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This review may contain spoilers
Cookery, Radishes, and a King No One Should Date
From the start, this drama promised a feast: palace intrigue, time travel, food as centrepiece, and a spirited FL tossed into the past to cook with whatever she could find. For someone who binges cookery shows, the premise was irresistible. But a flimsy script and an unbalanced mix of kitchen theatrics and limp romance soon dulled the flavour. By the end, it felt less like a banquet and more like a reheated takeaway.
Romance was supposed to be on the menu, but it never made it out of the kitchen. Across twelve episodes, the leads had less chemistry than vinegar and milk. Then came Episode 11: after a shocking revelation, the king, in a fit of rage, nearly kills his own grandmother, stopped only by a sudden “I love you” from the FL. Dropped in without warning, it didn’t feel like passion; it felt like a clumsy patch on a gaping wound. Because really, if you’re prepared to slaughter your grandmother in front of the court, you’re not a brooding romantic lead. You’re a tyrant, and no pantry-stocked declaration of love can disguise that.
By episode 12, the king strolls into 2025 in designer clothes, and when the FL quite sensibly asks how, he shrugs: “It’s a secret.” That’s the narrative equivalent of slapping a bow on a plot hole. If I’d been swept up, maybe I’d let it slide. But here, it exposed how thin the scaffolding really was. And that final kiss? I’ve felt more spark peeling the lid off a yoghurt pot.
The Ming envoys didn’t help. From Episode 6, four whole episodes of stilted Chinese and tedious diplomacy drained all momentum. The drama never recovered.
And here’s the rub: this isn’t pure fantasy. The king is based on Yeonsangun, remembered for purges, executions, and seizing women for his pleasure grounds. With that baggage, turning him into a romantic lead is risky at best, distasteful at worst. And yes, it’s fiction, the whole time-travel device is meant to be fantasy, and it could just as well fling our FL into prehistory and still count as make-believe. But once that fantasy leans on real people and real atrocities, the “it’s only fiction” defence collapses. If it’s truly make-believe, why borrow the names of those who actually lived—and committed horrors that can’t be rewritten?
There were still highlights worth savouring: the two cooks, both genuinely charming; the eccentric inventor crash-landing into the palace like a Joseon-era Leonardo da Vinci; the concubine, played with such conviction her villainy felt sharp rather than cartoonish; and a dowager queen carried by strong acting. Yet these bright spots only threw the imbalance into sharper relief—because beyond the FL and her bumbling sidekick, the women are painted almost entirely as schemers or burdens. It’s a tired formula, and female characters deserve more than endless shades of wickedness.
So yes, squint and you might enjoy it as light entertainment. With a stronger script, one that didn’t brush off time-travel with a lazy “it’s a secret,” or drop the entire kitchen panel from the past into 2025 like rabbits pulled from a magician’s hat, this drama could have soared. Imagine how much fresher, and far less controversial it might have been if the ML had been a fictional nobleman rather than a historical tyrant. At least then the story could have avoided its baggage, and maybe even given us a FL who loved her man as much as her radishes.
Romance was supposed to be on the menu, but it never made it out of the kitchen. Across twelve episodes, the leads had less chemistry than vinegar and milk. Then came Episode 11: after a shocking revelation, the king, in a fit of rage, nearly kills his own grandmother, stopped only by a sudden “I love you” from the FL. Dropped in without warning, it didn’t feel like passion; it felt like a clumsy patch on a gaping wound. Because really, if you’re prepared to slaughter your grandmother in front of the court, you’re not a brooding romantic lead. You’re a tyrant, and no pantry-stocked declaration of love can disguise that.
By episode 12, the king strolls into 2025 in designer clothes, and when the FL quite sensibly asks how, he shrugs: “It’s a secret.” That’s the narrative equivalent of slapping a bow on a plot hole. If I’d been swept up, maybe I’d let it slide. But here, it exposed how thin the scaffolding really was. And that final kiss? I’ve felt more spark peeling the lid off a yoghurt pot.
The Ming envoys didn’t help. From Episode 6, four whole episodes of stilted Chinese and tedious diplomacy drained all momentum. The drama never recovered.
And here’s the rub: this isn’t pure fantasy. The king is based on Yeonsangun, remembered for purges, executions, and seizing women for his pleasure grounds. With that baggage, turning him into a romantic lead is risky at best, distasteful at worst. And yes, it’s fiction, the whole time-travel device is meant to be fantasy, and it could just as well fling our FL into prehistory and still count as make-believe. But once that fantasy leans on real people and real atrocities, the “it’s only fiction” defence collapses. If it’s truly make-believe, why borrow the names of those who actually lived—and committed horrors that can’t be rewritten?
There were still highlights worth savouring: the two cooks, both genuinely charming; the eccentric inventor crash-landing into the palace like a Joseon-era Leonardo da Vinci; the concubine, played with such conviction her villainy felt sharp rather than cartoonish; and a dowager queen carried by strong acting. Yet these bright spots only threw the imbalance into sharper relief—because beyond the FL and her bumbling sidekick, the women are painted almost entirely as schemers or burdens. It’s a tired formula, and female characters deserve more than endless shades of wickedness.
So yes, squint and you might enjoy it as light entertainment. With a stronger script, one that didn’t brush off time-travel with a lazy “it’s a secret,” or drop the entire kitchen panel from the past into 2025 like rabbits pulled from a magician’s hat, this drama could have soared. Imagine how much fresher, and far less controversial it might have been if the ML had been a fictional nobleman rather than a historical tyrant. At least then the story could have avoided its baggage, and maybe even given us a FL who loved her man as much as her radishes.
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