Yu Hao’s ex-girlfriend. She is a Vice President of an American investment fund and a successful career woman who has just returned from abroad. Zhi Lin is sophisticated and confident.

Li Xun

Li Xun is Ke Lan’s boyfriend of 5 years. He is also a staff of What To Eat but works in a branch office in a different city. Li Xun is a selfish and opportunistic man who has no loyalty.

Synopsis

Ke Lan is a family-orientated woman who has no interest to work overtime and climb the corporate ladder. She rather spends time with her ailing mother and would try to make it home for dinner everyday. However, she is a smart and resourceful employee at a company selling fresh produce and semi-cooked food. Ke Lan is merely one of the officers in the company’s PR Department.

The CEO is Yu Hao who is known to his staff as a demon head with his uncompromising and cold-hearted attitude. He is a workaholic who drives his subordinates to keep up with him. Yu Hao is also the face of the company with a popular cooking program. However, he doesn’t know how to cook in reality and uses a body double to deceive the viewers. When news leak of his deception, he fires the PR Director as he doesn’t agree with the solution offered. Ke Lan gets promoted out of the blue when Yu Hao learns of her capability.

To solve the PR crisis, Ke Lan convinces Yu Hao to learn how to cook and show his ability to the viewers. Being a good cook, she ends up teaching him with a side contract. As they spend more time together, Ke Lan begins to see a different side to her boss and falls for him. Yu Hao also begins to be drawn to her warmth and gentleness. But his traumatic past and previous relationship become an obstacle to the growing love between them.

Dine With Love Ending (Spoilers Alert!)

Dine With Love has a happy ending. Yu Hao proposes to an unsuspecting Ke Lan in the last few minutes of the drama. He did it during a program recording in front of guests which included their families. Before the proposal, he narrated how Ke Lan has occupied his heart and the lessons he has learned on how to love. He realized that he was the source of her pressure when he used work to make her stay by his side. He mistakenly gave her what he thought she needed at that time rather than what she was really looking for.

Hence, Yu Hao now wants to be someone Ke Lan can depend on. He doesn’t need her to be perfect. She can have her flaws and share her burdens with him and not just the joys. He also dedicates the dish he made to her which is a blend of different tastes to signify that they could blend their lives together. Ke Lan is touched and accepts his proposal. The last scene is of the couple hugging each other after a kiss.

Do note that there is also a short bonus episode that shows a year after the proposal. It is the new year and everybody has gathered for a good time. Ke Lan seems to be back as a career woman taking business calls during a holiday. She is shown to be pregnant and suddenly develops contractions to everybody’s excitement. The rest of the bonus episode is basically flashbacks of their relationship progress as they are interviewed after Yu Hao’s proposal.

When Did Ke Lan And Yu Hao Start Dating?

Ke Lan was upfront about her feelings for Yu Hao when he didn’t seem to trust her in Episode 6. She resigned and joined Jin Xuan’s company when he decided to let her go following his ex’s return from abroad. In Episode 9, he made the commitment to forget his ex during a heart-to-heart talk and they become a couple.

Ke Lan asked for a breakup in Episode 13 after her mother almost died due to an overdose of insulin. She had to rush back from another city without meeting the company’s investors as scheduled on getting the news. Yu Hao had to clean up the mess with Zhi Lin’s help. Ke Lan felt guilty for neglecting her mother as she busied herself with work and dating. She thought she could strike a balance but overestimated her ability to help Yu Hao at work while taking care of her mother. Ke Lan felt that she would hold Yu Hao back from his career and not confident that she could be of value to him. Thus, she wanted a breakup to realign her bearings and prioritize what is important to her.

Yu Hao knew she still missed him when she turned up drunk at his place. He approved her resignation to quietly give her time and space. They were separated for about 2 years. In the meantime, Yu Hao slowly changed into a more amicable person and learned to be patient as he waited for Ke Lan to be ready. He made his move after Ke Lan’s mother approached him as she knew he still cared for her daughter. Yu Hao got Ke Lan to teach him to cook again to restart their relationship in Episode 15 before openly proposing in the last episode.

Love Triangle

Jin Xuan was in love with Ke Lan ever since he laid eyes on her. He expressed his feelings to her in Episode 6 but she pretended that it was to welcome her into his team to avoid the awkwardness of publicly rejecting him. Jin Xuan was driven to confess again in Episode 9 when Yu Hao did the same. But he got rejected and Yu Hao kissed Ke Lan to put a finality to the issue. Jin Xuan was still trying to woo her with Zhang Bi’s encouragement and help but Ke Lan turned him down again in Episode 15 and made it clear that they could only be friends.

