Air Dates: May 15th until July 17, 2020 Friday nights at midnight on WOWOW
Main Cast: The 'action' takes place in a small tavern/restaurant on an off the beaten path in Kyoto. People from our world would enter through the front door but there's a side door that's an entrance to 'Aiteria' which is a world set in Germany during the 1800's. None of the patrons who visit are aware they've actually traveled to the future or at least not yet....
Ryohei Otani as Nobuyuki Yazawa.... The owner chef of the restaurant who has a very cool demeanor and how did he set up a 'time travel route' to his place that's called Nobu?
Rena Takeda as Shinobu Senke.... Yazawa's trusty assistant and the only other employee.
Guest stars..... all made a second appearance in the next show so are perhaps regulars? All are from the alternate world of Aiteria who serve in their army
Jin Shirasu as Nikolaus.... Soldier in the army who first discovered the restaurant.
Yutaka Kobayashi as Hans.... Best friend of Nikolaus and also a soldier.
Shinnosuke Abe as Bertholdt.... Commander of the Aiteria army.
The "Midnight Diner" franchise has had four seasons along with two films, haven't seen them but have viewed the four seasons. The first season came out in 2009 and is in my top twenty all time for fave dramas. The others are fine too but that cliche 'Going to the well too often' took effect, to me the main reason was the main star's role was a bit diminished. Had forgotten that there two movies so will be adding them to my 'need to watch list.
Think this may be a loose spinoff from that series, they're similar in some aspects but not all. Both are small quirky taverns/restaurants that aren't along a busy street, both also draw odd customers but that's where their similarities end. In that first season of "Midnight Diner" and actually the rest we heard about the customers problems and often the owner would slyly help solve them. That hasn't been the case for these first two episodes as the focus has been on food and not much else. As the brief description said above there's a doorway to an alternate world which is set in 1800's Germany, so far it's been enjoyable but hope the stories get a bit more serious. An episode is just 24 minutes in length so will need to stretch these recaps out a bit.
Few hundred years ago Europe always had a battle or war going on. Germany was often in them but during this stretch of time in the mid 1800's it was a peaceful era or at least in the region of the fictional Aiteria. But they still need an army in case of an invasion and are led by the tough commander Bertholdt who is such an expert swordsman and unbeatable fighter. Knowing first hand his strength are two of trusted soldiers Nikolaus and Hans who are above. After work the best friends usually go out to eat but Hans is getting so tired of the food and crappy beer, can't anyone open a decent restaurant in the area he mused?
'Not to worry' replied his buddy Nikolaus who will bring him to a new discovery he made that Friday which is when they got paid. On that day Hans was brought to a remote section of a nearby forest which where to his astonishment stood a restaurant. From the outside it looked like an 1800's building but upon entering it was a 2020 establishment but none of the other customers even gave the pair a second glance. Being from Germany neither could read the menu printed in Japanese which got me to thinking at this moment, how did they suddenly learn to speak Japanese? Better not to ask questions in dramas and Nikolaus suggested trying the house beer named Toriaezu, one sip of that and Hans was in seventh heaven! Never mind that but for the first time in his life he drank a beer that was cold and guess back in the 1800's that hadn't been introduced.
But food is what the duo came for and whatever the owner/chef Nobu creates will please them as he's such a master chef yet the restaurant isn't located in a busy section of Kyoto. Won't go into too much of what was made by Nobu or what they pair ate but of course the dishes were simply out of this world. Nikolaus already knew they would be as he had discovered the place some time ago but have no clue how it happened. Meanwhile Hans just can't get stuff enough food in his mouth and modern day dishes were such a mystery to him along with.... electric lights?!
Odd how there would be a modern Japanese restaurant set in German woods, wonder why it wasn't a Japanse forest and soldiers? Of course neither had ever heard of foods like Oden and various other dishes which makes sense coming from Germany. Hans is in total love with the place and says they should visit every night but an incident took place which may change his mind. Who should enter but their ruthless commander Bertholdt who can be a mean guy but has to in those turbulent times and actually does like the pair of young soldiers. He had heard about the great food and beer that was served there(how?!) so he too had to try it out.
The chef Nobu suggested some fresh squid but that was a no go to Bertholdt who seemed scared of the dish. He out up a challenge to Nobu to create him a dish he's never had before and one that he could savor to no end. Nobu said that would be no problem and during his prep work Bertholdt too had some of the special house beer which he couldn't get enough of. Asahi beer is definitely a sponsor as their logo is on the beer tap. Nobu has finished his creation which is a normal dish to us but to German soldiers from the 1800's.
That was fried chicken which wasn't a creation back then, according to Hans there was such a lack of variety of food as stew seemed to be the only dish served in Germany. Nobu easily met the challenge of Bertholdt who simply loved the dish, so much he said he would personally defend the restaurant if Nobu was ever in danger. A few other dishes were consumed by the trio and during this time the pair became so much closer to their commander. Once you subtract how long the credits are a show is only 23+ minutes in length and we've come to the end of this shortish recap.
Rena plays the waitress in this drama which is one reason I chose to watch it, her role was minor in this first show but it does get bigger in the second episode. In the second recap for the "Do You Like Brahms" drama mentioned how the actors do play their own instruments in the show. But in food dramas the actors never prepare the actual dishes, it's easy to tell as you never see a full body shot of them cooking or preparing food. Could be a time saver too as an episode is quite short. Recap for the next show is the following post and there were two mini stories in that show.
