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Running Man: Episode 234

It’s a new year, which means the return of the cooking battle as our teams are challenged to bring their tastiest dishes to the table. The competition is even more fierce this year, as some teams travel abroad to gain some inspiration on some delicious recipes that will hopefully blow the others out of the water. You know what they say: If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

EPISODE 234. Broadcast on February 15, 2015.

Today’s Lunar New Year Special is a cooking battle… not that any of our cast members are aware of that fact this morning. Everyone is spread out all throughout Korea today—that is, all except for two.

We find Gary taking in the sights in Bangkok, Thailand, and Kwang-soo still fast asleep (and snoring, hee) in his hotel room in Hong Kong. And what beauty should wake him from his slumber but returning guest, Miss A’s Fei.

Jae-suk seems somewhat disappointed about being paired with Yeon Jung-hoon because he dropped by without his wife Han Ga-in. Wahh, we get to see you on variety but not for another installment of Vampire Prosecutor?

Jae-suk teases Jung-hoon for possibly swinging by a salon to get his hair done in the wee hours before dawn, to which the actor says, “I brought [my hairstylist] with me!” Hee.

Elsewhere, Suk-jin has a fanboy moment in meeting his teammate, actress Yoo Sun. Over in Jeju Island, Haha greets his partner Shoo of S.E.S., who also brought food with her.

Ji-hyo is surprised by 2PM’s Taecyeon, who was recently on Na PD’s farmhouse edition of Three Meals A Day. And you’d think that those killer wedges would give away Jong-kook’s partner’s identity, but he doesn’t recognize her at first glance.

Then Seo Woo turns around to greet him. After mentioning that she’s received love calls to make another appearance since her last stint, Seo Woo struts in the yard.

Over in Thailand, the ever-lovely Kim Sung-ryung (Heirs) arrives by boat to greet Gary… then promptly rips off his nametag. Then to introduce this year’s cooking battle is none other than last year’s winner (with Jong-kook), model Song Kyung-ah.

For this year’s competition, our seven teams must acquire their own ingredients and present their own delicious dishes. The theme is kimchi, and our teams must choose one out of five types of kimchi to add to their concoction. And despite being a mom of three, Shoo admits that she’s never made her own batch before.

Kyung-ah explains that there’s an enormous prize at the end of the line (last year was a pair of golden horses), which has Sung-ryung wonder if it’ll be golden sheep this time around.

Jong-kook is quick to pride himself in winning last year’s cooking competition. But Seo Woo has seen that episode herself and she immediately calls him out for prattling on about that victory.

Jae-suk knows that he’s already looking at a loss from the start, but Jung-hoon says he works hard at cooking. Our teams head out to pick up some cooking secrets from their respective teachers, and Jae-suk asks if their contact is Jung-hoon’s mother-in-law (it’s not).

In his interview snippet, Gary shares that Sung-ryung is one of the three noona guests on this show who have set his heart aflutter. All that delicious-looking street food is making my stomach grumble, but Gary and Sung-ryung don’t have to go very far in to receive their mission.

Here they must find and eat the correct street food items to succeed. Ha, Sung-ryung whispers to point out a trio of handsome tourists from Denmark, and so Gary explains to the men that they’re looking at a former Miss Korea: “from a long time ago,” he adds.

Gary manages to carry on conversation through his broken English, and after bidding the Denmark tourists goodbye, Sung-ryung hilariously says this place is crawling with beautiful people. In her post-interview snippet, Sung-ryung says that something about that mission made her feel more competitive and less embarrassed about carrying it out.

Back on the field, we see her and Gary quicken their step to a street vendor, who helpfully points them in the right direction. After consuming their second item (of yummy-looking rice noodles), a tourist from Spain asks if they know the “Gangnam Style” dance.

Gary offers to teach him EXID’s “Up & Down” dance instead, then introduces Sung-ryung as a former Miss Korea again. Hahaha.

Back in Korea, Jong-kook is still rambling about what’s important in cooking in the car. Seo Woo is polite enough to keep listening throughout the long car ride, until she politely asks if they can have a moment of silence.

She jokingly asks if he wasn’t the rapper back in his Turbo days, and Jong-kook replies that he did the singing. And in her post-interview snippet, Seo Woo says that she heard about Jong-kook’s motormouth tendencies from Kim Min-seo, who was Jong-kook’s partner in the Chuseok episode.

