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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nChef Lin described Ding Yuxi as \u201cbrave\u201d and \u201cresourceful\u201d during their trip out getting supplies for the restaurant. When Chef Lin promotes Ding Yuxi to Sous Chef in the last couple episodes of the show, he also used \u201cpersistent\u201d and \u201cpassionate\u201d with a level of \u201cobsession\u201d to talk about the way Ding Yuxi works and the way he talks about the dishes and the cuisine. Chef Lin even mentioned having his culinary inspiration inspired even more by Ding Yuxi.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nHuang Xiaoming described Ding Yuxi as extremely capable. In Episode 11, Huang Xiaoming even threatens to cancel the next season if Ding Yuxi doesn\u2019t return. Huang Xiaoming was probably only joking about going that far, but to express the value and the level of contribution Ding Yuxi made to this season of The Chinese Restaurant in this way was quite shocking.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nDing Yuxi really was quite the capable, multitasking all-round restaurant partner. He\u2019s the bridge between the kitchen and his colleagues on the floors taking orders. He\u2019s preparing elements, proactively doing tasks like heating plates so they\u2019re ready well before Chef Lin and Jiang Yan need them. He delivers dishes to tables, entertains customers, and also sees to issues and resolves them.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nHe\u2019s looking out for his colleagues all the time as well. Noticing that Patrick had a bit of difficulty with taking orders in Chinese, he worked out a shorthand code to make order-taking easier. Seeing Shen Yue show discomfort with the tasks, like her first time serving customers and going out into the public to promote the restaurant, he went to her to give her tips and words of encouragement. When Huang Xiaoming was struggling up and down the many flights of stairs serving dishes (because of a past injury to one of his legs), Ding Yuxi quietly checked on him before insisting on taking over (Huang Xiaoming insisted on carrying on a moment later, though). Guest cast member Dina was told to take a break, as he believed she\u2019d been too busy the whole night, and Zhang Baiqiao, also a guest cast member, was assisted with English translations from Ding Yuxi when Zhang Baiqiao struggled with speaking English to the people he was trying to promote their restaurant to.<\/p>\n
Ding Yuxi\u2019s also always thinking about how to promote and get more people to know about Chinese cuisine and try more of their dishes. He suggested reducing the size of the portions and lowering the cost of the dishes after he read a review that the blogger found the dishes tasty but found them pricey, and he saw this as a way to allow people to try more. He brought over silicone dessert molds of historical Chinese structures to elevate the visual aspect of dessert dishes that Patrick made. He brought over little gifts from China and a badge maker to make more gifts for customers, a pen set for artwork and menus, a gong that was used to officially open the restaurant, a couple dragon dance ribbons and a long-spout teapot for his performances for the restaurant, and a couple pieces of fabric with Chinese embroidery to use as decor.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe amount Ding Yuxi takes on is so considerable that during the group farewell speeches in Episode 12 (final), Shen Yue straightforwardly tells Ding Yuxi that he\u2019s the person she feels the greatest heartache for.<\/p>\n
We already mentioned above that Shen Yue was someone he had looked out for. The extent to which he did seemingly isn\u2019t all shown on the show. While sharing words about Ding Yuxi, Shen Yue reveals that he was especially willing to offer her tips. There were many times in places off-camera when he would check on her, asking her if she felt uncomfortable or awkward, seemingly knowing that she might. (Shen Yue had expressed finding it hard interacting with unfamiliar people and groups earlier). He would ask her if there was anything he could help her with. He was so good at looking out for her that he would magically appear behind her just when she felt like she really needed someone to lend a hand. Every time she turned her head around, he was there, quietly helping her with things.<\/p>\n
This kind of care for her and his colleagues, as well as the many matters in the restaurant, is what leads her to her words about him being the one she feels the most for. Her intention seems to be to tell him that she hopes he puts himself first above all else and that he takes care of his health and takes his own feelings into account.<\/p>\n
This scene was quite a shock when we first watched it. It was not anything we ever thought we\u2019d see in a variety show\u2019s farewell. Such genuine words and such genuine emotions were seen and expressed in this scene. When Shen Yue said this, there seemed to be a bit of shock from Ding Yuxi. His brows twitched, as if he was trying to find a response but struggled. In the end, he went with using flattery.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThere were a lot of tears in the final episode. Shen Yue set off the tears with her words, but Ding Yuxi had pretty much everyone\u2019s tears flowing. Not only the cast cried, but we couldn\u2019t hold back tears, either. Ding Yuxi\u2019s words about his time at The Chinese Restaurant were so heartfelt and so sincere.<\/p>\n
