In Episode 4, a normal night out planned by Jiang Pei Ying to have Fang Xiao Rou voice out her like towards Han Jie sees Han Jie hearing how truly devastated Fang Xiao Rou was over the accident that he caused upon her father and has him hear how he is the one and only person in Fang Xiao Rou’s entire life that she can’t seem to forgive.
But first, opening Episode 4, is the situation of Wang Mai Zhi and his desire to have Han Jie lose his bet to Su Ying Jun. Fang Xiao Rou hears Wang Mai Zhi’s plan of sabotage and tells him off for thinking about losing on purpose. Wang Mai Zhi has an aloof response and even sees him disrespectfully address Han Jie by name and not title. This has Fang Xiao Rou unimpressed. She sternly reminds Wang Mai Zhi of his student status against Han Jie’s teacher status, demanding him to exercise respect. However, Wang Mai Zhi continues disrepect towards Han Jie and calls him a show off who now needs the students to help him save his job: "Han Jie just talks. He staked his job and we’re the bargaining chips. He’s clearly showing off and looking cool. Why do we have to cooperate? I don’t have any obligation to help save his job for him."
Han Jie makes an entrance some few more exchanges of words between Wang Mai Zhi and Fang Xiao Rou later. “Talking behind my back, I see,” he says from outside of the circle. Wang Mai Zhi is smug in his response, not at all concerned he’d been caught talking badly about him behind his back: "If you want me to criticise you to your face—I can. After all, if I don’t do it now, I might not get the chance later. Who knows how long you’ll be able to stay here." Han Jie is unfazed by Wang Mai Zhi’s complete disrespect towards him or concerned about Wang Mai Zhi’s desire to bring him down—so much so that he even rejects the suggestion to Wang Mai Zhi coming from Tang Hao (Zhang Luo Ti)—friend of Ma Chong Sheng and fellow classmate of Wang Mai Zhi—to pull himself out of the competition. He will not allow anyone to quit, Han Jie says. All had willingly chosen to participate; therefore, all will continue to participate. Not allowing anyone to quit then, Han Jie takes Wang Mai Zhi on: I will find ways to have you win even if you purposely try to lose.
We didn’t understand what Han Jie meant when he said he will make Wang Mai Zhi win until we came to a scene where Wang Mai Zhi goes against Han Jie’s orders at an early morning trip (5:30AM trip!) at the food markets to buy ingredients. Han Jie supplied a list of ingredients for each of his students to buy. Wang Mai Zhi had the task of buying Taiwanese chicken, mango and clams. However, on Wang Mai Zhi’s own accord, he chooses to buy none of the items on the list, but buys durian, garlic and preserved vegetables. This didn’t worry Han Jie. This will make Wang Mai Zhi exercise his creativity more in the task that he has in store for him and the class.
Knowing that the only person who could have Wang Mai Zhi care to do his best—Liu Xuan—Han Jie gives him and the class the task of making a dish for someone they like using the ingredients they bought.
Even though the dish that Wang Mai Zhi made looked unappetising and didn’t taste or smell good (it looked a lot like vomit on a plate), he worked hard and did his best using the ingredients he bought. It seems Han Jie’s meaning in finding ways to have Wang Mai Zhi win is finding ways to have Wang Mai Zhi do his best.
But being able to give incentive to Wang Mai Zhi into doing his best this time doesn’t mean the next time he will cooperate so easily like this time. And Ma Chong Sheng and Tang Hao knows this stubbornness of Wang Mai Zhi. Both confront him and tells him not to ruin their chances of obtaining a scholarship. Wang Mai Zhi arrogantly tells them there’s no problem there since he can pay for their scholarships. However, neither wishes for him to pay for it. They wish to work for the scholarship, but Wang Mai Zhi continues being stubborn.
Fortunately, Liu Xuan is his weakness and she can change his terrible attitude. It takes a private conversation with him, talking about the steamed grouper dish that failed their school at last year’s competition, Liu Xuan making the steamed grouper for him, and then asking him to work together to win back all the competitions they lost before Wang Mai Zhi agrees to cooperate. Liu Xuan is not just a pretty and popular face. She is the only one who can keep Wang Mai Zhi’s selfishness in check!
