Mianyang Liaoli: The Culinary Perfectionist Who Turned Recipe Videos into Literature

Mianyang Liaoli, whose real name is Zhang Yi, is a Chinese culinary content creator and one of the most respected figures in Bilibili's food section. A native of Changsha, Hunan Province, she previously worked in program production at Hunan Broadcasting System before founding her own media company, Changsha Chi Bu Pang Culture Media Co., Ltd. Since uploading her first video, a demonstration of cheese balls inspired by a Hokkaido curry restaurant, on December 22, 2015, she has built one of the most durable careers in Chinese food media, accumulating over 11.9 million followers on Bilibili and more than 86 million total likes as of January 2026.Her channel's name, which translates to "Sheep Cuisine," is a whimsical self-reference, but the work itself is anything but casual. Mianyang Liaoli approaches cooking with the rigor of a researcher and the sensibility of a writer, and in doing so, she has redefined what a food video can be.

Her path into content creation was, by her own account, largely accidental. In a 2022 interview, she explained that she began filming simply to document her kitchen life, and her first upload unexpectedly appeared on Bilibili's homepage, which encouraged her to continue.Her early videos reflected her background in television production: they were slow-paced, gentle, and instructional, closer in spirit to a televised cooking program than to the rapidly edited, personality-driven content that would later dominate the platform. She soon recognized that this style did not suit her temperament. "That overly televised, slow-paced format didn't really match my personality," she recalled, "so I gradually added some popular memes and some absurdist elements."The turning point came when she produced a sponsored video and, worried that the advertisement would feel intrusive, deliberately accelerated the pacing and adopted a style she describes as "deadpan nonsense." The result was a revelation: she had found a voice that was simultaneously irreverent and meticulous, and from that point forward, her videos became exercises in controlled chaos.

What distinguishes Mianyang Liaoli from the crowded field of Chinese food creators is the unusual combination of technical ambition, narrative craft, and linguistic playfulness that defines her work. Her most celebrated videos involve attempts to recreate dishes of extraordinary difficulty: royal recipes from the Qing dynasty, molecular gastronomy showpieces, regional specialties that require days of preparation, and dishes from animated films and video games. The complexity is genuine; she has spent weeks researching and testing a single recipe, and her willingness to document failure alongside success gives her videos an emotional arc that pure instructional content lacks.Her editing style is brisk and densely layered, with quick cuts, sound effects, and visual gags that reward repeat viewing. But her most distinctive signature is her narration. Mianyang Liaoli writes rhyming, rhythmic voice-over scripts that have earned her the official designation of "the rhyming maniac of the culinary world."Her descriptions of food are not merely functional; they are literary. A bowl of clear chicken broth becomes "a mirror-still lake at dawn, unrippled and serene, until a sudden drift of rich, intoxicating savor sends shimmering waves across its glassy surface."Fans have taken to imitating her style in the comments, turning her video sections into impromptu poetry competitions.

Among her most influential works is "Dragon's Chant Strawberry," a recreation of a legendary molecular gastronomy dessert that requires cooking a strawberry through a temperature range spanning from minus 196 degrees Celsius to 99 degrees Celsius.The video became a viral phenomenon, accumulating over 2.35 million likes on Douyin and spawning a wave of imitation attempts across Chinese social media.Her "Sheep's Howl Strawberry," a playful response to her own success, transformed the original concept into a square-shaped confection, demonstrating her ability to build on her own creative output with humor and self-awareness. Other signature videos include her recreation of a Qing imperial recipe that involves stuffing meat into bean sprouts, her attempt to make Indian flatbread and bamboo-pressed noodles at home, and her series of "survival cuisine" tutorials designed for viewers with limited cooking skills and time.Her 2025 original program featuring an AI-designed "interstellar meteorite fried chicken" extended her experimentation into the intersection of artificial intelligence and cooking.The structural variety of her channel, organized around three distinct pillars of elaborate recipe recreation, city food exploration vlogs, and beginner-friendly survival cooking, allows her to serve audiences with vastly different needs while maintaining a coherent creative identity.

Mianyang Liaoli's platform achievements are substantial. She has been selected for Bilibili's Top 100 UP Creators list for six consecutive years, from 2019 through 2024, a distinction that places her among the platform's most consistently recognized creators.Her average video performance is remarkable: her works routinely exceed one million views, with her top videos reaching approximately 16.5 million, 12 million, and 10 million plays respectively.Her fan engagement metrics are equally impressive, with an average of 392,000 likes and 246,000 coin-tips per video, and a follower-to-view ratio approaching sixty percent, indicating that her audience consists largely of dedicated subscribers rather than casual viewers.Beyond Bilibili, she maintains a significant presence on YouTube under the channel name Sheep HoHo, where she has accumulated over 800,000 subscribers, and her total cross-platform following exceeds twenty million.In 2026, she was appointed Chief Content Co-Creation Officer for the 48th World Skills Competition, a role that recognized her ability to communicate the value of craftsmanship to a broad public audience. At the competition's 100-day countdown event, she spoke about her experiences with intangible cultural heritage techniques and traditional snacks, from sugar figurine blowing to bamboo-pressed noodles and Beijing roast duck, observing that only by personally attempting these crafts can one understand the meaning of "one minute on stage, ten years of practice offstage."

The broader social significance of Mianyang Liaoli's work lies in her elevation of cooking from a domestic chore to a subject worthy of intellectual and artistic seriousness. By treating recipes as research projects and food writing as literature, she has helped legitimize culinary content as a form of knowledge production rather than mere entertainment. Her exploration of intangible cultural heritage foods, including her collaborations with traditional craftspeople and her participation in World Skills initiatives, positions her as a bridge between contemporary digital culture and the preservation of artisanal knowledge.For younger viewers who may never attempt her most complex recipes, her videos offer something equally valuable: a model of how to approach any skill with patience, curiosity, and a willingness to fail publicly and try again. Her emphasis on documenting the full process, including the failures and frustrations, rather than presenting only polished results, aligns with Bilibili's broader culture of authentic, process-oriented content and distinguishes her from creators who prioritize visual perfection over genuine instruction.

In summary, Mianyang Liaoli represents a rare synthesis of artistic ambition and audience accessibility. She has built a career on the conviction that cooking is worth taking seriously, not in the sense of solemnity, but in the sense of investing genuine effort, thought, and creativity into every dish. Her rhyming narration, her willingness to spend weeks on a single recipe, and her refusal to condescend to her audience by simplifying the complexity of her subject have earned her a level of loyalty and respect that few food creators achieve. For Bilibili, she is a cornerstone of the platform's food section and a demonstration that knowledge content can be beautiful, funny, and deeply personal. For viewers around the world, she offers a window into Chinese culinary culture that is neither exoticized nor oversimplified, but presented with the care and precision of a craftsperson who believes that the best way to honor a tradition is to attempt it yourself, however imperfectly.