Hi everyone!

I hope you guys enjoyed my episode 1-4 notes on Legend of the Female General (here!).

Today I’m sharing my episode 1-2 notes on Bon Appetit, Your Majesty, because I’m enjoying it really quite well, and I was wondering if you’d like to join me? 🤗

These are my episode 1-2 notes, exactly as they appear on Patreon, ie, without screenshots (I’m saving those for the actual review).

I hope you all enjoy, and I hope you’ll consider joining us over on Patreon, for the rest of the discussions! ❤️

Episode notes:

E1-2. I’m enjoying this one, my friends, and more than I’d expected to, at that. 😁

In fact, Show grabbed with its opening scene, which I thought was well-chosen and well-executed (Yoona’s comic timing is pretty great).

This opening scene effectively sets the tone for the episodes to come, and also, informs me of the end result of these first two episodes of hijinks – that Ji Yeong would end up being appointed Heon’s head chef, and that basically buoyed me through all of the goings-on leading up to this point.

Coz, not gonna lie, these episodes are on the long side of things. 😅

However, I find that I actually rather like that Show takes its time to let things happen, because, realistically, it would take a lonnngg minute for someone to wrap their brain around the idea that they’d just time-slipped 500 years and landed in the Joseon dynasty, and then it would take another lonnngg minute for them to actually accept it, y’know?

This is admittedly unlike other transmigration dramas that I’ve watched recently, like “First Night with the Duke” and “A Dream within a Dream,” where the female leads in both shows basically accept their arrival in a new world quite quickly and readily, all things considered.

So yes, if you’ve gotten used to how quickly the female leads in those shows got settled in their new worlds, then you might find that Ji Yeong taking 1.5 episodes to accept that she’s 500 years in the past (where each episode runs at about 1 hour 20 minutes) can feel like a long time.

However, like I said, I feel like Show handles it all very well, actually, and I like that it manages to make it all quite entertaining, while allowing Ji Yeong the time that she needs to come to terms with her new reality.

The thing that I think works most in Show’s favor, so far, is Yoona’s comic timing.

She might not be the strongest actress out there, but she does have an easy sort of charm, and she’s also unafraid to lean into the comedy.

It feels like she’s taking a no-vanity sort of approach to the comedy – and yet, she still comes across as very charming, in my opinion.

As for Lee Chae Min, well, he’s doing better than I’d originally expected, when his casting had first been announced.

Yes, there’s a part of my brain that is still rather wistful at the idea of Park Sung Hoon in this role, coz I do think he’d made a very charismatic tyrant, and I also think that this would have been a great role for him to show his goofier side on a bigger stage.

Alas, that is not to be.

While we’re at it, let me also share my fantasy casting for this role – and after that, I promise to only focus on Lee Chae Min and how he’s showing up in the role.

If I had to pick a younger up-and-coming male lead for this story, I honestly would have loved to see what Heo Nam Jun could have done, in the role.

After having seen him play a rather unhinged, scary sort of character in Your Honor, I’m certain he would’ve made a great tyrant. And then, I would have liked to see how he might have played Heon’s softer layers.

That aside, let me get back to what I was saying: Lee Chae Min’s actually doing quite well, as our young King.

First, he glowers better than I’d imagined him capable of, though the glower on him kinda gives off traces of Puppy as well, it’s just that this particular fierce puppy actually does have the power to order your death. 😅

Second, his comic timing isn’t too shabby either, as far as I can tell so far, so I feel like he’s likely going to be pretty solid, as our gourmet king grappling with the strange woman who claims to be from 500 years in the future.

Backing up a bit, I am really quite amused that when Ji Yeong encounters Heon in all of his Joseon glory, she immediately assumes that he must be a cosplayer, and a very dedicated one, at that. 🤭

After that, I did get a kick out of the tables being turned, when Heon gets shot by an arrow, and Ji Yeong ends up saving him.

It’s honestly quite hilarious how she ties him up and drags him along like an unwilling pet – because he won’t stop trying to kill her.

In that sense, you could say that he brought that indignity on himself? 🤭

But also, we do see that Ji Yeong’s got a good heart.

Despite Heon’s efforts to kill her, she doesn’t leave him for dead, and then, later on, she offers him food as well, even though he keeps refusing to eat it.

