Chapter 105: The Dignity of a Chef
Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
Following the “hua la” sound, Yuan Zhou shut the door and stretched himself before preparing to go upstairs to wash himself and take a rest for a while. However, there would be always someone who didn’t want him to be at leisure. For example, the system.
The system displayed, “A chef needs to maintain his own basic dignity.”
[Temporary mission] Obtain victory in the contest with Chef Yu
(Mission Tips: Now that others have challenged you, as a future master chef, you should begin to cultivate your pride and dignity from now on, young man.)
[Mission reward] One piece of Master Chef Set
“I can’t even get one single moment of peace.” Yuan Zhou touched his forehead speechlessly.
Having carefully checked the mission, Yuan Zhou asked after a while, “What is the Master Chef Set?”
Yuan Zhou cared more about the rewards.
The system displayed, “You won’t know what it is until the mission is completed.”
“I hope it’s not another lie.” Instantly, Yuan Zhou recalled the event that he obtained the t.i.tle of the Master of Cooked Wheaten Food. He then began to check the mission carefully again, examining for any small print that might be concealed.
After checking over and over again three times, Yuan Zhou finally confirmed that was all about the mission.
However, he was a little helpless at being urged to take part in the contest. Yuan Zhou didn’t like communicating with others and moreover hated to have conflict with others. This Chef Yu, nevertheless, was apparently looking for trouble.
In this case, it would do him no good to step forward and accept that challenge.
Seated in the chair, Yuan Zhou spun a whole circle unconsciously. He then suddenly thought of his own mission.
Immediately, he tapped open the mission and checked it again.
[Third Stage of the Mission] Fame of the Restaurant Over Ten Thousand
(Mission tips: As a chef possessing the Master Chef System, host you have to keep striving to enhance your culinary skills. Young man, go and get the fame of the restaurant to surpa.s.s ten thousand.)
(Notes, self-motivated advertising is not allowed.)
[Time of Mission] Thirty Days (starting from tomorrow)
[Reward of Mission] Methods of Cooking Rice
(Mission status, 8500/10000, unfinished)
“It looks I have almost completed most of the mission.” While touching the forehead, Yuan Zhou thought for a moment. Suddenly, he stood up and went directly upstairs.
Information about the opponent was absolutely indispensable if he was to complete the mission. If he didn’t know what, where and when was the challenge, how could he accept it?
He turned on the computer and immediately searched for the video that he had watched just now but not finished. This time he was prepared to finish watching the whole video, hence he fast forwarded it to where he had stopped watching and then pressed the Play b.u.t.ton.
“I hope that boss can come over and exchange some pointers with me. I will wait for you at World Foodie Hotel at 3:00 PM three days later, and of course, I will prepare all the ingredients for the dish, Phoenix-Tail Prawns,” Chef Yu said earnestly to the camera.
“Then Chef Yu, are there any prizes for the contest?” To the journalists, the bigger the event was, the better it was for them. So one of them asked straightforwardly.
“Yeah, of course.” Chef Yu kept the audience in suspense. After a while, he opened a wooden box and said, “Since I have gotten the champion with the dish, Phoenix-Tail Prawns, of course, I will compete with him on this dish. This knife of mine will be the prize, ok?”
“Isn’t this a beloved knife that Boss Yu has treasured for a long time?” A journalist recognized this gorgeous knife with the gold-plated knife handle immediately.
“You are right. This is the first treasured knife I bought. It has been years, but the knife is still incomparably sharp,” Chef Yu said lovingly while closing the wooden box.
When Yuan Zhou heard that there was even a prize, he got a little interested. After pausing the video and checking the knife carefully, he nevertheless found that the knife was merely similar in appearance to the one presented to him by the system. It was not a genuine treasure knife.
“Eh…” Nevertheless, it made sense. If it was a genuine treasure knife, how could Chef Yu agree to offer it as the prize? Thinking of that, Yuan Zhou smiled mockingly.
But why didn’t anybody come to interview him since this event had been broadcasted on TV?
Suddenly, Yuan Zhou recalled that Chef Yu had mentioned the address of his restaurant.
Usually, journalists gathered wherever there was breaking news. No matter what, this situation could be considered a piece of news, yet not even a single person came to interview Yuan Zhou. It was really awfully strange.
