SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU STILL PLAN ON WATCHING THIS SERIES OR HAVEN’T FINISHED IT YET!!

Drunk in Good Taste
( #좋맛탱: 좋은 맛에 취하다 / #Jotmattaeng: Joeun Mase Chwihada)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

Hiya! Told you I’d be back soon! You know how nice it can be to just watch a short drama in-between lengthier ones? It really feels like a palette cleanser and a breather and gives me new energy to start on something lengthier again afterwards. So here we are! I can’t say for sure how this one ended up on my list but I probably noticed it somewhere, thought it looked cute, and added it. Sometimes it’s as simple as that. And it definitely was cute! This will be a pretty short review, not everything needs to be equally elaborate, and since this was such a short show, there’s not too much to discuss! I still wanted to share my thoughts on it though, so I hope I can still make this one as worthwhile to read as any other review I write.

Before I start, I just want to share that I’ve now found a new website to watch K-Drama on. I used to watch on DramaCool and other sites like that, but it always bothered me how many pop-ups and ads those sites brought with them. Now I discovered HiTV (www.gohitv.com). It has great quality, no pop-ups or ads, and it’s very up-to-date with new shows. It also has some variety shows on it! Even though it doesn’t have the Netflix K-Drama on it (since, you know, they’re Netflix K-Drama), I was able to find a short Naver drama like this on it! I could watch it in HQ without any disturbance. All in all, I would definitely recommend! I thought it might also be nice to share the platforms I use from time to time. I still have to explore it a bit more, but so far I’m really liking what this site has to offer.

Drunk in Good Taste is a Naver drama which you can either watch as 10 episodes of 15 minutes, or 2 episodes of each about an hour. I actually couldn’t find the 10-episode version anywhere, so I watched the 2-episode version on HiTV. Anyways, the story is about a 20-year old sophomore girl called Jung Choong Nam (played by Kim Hyang Gi). She’s just starting at her new college and is determined to blend in, although she feels a bit awkward. She doesn’t really have friends, she just moved in with her older sister but they’re kind of estranged from each other. Choong Nam’s big passion is desserts, as she’s been infatuated with sweets since she was a child. She is even a dessert influencer, so she has a “Stargram” account on which she posts pictures of all kinds of sweets and desserts, and she has a pretty big amount of followers, too. Sweets are what helps her through the day, like when she’s awkward to meet new people, she pictures them as desserts (to each their own, I guess). On her first day, she mistakes a fellow sophomore for a sunbae, and this leads to them actually becoming close friends. This fellow sophomore is Lee Yeon Nam (played by Kim Min Gyu). He seems to be interested in Choong Nam from the start, and looks out for her a lot, especially towards a certain senior she can’t shake off.
When Choong Nam gets bothered by some negative comments on her Stargram, she decides she needs to improve the quality of her photos and decides to join the Photography Club, dragging Yeon Nam with her. In this club, they meet Tae Yi (played by Lee Yoo Young) , a popular female sunbae who immediately develops an interest in Yeon Nam, even though he doesn’t have eyes for anyone else but Choong Nam. Tae Yi is the kind of girl who only cares about appearances. She seems to be pretty shallow in the beginning, she shares her entire life on Stargram and basically only uploads selfies. She’s gotten used to people admiring her, calling her pretty, and sending her gifts, like fans to a celebrity. She’s rumored to get herself a new boyfriend every month, and that’s why it never seems to be very serious. When she obviously goes after Yeon Nam, he also immediately notices it for what it is, and judges her for it too. Even though Yeon Nam already has feelings for Choong Nam from the start, Choong Nam is not aware of this initially. When Tae Yi asks her to help her out with him, she just agrees. In the meantime, she secretly has a crush herself, on the manager of her favorite sweetshop Daldaguri (also her Stargram account name). This manager also happens to be the person who introduced her to sweets when she was a child.
The other part of the story is about Choong Nam’s sister Seo Hyun (played by Noh Eul), who is dealing with her own issues. She works at a publishing company, but she has trouble coming up with new interesting ideas for a book. She’s also pretty stoic/emotionless, so she’s not very skilled at opening up to people. This also doesn’t make her reunion with her younger sister any easier, as she also doesn’t like sweets – they have very little to talk about. However, Choong Nam manages to get her sister to open up to the concept of desserts, and Seo Hyun takes enough interest in it to decide to make this her new publishing project. She starts meeting up frequently with Daldaguri’s manager to interview him, and in the meantime she also becomes more comfortable with Choong Nam and her colleagues at work. When Daldaguri’s manager eventually admits his feelings for her, she ends up rejecting him as she has by then realized how much she likes to be focussed on her work. There’s also another person at her company who starts showing interest in her, but the show ends without her ending up with either of them.