They finally arrive at their destination a full half-hour later to take a boat to a mud flat. Oh boy, guess who’s getting messy today. Here, they must harvest A THOUSAND cockles, which amounts to about 10 kgs.

It turns out that the best way to travel is on top of a wooden board, which Seo Woo has trouble maneuvering. She slips off and remembering her struggle has Jong-kook mention in his interview that she’s the type of partner that requires a lot of care.

Seo Woo eventually manages to catch up to her “nagging father-in-law” partner Jong-kook, and she says that she felt super sorry towards him about it.

In the car, Jung-hoon says he doesn’t really cook since the wife is a stellar one. That has Jae-suk remark that Han Ga-in has it all, which leaves Jung-hoon beaming. They arrive to an elderly couple’s home to meet the “Jeongsun Dae Jang Geum,” who are busy making tofu.

Jae-suk tries to introduce Jung-hoon and his impressive family connections (his father is actor Yeon Gyu-jin), and when he says Han Ga-in is Jung-hoon’s wife, the halmae says she’s got lots of free time today (since the phrase “hangahaeyo” sounds similar to her name).

Omg, that tofu is nowhere near done yet and it already looks fantastic. When Jae-suk mentions that the couple should be featured on the TV program Korea’s Dining Table, the halmae says MC Choi Bool-am already came to visit (they were in Episode 2, evidently).

Jung-hoon gets sent outside the bitter cold to retrieve some kimchi with flimsy plastic gloves. His smile at the absurdity is pretty priceless. The Seoulite also has some trouble understanding the Gangwondo accent, and would you look at that image of a top actor sitting down peeling a potato in the countryside.

Then Jung-hoon gets all upset when Jae-suk complains that he’s taking too long and peels the potato skin rapidly: “You’re peeling off the flesh!” And to the camera, Jae-suk says, “Ga-in-ah, you sure go through a lot.”

In his interview, Jae-suk refers to Han Ga-in as that close dongsaeng he lost contact with, and refers to Jung-hoon’s father as a respected sunbae. It at least still sounds like he’s optimistic about his pairing with Jung-hoon today.

The halmae suggests that the two prepare buckwheat noodles as their dish, but after Jung-hoon adds the ingredients and the stock isn’t quite as delicious as he’d hoped, the halmae says they can just add some MSG then. Even though she made the claim a little while ago that she doesn’t add any preservatives in her cooking. HA.

When Jae-suk remarks as much, she’s all, “What does it matter? It doesn’t taste any good right now.” Hahahaha, she’s great. And whaddayaknow, it does the trick.

Time to check in at Hong Kong, where Kwang-soo feels left out when Fei converses with the taxi driver in Cantonese. What’s hilarious is the post-interview snippets where Kwang-soo reflects happily upon their time in Hong Kong whereas all Fei remembers is acting as a translator.

Kwang-soo and Fei must both win a hand of rock-paper-scissors against the restaurant employee of their choosing if they want to eat breakfast. They order but are barred from eating just yet, then when an employee converses with Fei, he offers to let her win so that she can eat. Aww.

But then Fei momentarily forgets herself and puts out the wrong hand. Oh no! They’re forced to step away from the food.

Walking through the market only makes Kwang-soo and Fei’s stomachs grumble even more, and this time they stop at a congee place. Fei again mutters under her hand to the employee, but Kwang-soo misinterprets her hint. He loses, which means they’re back on the hunt.

The duo hopes that the third time’s the charm, and poor Kwang-soo just lords over another customer eating his food. Aw, how can you blame the guy who just wants some breakfast?

Fei makes sure to explain the rules (and the hand they’ll put out) to the waitress before Kwang-soo gets ahead of himself again. To their luck, both Kwang-soo and the waitress gets confused, but it doesn’t matter since Kwang-soo wins the round anyway.

Aw, Fei wins too, and she and Kwang-soo look like they’re on the verge of happy tears.

Over at Jeju Island, Ji-hyo and Taecyeon greet a few female divers who proudly show off their morning catch of fresh seafood. I. am. so. jealous. right. now.

But then she and Taec are left completely baffled when the Jeju native rattles off the mission hint in the island dialect. Taecyeon wonders if they have to eat the sea cucumber (someone stop my mouth from watering) with the hot coffee, which is half-right.

He gives it another listen, then decides to just drink the coffee and end with a “neener,” which happens to be correct. But it doesn’t end there: they have to catch five fish, too. So it’s on to the boat and into the sea.

