Mei Li Chou
The 16 year old daughter of Chouyu. Originally, she was a helper at the Yang Spring Restaurant. She fell in love with Mao after seeing how much he loves cooking and how he also cares about others. She only knows a little about the cooking field, but she’s useful when it comes to little facts and often tries to help Mao with various other things. After finding out that Mao was leaving the Yang Spring Restaurant to travel China, she was heartbroken since she thought that she could live a life with him. She eventually made up her mind and decided to also leave the restaurant, in order to travel with him (In the manga, she did not accompany Mao in his journey around China). Mei often gets into arguments with Shirou and always ends up slapping or hitting him. She also gets very jealous every time another woman gets near Mao. An example of her animosity towards women that gets close to Mao is when his sister, Karin, visits him to bring their mother’s cooking materials; she says that Karin will never be good for Mao, that is until she finds out that she is his sister. In another occasion, when the female chef, Anzu, finally realized the way of making singe cuisine, she kissed Mao as a sign of gratitude, but Mei Li became angry and began to express her anger by hitting Shirou. Although, she says that her number one rival for Mao’s heart is his love for cooking. She’s a spitting image of her deceased mother, Meika.