Zhang Bi was also interested in Yu Hao but it is clear that he has little interest in her. All along, it was merely a one-sided infatuation and she eventually switched her target to Jin Xuan instead.

Yu Hao’s ex-girlfriend, Zhi Lin, was a more serious contender for his love. She returned from abroad in Episode 6 and wanted to reconcile with him. But Yu Hao made it clear that Ke Lan is his girlfriend in Episode 12. Zhi Lin thought she had a chance when they broke up in Episode 13. However, Yu Hao explained that they couldn’t go back to the past anymore and turned her down in Episode 14.

Why Did Yu Hao And Zhi Lin Break Up?

Yu Hao and Zhi Lin broke up 6 years ago because she wanted to stay in the US to develop her career while he wanted to return home to start a business. To her, love is a luxury that one could only enjoy when they are successful. Neither partner should sacrifice their ambition for the other. Zhi Lin’s outlook is influenced by her own parents’ experience. Her mother gave up her career to become a housewife. When her father became successful, he divorced her mother because he felt she wasn’t able to keep up with him. She revealed her experience to Ke Lan in Episode 14.

Therefore, Zhi Lin chose career over love when she broke up with Yu Hao. 6 years later, she felt it was time to go home and picked up where they left off. Unfortunately, Yu Hao has moved on after meeting Ke Lan.

Yu Hao’s Traumatic Past

Yu Hao didn’t like celebrating his birthday because it was a reminder of his mother’s suicide. When he turned 8, his father failed to return home to celebrate his birthday as promised. He got angry and took it out on his mother who subsequently jumped down from their apartment balcony. Yu Hao didn’t know that his mother was suffering from depression then. His father was always busy with work with no time for them and he ended up blaming him for his mother’s suicide.

Before his mother died, she had decorated Yu Hao’s wardrobe with Doraemon blankets and other items for him to play in and sleep as his birthday gift. That is why Yu Hao has the same Doraemon items in his wardrobe even when he is an adult. He revealed his past to Ke Lan in Episode 9. He also sought her help to recreate his mother’s dish as a way to make peace with his father in Episode 16 as he wanted to face his past and get out of the pain to be a better person.

Side Couples

There are 2 side couples in Dine With Love. Han Meng and Wen Xing got together very early in the drama with a flash marriage registration in Episode 3 and a wedding in Episode 8. They think it is fated as they had met before as kids. The couple would have little quarrels and misunderstandings throughout with a serious one happening in Episode 10 when Wen Xing exchanged his wedding ring for a bracelet for her during their honeymoon holiday. Han Meng asked for a divorce then and threw her own wedding ring out of the window.

They reconciled in Episode 11 after Wen Xing made the effort to look for her wedding ring that she had thrown out and lost. Han Meng announced her pregnancy to Ke Lan in Episode 14 and is shown to have a one year old daughter in Episode 15.

The other side couple is Zhang Bi and Jin Xuan. They were spending a lot of time together as both needed to cooperate with each other to get their respective love interest. Zhang Bi was the proactive one in pushing and helping Jin Xuan to woo Ke Lan since she had eyes on Yu Hao. They also comforted each other when Ke Lan and Yu Hao got together. Gradually, Zhang Bi fell for Jin Xuan instead and admitted her feelings to Ke Lan in Episode 14.

Ke Lan encouraged Zhang Bi to confess her feelings to Jin Xuan and she did so in Episode 16. She also enlightened Jin Xuan that he might have overlooked who he really loves and he seemed to have a lightbulb moment on that suggestion. In the bonus episode, they are seen together as a couple.

Dine With Love Review – A Mature Romance

Dine With Love should appeal to those who are into more matured love stories than the typical youth dramas like Our Secret or Memory Of Encaustic Tile. A mature romance means a more measured view on love and the considerations for other responsibilities that one has to shoulder. Love is not just about sweetness and passion but giving each other space to grow and being comfortable with each other’s imperfections. So, Dine With Love is not a fluffy romance drama like Why Women Love but incorporates character growth as the couple goes through obstacles.

