The story started familiar to another chinese movies that was on Netflix, which was the female lead vandalized the male leads car without knowing who the guy was by accident. They eventually meet do to a series or circumstances, and its her cooking that attracts the guy, who's diet was instant ramen because he couldn't eat anything else.

Dating in the Kitchen was just like that, Gu Sheng Nan is a cute young aspiring cook who by accident vandalizes a strangers car that she was getting revenge for her bestie, but gets the wrong guy. Due to a series of mishaps the two end up meeting due to a fire accident in the side kitchen, as the main lead Lu Jin was a prospective buyer of the hotel, that Gu Sheng Nan worked at, by chance all the other dishes sent to Lu Jin all were not to his taste but her fried rice she made for her coworker suited his palate.

The drama was fun, but with these romantic comedies, they tend to end up being frustrating because they usually follow the stages of love discovery, admitting to love, then challenges to their relationship. Given the social status difference between Gu Sheng Nan & Lu Jin, the story did have its annoying points.

It was quick that their first love challenge Cheng Zi basically bowed out, even though they had the longest friendship, and then introducing Lu Zheng, the half brother who was fighting for his father's legacy as well as messing around with Lu Jin's fiancée at the point of the story was over dramatic.

They eventually migrated from "dating" in the kitchen to other areas to further the story, which doesn't hold true to the title. If it was more "As: I Like You, This is Not What I Expected" as alternatives then they could push the other story plots better.

Zhao Lu Si does a very good job, she's a cute actress in her female lead. Lin Yu Shen also does a good job as the cold hearted serious business first guy.

I wished they did more with the cooking, i think many people would enjoy the thought process, and recipes that would be shown during the process. While its not a cooking drama, it could've used abit more in that environment as the show runner title. Introducing the other points just extends the drama unnecessarily except for the providing fillers and giving the other cast members more of a role. Yes the points to develop the relationship further, but it also makes the story messier to clean up. Like in the case of the half brother trying to steal his older brothers fiancée out of the blue, even though he respected him and didn't really care for her until he was motivated to try to keep his dying father's last wish/legacy.

Overall the show started strong, but then started to wane as it move away from the kitchen to develop other characters, and introduce challenges to their life. It felt like they took a simple romantic comedy and overcomplicated it to make more episodes.