He spoke about having gone into one of the studio rooms inside the kitchen to see what it was like to see everyone from this perspective. In there, he described it as like watching them in another world where they were all busy doing something, while he was outside, isolated from that world. He seemed to have felt reluctant to move on, as he mentions that he couldn\u2019t imagine everyone moving on once every one of them had left The Chinese Restaurant, and seems to suggest that he might not be ready to move on when they already have.<\/p>\n
He seems to really treasure his time on The Chinese Restaurant and the people, too, as he reveals having broken down at that moment as he thought about their time on the show coming to an end.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nChef Lin also creates a few tears in the final episode as he surprises Ding Yuxi with a notebook of the restaurant\u2019s menu that he personally put together for him. It contained handwritten recipes, photos of the dishes, Chef Lin\u2019s pencil artwork, and a personal message: \u201cI hope our dishes will continue for a long time.\u201d He even dated it so these days in Morocco, where he and Ding Yuxi worked together as chef and apprentice\/sous chef could be remembered. What a special gift.<\/p>\n
Ding Yuxi and Chef Lin\u2014this team is our most favourite on the show. We love watching Chef Lin find an apprentice\/sous chef in Ding Yuxi. The promotion was such a great way to acknowledge Ding Yuxi\u2019s hard work and dedication to the show. Then, to see Chef Lin present such a gift he personally put together in his spare time\u2014this is the most touching scene on the show. For a busy, famous chef like Chef Lin to do this, we can only imagine Ding Yuxi must have made quite a deep impression on Chef Lin.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nOur second favourite team is Ding Yuxi and Patrick. They\u2019re quite entertaining together. They\u2019re dishwashing buddies at the end of the night, competing to be dishwashing king. They also compete for compliments from Huang Xiaoming. It\u2019s quite amusing when they sometimes speak to each other like Patrick Star and SpongeBob SquarePants, or at least we think that\u2019s who they are imitating.<\/p>\n
We also love how they often partner up to do performances like the long-spout tea pouring performance, which Ding Yuxi performs with Patrick as his assistant. They also perform a dragon ribbon dance together, too.<\/p>\n
Searching up on Patrick, he\u2019s quite a smart and talented young person. He\u2019s an actor, singer, songwriter, and dancer. As a German-born Thai, he speaks multiple languages and is fluent in Thai, German, English, and Chinese. He knows basic Japanese and apparently learning French, too.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nDing Yuxi and Jiang Yan is another team we really like. They have some cool as well as some funny interactions on this show. There was a particular moment in Episode 6 we really loved, and that\u2019s the one where Ding Yuxi comes up with a way to distract Jiang Yan from the painful sting of the iodine solution she needed to apply to her sliced nail plate. While chopping away, she had sliced it deep enough to reveal flesh.<\/p>\n
Patrick had tried to help Jiang Yan apply the iodine solution, but even a light touch caused pain that was so excruciating that it had Jiang Yan double over in pain. She really wanted to skip the antiseptic. But Ding Yuxi worried that the wound would get infected and then it\u2019d hurt more. So, Ding Yuxi comes up with the idea of shouting loudly together, in hopes that this would distract Jiang Yan when she applied the antisceptic solution. It was so loud that probably the people outside on the streets of Tangier could hear, but the idea totally worked! It was such a sweet scene and funny.<\/p>\n
Another scene we really liked is the one towards the end of the season where Ding Yuxi accompanies Jiang Yan through the early hours of the night to help her make sweet desserts\/snacks for the wedding episode that features towards the end of the season. Everyone had headed off for the night. Ding Yuxi had also looked like he was turning in for the night, but he returned, and stayed to work alongside Jiang Yan until 4 a.m. when everything she needed to make was done.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nShen Yue and Zhai Xiaowen is a pretty cool team. The two often teamed up to work on creating the pages of the menu and worked together on the third floor making drinks or selling drinks at their pop-up stall outside the restaurant. We initially didn\u2019t think too much about the interactions, except that they really love to joke around and laugh a lot.<\/p>\n
But in the final episode, Shen Yue revealed that she found it hard to fit in. She didn\u2019t know how to interact with everyone, and it was Zhai Xiaowen who had brought her into the group. He brought her downstairs from the third floor to do her tasks. He opened a stall with her to sell drinks, and on the second day, he dragged her around, making her help take photos of him.<\/p>\n
It was revealed that before this show, they weren\u2019t familiar with each other. But in the episodes, the way they got along, laughing and joking so much, it was as if they had met and worked together before. Respect for Zhai Xiaowen for looking out for Shen Yue, too. In the final, Shen Yue had told Zhai Xiaowen he was someone she was most grateful for.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine the next season topping Season 9. That farewell scene had us tearing up so much. For us, Ding Yuxi is the standout not only for this season but for all the The Chinese Restaurant seasons we\u2019ve watched so far. He\u2019s such a good person, so hardworking, so capable, so unbelievably caring of everyone, and we feel he had the greatest seriousness towards promoting Chinese cuisine and Chinese culture to the world. It didn\u2019t feel like it was just a variety show to him where he was there to participate in. With all the things he brought along with the purpose of promoting the restaurant, it felt like his desire and dedication to promoting Chinese cuisine and culture is no less than Chef Lin\u2019s desire to represent Chinese culinary culture in the best way. Can there be anyone better next season?<\/p>\n