Suk-jin and Yoo Sun are on a boat too off of the East Coast to catch small octopus. Unlike Ji-hyo and Taecyeon earlier, these two are looking pretty energetic. Oh interesting—so the octopi crawl into shells and then those nets are drawn up?

As it turns out, Yoo Sun is a natural at extracting the octopus from the shell. It’s enough for Suk-jin to say in his interview that Yoo Sun’s like a fisherman’s eldest daughter that goes out to sea when the father can’t make it out. “I thought she was like a machine,” Suk-jin says. “It was scary.”

It honestly looks like she’s having the time of her life, and then Suk-jin grabs one and tries to eat one for himself. Only to have the octopus’s legs stuck on his face. Hee.

Then it’s finally time to check in with Haha and Shoo, the latter of whom says it’s been some time since she got to travel on her own. Haha sweetly says in his interview that he was so happy to see Shoo, his favorite S.E.S. member, but also wanted to make sure she had the time of her life. Aww.

Their mission is to harvest 300 huge-lookin’ carrots. Ha, Shoo even plucks a triplet carrot. After harvesting all of those veggies, they toast with a fresh glass of carrot juice.

Then they dig in to eat some black pork belly (after feeding the black pigs) and call Chef Oh to get some ideas. They’re told to make curry kimchi jjiggae, which sounds AWESOME.

After a montage of our contestants saying that they’re all bringing their best to the table, we check in with our teams who are all busy to finish their missions and obtain their cooking battle invitations.

Jae-suk and Jung-hoon hunt for mushroom in the mountains while Suk-jin and Yoo Sun dig in for some ramyun. Ji-hyo and Taecyeon are still out at sea later that evening, and it looks like things are just about to heat up for an intense cooking battle next week.

This ought to be a cut-throat kitchen—will they be able to take the heat?

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This episode made me so hungry.

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I honestly don't care for the cooking episodes. I skipped this one.

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Thank goodness you did. This episode was extremely boring. I didn't even pay attention to 2/3 of the show.

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There have been some good ones - such as when Haha and Taeyeon went shopping for supplies at the supermarket and the cooking battle with Han Hyo-joo and Go Soo.

But this ep seemed pretty much like the prelude to the actual cooking battle.

There were better/funnier female guests than Seo Woo when she previously was on RM, so not a great pick by the PDs.

Still can't wrap my head around the Jung-hoon-Han Ga-in marriage (and he was one of the hosts for Top Gear Korea).

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Just wondering, what does their marriage have to do with this?

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What does their marriage have to do with Top Gear?

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Fei And Kwang Soo Make A Really Cute Couple, Seems Like A Date in Hong Kong.

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Thanks for the recap!

I don't always like cooking episodes, but I thought this one struck a good balance of cute and funny interactions! (I LOVED the MSG scene haha where they kept bleeping out the word every time someone said it like it was an unspeakable word.) Here's hoping next week's follow up will be as good as the trailer made it out to be.

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If RM is planning to make cooking episodes an annual thing from now on, I think they need to make it more lively and interesting. This was less boring than last year's version but... let's just say after 20 minutes I had to convince myself real hard to just finish the damn thing just in case something REALLY (and surprisingly) funny crops up to salvage the past hour. Sadly, none came up. It was just more of the same -- frankly, it was like a travelogue or something.

Unless next week's episode would turn up something nice to make this 2-episode cooking show worthwhile, this will be the last RM cooking show I'll watch. :(

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This episode was pretty boring. Luckily, it looks like next week will be the actual cooking segments - hopefully Jae-suk and Kwang-soo, or anyone, really, will decide to concentrate on the variety-aspect rather than actually winning, and will make it entertaining again. I thought the DIY cooking battle was hilarious, so they're more than capable of making a cooking special that's not a yawn-fest. Fingers crossed!!

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Wow, this episode rocked! First one in weeks I watched from beginning to end in one shot after work. Lots of personality and practically a guided tour of East Asian cookery. Seo Woo is fun in part because she is so completely shallow and whiny and cops to it: "she's a handful," all right.

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I really don't understand some of the Running Man choices. I don't mind the cooking episodes but they do feel a bit bloated. I just don't understand why they always have two full episodes of cooking but with regular ones it's just one and they often cut out entire games in editing.

