Cooking Crush (Thai BL) – Episode 4 Recap & Review

Dish 4: Why’s This Salted Egg Spicy Salad So Sweet?

Episode 4 of Cooking Crush starts with Prem and Ten arriving at One Good Meal Restaurant. It turns out that Prem took Ten to the restaurant of his favourite Super Monster Chef 219 times winner, Chef Chang Ma. Chang Ma is Prem’s senior at the university and is super excited to meet him.

During the meal, Chang Ma pays more attention to Prem, especially when he learns that Prem is his junior. Ten does not enjoy the experience, and he looks more bored when Chang Ma asks them not to pay for their meal, bestows a mitten upon Prem, and asks him to take a picture. Meanwhile, Dynamite pretends to have a stomachache and knocks on Fire’s door to get some medicines. He gets jealous when he sees Janee inside and wants to join them for the meal, but Samsi comes to drag him out. 

On the way home, Prem notices that Ten is unhappy and texts his friend for advice. Samsi thinks he might not have liked the food, but Dynamite knows it is about emotions. To understand the situation better, Dynamite, if Prem was impressed with the food and even made sounds to show how delicious the food was, Dynamite.

Consequently, Chef Chang Ma started a conversation with him, and Prem told him he was his junior and admired him so much. As if that’s not enough, they watch his show every week and are his avid supporters. Chang Ma gave him a keepsake, and they took a picture together. Dynamite explains to Prem that Ten is jealous because Prem was admiring another man when he was there with him. He is confident that Ten likes Prem, and he tells him that Tem will punish him for admiring another man in his presence.

Ten drives them to a motel, and Prem starts to freak out, especially when Ten says he brought him to the motel to eat what he wants since he is not satisfied yet. Prem remembers Dynamite’s words about the punishment, and that the jacket he gave him was a lucky charm, so he hurriedly takes it off. Ten pulls him into the motel, and it turns out he is just taking him to a restaurant. It is one of his favourite restaurants because his uncle used to take him to the exact location to eat.

He likes to eat there because he does not have to care about table manners. Ten and Prem had a more lively time eating at the simple restaurant than at the chef’s table. Prem even teaches him a trick he can use to mix different common foods and make them more delicious.

Later, Ten walks Prem home. On the way, he tells Orem not to worry about the money because he is happy to pay him. Spending time together and learning to cook is worth more than the money. Before meeting Prem, Ten solely focused on his stressful studies and was never happy. However, learning to cook with Prem brings him immense joy. Prem tells Ten that he also has good feelings towards Him, likes hearing his kind words, and has positive feelings towards him. 

After dropping him home, Ten tells Prem that he would not mind if Prem had good feelings towards him. After he arrives home, Ten starts thinking about Prem, and he cannot help but smile. Simultaneously, Prem cannot help but smile the following day when he thinks of Ten as he makes him a lunch box. Prem sends Ten a text but starts to stress out when Ten takes time before he reads it.

His sister distracts him from the risky text he just sent when she teases him about Ten. When Prem denies that he is into Ten, his sister tells him to realise his feelings soon because, depending on how he is acting, it looks like he is in the second stage of falling in love. Prem asks about the first stage, and Paeng is happy to tell him that in that stage, one is dreamy and in a good mood, and in the second stage, one starts talking to himself. Prem thinks back, and he checks both boxes. Paeng continues to explain the stages of falling in love, and in the third stage, Prem will start seeing Ten’s face everywhere he looks.

Prem decides to delete the message he had sent Ten, but it does not change that Prem is already progressing through the stages of falling in love. On his way to school that day, he starts seeing Ten’s face everywhere he looks, and he gets so distraught that he decides to alight before his destination and run the rest of the way to school. The faces follow him whenever he looks, and he hides in the toilet to get his Ten illusions out of his head. Suddenly, someone enters and asks him if he is okay. Thinking that it is another illusion, he squishes the face of the person, but it turns out it is Ten. 

Prem gives Ten the lunchbox he had prepared in the morning, saying he had some leftovers and decided to pack extra. However, Ten had already seen Prem’s text asking him about bringing him food. Ten pretends that he did not eat in the morning, enjoys the food Prem brought him, and takes the time to flirt on the down low. Prem overthinks their conversation, worried that he might give the wrong answers and upset Ten.

When he asks if Prem is good to everyone or just him, Prem answers, “Just you, probably.” Ten’s mood changes, and he tells Prem he must go. Prem becomes even more distressed because he thinks he made him upset. Prem thinks he messed it up when Ten cancelled their cooking lesson for the upcoming weekend, saying that he would be busy that day. 

Elsewhere, Fire is upset because Janee is no longer responding to his texts, and he whines about it to Metha when Ten ignores his text, too. Dynamite, who is secretly stalkerish, is having breakfast at a table nearby when he overhears the conversation and shouts that she is not answering because she is not into him. They get into a confrontation before Dynamite runs away. Fire sees Janee at the cafeteria and goes to get answers about the ignored texts. Jane tells Fire she does not think she is into him and says she will pass by the condo later to pick up some of her stuff. 

Trouble awaits at the condo in the form of Fire’s mother when he arrives home with Janee so she can pick up her stuff. His mother had already seen a headband in the house and knew it did not belong to Fire. He tries to pretend that it is his, but his mother is not easily fooled, and she is even more angry when Janee comes out of hiding and says that the headband is hers. Dynamite comes in at that moment and takes the heat away from Fire by pretending that Janee is his girlfriend, and they are staying over since the AC in their room is broken. 

Prem, Samsi, and Dynamite watch the Super Monster Chef competition like always, and Chef Chang Ma wins for the 220th time. However, this will be his last competition, and the show has a surprise to announce. The show is organising a special season to find a new team champion of three members to compete for a prize of three million baht. They contemplate joining the competition, but the 3B gang makes Prem doubt the decision when they talk down on them during the next class, and he stays upset for days.

Come Saturday, Prem is still cast down as he helps his grandmother at the restaurant. At the end of the episode, a customer walks in, and her grandmother asks him to take care of the customer since she is taking a nap. Prem is surprised to see the new customer is Ten. 

The Episode Review

The dynamic between Off and Gun in this series is remarkably different from other characters they have previously portrayed. In Cooking Crush, they are both simultaneously low-key smitten with each other and confused about their feelings. The confused scenes where they are trying not to read too much into each other’s actions and are afraid they might make a mistake are super cute.

The symmetry in their reactions, with Ten having heart-racing reactions in the previous episode and Prem experiencing the same in this episode, shows that their relationships are progressing slowly, but both are developing feelings towards each other. The best part about this episode is the conversations. Prem opens up about his desire to open a chef’s table restaurant, and Ten talks about his uncle who took him to the restaurant.

Consequently, ten and Prem admit to having good feelings towards each other. Dynamite apologises for his stalker behaviour and tells Fire that he genuinely likes him, and Janee tells Fire she is not feeling him. However, we still do not know about Ten’s mystery woman; she has not been mentioned for a while.