The other thing that makes this drama attractive is, of course, the food porn. Unlike Royal Feast which is another drama with mouth-watering dishes, this one is more down-to-earth with simple food that is commonly prepared in a Chinese family. Furthermore, the food and cooking that comes with it is not simply thrown in for visual appeal but is actually a necessary part of the story. And the eating that follows will give viewers a warm feeling at times as it is a routine that can help people to bond together as well as maintain ties.

A Cliche Plot But…

Dine With Love is an office romance in essence with a cold CEO meeting a warm-hearted girl to start off the story. Yes, we have seen lots of those when it comes to Chinese rom-coms such as Love At Night and Unforgettable Love. There are other recycled issues as well in the story including childhood trauma and aversion to birthdays. But what makes this different is that the production team has given viewers a different feel to a cliche plot. It uses cooking and dishes to put across some life lessons. It also allows for character growth from the romance and not just giving viewers sugar and fluff.

In other words, there is depth to both the story and the main characters which is not usually seen in short romance dramas. The plot itself is really nothing extraordinary. It is the way it has been presented with a more grounded take on issues and character development that make it easy to get hooked. Of course, the couple’s romance is also enticing with the way they are drawn to each other.

Leads’ Chemistry Makes A Difference

Most of us who watch romance dramas are looking for that special chemistry in the on-screen couple. The leads need to have that spark so that viewers could sense the attraction between them. In Dine With Love, the plot may be ordinary but the chemistry between the leads is obvious for all to see. Jade Cheng plays a soft-spoken and warm girl while Kido Gao portrays a cold guy who has no clue on how to be more sensitive and caring. Well, opposites attract and this is where the great chemistry between them helps to give this romance a boost.

Both leads look very natural in their roles. I think their features and styling have something to do with it apart from their good acting skills. Jade Cheng has that approachable and girl-next-door attributes with her softer features which are consistent with the character that she plays. As for Kido Gao, his sharper looks give his character the required coldness and impassive demeanor. Together with their good acting, they appear very convincing in their roles.

Their chemistry then gives viewers a high level of anticipation each time they appear in the same scene. You would just want them to be together and satisfy the craving for more sweetness, passion, and sensuality. Most successful romance dramas rely on the leads’ chemistry to move it up a notch including You Are My Glory. Dine With Love is no different and the leads’ chemistry is indeed one of the selling points of this drama to me.

Realistic Characters

The main characters in the drama are not perfect individuals. They have their flaws. The male protagonist is cold to the point of being highly insensitive towards his employees. He has erected this defensive barrier around him due to a childhood trauma. The female protagonist has built her life around her sickly mother with much sacrifices made. She hides her sorrows and cries in private to put on a cheerful appearance. She has this habit of trying to appear perfect and tough to lessen her mother’s worries about her.

But somehow, they do not appear as annoying to the viewers despite their flaws. You will get over the male protagonist behaving like a jerk pretty quickly because he doesn’t lack empathy. He just doesn’t know how to show his caring side. So, you will get used to his eccentricity and root for him. As for the female lead, it is hard not to love her warmth and sincerity.

Basically, Dine With Love makes the characters’ weaknesses obvious to the viewers including their fears and doubts. This is how they can then change for the better which means there is character growth to the viewers.

My Verdict – Worth The Time

Dine With Love is a surprisingly satisfying watch to me. At the very least, it moves away from a rom-com and fairy tale feel despite the presence of a rich CEO. Just like The Oath Of Love, it is more grounded with realistic characters and family relationships. It also effectively blended the cooking and eating into the story to give us the warmth of dining with loved ones. As a result, the drama becomes more meaningful with the ups and downs of life.

Of course, the story is not without weakness. As mentioned, there are cliches all over the drama. This is not a title that you would watch for a great plot. Instead, it is more about feelings and love maturity. The characters are well-developed with a smart and witty female protagonist although she appears as soft-spoken. You might even get the impression that she is a pushover when the story begins but that is not how her character is written out to be. She matches well with the male lead to give us a very alluring romance and enticing kisses.

The ending could also be better executed. There should be a bit more couple time before the last scene to me. As it is, the transition is rather abrupt and the sub-plot involving the male lead’s father seems out of place so late into the drama. But I would still give this Dine With Love review a score of 8/10. It is a pleasurable watch overall especially with the great chemistry between the leads. The strong friendship between the girls and a loving mother-daughter relationship add to the story completeness. Thus, give it a go. It deserves the attention as it is not one of those run-of-the-mill rom-coms that we usually get.