Something seems to be brewing and coming in on the Oscar Han side of things as we see Han Jie meet up with a guy Han Jie calls Raymond (Paul Hsu). Raymond, he is managing Oscar Han/Han Jie’s restaurant in France, Olives House. This meet up that takes place on Si Ping High School grounds, has us informed about a few things: Raymond has specifically flown back to Taiwan to assist Han Jie in sourcing ingredients. We are told how well Olives House is doing in the rankings of a seemingly prestigious magazine called, Le Cordon Bleu. The restaurant is placed number one for the third year. However, they aren’t standing on that number one ranking alone, though. This year, they share the number one spot with a newly established restaurant called, Ceres. This restaurant is said to have established only 6 months ago and the executive chef is a woman.
This is what we were given on the Oscar Han/Olives House side of things. What was given is enough to make us become very curious about why we have been given this information at this stage and what importance it has in the story. So far, there has been very little on Oscar Han or Olives House, so we don’t have a clue what this means for plot. It does make us want to guess, though: could Ceres restaurant have something to do with Wen Zhen Yu? Could Wen Zhen Yu be the owner of Ceres restaurant. Wen Zhen Yu was quite mysterious with his identity when Han Jie asked for it in Episode 1. Even if we hit the nail on the head about Ceres restaurant being Wen Zhen Yu’s, we do still wonder how this fits into what has been developed so far. This side of the story is very, very interesting and we look forward to more development on this! We can only see this bringing in exciting happenings!
We finally come to the part of the episode where we see Fang Xiao Rou revealing to Han Jie how much she despises him for ruining her father’s teaching and cooking career.
The lead up to this comes from a scene earlier in the episode where we see Fang Xiao Rou talking to Jiang Pei Ying in the evening at their apartment, concerned about Han Jie’s situation. Jiang Pei Ying is the type of character who cares just enough about things to be called acceptable and normal. So, when Jiang Pei Ying hears Fang Xiao Rou talking about how she feels Han Jie needs to do something to stop Wang Mai Zhi from continuing to sabotage the competition so to stop Han Jie seeing through his promise to resign from his job, Jiang Pei Ying naturally asks why Fang Xiao Rou is concerning herself over Han Jie’s problem which shouldn’t concern her one bit at all. She throws her some questions to answer—why can you not care? Is he related to you in some way? Is he someone to you? She cannot just not care. Han Jie is just a colleague, Fang Xiao Rou says. After Jiang Pei Ying points out how much Han Jie seems to be stressing her out, seeing wrinkles beginning to show on her face, Jiang Pei Ying concludes that she has come to like Han Jie. Of course, Fang Xiao Rou denies it and this has Jiang Pei Ying go on a mission to prove to her friend that she does have such feelings for Han Jie.
To have Fang Xiao Rou express her feelings to Han Jie, Jiang Pei Ying invites Han Jie to meet up with her at a night club Fang Xiao Rou had a job at.
Come in a night club scene. Han Jie and Jiang Pei Ying enter into an electric blue atmosphere with a considerable crowd gathered below a stage. Up on stage, Fang Xiao Rou demonstrates her impressive skill of flair bartending. This performance of spinning and tossing alcohol bottles and making cocktails has Han Jie looking intrigued and impressed enough. This performance soon ends with another coming up.
As Fang Xiao Rou prepares for her next performance, putting a blindfold on herself, the host/boss of the club asks a person from the crowd to participate for this next performance. Jiang Pei Ying immediately helps Han Jie put his hand up. Jiang Pei Ying ignores the disagreement in Han Jie’s face and calls the host to notice the person she has volunteered. She succeeds and Han Jie is chosen to go up on stage to participate in Fang Xiao Rou’s next act.
Fang Xiao Rou’s next act is making a cocktail blindfolded. She stands at the centre, blindfolded and waiting for directions. "Quickly. Tell me where rum, gin and tequila is. I’m going to make a drink for you," she says in an upbeat tone to this participant to whom she doesn’t know is Han Jie. Han Jie complies and tells her the positions of the alcohol bottles.
