Belinda
Feel-good drama about cooking
This is a lovely, feel-good slice-of-life drama about a woman in a rural village becoming a chef, where everything centers around food. It honestly felt like the show creators looked at the popularity of Li Ziqi's videos and decided to recreate that in drama form -- romanticized rural village life, close-up cooking cinematography, beautiful scenic backdrops (mountains, rivers, beautiful old bridges) -- with a dash of romance.
The big draw here is the cooking! Those beautiful close-ups and slow-mo shots of food being prepared - chopped, boiled, fried, steamed, arranged - are enough to make you hungry every episode. That's what I'm here for.
For the rest...
There's very little drama or tension in the story - challenges and issues come up, but they are quickly resolved or even avoided by our smart protagonist(s). On the one hand, this is great because lord knows we've all seen enough unnecessary angst and conflict being drawn out in dramas so it's a pretty happy and chill watch with loving, supportive relationships. On the other hand, no conflict or tension also means this isn't really a "story" but is more of just a series of events in our protagonist's life (fairly standard for the slice-of-life genre), so after a while I do start to skip past scenes that aren't cooking-related. Also, there are a few character threads left unaddressed at the end, which I wish they had fit in - there really wasn't a standard climax and resolution, so they honestly could have just added another episode to cover them (or put them in an earlier bit).
Characters and acting are mostly fine - a few standouts to me are Erqiao (FL's sister) and ML's mom, props to the writers for having overbearing/hot-tempered female characters that are still good people. Yuhuai is also an ideal ML, and the romance between him and Xiaomai is acted and portrayed so sweetly that there are almost literal hearts in my eyes seeing their scenes together. One thing that does bug me a little, though, is that Xiaomai is a bit of a Mary Sue - her cooking is the best, she always outsmarts her opponents, she always has the answer. While she is the main character, she's just not really compelling to me because there's no character growth - if she has always been the best/smartest, where is there room to grow? And this also means there's no room for the other chefs to grow or contribute by coming in with a clutch idea or solution.
But again, I'm mostly here for the food. Worth the watch.
The big draw here is the cooking! Those beautiful close-ups and slow-mo shots of food being prepared - chopped, boiled, fried, steamed, arranged - are enough to make you hungry every episode. That's what I'm here for.
For the rest...
There's very little drama or tension in the story - challenges and issues come up, but they are quickly resolved or even avoided by our smart protagonist(s). On the one hand, this is great because lord knows we've all seen enough unnecessary angst and conflict being drawn out in dramas so it's a pretty happy and chill watch with loving, supportive relationships. On the other hand, no conflict or tension also means this isn't really a "story" but is more of just a series of events in our protagonist's life (fairly standard for the slice-of-life genre), so after a while I do start to skip past scenes that aren't cooking-related. Also, there are a few character threads left unaddressed at the end, which I wish they had fit in - there really wasn't a standard climax and resolution, so they honestly could have just added another episode to cover them (or put them in an earlier bit).
Characters and acting are mostly fine - a few standouts to me are Erqiao (FL's sister) and ML's mom, props to the writers for having overbearing/hot-tempered female characters that are still good people. Yuhuai is also an ideal ML, and the romance between him and Xiaomai is acted and portrayed so sweetly that there are almost literal hearts in my eyes seeing their scenes together. One thing that does bug me a little, though, is that Xiaomai is a bit of a Mary Sue - her cooking is the best, she always outsmarts her opponents, she always has the answer. While she is the main character, she's just not really compelling to me because there's no character growth - if she has always been the best/smartest, where is there room to grow? And this also means there's no room for the other chefs to grow or contribute by coming in with a clutch idea or solution.
But again, I'm mostly here for the food. Worth the watch.
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