On that note, this seems like a great time say that I am very pleased that Show gives Ji Yeong a new friend in Gil Geum – who just happens to be played by Yoon Seo Ah, who also played Baek Yi, in The Tale of Lady Ok.

I do enjoy Yoon Seo Ah very well, and she immediately makes Gil Geum likable, in her guileless, wide-eyed sort of way. 😁

I love how Gil Geum’s so quick to be friendly with Ji Yeong, even though she’d started out believing Ji Yeong to be a thief, taking her to see all the various herbs and other ingredients around the house, because they’re both hungry.

And then, ahhh, the cooking!

I think I’m going to really enjoy the cooking in this show, because it’s all very lovingly and prettily portrayed.

From Ji Yeong’s appreciation of the ingredients, to the way she prepares them, and the way she presents the final dish, it’s all very appealing to me.

And I do love that her first dish in Joseon, is a fancy bibimbap with browned butter and decorated with flower petals.

She takes this much care, after such a rough day, when she must be so tired and hungry – and I’m convinced that she’s truly passionate about the art of food preparation. 🥲

And of course, I love that Heon’s eyes light up the minute he tastes that bibimbap – with this, you just know that he’s pretty much a goner, since this taste can only come from Ji Yeong’s cooking skills, yes? 😁

But also, there’s that thing, where there’s something about Ji Yeong’s food and the way she feeds it to him, that reminds him of his late mother.

Aw. He’s even more of a goner then, isn’t he? 🥲

Not that he’s anywhere close to accepting or admitting that, at this stage in our story, of course. 😁

In episode 2, things ramp up when Ji Yeong and Gil Geum get caught up in the whole Chaehong exercise, and as infuriating as it is to see the Chief Royal Secretary act like a prick even though he clearly is blown away by the sous vide dish that Ji Yeong’s cooked, I knew, even while bristling in the moment, that this wouldn’t be how things ended – and I was right!

Heon shows up to taste the dish for himself, and appreciates all the flavors properly, yess!

Although Heon questions the Chief Royal Secretary on why he’d snubbed the dish despite it being so delicious, we do see later, that they are on much chummier terms than that first interaction might suggest.

..Which reminds me, with a bit of a jolt, that despite Heon’s billing as our male lead, he’s supposed to be a legit tyrant, and that’s likely why he’s so chummy with the Chief Royal Secretary, whom Ji Yeong recalls is one of the most evil people in this section of history. 😅

I’m quite sure that Show will peel back Heon’s layers as we go, to reveal that he’s possibly not as evil as history makes him out to be, and I’m curious to see how that will go.

In the meantime, I feel like a lot of Heon’s acts of tyranny – like sending Governor Hong into exile, and later, throwing Ji Yeong’s bag off the cliff – are explainable.

Like the fact that he’s actually fixated on having these officials know what it’s like to be unable to save the one whom they love, the way he’d felt helpless to save his own mother.

As for the way he treats Ji Yeong, I feel like it’s mostly out of petty revenge, for the way she’d treated him all brusque and rude, when she hadn’t believed that he was the King.

I do think that that, and the fact that she has magic culinary hands, are the reasons he decides to take her back with him to the palace.

Which seems like a good time to mention Kang Han Na, as Kang Mok Ju, Heon’s fourth concubine, who, interestingly, seems to have come from humble origins, and now seems to be all mixed up with Prince Je San, who’s intent on bringing down Heon.

It’s unclear where Mok Ju’s true loyalty lies, or if she has any loyalty to anyone at all, but for now, I do find it trippy to see Kang Han Na in the role, since the last time I’d seen her in a Joseon setting, in Bloody Heart, she’d been chosen to be Queen. 😁

As we close out episode 2, everything’s more or less in place for our opening scene to actually happen, where Ji Yeong’s appointed the chief royal cook, and I’m honestly rather looking forward to it.

Yes please to more hijinks, more glorious food and more tastebud implosions – and not too much in the way of court machinations, hopefully!

*This show is being covered on the VIP Early Access (US$15) Tier on Patreon*

To view episode 1-2 notes in Patreon, along with everyone’s comments, you can go here!

You can find my Patreon page here, and for all future episode notes for this show you can click here.

Episodes 3-4 notes will be out later this week! I hope you’ll consider joining us!

It’ll be a way to have fun, and support me at the same time? 🥲❤️

PS: For more information on what the Patreon experience is like, you might like to check out my Patreon update post for August, which you can find here!