Chapter 712: Faultless
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
In truth, the Twice Cooked Pork was a dish that many people no longer liked to eat nowadays. The reason for that was a simple one — it was getting too greasy nowadays.
The ordinary folk would rather not eat it. And even if they ate it, they would have the altered version that was had less fat.
Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Big Steamed Bun was happily chewing on the pork.
The piece of meat in his mouth had none of the greasy problem. When Big Steamed Bun chewed on it, he could feel the crispness on the surface of the meat. Next, he felt the tender fat. However, the grease within the fat was almost instantaneously turned into an aromatic flavor. Before he could feel any greasiness, the flavor of the chili rushed out.
The combination of the spiciness, the crispiness on the surface of the meat, the springiness when chewing on the meat, and the tenderness of the fat combined and weaved a perfect flavor in his mouth.
“Delicious. Too delicious,” Big Steamed Bun couldn’t help himself and praise while eating.
After trying the Twice Cooked Pork, Big Steamed Bun set his eyes on the Yuxiang Shredded Pork.
The moment the meat of this dish entered his mouth, a perfectly balanced taste of sweet and sour caused Big Steamed Bun to lost control and started eating without a stop again. For a moment, both he and Qin Xiaoyi did nothing but eat, their chopsticks flickering everywhere on the table.
“Holy sh*t, even their white rice is so nice,” Big Steamed Bun couldn’t help but curse.
Only when the dishes were finished and not a single grain of rice was left did Big Steamed Bun regain his mind. When he recalled what he did, he stared at the empty plates of Yuxiang Shredded Pork and Twice Cooked Pork in stupefaction.
Actually, before they arrived, Big Steamed Bun already prepared a backup plan. If he had no choice, he would simply stand his ground and refuse to acknowledge that the food was good.
It was as the saying went: There was no true number one in both the literature and martial pursuits. Even if the food at this restaurant was slightly better than what he cooked, so what? He would still claim that the restaurant wasn’t serving orthodox Chengdu School’s Sichuan Cuisines dishes.
Being delicious did not necessarily mean that the food was cooked in an orthodox style. That was why Big Steamed Bun had arrived with no fear. But after he ate both dishes, his mind went through a complete s.h.i.+ft.
The two dishes were not slightly better than what he cooked. Rather, the difference between the dishes here and the dishes he cooked was the difference between a bicycle and a s.p.a.cecraft. They were in two completely different worlds.
The excuses Big Steamed Bun had prepared were stuck in his throat as he couldn’t bring himself to say them. Alas, it would seem like Big Steamed Bun still lacked societal experience and was not shameless enough.
If he was as shameless as Jiang Changxi or Wu Hai, it would be a different story.
“How is it? Is this Yuxiang Shredded Pork orthodox? The boss used winter bamboo shoots, carrots, and black fungus in it,” Qin Xiaoyi started turning smug, “Do you have any questions? We can call the boss over if you have any.”
“Since when did a Master Chef like this appear among the Chengdu School’s Sichuan Cuisines chefs?” Big Steamed Bun stared straight at Yuan Zhou and started studying his face.
He was way too young and did not look like a Master Chef at all.
Why had this happened?
Big Steamed Bun felt bitter inwardly. In all honesty, he had no idea why this Master Chef was hiding himself at this remote location, in this small restaurant that did not even have a sign.
‘It’s fine if you like hiding yourself. But why did you open such a crude restaurant? This is totally unreasonable.’
“How much?” Big Steamed Bun finally asked with a straight face after calming the waves in his heart.
“A total of 1784 RMB,” Qin Xiaoyi revealed the price without blinking his eyes.
Big Steamed Bun reached for his wallet instinctively and his brain only reacted when his wallet was already out. He abruptly stared at Qin Xiaoyi and asked, “How much?”
“A total of 1784 RMB,” Qin Xiaoyi said one word at a time. The plain white rice from the 100 Styles of Rice Cuisine was 90 RMB per bowl. They had ordered two bowls that added to 196 RMB. The Braised Pork with Soy Sauce was 566 RMB, the Yuxiang Shredded Pork was 556 RMB, and the White Oil Tofu was 466 RMB.
Big Steamed Bun cried out, ” Are you trying to rob me? Over 1,700 per meal?”
