Discounting the last 0.5episode out of the 20, I would've given this a full 10/10 with the amazing acting, costumes, OST, perfect combo of romance and comedy, and of course the chemistry between the two leads.
However, the ending of this greatly dashed all my expectations and thoughts of this being the best kdrama ever. We were introduced to the 'queen' who struggles with gender and identity crisis as the male chef possesses her body, with 19.5 amazing episodes exploring the challenges he comes across and developing his relationship with the king upon excepting himself in a female body. This was quite an interesting gender twist and I found it incredibly refreshing.
BUT THEN in the last 1/2 of ep20, he is cruelly kicked out of the 'queens' body and returns to his Republic of Korea era, without any warning, without any chances of getting closure before departure, with the original soul of the queen coming back into her body.
While this may seem to be a perfectly happy ending, I ABSOLUTELY HATED IT, why? While Bong-Hwan (chef) returns to Korea, alone, probably traumatised, and ripped away from all his newly developed relationships with the people in the palace, So-Yong (aka real queen) comes to replace and pretends to be him, reaping all the gains from his efforts. Even the king himself notices the lost of 'something' as he so vaguely put it, with the ending being a big let-down for me with 1000 questions unanswered such as if SY is ever going to come clean about BH, or if BH truly accepts being kicked out despite portrayed as being very very very happy after returning.