At long last, I finally got to watch "Jinny's Kitchen".
As both seasons were not shown on tvN outside of South Korea and could only be watched on Amazon Prime Video, it wasn't until I got a free trial of Prime recently that I managed to watch both seasons at one go. The programme is positioned as a spin-off of "Youn's Kitchen" with Lee Seo-jin being the boss this time and setting up shop with his employees Jung Yu-mi, Park Seo-joon, Choi Woo-shik, Kim Tae-hyung / V from BTS (Season 1) and Go Min-si (Season 2) in far-flung locations in a bid to promote K-cuisine to the world. The way I understand it, the reason for going to places so far from South Korea and outside of Asia should be an attempt to ensure that the customers who visited the restaurants were not actually fans seeking to see the cast members but those who may not be familiar with the cast and/or Korean food in general. Otherwise, this would turn into another fan meeting rather than achieve the programme's intended purpose.
This time, Season 1 went to Bacalar in Mexico while Season 2 went to Reykjavik in Iceland. While Bacalar was a brand new location for PD Na's team, Reykjavik was already featured in the third season of "Youth Over Flowers" close to 10 years ago in 2015. Personally, I was more thrilled about the revisit to Reykjavik since I developed a liking for Iceland after watching "Youth Over Flowers". Besides, I hardly knew nothing about Bacalar and didn't know what to expect. However, it was a tad disappointing to find out that the cast had worked so much and so hard in Season 2 due to the popularity of their restaurant that there were hardly any scenes showcasing Reykjavik beyond the sights featured before. It appeared that the cast seemed to have lesser off hours in Reykjavik compared to when they were in Bacalar. Or so it appears due to the editing of the shows.
And from Season 2, it somehow reflects the dilemma of "you are the victim of your own success". Probably thanks to the fact that Season 1 was shown internationally through Prime rather than via tvN and TVing, a lot more people have come to know about the programme. As such, it was obvious that there were quite a lot of customers who were "in the know" in Season 2 so the raw and spontaneous reactions in Season 1 were somewhat lacking in the sequel. It certainly wasn't as fun to watch as compared to seeing how people belatedly realised that the people serving them at this pop-up restaurant were actually famous actors such as how Woo-shik was repeatedly recognised in Bacalar as the guy who appeared in "Parasite" or Tae-hyung who was identified as the guy in BTS. And because there were so many people lining up in Reykjavik, I felt bad for the cast who really looked so overworked.
Compared to the somewhat laidback and slow vibes from "Youn's Kitchen" and "Youn's Stay" (another spin-off from the series), the energy level and pace of "Jinny's Kitchen" were definitely a notch up especially since the cast members' average age has gone down quite a bit, thanks to younger staff like Kim and Go. And since there were no elderly cast members this time, it seemed like this provided the perfect excuse for the cast to be pushed to the limit in terms of the working hours and energy spent - for better or worse. While this brought about some comedic relief at times as you saw how much the cast members worked in running their restaurants, it also made me wonder if this was too punishing for them both on the physical and mental fronts. I didn't feel comfortable seeing them looking so drained especially in Season 2 when they faced large crowds from Day 1 and wondered if this deviated too much from the feel-good and relaxed vibe in the original series.
With the change in leadership in "Jinny's Kitchen", the group dynamics also underwent a significant change from "toe-ing the line" and being on their best behaviour most of the time to "taking liberties with the boss at times" which was funny to watch. I really liked watching their teamwork and interactions especially since most of the team members had worked with one another for years in the earlier installments of the series or have pre-existing friendships outside the shows. As for the newbies, they were both lively and added a lot of energy to the show in their own ways. It will be worth checking out how things change when Tae-hyung returns from military service and if he and Min-si both join the next season.
While I would say that I enjoyed both seasons albeit in varying degrees, there was something which really annoyed me. I understand that there is a need to do PPL since sponsors need their screentime and the production needs money to fund, doing a hardsell by making the cast "talk" about these products so blatantly is rather off-putting. Lingering shots on the product which shows the brand name clearly are absolutely fine and acceptable. However, doing a CM out of nowhere in the show really spoils the momentum and comes across as absolutely unconvincing. For one, I do take supplements containing lutein as well for eyecare but I certainly don't think that my eyesight will suddenly "become clear" right after popping such a supplement.
My biggest wish for the next season is that the cast will get a better worklife balance. While waiting for customers like what they did in Bacalar can be sad and painful to watch, I think that it does give the cast a brief respite from the touch schedule and some time to interact with one another. Secondly, more footage on their off hours would be fun to watch as well. And last but not least, please make the PPL not so obvious and annoying to watch because it can be so off-putting.
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