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Me during the entire episode: *points* I want that. *points again* And that. And that and that and that. . .

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LOL,,,,me too!
maybe i was watching this episode with my mouth wide open.

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Zzzzzz. I watched for the sake of watching and it kinda is boring. The only thing I enjoyed was seeing some of the cast enjoy themselves.

This episode is not Running Man. It's Travelling Man.

I hope they don't do this anymore. They are not good at this format. They are also not good at cooking format since they depend on shenanigans to make things more interesting, but if they do that then it will piss people off as it seems to be a serious competition. I remember the past cooking episodes with Park Ye Jin and another one with Nickhun, those were more fun than the cooking episodes done this past year. Even the one with Joo Won a few months ago wasn't that fun.

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Personally I enjoyed this episode, it was a vast improvement from the first cooking special and I think it has to do with the fact they showcased each team well. I think the only team to me that seemed kind of lack luster was Song Ji Hyo & Taecyeon, I get the feeling everyone else knew each other or just in general had good rapport.

I can't wait to see what they cook cause from the previews it looks so good !!

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Enjoyed this cooking episode immensely. I think Ji Hyo could do better with a chattier partner. I say this because I tend to be more chatty with a person who is very comfortable talking to anyone. It wasn't really stressful during their fishing trip I must say. Ji Hyo is an adventurous gal so she was in her zone.

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thank you gummimochi for recaps..

I enjoyed this episode because they "travelling" but not sure for next one because it's cooking time.. ^^

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Gary was pretty cute in this episode. His face when that tourist asked about Gangnam Style was priceless.

I think these kinds of episodes are boring because we don't get the usual interaction between members. Hope next episode is better.

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Cooking episodes usually happen during the Lunar New Year festive season, and ratings are always higher. It's no surprise that this episode had 10% viewership rating. It's the first time in many months that Running Man has achieved a double digit viewership. Unfortunately still third place behind Real Men and that boring camping show.

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this week rating is more than 12%. this year,rating of all episodes were more than 10 and low rating of last year was mostly cuz of roommate (the show before or after running man air time). when they replaced that program with kpop star rating increased again.
but after all RM isn't as fun as before but maybe we expect much.the mean average of their age is around 40 and we want them hard challenge like running an so.
I don't like cooking battle episode neither last year nor this year but I will support RM cuz of RM family ans all happy times they've made for me and others like me.

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being a fan of Yeon Jung Hoon, i'll have to say that I wished I'd see him in a more action packed episode with tearing nametags an running around, to see him handle the real running man, so I was a little disappointed by that, but I'll take my dose o vampire prosecutor in any form I can.

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I was shocked, shocked to notice that Seo Woo takes chaw. She was wearing her usual skin-tight jeans and I saw the distinctive outline of a tin of chewing tobacco in her left front pocket.

Of course, that might also have been a compact, but that wouldn't be much fun, would it?

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. . . And, yes, I have now seen a man eat a live octopus on camera for his own enjoyment, rather than on a bet. My culinary life is complete.

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Hi, can anyone tell me the name of the song playing in the background when Haha and Ji Hyo meet their respective partners in Jeju Island? Thanks

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Come on, guys...that's why it's called "VARIETY". They can do cookshows or even a mini-movie or parody movie. And I don't think this episode is boring. You can really explore the real side of these people so they don't have to rely on the authors much (e.g. going to places and learning recipes and doing the cook-off themselves). We need to consider other abilities and specialties of the members. Plus, the cookshow seems to be an annual thing for RM now. Let's expect that there will be another one in 2016.

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no wonder the ratings are shit nowadays when the PD's decide to waste two episodes on ANOTHER cooking special (and this time the first part was extremely boring!)

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i managed to enjoy this half of 2-ep show more than the cooking half - and that despite not seeing the one with english subs!

depending on the personalities - the interactions between the pairs could be fun - Gary translating into English was a favorite moment - he did rather well - seeing Yeon Jung-hoon peeling potatoes in the provincial setting was priceless - and KwangSoo and Fei's contests were fun due to Fei's reactions and her scheming - i'd like to see more of her in variety settings

i gave up on the cooking portion

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What's the background music when Shoo & Haha, Taec & Mongji met? I think it's Maroon 5 but I don't know the title..can you help me please? Thank You

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The song title is "A higher place", sang by adam levine. It's OST from a movie titled "Begin Again"

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fei miss a can speak cantonese

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