I’m the guy who usually rolls his eyes at online dating. You know the drill: swipe left, swipe right, match with a bot, repeat. It all feels so mechanical, like I’m shopping for a toaster rather than looking for a human being. I’ve always been skeptical of those "niche" dating sites, especially the international ones. They always screamed "too good to be true" to me.

But I was bored, and frankly, I was tired of the local dating pool where everyone seemed to have the exact same hiking photo in their bio. I wanted something different. I’m a huge cooking nerd—not a chef, just a guy who spends way too much money on Japanese knives and fermentation jars. That’s actually how I stumbled into this whole situation.

I decided to give a platform a shot, fully expecting to delete my account within 24 hours. I wasn't looking for a model; I was looking for someone who knew the difference between dark and light soy sauce. I was scrolling through sakuradate late one Tuesday, mostly analyzing the profile photos for signs of Photoshop. Then I saw Kenna’s profile.

It wasn’t a glamour shot. She was wearing an apron covered in flour, holding a tray of slightly burnt cookies, and laughing. Her bio didn't say "I love to travel." It said: "I promise I cook savory food better than I bake."

That piqued my interest. I sent a message asking if she burned them on purpose for the crunch. She replied twenty minutes later, not with a generic "lol" but with a paragraph explaining exactly what went wrong with her oven temperature.

We didn't have that immediate "movie magic" conversation. It was better. It was a nerdy, granular debate about the best hydration levels for pizza dough. I found myself actually waiting for her replies, not because I was lonely, but because I wanted to know her opinion on using rice vinegar in unexpected places.

The real test came two weeks later. We decided to do a "cooking date" over video call. I was nervous. This is usually where the catfish reveals themselves, right? But the call connected, and there she was, in her kitchen in Taipei, holding a bag of ingredients.

We tried to make dumplings simultaneously. It was a disaster on my end. My dough was too sticky, and my pleating looked like a car wreck. She didn't try to be polite. She laughed at me. She brought the phone closer to the camera to show me her technique, roasting my clumsiness the whole time.

There wasn't a thunderbolt of destiny. It was just... easy. It felt like hanging out with an old friend who just happened to be thousands of miles away. We spent three hours on that call, mostly arguing about ginger.

It’s been a few months now. We cook together every Sunday. It’s not perfect—the time difference is brutal, and sometimes the connection lags—but it’s the most genuine thing I’ve felt in years.

My Takeaways for the Skeptics:

Look for the "messy" photos: If every photo is studio-quality, I swipe left. Look for the candid shots—the burnt cookies, the messy hair. That’s where the real people are.
Skip the small talk: "How are you?" is boring. Ask them about their obsession. If I hadn't asked about the flour, I would have never connected with Kenna.
Video call early: It kills the skepticism. You can’t fake a laugh or a cooking disaster on a live video stream.
Focus on a shared activity: Staring at a screen talking is awkward. Doing something together (even badly) breaks the tension immediately.