The vastly differing world views of the male and female lead –
The purpose of food:
Female lead: To fill my tummy!
Male lead: Art!
The impression they have of each other:
Female lead: Impossible!
Male lead: Too stupid!
Is there a possibility that you would date the other party?
Female lead: Who, who wants to get together with this peculiar weirdo!
Male lead: She’s so stupid, I’m the only person capable of accepting her.
This is a story about how an arrogant and cold male idol successfully PKs the female lead’s black-bellied childhood playmate before bringing the female lead along in his domination over the world of gourmet food. The male lead is an extremely talented chef; however, he suffers from blindness – thus, his other senses are all hypersensitive with the exception of his sight. With his perfect sense of taste and his ability to accurately determine people’s attitude and feelings through their vocal tone and their breathing, he is better able to discern the truth and people’s real underlying intentions when compared to the common man.
[Ebook][Tim đập trên đầu lưỡi][Eng Translation][Drama]
This story details how the female lead, Lin Ke Song, meets the male lead, Jiang Qian Fan, and embarks on her journey into the world of gourmet food.
Lin Ke Song is a simple girl with a one-sided, unrequited crush on her childhood best friend, Song Yi Ran. However, because she fears that confessing her attraction to him would endanger their 10-year friendship, she decides to keep mum and simply remain as his best friend. When Song Yi Ran heads to America for his studies, Lin Ke Song decides to follow in his footsteps in order to gain more work experience as well as to remain by his side. It is there that she reunites with the male lead (whom she had met by chance previously in her hometown), and becomes his disciple in an attempt to learn how to cook gourmet food as part of a cooking competition.
The male lead, Jiang Qian Fan, is the highlight of the book. Even though he is described as arrogant and cold, and he has innumerable flaws and obsessions (he is obsessively clean etc), he gradually learns to overcome his discomfort in his attempt to get closer to the female lead. Although he positive feelings the female lead, he is still rather harsh on her in the first half of the book, adopting a “tough love” method – it is only after the female lead breaks down due to the excessive stress of the competition that he learns to treat the female lead with gentleness and care. He then transforms into a more caring person willing to guide her step-by-step in her cooking and in other aspects of her life. He is very tolerant of her 10-year long crush for her childhood buddy, and doesn’t falter even in the face of an outright rejection from the female lead – instead, he helps her learn to figure out her feelings for him and for her childhood friend, and in so doing, finally manages to win the heart of the female lead.
Thanks for the summary!
Is the main setting in America?
So excited for this one…. I think its cause of the sexy book cover… are there a lot of gourmet food terms in this one? My Chinese isn’t very good….
Thanks. How many chapters are there? Sounds interesting.
@ Yellow, the main setting is in America, although because they’re more focused on the gourmet industry it doesn’t really influence the story very much (:
@ Serendipity There aren’t that many gourmet food terms but the author does spend some time describing the food so don’t read it at night :p
@ Busybee There are 82 chapters in total, and the chapters aren’t that long, so I thought it was a pretty quick read 🙂
Thanks. I might check it out. I can’t read Chinese. So using bing translate. 82 chapters are manageable.
@Busybee Hopefullly you’ll be able to manage with bing translate! The story develops rather slowly, so enjoy the journey 🙂
snap. i do all my reading at night… I have a feeling im going to gain a lot of weight from this novel…. lols… middle of the night ramen here i come!
I just finished reading this and really enjoyed it. I like the style of writing and never a boring moment. I cab see this being made into a drama! Thanks for the recommendation.
@Lavenderjade
No worries, I’m glad you enjoyed it! I like the style of writing too, it’s upbeat and I think the story moves at a good pace 🙂 Haha if it gets made into a drama I think I’ll get super hungry after every episode – I’m already getting hungry just reading about their cook-offs.
hi! im translating this! so if you’re interested, https://distractedchinese.wordpress.com/
This one was such a relaxing read. I loved the male lead, he was very memorable. The second male lead was quite memorable to,i wished there was bit more detail about why he and the female lead couldnt get together. (maybe in a short epilogue?)
I was craving the bing tang hu lu (candied haws?? not sure what it is in english) throughout the whole novel, despite the fact that i hate it…. Why must the author describe food so well?????
@ serendipity
I’m glad you liked the novel, I found it very relaxing too (in that there were no major upheavals or angst)! I especially liked how clear cut the female lead was when dealing with the second male lead – she remained staunch in her feelings for the male lead and chose not to linger on her feelings for the second male lead, so I’m quite glad it turned out that way. I guess the reason why the second male lead and the female lead didn’t get together was because his family crippled his freedom to love freely :/
Haha I totally understand what you mean! I don’t like candied haw either but the way they described it sounds totally amazing. ^^;; And all the other food as well! I wanted to eat their desserts (Matcha Opera Cake) and all sorts of things when I was reading the book.
@dramasbooksandtea
I WANTED THE MATCHA OPERA CAKE!!!!! and the fancy steak…. and the mint soup…………..I REALLY WANTED TO TASTE THE MINT SOUP!!!!!. if only i could 穿越 into the novel so i could drink the mint soup for the female lead when the male lead made her drink like ten bowls…
@ serendipity
HAHA thanks but no thanks I don’t think I can stomach 10 bowls of mint soup…… He didn’t even let her eat the other main courses!! Terrible guy :p Oh yes omg the steak hahaha whilst I was reading I was salivating T_T
Sweetest novel I ever read! Can’t stop reading again n again! Silly gal LKS is lucky to have two blokes by her side!
@ kimchigal I’m glad you liked it! I can’t really stomach reading it again and again my stomach would protest XD but I must say, although SYR is rather nice to LKS, it’s can be quite unfortunate to have someone like that by your side (someone who likes you but is unable to commit to you, and yet still wants to keep you by his side). I really do like JQF though, I think he helped LKS grow a lot more as a person, and helped her to carve out a path for herself which she could identify with.
@dramasbooksandtea Yes I too love JQF! Honestly speaking this is the first cnovel I read with the help of google translate n totally loved it! OMG! The telephone booth moment when JQF telling her how he loves her smell,her humming in the bathroom was my fav!
I really loved this novel and was impatient so I google translated the rest. I really got 2nd male lead syndrome here and shed tears for him when he lost her but I can’t see her with anyone but JQF. They are so cute for each other! Especially how JQF is always willing to be there for her and protect her when SYR can’t.
I am curious about the original novel after finishing 2022 C-drama Cupid’s kitchen. Trying to find a good English translation. From your summary I get that they made changes. From America to Shanghai, first loss of taste, then blind in the drama VS blind from the beginning of the story in the book.