The cast as a whole\u2014can there be a better group of people next season? We love the cohesiveness of this group. They all work so well together. They are all quite talkative and expressive. There\u2019s no one who comes off as quite reserved or distant. The show could get any combination of the cast together on screen, and their interactions would entertain and hold attention because they all interact so well together. It\u2019s the only season we\u2019ve gone and watched the main version and the extended version, and sometimes even the shorter edited versions which Mango TV likes to release after releasing the main version.<\/p>\n
But because of Season 9, we will be on the lookout for the 10th season, just like it\u2019s because of Season 9 that we went back to all the past seasons we had access to watching and watched them. We discovered that each season has interesting themes and challenges which make each season just a bit different and quite enjoyable to watch. We also just like watching yummy food.<\/p>\n
Season 6 was working with organic ingredients and livestock, with the challenge of needing to travel a long distance to source their ingredients from farms. Season 7 introduced a two-team restaurant, where the cast members split into two teams to compete against each other in hopes of encouraging more dish creativity and testing the teams\u2019 ability to adapt and overcome challenges (we personally didn\u2019t like this split-team concept, but the season was still pretty good to watch). Season 8 had the challenge of creating technically high Chinese dishes and trying to attract a rather hard crowd to attract to come dine at The Chinese Restaurant in a touristic part of France. And of course, Season 9 had the challenge of being a startup, needing to do quite a bit of research on local tastes, adapt Chinese cuisine to these local tastes, and needing to buy everything.<\/p>\n
The Chinese Restaurant also features adorable little animations that make us laugh a bit. We love these.<\/p>\n
Watching the actors\/actresses\/singers speak English to try to get customers to try their restaurant in a foreign country is interesting, too. With the last few seasons of The Chinese Restaurant taking place overseas, it\u2019s a great way to discover the foreign language skills of the cast.<\/p>\n
We had never heard Ding Yuxi speak English before watching The Chinese Restaurant, so we were pleasantly surprised at how good his English is. It\u2019s quite fluent. He can hold long conversations with English speakers perfectly fine and even offer English-to-Chinese translations.<\/p>\n
Patrick\u2019s English is amazing. His Chinese is also amazing. Never would we have guessed Chinese was not his native language until there was a scene where he questioned why a phrase was said the way it was said in Chinese. He was mentioned as being of the greatest help to Huang Xiaoming because of his ability to speak English, Chinese, and French to the locals in Morocco. What a smart, multilingual person.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThen there are the celebrities cooking, showing off their skills. We don\u2019t know why, but we really like seeing who can flip a pan like a pro. Both Ding Yuxi and Shen Yue seemed to have become pretty good at it by the end of the show. They don\u2019t even flinch when their pans catch flames. It quite cool to watch them gain that skill with Chef Lin guiding them.<\/p>\n
On the topic of Chef Lin, he didn\u2019t get to show off his culinary expertise as much this season, as the season let Ding Yuxi, Shen Yue, Zhai Xiaowen, Patrick, and Huang Xiaoming make quite a number of dishes\/desserts. Jiang Yan, she, too, should be included in the group of artists who also made dishes and desserts, but we see her as part of the chef team this season. She was often seen helping\/mentoring Zhai Xiaowen, Patrick, and Shen Yue at times, like how Chef Lin was mentoring Ding Yuxi and, at times, Shen Yue. To see Chef Lin\u2019s skills and creativity, Season 8 displays that the most, with him producing some beautiful dishes with high technical difficulty. He\u2019s quite cool when he\u2019s doing what he does best.<\/p>\n
If anyone hasn\u2019t watched The Chinese Restaurant, Season 9, we recommend it. Watch it for the amazing chemistry between the cast. Watch it for the food. Watch it to admire Ding Yuxi\u2019s exceptional and interesting character, which brings us to a few more interesting Ding Yuxi moments we wanted to mention before we end the blog post.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\nAnother trait of Ding Yuxi is that he\u2019s quite mannerly. In Episode 12, during the farewell speeches, he didn\u2019t fail to leap to his feet to bow as Huang Xiaoming bowed to them to thank them for their hard work this season. What\u2019s notable about this is that, despite being overwhelmed with emotions, he picked up on what Huang Xiaoming was about to do and made sure he was up on his feet before Huang Xiaoming lowered his head to the group, an action which prompted everyone else to follow suit.<\/p>\n