All in all, it’s a very simple and cute romance story, with desserts and social media as background themes. As the subtitle on the poster says, it’s exactly that, ‘a romance sweet like a dessert’. That’s pretty much all there is to it. It’s mostly about Choong Nam and Yeon Nam getting together, and mainly him supporting her with her Stargram account. On the other hand, he also helps her see that she doesn’t need to change who she is – both in terms of her social media and in real life. He’s always the person pointing out to her that she’s perfect the way she is, awkwardness and all. And for social media, he shows her that, if there are 2 negative comments among a 100 positive ones, she shouldn’t have to change her style just to please those 2.
Despite the story being about them as a couple, Choong Nam is definitely the main character. Yeon Nam doesn’t get any backstory of his own, and he mostly just goes along with whatever Choong Nam wants to do. Like, I’m glad that in the end he starts to define his own dreams of working at a publishing company, but he never mentioned anything about that before then. Also, when the Daldaguri’s manager turns out to be his uncle and they live in the same house, nothing is further explained. We don’t get any information about his background, and this makes him a very uncomplicated character, almost too uncomplicated.
Admittedly, besides Choong Nam’s story with her sister, she also doesn’t really get a backstory. Nothing is mentioned about their parents or how they end up living together again. I just assumed that Choong Nam went to live with her sister since it was close to her new college, but I don’t believe they actually explained it.

The story seemed to lack depth, in general. Even when it came to Choong Nam’s ‘crush’ on Daldaguri’s manager, it still didn’t seem to be more than just a childhood crush. He was the first person to introduce her to desserts as a child, but in the flashback he seems to be the exact same age (at least, it’s the same actor) as when Choong Nam is 20 years old. Therefore I immediately thought this was never going to be a serious thing. Especially when it was revealed that he was Yeon Nam’s UNCLE, that definitely made me go, damn… how old is this guy! So yeah, she probably just got attached to him as the charming guy who put sweets in her life. I didn’t actually realize that her crush on him was real, because she never even says that she likes him out loud. When Tae Yi asks her if she does, she just giggles a bit, but doesn’t really respond or confirm it. I don’t know, it didn’t seem that sincere to me. Also, why was she so vague about it towards Yeon Nam if it was really an unrequited love she was struggling with? In the end, she didn’t even mind the guy going after her sister, so it can’t have been such a heavy crush.

This actually brings me to a point that I thought was quite inconsistent. As I said, it seemed to me from the start that Choong Nam was the real main character. However, sometimes we’d switch over to Yeon Nam’s point of view and find that there were several things that Choong Nam was being mysterious about. I thought the way they switched perspectives wasn’t as effective as it could have been. If they wanted to go with Choong Nam as the real MC, the viewer would also have been aware of her real feelings towards the Daldaguri manager, and it wouldn’t have become a secret to us why she suddenly started working part-time at the sweet shop, or why she kept stuff a secret from Yeon Nam. Looking at it this way, it felt like the MC was keeping secrets from us too. We assume that we know her, as she’s the MC and we see her side of the story, but then suddenly there’s a bunch of things going on with her that are revealed through Yeon Nam’s point of view. It just felt a bit inconsistent to me sometimes.

Generally speaking, I’d say the only ‘deeper’ and more serious message in the story was given to us through Tae Yi. She learns the hard way that it’s not wise to put your entire life on social media. She ends up getting a stalker, and her SNS reputation blows up in her face when people start accusing her of promoting fake products. She learns a real lesson, and therefore I would say she has the most character development. She really comes face to face with her own shallowness and decides to become more humble. She changes her profile to private and stops the whole ‘one-month lover’ thing. She even meets up with Yeon Nam to officially tell him that her feelings for him weren’t fake, as he’d claimed they were. She gets over it like an adult. I think that, out of every character in the show, she may have learned the biggest lesson.

I also had a hard time warming up to Seo Hyun, simply because she seemed so stoic. I could never really read from her what her intentions were, or what she was feeling. I think it was good to make her realize that she wanted to put in more effort at work, but creating a love triangle for her and then not playing it out seemed to ultimately create a bit of a loose end. Of course it was fine that she didn’t end up with anyone, but to me it seemed more like they were going to make her choose between the manager and the co-worker – and then they just dropped it.

It may lack depth, of course it’s a very short drama and I can’t say I was completely bothered by the lack of heaviness in the show. The thing that happened to Tae Yi was the one thing that caused some seriousness, and it honestly surprised me a little in-between all the fluffiness of the story. It almost seemed a little out of place, but I did like how they managed to turn it into a plot tool to get Tae Yi’s character to develop and become more mature.
For a short Naver drama, it was cute and romantic. I liked Choong Nam and Yeon Nam, they were adorable together. The way Yeon Nam’s eyes started to shine whenever he looked at her got me going like, ‘Awwww~~’ every single time, and Choong Nam herself was such a cute bunny, too. I liked how awkward they were, it didn’t bother me at all. The only thing that slightly cringed me out was when he sang to her, but that’s just because that kind of stuff cringes me out by default, lol. It must have also been a very cringy scene to film (in the blooper reel that followed the final ending credits, they showed how Kim Min Gyu couldn’t stop laughing while recording it), so I guess I just became conscious of that awkwardness as well.