Right this moment, Wu Hai and Master Cheng arrived from the other side. When it came to cooking, Master Cheng was of the opinion that the pinnacle of cooking was to return to the roots, to create fine delicacies with ordinary ingredients.
As for Wu Hai, he believed that if a chef that had reached the pinnacle and was capable of cooking fine delicacies with ordinary ingredients used the best ingredients, wouldn’t the final product be even better? Otherwise, what’s the point for those best ingredients to exist?
They were arguing endlessly. Big Steamed Bun did not hear exactly what they had said, but he could hear one thing: Compa.s.s and Master Yuan.
“Compa.s.s… Master Yuan… Surname of Yuan, and no sign…” Big Steamed Bun seemed to have thought of something. He abruptly turned his head and looked at the menu on the wall.
“This is Yuan Zhou’s restaurant!”
Big Steamed Bun was. .h.i.t by a realization. As a Chengdu resident, it was impossible for him to have never heard of Yuan Zhou’s restaurant. He was also a chef himself. Although he had never paid much attention to Yuan Zhou’s restaurant, he would still occasionally heard about this restaurant. People would always mention that there was an odd restaurant at Taoxi Road, and so on, and so forth.
Big Steamed Bun did not realize this earlier as he had never been here before. But with the clues presented to him, he finally realized where he was.
“So I’m at Taoxi Road?”
“No wonder the dishes have such a quality. So this young chef is Yuan Zhou, the chef who had defeated even Tengyuan.”
“But I have never heard that Yuan Zhou is actually a chef from the Chengdu School of Sichuan Cuisines.”
‘Wait a moment!’ Big Steamed Bun suddenly recalled something. Once, he read online that Yuan Zhou’s restaurant was a restaurant that the customers needed to pay first before eating.
“I thought we need to pay first…”
Before Big Steamed Bun could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by Qin Xiaoyi who seemed to know what he wanted to ask.
“Before coming, I already calculated the price and transferred the money to Boss Yuan’s Alipay when we were ordering,” It was for a reason that Qin Xiaoyi’s nickname was Brain.
“I already made the payment. Since you have admitted defeat, just transfer me the same amount of money,” Qin Xiaoyi said, seemingly in the spirit of self-sacrifice, “Ok, let’s round it up. You can just pay me 1780 RMB.”
Big Steamed Bun was speechless.
“Qin Xiaoyi, I’ll kill you!”
“Today! Immediately!”
These were Big Steamed Bun’s roars of suffering.
Of course, Big Steamed Bun still ultimately transferred the money to Brain. After all, he was not shameless enough to stubbornly claim that Yuan Zhou’s food was not good or orthodox enough.
After Qin Xiaoyi received the money, he immediately said that he would be treating everyone to an Egg Fried Rice feast at Yuan Zhou’s restaurant.
Only now did Big Steamed Bun stopped complaining. Otherwise, he was already planning to beat Brain up each time he saw him. He would pull no punches.
The weather started getting warmer and warmer, and Yuan Zhou started feeling the prowess of spring fatigue.
He yawned.
“The fatigue of the spring, the nap of the summer, the drowsiness of the autumn, and the three months of never-ending winter sleeps. I have to admit that all four seasons are excellent for sleeping,” Yuan Zhou grumbled with a completely straight face and a book in his hand.
“System, do you have any good method of getting rid of sleepiness?” Yuan Zhou casually asked. If the system stayed silent for a prolonged period of time, Yuan Zhou would have a feeling that the system was dead.
The system displayed, “Hang your head to a beam and stab your thigh while reading.”
“Huh? You actually replied?” Yuan Zhou was shocked.
And thus, Yuan Zhou started conversing amicably with the system.
At noon, within the restaurant.
Today, two new customers had arrived. Of course, there would be a lot of new customers here every day. The reason why these two deserved a mention was because they were extremely silly and clueless girls.
Both of them had long black hair with blunt bangs. They were both wearing Han attires. One of them had a gorgeous short red cloak with cherry blossom markings on it, while the other was wearing a warm yellow short cloak with jasmine markings on it. Both of them also had some baby fat on their face, making them look both tender and adorable.
“They look like twins,” someone muttered suddenly.