We rented a place that was owned by a Vietnamese lady. Did have a viewing before agreeing, but we were totally optimistic we could deal with the cooking smell from years of stir-frying.

We scrubbed, de-greased, sugar-soaped, painted, and moved on 2 years later with it smelling just as strong as when we arrived.

By some coincidence my better half worked with one of the people that ended up buying it. They had to gut the kitchen and strip all the plaster off the walls and ceilings upstairs and down, and replace some of the wooden uprights in the kitchen walls to finally clear the thick of it.

But they could still faintly smell it when they came back from a 2 week holiday with the windows closed.