The Beauty Trap
Mao and his friends go to Wu Nam province to seek new Chinese cuisines. They enter a village where they are welcomed by a beautiful female chef, Ang. Ang finds out Mao is a special grade cook and seduces him to work out how to use a large ball and chain cooking instrument Ang's father had left to her. Mao almost instantly goes to work (to the jealousy of Meirii) at it with Siro. When they finally work out its uses, they tell Ang and she locks them up in a room. Ang then uses the ball and chain to create a dish* for the Official who has come. *The dish Ang makes is one of Wu Nam's specialties. It is called a 'bird's nest' and is made by frying taro powder in a shape of a bird's nest. Inside the nest is usually some stir fry vegetables and meat. The one Ang attempts to make is a sphere rather than a hemisphere like normal bird's nest.
Aired 31/08/1997EP 16 - The Beauty Trap
Cooking Master Boy
The story takes place in 19th century China during the Qing Dynasty, where the Emperor was weakened and the country was close to chaos. It is also during a fictitious era called "The Era of the Cooking Wars". It was an era in which top chefs with different cooking styles tried their best to improve their skills and to become the best chef in China. It is a country where insulting a high-grade chef or fooling around with cooking could land a person in a jail, and impersonating a top-chef is as good as usurpation of authority. Chefs compete with each other in order to gain respect and even power, but also with the risks of losing everything.
The country of China has four major regions: Beijing, Szechuan, Shanghai, and Guangdong.
The beginning of the story takes place in Szechuan, Mao's birthplace.
After the death of Mao's mother, Pai, who was called the 'Fairy of Cuisine', Mao becomes a Super Chef in order to take the title as Master Chef of his mother's restaurant. However, before he takes his mother's place as Master Chef, he continues to travel China in order to learn more of the many ways of cooking, in the hopes of becoming a legendary chef, just like his mother. During his journey, he meets great friends and fierce rivals who wish to challenge him in the field of cooking.