Truck driver steers into online fame as 'road cook'

This is fast food, but not as we know it. It is cooked on the road, by a man, you could say, who is driven by ambition.

Shi Chuanhai, 32, is a driver and he prepares meals in his truck cab.

His recipes range from exotic cuisine, such as seared foie gras, pineapple fried rice and Oreo pudding to classical Chinese cuisine like stewed pork with vermicelli.

On short video-sharing platform Douyin, also known as TikTok, his culinary skills have attracted more than 1 million followers, who call him "the solitary gourmet", due to his similarity to the protagonist of Japanese TV series Solitary Gourmet. Both of them eat alone and speak with few words.

"Cooking is my way to deal with loneliness," he says. Since March, he only has a dog for company.

A major challenge facing truck drivers is the loneliness that comes with the job. With his family in Anhui province, Shi works for a furniture company in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

"I spend less than 10 days every year with my family. The rest of the time I am on the road alone," the father of two girls says.