It lowers your heart rate. Ten more episodes of that unmarked pavilion in the alley at the foot of the Beijing CBD, the one with no flashy sign and no designer fit-out, the kind of place you walk past a hundred times before somebody drags you in. Season one built its whole appeal on the gap between the glass towers overhead and the small warm room underneath, where people put down the day before they put down their bags. This is the return trip, not a reinvention: same table, same regulars, more of the dusty stories that only come out once somebody has been fed. Slice of life here means the show trusts silence, food, and a stranger finally talking. If you liked being a fly on the wall in that room, you already know why you are going back.

Spring has come to Li Linke's little restaurant, where he and Wu Di, who shares his love of cooking, have worked out a batch of new dishes. The regulars are crowding back in, joined by plenty of newcomers who bring stories of their own: college students with plans to enter an animation competition, a toy salesman whose Mandarin has a non-standard accent, and a father and son on strained terms. At the restaurant, each of them comes across the taste they have been yearning for.