We then see Fang Xiao Rou easily locate the first two bottles and does an impressive performance of tossing, spinning and flipping bottles in her blindfolded state. Han Jie, who’s standing behind watching her, is also impressed. She pours the liquid into a cocktail shaker on a table to her left.
Grabbing the final bottle located beside the cocktail shaker, Fang Xiao Rou does a different trick of throwing it high up into the air. The trick doesn’t go smoothly, but the act ends just as cool when Han Jie becomes a partner in the act: Fang Xiao Rou spinning too big and too wide, she bumps into Han Jie. Surprised to find Han Jie up on stage after taking off her blindfold, she forgets about the falling bottle of alcohol. But Han Jie’s eyes alert her back to it. Quickly, Fang Xiao Rou extends a foot to it and kicks it back up into the air. It lops over to Han Jie. He picks it up with his hand and throws it back forward for Fang Xiao Rou to catch it with a cocktail shaker and the performance that could have turned horribly embarrassing for Fang Xiao Rou ends entertainingly.
After their entertaining performance, Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou is seen at a table in the lounge area with Jiang Pei Ying coming in with two drinks. A friend on a mission, she provides Fang Xiao Rou and Han Jie a glass each of what she says is water, but when Fang Xiao Rou and Han Jie takes a drink, they contort their faces and hiss. Jiang Pei Ying had served them sake. It is Jiang Pei Ying’s plan to have Fang Xiao Rou drunk enough to speak out her innermost feelings.
Jiang Pei Ying’s plan could be said to have worked since after a drinking challenge that Jiang Pei Ying suggested Fang Xiao Rou to have with Han Jie—another attempt to have Fang Xiao Rou reveal her innermost feelings—Fang Xiao Rou does come out and express them to Han Jie: I admire you; I respect you; I like you. But, Fang Xiao Rou’s confession didn’t have much weight when before Fang Xiao Rou had said the all important ‘I like you’ phrase, she had said it as part of her response to when Han Jie finally reveals to her that he was the student who ruined her father’s cooking and teaching career. This topic had risen from a talk about difficult students and needing to pay more attention to them. Fang Xiao Rou’s reaction to Han Jie’s confession was shock: "You were that student? How can it be? How can a bad student be so good at cooking? How could he become a teacher?" It then turns into disbelief before writing it off as Han Jie’s way of comforting her because she believes he’s a very nice person who she respects, admires and likes.
Han Jie therefore comes to understand why his old cooking teacher had stopped him from acknowledging him as his teacher. Though his daughter is kind to everyone, she cannot forget the one who ruined his cooking and teaching career, his old cooking teacher reveals to Han Jie after Han Jie had brought Fang Xiao Rou home to his place. His old cooking teacher continues to say that this student is the only person that she holds a grudge towards. Acknowledging him would cause him to impact negatively on their interactions with each other and he didn’t want that.
Nothing Han Jie had said to Fang Xiao Rou is remembered by Fang Xiao Rou. We even see Fang Xiao Rou waiting for Han Jie to arrive at school the very next day so that she could thank him for bringing her home to her father’s place. She does, however, remember that she had cried. This only got her wondering if that was because she had confessed to Han Jie and got rejected by him rather than what actually had caused her to cry which was talking about her father’s inability to continue what he loves to do most.
The final section of the episode leads up to Han Jie showing he’s beginning to really struggle hiding this fact of him being the student that Fang Xiao Rou despises.
After a cooking class from Han Jie showing his students how a difficult ingredient as durian can be used well in cooking to produce a delicious dish, Han Jie asks Fang Xiao Rou for a favour of accompanying him for dinner so she could help him finish the dishes that the boss of the restaurant always made too much for him. The dinner is not just a dinner between Fang Xiao Rou and Han Jie, though. Han Jie also invites Jiang Pei Ying and Li Zhi Chao along to the dinner as well.
Seeing as throughout the episode we see Li Zhi Chao floating around Han Jie asking about the coincidences that he has been noticing to be happening around him and his beloved Fang Xiao Rou and then wishing that he would be able to encounter such coincidences as well, it makes us wonder if this was Han Jie helping to create some coincidences for Li Zhi Chao to have with Fang Xiao Rou. If so, Han Jie’s really such a nice and thoughtful guy.