This showed Yuan Zhou’s limited knowledge towards the truth.
There were originally only five journalists in all, of which two came from the same press. Calculated in this way, there were totally 4 media channels here on site. It could be speculated from this fact that the so-called munic.i.p.al level cooking contest was basically not popular on TV.
The journalists present on the site were mostly sent here by their companies for the sake of the judges.
After the interview, the journalists indeed applied for an interview with Yuan Zhou but the chief editors of the several companies responded with almost the same answers.
“Such a program with such low audience ratings isn’t worth an interview.”
These words undoubtedly rejected the possibility of Yuan Zhou being interviewed, thus no one came. Nonetheless, the video of the interview that had been recorded definitely needed to be broadcasted. This was the reason why there was peace at Yuan Zhou’s side.
As for the reason why Chef Yu suddenly declared Yuan Zhou as his rival, it actually had nothing important to do with Yuan Zhou.
This contest was basically held once each year. Restaurants would choose their best chefs to take part in it. After three rounds, the contestants competed in the fourth round, namely the final round.
This time, organizers of the contest specially invited w.a.n.g Shuyuan to act as one of the judges.
And the rest of the judges were all retired chefs who had been famous before, hence it could be considered just and fair.
The final round required the contestants to use prawns as the main ingredient, regardless of the breeds.
Chef Yu was the top chef recommended by the World Foodie Hotel, which was originally a three-star hotel. As a top chef of a three-star hotel, Chef Yu truly had some decent capabilities. Moreover, he himself did awfully well in Jiangsu Cuisine.
In response to the request of using prawns, Chef Yu recalled the signature dish, Phoenix-Tail Prawns of Jin’ling Cuisine, and decided to showcase his exquisite culinary skill in this particular dish.
The dish cooked by him absolutely conquered all other judges except for w.a.n.g Shuyuan.
w.a.n.g Shuyuan didn’t actually choose Chef Yu during the vote and furthermore, let him carelessly overhear his conversation with another judge after the contest.
“Why did you vote for another restaurant? The dish of Phoenix-Tail Prawns tasted sweet and fragrant and still totally retained the delicate flavor of the prawns,” a retired chef who was over 60 but still spirited asked in puzzlement while conveniently recalling the flavor of the Phoenix-Tail Prawns.
“There is nothing wrong with this dish that I can point out, whether on aspects of knife skills, flavor or appearance,” w.a.n.g Shuyuan answered honestly.
However, his words yet made the retired chef even more puzzled.
“But I have eaten the most delicious Phoenix-Tail Prawns once. Each prawn cooked by him is incomparably exquisite, and even the sculpted flowers were perfectly detailed. What’s more, the flavor and taste were more superior in contrast.” w.a.n.g Shuyuan remembered the Phoenix-Tail Prawns cooked by Yuan Zhou.
“Compared with that one, this dish is not so perfect. It focuses too much on the appearance and has obvious traces of artificiality. Likewise, I could even taste the oil from the Phoenix-Tail Prawns that were fried.” when he discovered n.o.body was around, w.a.n.g Shuyuan spoke his true feelings.
“It can’t be true. Is there a better one? Where is it? I’m going there for a taste some day.” The retired chef instantly got curious.
“At No.14 of Taoxi Road, there’s a nameless small restaurant. That’s it.” w.a.n.g Shuyuan was quite pleased to share nice foods.
“Ok, I’ll bear it in mind,” the retired chef said happily.
Having heard almost all their conversation from outside, how could Chef Yu be convinced of that? He returned to the changing room while frowning discontentedly and thought in his heart that n.o.body was likely able to cook the Phoenix-Tail Prawns better than himself.
Chef Yu was pretty confident in his skills. He believed even if other first-cla.s.s chefs prepared this dish, he could still outcla.s.s them on some aspects with his excellent skills.
Yet, now, it turned out this was not true from the conversation he heard. w.a.n.g Shuyuan had apparently said just now that the boss of the nameless restaurant outcla.s.sed him by one grade in every aspect.
Chef Yu felt he was unable to accept the fact. Therefore, he flung down a challenge against Yuan Zhou without any fear of success or failure!