I’m a big fan of origin stories, so I’m really happy with the concept of the third season of Let’s Eat, which takes us back in time to the very beginning of Shiksha-nim, aka Yoon Doo-joon’s foodie blogger character at the center of the franchise. I mean, I loved Season 2, but there’s only so many times you can get your hero to move neighborhoods and meet another girl.
We’ll pick up with our hero in the present where he’s currently suffering a slump of sorts, but when he reunites with old flame Baek Jin-hee (Jugglers), we’ll go back in time fourteen years to relive the memories from when they were campus sweethearts who bonded over food. And of course, Baek Jin-hee’s character is a picky food connoisseur in her own right, because the backbone of this franchise is pairing Yoon Doo-joon with a sassy love interest who is just as opinionated and passionate about food as he is.
The posters all revolve around the contrast between the tired 34-year-old salaryman and the fresh-faced 20-year-old youth (though obviously the only difference is the outfits and the fancier food). But I appreciate the concept, which is all about recovering that “taste of youth” we might’ve lost along the way while devoting the last decade or more to our careers. I expect it to be a lot like Go Back Spouses without the time travel, full of goofy sidekick friends, retro outfits, and throwback music references to make us nostalgic.
In the teaser, someone asks Yoon Doo-joon where he learned all this foodie stuff from, and he flashes back to his college days with Baek Jin-hee as he starts his story, “It was around 2004…” I’ll die laughing if the entire season amounts to one long flashback. Ever since we got that funny cameo of a college-aged Yoon Doo-joon in Bring It On, Ghost, I’ve wanted to see this character’s youthful side, so either that was a meticulously planned out spoiler, or it spawned some awesome ideas on the birth of Shiksha-nim.
Let’s Eat 3: Begins will follow Monday-Tuesday drama About Time and premieres July 16 on tvN.
