This is one of my top 5 kdramas ever. The other Kim Sun Ah drama Scent of a Woman is up there too.

The characters are memorable and the humor and feistiness of the Kim Sam Soon really makes this unique. The setting is awesome and the fact that she is on the one hand a french trained pâtissière but is unemployed and does not have a college degree which the match makers question. She hates her name; the back story with her dad is very touching.

The sister obviously was also very successful and then got divorced. Sam Soon's family had been well off and very well respected in the old way; they were the miller family. However because of their naive dads kindness to a relative they have fallen on harder times.

This falling in between gives this drama so much more depth than your by the numbers kdrama.

I love the mom and receptionist characters. The dialogue in this kdrama is sizzling. For example, the exchange between Sam Shik and his mom when he needs to borrow cakes from the hotel for his restaurant. She tells him to come work at the hotel, all the things he's doing wrong and the final whopper "Your profit margins are low."

Sam Shik even though a chaebol-son has real tragedy that he is carrying around with him in his present life. Most kdrama chaebol stuff is ultra boring business, dark plotting weird mental condition etc. None of that here.

The music is fantastic if you don't mind the electronic parts but it still is absolutely in sync with the story itself. It punctuates things like Sam Shik getting cake in the face. But even here the choices are brilliant the Christmas soundtrack in the hotel lobby (its Christmas eve) and the Girl from Ipanema as she goes down the escalator in episode one. Mack the Knife plays at the pastry tasting when Sam Soon and Capt. Jung exchange glances; come on this is GENIUS!

Compare the soundscapes between KSS and another popular kdrama released that same year My Girl; just has a synth track repeating over and over.
I couldn't believe it but that was the art of the soundtrack back then. In contrast we get joy and drama in KSS music. Also, I love, Be My Love, the opening theme song by Clazziquai ; very upbeat. The OST includes other classics like Over the Rainbow and Let there be Love.

I've watched 150 kdramas (shorter than 40 episodes) and dropped 80. Most of them are forgettable and a lot of them are terribly unwatchable. However, you will be hard put to find another kdrama with such a rich background.

Anyway I will watch it again this summer (hopefully) for the 5th time. Enjoy!

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