Hungry!

Hungry! (Japanese Drama Review)

I love this Japanese drama.

• Osamu Mukai as Eisuke
• Miori Takimoto as Chie
• Goro Inagaki as Tokio
• Ryoko Kuninaka as Maria
• Shohei Miura as Taku
• Takashi Tsukamoto as Kenta

It is about French cuisine.

Eisuke’s mother was a renowned French chef in Japan.   Eisuke himself was quite an able chef but he has a passion for music and chose to be a rock star.

He promised his mother that if at 30 he had not realised his dream of becoming a successful rock star, then he will go back to cooking.

He was just a few months short of his 30th and yet his music career was not going anywhere.  In fact, their vocalist, Taku, had up and left the band.

With tail between his legs, he went home to mama.  It was rather poignant.  His mom said that he should come back when he really wanted to.  And right before his eyes, his mom keel over and died.  Really traumatic.

Le Petit Chou suddenly had no chef.  Eisuke decided to carry on his mother’s French restaurant but unbeknown to him, his naive father has sold the restaurant because he was promised that it would carry on his late wife’s work and tradition.  As most promises go, they are meant to be broken. And they did.  The restaurant was renamed Gasterea.

Eisuke with only the name left from his mother’s legacy decided to convert a warehouse into a rudimentary French restaurant he named Le Petit Chou.

And here he came on his own after facing so many upheavals including a romance that has gone rather lukewarm.  Eisuke grew and matured into a master chef, his mother can be proud of.

I love the drama not only because of Mukai Osamu, who is a total eye candy, but also the rest of his bandmates came and supported his restaurant business.  A major charm of the drama is, of course, the food.  They all look gorgeously delicious.

Tidbits:   Mukai Osamu married Ryoko Kuninaka in real life.  They met whilst making this drama and continued on dating and eventually got married.