Let’s Open 來吧！營業中 is a new 13-episode Taiwanese reality TV show that premiered on March 19, 2022 in Taiwan and March 27, 2022 on Netflix. The show centred around 6 Taiwanese celebrities who are tasked to open a business from scratch which happens to be an eatery. According to reports, in the last three weeks (eps 6, 7 & 8), it has become so popular it is now the most watched Taiwanese show on Netflix.
As a fan of MasterChef Australia which idealized and romanticized the restaurant business, it is refreshing to watch something that shows the less glamorous sides behind the opening of an eatery business. I have watched the first two episodes which concentrated on pre-opening and quite enjoyed them. It is about to get more serious from episode 3 (which has TV ratings of nearly 1 million viewers in Taiwan) onwards as they will have to serve to actual customers with only one celebrity who knows how to cook, LOL…
Full episodes of the show are also free to watch on YouTube. The opening and closing theme songs are sung by singer Aaron Yan 炎亞綸 who is one of the participants on the show.
My Bae (opening theme song 片頭曲) – Aaron Yan 炎亞綸
Live a Life (closing theme song 片尾曲 audio version) – Aaron Yan 炎亞綸
Update May 28, 2022: Just watched ep 3, OMG, I thought I was watching the classic British series, Fawlty Towers, so funny! Idiots running a restaurant, LOL…
Update May 30, 2022: Finally had time to catch up to ep 6 over the weekend, so far all the episodes are very entertaining to watch! The two youngest members are just clueless, LOL… GuiGui at least found her place in the kitchen making desserts but still act like a 10-year-old playing house! Yoshi is just slow even though he was ernest, and provided all the laughing moments especially the way he rote learned the menu and just regurgitated without any flexibility to change after he was told several times they were out of smoothies, and yet still told the customers they had smoothies; and the way he started to squat/kneel when taking orders as if he was talking to a child, just golden hilarious moments for the show! There was still no communicate between front of house and the kitchen… I agreed with Aaron saying that different dishes of a course for the same table should arrive at the same time, especially as they are serving them western-style, or else you will get one person eating while the rest of the table could only watch their companion eat while they are still waiting for their dish to arrive. So the kitchen should coordinate to make sure different dishes for the same table are able to be ready around the same time! It was just so odd to serve bread roll all on its own after the main dish was finished, LOL…
There is also rumour that the show is now so popular that they are planning an increase of episodes to a total of 20 episodes and season 2 is also on the cards!
Update June 2, 2022: Here’s the MV for the closing theme song…
Live a Life (closing theme song 片尾曲) – Aaron Yan 炎亞綸
Update June 30, 2022: In episode 15, GuiGui made Taiwanese macarons which is not actually anything related to French macarons. They are called Powder Puffs or Sponge Drops or Sponge Kisses, an old fashioned sweet treat. The recipe for it came into Taiwan during the Japanese occupation of the island last century. In Japan it is called ブッセ or bouchée and it is basically the recipe for ladyfingers, or biscuits à la cuillère (meaning spoon biscuits as traditionally you use a teaspoon to drop the batter onto the baking tray), in French. From “cuillère”, it is believed the word was translated into “gu-lik” in Taiwanese dialect, and written as 牛力, later became 牛粒 and that became the common name in Taiwan for these little sponge kisses. Then when the French macarons swept over the world at the end of last century, some clever sellers of these little sponge sandwiches decided to cash in with the name and called them Taiwanese macarons because they looked similar in appearance and the name stuck in Taiwan.
The recipe used in the episode was taught by Windie Chang 張棋惠, and it is available online although slightly different to what was shown in the episode which I copied as follows – Sponge: 4 egg yolks; 2 whole eggs; 130g 120g caster sugar; pinch salt; 160g 150g cake flour… Bake 200C for about 8 minutes. Filling: 120g unsalted butter; 30g icing sugar; pinch salt; a little rum. As you can see, somehow the flour and sugar quantities were reduced for some reason.
Update October 15, 2022: The sequel has a name change to Hi! Come In 嗨！營業中 which premiered on October 1, 2022.
Update November 7, 2022: It has been revealed that season 2 of Let’s Open will be a beauty salon! Hmm, don’t think that I’ll watch that, as I’m enjoying Hi, Come In which is still focus on food…
Corner Café 
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