Like many television dramas about working professionals, MBC TV series "Pasta," which features an Italian food chef, is ultimately about romance in the kitchen. Even though the uptight chef Hyun-wook (played by Lee Sun-gyun) proclaims, "There will be no women in my kitchen," he will make Yu-kyung (Kong Hyo-jin) fall for him by becoming her mentor in times of crisis and Yu-kyung will not hesitate to express her emotions to him. What makes their predictable story interesting is that the kitchen -- where the two play mind games with each other -- is not just a physical setting for the show but also where their public and social relationships exist. So to describe the show accurately, "Pasta" is a story which talks about the difficulties of handling romance in the kitchen.

As the new chef of La Sfera, the first task Hyun-wook carried out was to confirm the hierarchy of chefs in the kitchen -- from assistant chef Seok-ho (Lee Hyung-chul) down to Yu-kyung. Of course, such a strictly hierarchical society -- in which one can hold a frying pan only after working three years as an assistant without complaining -- had already been witnessed in hospital settings in medical dramas that have aired after MBC's "General Hospital", where there is a clear social division between interns and residents. However, in the case of SBS TV series "Surgeon Bong Dal-hee," which contained the most sophisticated storyline about hospital romance, the biggest obstacle to the love between the two main characters were their differences in personality and their circumstances, not their public relationship. But the formation of a romantic relationship between Hyun-wook, who stands at the top of the hierarchy and wields all the power in the kitchen, and Yu-kyung, who is at the lowest rank in the kitchen apart from the kitchen assistant, is an extremely sensitive issue. The reason Hyun-wook let Yu-kyung cook the Italian ambassador's Vongole pasta was due to her keen ability to predict the menu and her hard effort in preparing short-necked clams for the dish. But regardless of whether they had studied in Korea or overseas, the higher-ranking chefs at La Sfera threw suspicious, displeasing looks at the two. In the kitchen -- a place where everyone gets sensitive over who gets to hold the frying pan -- it is impossible for the chef in charge to toss a warm loving glance to his girlfriend chef.

This is the precisely why the little mind games in Pasta do not seem overcooked. The two or rather Hyun-wook, to be more accurate -- never acts out of line. Even in a possibly romantic situation, such as when they are waiting for a ferry to arrive on the East Sea coast, he treats Yu-kyung as if in a public setting. There are situations where Hyun-wook will seem like he is harassing Yu-kyung -- when he trys to strangle Yu-kyung with chopsticks or hit her lightly on the head -- but such moments arise only in situations where he is punishing her as a cook. After firing Yu-kyung on his second day on the job, Hyun-wook runs into her at a crosswalk and blurts out, "Let's do it -- date". The reason he said that in such way is not because he is 'insane' but because he -- a man who believes in strict principles -- cannot regard the woman he is dating as an equal when they are involved in a social relationship where a clear hierarchy exists. Because Hyun-wook's fastidious attitude toward Yu-kyung is a necessary condition to the storyline, the mood between the two characters also changes depending on his attitude. But, at the same time, this is also what makes one worry about the future episodes of "Pasta".

As mentioned before, this drama is a story about romance in the kitchen. This an antinomic situation to a certain extent. Hence, in order for a thesis to be established on a realistic level, one of them has to leave La Sfera or Hyun-wook has to break his own principle. The drama appears to go with the latter path, as Hyun-wook was seen blowing a kiss on Yu-kyung's eyelid in the kitchen. Of course, it is not too sudden saying "I like you" in the tenth episode, but the problem is what happens afterwards. The charm of Hyun-wook was not that he was an finicky and rational person, but that he was finicky because he was rational. And the gutsy attitude of Yu-kyung, who wants to win Hyun-wook's approval by becoming a better cook and not with her femininity. So can those little moments, which were lovely because they could not cross the invisible line between them, be seen again in "Pasta"? If the show's producers can solve this dilemma well, then "Pasta" may perhaps be remembered as a drama which presented a new formula for workplace romance stories.





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