Celebrities opening up a restaurant and serving customers~
Original Cast:
Original Cast:
Description: Our OT5 is given the task to manage a restaurant on a cruise. We've got two celebrity chefs and the other three are handling everything else from waitering, to cleaning, to entertaining customers. Previous seasons, Chinese Restaurant was filmed abroad. This time (2020), because of COVID-19, they are restricted to China. The cruise's ultimate destination is Wuhan where if their profit reaches the show's target then they can provide free catering to the heroes of Wuhan (doctors, firefighters, delivery drivers, etc.)
Purpose: I'm just casually recommending a variety show that I liked. I didn't watch the previous seasons and now I'm really looking forward to Season 5 which is supposed to come out in a few days (July 31, 2021). Guests for Season 5 will include:
- Gong Jun (Has this guy rested since Word of Honour?)
- Zhou Ye
- Tan Jian Ci
- Zhao Li Ying
- Li Ze Feng
Original Cast (2020)
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| Clockwise from top left: Zhao Li Ying, Lin Shu Wei, Zhang Liang, Li Hao Fei, Huang Xiao Ming |
Huang Xiao Ming: Our restaurant manager; our gravitational centre, holding everything in place; if there's a problem, he's solving it.
Zhao Li Ying: Our cheapskate treasurer who carefully counts her money bill by bill. xD
Lin Shu Wei: Our spendthrift five-star head chef. He’s the reason Zhao Li Ying is stingy.
Zhang Liang: Our tall actor/chef/dad who's mainly a jokester in the kitchen
Li Hao Fei: Our vitamin – there's not a moment she's not working and spreading optimism.
Notable Guests
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| Feng Wei and Casper |
Feng Wei and Casper show up later in Ep4 to help out our stressed out team. They won first and second respectively in this other cooking show that Chef Lin and Chef Zhang were judges at. These two were such great relief for our team – they cooked, they did dishes, they entertained the guests (well Casper did). Then when they announced they were going to leave in Ep6, Zhao Li Ying burst into tears – she almost wailed. But I both laughed and cried at this because I don't think she actually misses them; she's more anxious about managing the restaurant without them.
Interesting to note: Liu Yu Ning just wrapped up filming The Long Ballad before guesting on this variety.
Also interesting to note: Gong Jun (who will be in Season 5) is currently filming The Legend of An Le with Dilireba and Liu Yu Ning.
Highlights I Liked
Not everything; just things I remember after a month of finishing the variety show.
The editing. First two episodes are boring. Show is very self-aware and compensates with the editing, sound effects, and captions. It works. I courteously laughed here and there
Hard work. There’s something very satisfying about watching this team work hard for a shared goal. They struggled together. They overcame each hurdle together. They laughed together. The guests and cast members will always say this is the hardest variety show any of them have ever done but they’ll always follow up with it being the most worthwhile and fulfilling show. I don’t know how true that is, but I’d like to believe it. Huang Xiao Ming said this: "This isn't one of the toughest variety shows I've ever done, but the toughest variety show I've done" (Exact wording may differ).
The banters between our two chefs. Chef Zhang is the tall, funny guy. Chef Lin is the semi-serious chef who everyone picks on (especially near the end). They make a great pair.
Zhao Li Ying. Let's be honest, I started watching this for her. In the beginning, she’s quite unlikeable. She’s so stingy (it’s kind of funny) but that's not my problem. She has a bitch-face about it and really, no one’s happy working with someone moody and there’s only four other people on the cruise, and everyone is struggling too.
She's kind of awkward and really not funny, nor does she try to be, but as the episodes go by, I realize there is no variety show more suitable for her than this one. During the last episode, the cast will go around naming one person they're grateful for. Li Hao Fei picked Zhao Li Ying. She's grateful that jiejie was there for her (I'm pretty sure it's the other way around, anyway). Paraphrasing Li Hao Fei's words: Zhao Li Ying's love for everyone, although she may not express it out loud, she'll show it with her actions. The first day, she was nervous because this is a new environment for her and she thought she couldn't do it. But she (Li) slowly realized jiejie does it better than anyone else. Zhao Li Ying is in tears again.
When Li Hao Fei said "jiejie does it better than anyone else" I immediately thought of the scene where the girls were cleaning the tables. Li Hao Fei and Yang Chao Yue worked together to clean the tables very quickly, but Zhao Li Ying worked alone in the corner where she wasn't just wiping down every corner, but also the chairs. Her consistency in doing things carefully and thoroughly makes me understand why she's successful.
Li Hao Fei. The hero. This girl is doing everything she can to harmonize with everyone. I swear there's not a moment, she's not working (doing the dishes, popping out the peas in the pod, peeling the garlic, entertaining the guests, etc). Last episode when it came to thanking a member, Huang Xiao Ming chose Hao Fei. In his words: Anywhere that needed help she was there; she never uttered a complaint.
Personally, I think her job was to care for Zhao Li Ying (the superstar). She wasn't supposed to stand out but through her hard work, she shone brightly.
Recognition for Feng Wei. I was so sad Feng Wei was left out of the gratitude session during the last episode. No one talked about him! I just really like hard-working people and he's one of them, no doubt about it. It's just he's quiet about it and people don't notice it, or something. I don't know. And so here I am trying to give him some love on the other side of the world and a year late. :D
Liu Yu Ning and Yang Chao Yue's rap "disses". Don't misunderstand, these disses are lighthearted. Yang Chao Yue is willing to take it to another level. Simultaneously, she's ready to accept any diss which is why the rap disses between her and anyone were fun. Liu Yu Ning and her were pretty good. I think he let her win. After all, he is the singer with a treasure cove of lyrics in his head at his command.
Extra: I laughed a lot when Yan Chao Yue "jokingly" whined to Du Hai Tao that she can't believe Chinese Restaurant actually invited her on the show to do dishes, ha. Yep, Chinese Restaurant is a show about doing dishes xD.
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