The final thing I’ll mention is that I loved all the K-Drama references they used. I spotted Secret Garden, The Heirs and Goblin in there, and maybe more. It gave a fun twist to the events and it made me laugh out loud whenever they inserted one. The fact that they used the Goblin scene of them coming through the misty tunnel at the moment of saving Tae Yi from her stalker also lessened the heaviness of the scene, even though it had been pretty intense up to that moment. I liked how they utilized these references for a comic relief effect. And I’m also glad I was able to recognize them.

I think with this I’ve actually mentioned all there is to mention about the events of the story, so let me just get on with some cast comments and my conclusion.

Even though I knew Kim Hyang Gi’s face, I realize I haven’t actually seen her in anything before! The exception being the movie Space Sweepers, where she only had a very small appearance at the end. Anyways, she’s such a cutie patootie! I can’t disagree with Yeon Nam calling Choong Nam a mochi rice cake, because she really does like one, lol. For some reason she reminded me a bit of Yahagi Honoka in Itazura na Kiss, maybe because of her awkward expressions. I liked how she was just a normal girl, she didn’t try to appear particularly pretty or anything like that, but she still got hit on by guys telling her she was ‘just their type’. She was just really cute and also didn’t drag the obliviousness on for too long, which I could appreciate. I liked that she took the initiative with the second kiss, although I was too distracted by the The Heirs reference that had just been made, haha. Anyways, I know she recently starred in a new historical drama with Kim Min Jae, and all in all I just want to see more sides to her acting, so I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for her!

Kim Min Gyu is in almost everything I watch these days, he has a habit of appearing when I don’t expect him, haha. From the series I’ve watched so far, he’s been in Who Are You – School 2015, The Sound of Your Heart, Because This is My First Life, Just Between Lovers and I’ve mostly recently seen him in Backstreet Rookie and A Business Proposal. He was such a fluffy boy here! I really liked his chemistry with Kim Hyang Gi, they were adorably awkward and sweet together. I can never really say anything bad about him, he’s always such a nice familiar face to see. I hope to see more of his dramas in the near future, I know I’m going to see him soon in some of my still-to-watch list series!

The funny thing is, I didn’t recognize Lee Yoo Young from anything, and even when I look at the things I’ve seen from her, I just don’t remember her! Apparently I’ve seen her in Who Are You – School 2015 and Circle, but I really wouldn’t know! I liked how they managed to turn her character around. She seemed like such a typically written female character in the beginning, all about looks and reputation. I hadn’t thought they’d actually give her a wake-up call like that, but it did change her for the better. In the end I didn’t find her as annoying as I thought she would be in the beginning.

I’ve only seen Noh Eul before in A Business Proposal, where she played the real Shin Geum Hee character from that TV series. I couldn’t stop thinking how much she and Xiaoting from Kep1er look alike, either. Anyways, I see that she used to be an idol, and she also hasn’t done that much acting. I don’t know if it was her lack of experience in acting, or that it really was the lack of emotion that Seo Hyun was able to express in the show, but her acting didn’t really stand out to me. She was an interesting enough character, and I get that it might have been the intention to make her open up more, and this did happen, but I still found her too stiff, overall. I would have at least liked to get an explanation on why her character turned out like that, but now it was just like ‘this is her personality, no further details’. Which again, suited this drama in particular, as no character had real depth. But still, I would’ve liked to get a bit more of a warmth to her personality. Let’s see if she’ll show us more in the future!

I don’t know why, but I can’t find any information about the Daldaguri manager. He’s not even credited on any of the sites that I refer to for cast members, so I have no idea who the actor is! I could swear I’ve seen him before, though… Nowhere, not even on AsianWiki where they usually are the most up-to-date about the cast members, was his name even mentioned. I really want to find out where I know him from, so if anyone has an idea, please comment!

And with that, I’ve already come to the end of this short review! As I said, it was a cute and funny little romance story, but I’ll admit that as a drama in itself it wasn’t particularly that good. It lacked depth and left some loose ends. Even for such a short story, they didn’t wrap up every single storyline they showed, like how Yeon Nam and the Daldaguri manager were related and ended up living at the same house, and how Seo Hyun was going to proceed with her career. Leaving out those details made the story a bit too uncomplicated, and I believe it wouldn’t have done anyone any harm if they’d included at least a few of these plots. Besides that, I enjoyed watching it well enough, with its references and cute fluffiness. Just looking at all those Desserts made me less Stressed. And I think it was interesting that they added in a warning about social media privacy as well, since I wouldn’t have thought they would address something like that. Of course, showing what you love and what you do in your daily life on social media can be fun, but we always have to remember that it can reach more people than we’d expect, and that it’s never wise to reveal too much of yourself on there. No matter how convenient and ideal it seems, the Internet will always be a dangerous and risky place as well.

So now I will finally start on the new series that has just finally been completed on my country area’s Netflix. It won’t be too hard to guess which one, and I’m definitely wary of how much it’s been hyped, but I still want to take my time and give it a fair chance.

Until next time!

Bye-bee!!