This dinner between the four colleagues leads to another scene of Han Jie cooking. The dish the restaurant prides themselves with, Hakka Stir Fry, is not sellling well and the restaurant’s boss asks Han Jie to give him guidance. It’s another demonstration of Han Jie’s superior cooking abilities as his dish gains a round of praises from his colleagues. Fang Xiao Rou is so impressed with it that she expresses how a bowl of rice must accompany it. She then goes to grab her rice bowl as well as Han Jie’s to get some, passing by the bowl that Jiang Pei Ying extends to her requesting Fang Xiao Rou get it for her as well.
A funny scene then comes in: when Fang Xiao Rou walks into a passerby, the bowls she has in her hands fly up into the air. Li Zhi Chao who was also with Fang Xiao Rou getting some rice for himself is quick to react. He’s not as quick or agile as Han Jie, though. Han Jie catches the bowls of rice suavely. Li Zhi Chao, though, he is left to fall flat on the ground.
A decrease in his coolness, Li Zhi Chao tries to gain some of it back when he tries to get back up sauvely with a kip-up, but the result is the opposite and sees Jiang Pei Ying and Fang Xiao Rou laughing at the funny sight and patrons in the background looking on the scene giggling. Li Zhi Chao has no choice but to give up looking cool and gets up the regular way.
He steps up to Han Jie and gets in his face: "Why are you always the one looking cool and I’m the one looking like an idiot?" And then, to most likely decrease Han Jie’s level of coolness, Li Zhi Chao leaps into the air and head butts him! Li Zhi Chao is in a slight state of dizziness after the head butt, but not too badly concussed as he still manages to do his signature hand swipe over his hair well enough. Han Jie, he’s also slightly concussed, shaking his head from the dizzying head butt, lost the rice in his bowls, but fine and still looking very cool as he remains upright and conscious.
Li Zhi Chao’s actions didn’t do anything to change the status quo. In fact, we can say he just made more ‘concidences’ (opportunities) for Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou to be around each other more. In the next scene, we see Fang Xiao Rou coming out of a convenience store going to Han Jie who’s sitting and waiting at the seats outside. "How’s your head?" Fang Xiao Rou asks as she prepares the ice pack that she had bought for him.
Han Jie complains of how hard Li Zhi Chao’s head is and wonders if the hard head of his is filled with mud. Don’t be angry with him since he has apologised many times, Fang Xiao Rou says as she puts the ice pack onto Han Jie’s forehead. Han Jie is curious: "Do you always treat everyone so nicely?" Fang Xiao Rou didn’t think her actions were out of line. In her easy-going and cheerful tone, Fang Xiao Rou replies, "We’re colleagues. Something small like this is okay, isn’t it?"
Han Jie becomes serious after this. He’s thinking about the accident he caused and worried about what Fang Xiao Rou had said that night at the night club. "What if there’s someone out there who isn’t deserving of your kindness?" he asks. Fang Xiao Rou is lost: "Not deserving of my kindness? How can you determine when a person deserves it or not?" She then furrows her brow in concern. "What’s wrong? Is there something you want to say?"
Han Jie takes the ice pack that Fang Xiao Rou had been helping him hold to his forehead and puts it down. He recalls the moment he was at the hospital seeing Fang Xiao Rou running into her dad’s hospital room. He remembers seeing Fang Xiao Rou devastated and angry. Han Jie isn’t able to sustain eye contact with Fang Xiao Rou when he begins his apology: "Teacher Fang…" He pauses to further gather courage. He looks up with seriousness and sincerity in his eyes, "I’m sorry." Han Jie’s seriousness and sincerity is lost on Fang Xiao Rou. She looks around here and there, searching around to find what it was that was making him say sorry in such a serious and sincere manner. She couldn’t find anything. "What… are you sorry about?" she asks.
And Episode 4 ends at this cliffhanger! Ooh, will Han Jie actually come to tell Fang Xiao Rou that he’s the student she despises or will something stop him? We’re hoping, just for the sake of good drama, Han Jie doesn’t reveal this fact about him yet. We actually don’t see it coming yet. It doesn’t feel right. There’s quite a lot of episodes left and there’s the competition coming in. It doesn’t feel like it’s the right time to bring this in. But of course, we don’t know what the series has up its sleeve! Maybe it will get revealed and they have other things that will help keep the story interesting and moving along.
But if indeed this fact about Han Jie doesn’t get revealed in the next episode, then it could get scary for Han Jie. We don’t know when Fang Xiao Rou will remember this information that she should have somewhere in her subconscious. We don’t know if it will be used at a future time, either. If it does get used, it makes us wonder when it will come and what kind of a situation will have Fang Xiao Rou finally remember what Han Jie said. Nerve-racking, but it’s definitely good drama!
The pairing of Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou is really getting cooler and cooler, cuter and cuter with each passing episode. There have been moments of arguments occurring between Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou and this has made the pair look like they have a love-hate relationship—especially during times when Han Jie overdoes his playfulness or when Fang Xiao Rou adamantly denies Han Jie’s obvious affect on her—but they really are on the same page and working well together. They’re colleagues who look extremely in sync with each other. They have the same goal, are equally talented and compliment each other. There are not a whole lot of dramas that we’ve come across that have the lead characters so similar in talent, status and balance of power that see them so awesome together. Usually, the lead characters are binary opposites (rich and poor, smart and dumb, geek and chic, superior and subordinate) that makes the pairing awesome, but Han Jie and Fang Xiao Rou, they don’t have such dramatic difference in skill, status or class yet they are still so interesting and lovable!
We also like the fact that one is oblivious to their feelings for the other (Fang Xiao Rou) and one is feeling indebted to the other (Han Jie). This has been building up some really great moments for the two. With Han Jie’s problem of being indebted to Fang Xiao Rou after finding out how devastated she was when she first found out that her father was no longer able to continue his cooking and teaching career and hearing how much she despises him for it, it has the effect of pushing him to become more and more aware of Fang Xiao Rou. Han Jie hasn’t really shown or indicated that he likes Fang Xiao Rou in a romantic way. He’s only shown guilt towards her and enjoys teasing her. So, this whole thing with him feeling indebted to Fang Xiao Rou is really good in terms of getting Han Jie to pay a lot more attention to her. But we don’t want him to pay attention to Fang Xiao Rou because he feels guilty and indebted to her. We want to see him to truly notice her—lnotice Fang Xiao Rou because he likes her! We want to see something like the scenes in the end credits! Hehe. Now that’s cute and so sweet! :oP :oP.
Fang Xiao Rou, let’s hope she will be lenient towards Han Jie when she finally remembers what Han Jie said or when she hears the information again. It’d be a shame to see such a cute and fun pair become full of melodrama.
Did anyone notice the part where Fang Xiao Rou was up on the stage flair bartending and we hear her ask Han Jie for the location of rum, gin and tequila, but Han Jie tells her the location for tequila, rum and vodka? We took a closer look at that scene out of curiosity and indeed Fang Xiao Rou does grab a bottle of vodka. That was a little strange…
During the night club scene, just before Jiang Pei Ying and Han Jie headed in, Han Jie had said that the reason he accepted Jiang Pei Ying’s invitation to meet up with her at the night club was because there’s a dish that requires mixing drinks to make a sauce that helps create a special caviar. Can we guess that Fang Xiao Rou will finally get some screen time to showcase some of her cocktail making talent to the students soon? So far, it has just been Han Jie showing his cooking talent. We’d like to see Fang Xiao Rou showing her drink making talent!
We have to mention how we are loving Nita Lei’s character, Jiang Pei Ying, in the series. Her character adds that bit more liveliness and fun into the series! Might as well add Li Zhi Chao as well. His nerdiness and want to be manly and get Fang Xiao Rou’s attention always bring in really funny scenes. That attempt to kip-up but failing was too funny and his head butting Han Jie was shocking, but funny and entertaining to watch! Very memorable and hilarious moments of Episode 4!
We are definitely in for more of Love Cuisine 料理高校生! Bring on Episode 5!
Read our translations for Behind the Scenes of Love Cuisine, Episode 4!
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