Chapter 991: Chapter 991 – Competition Commenced

Leaving Yin Ya’s matter aside, Taoxi Road was extraordinarily boisterous due to the new dishes currently.

Hence, the originally boisterous Taoxi Road became more crowded every day now. It wasn’t exaggerated to describe it as “people piling on top of each other”. At this point, the queuing committee had to take action.

In order to let more people eat delicacies and save as much time as possible, the queuing committee would organize the line of people very carefully. And in this regard, the customers were also very cooperative. They finished their meal and left without delay before the next group came up to replace them.

As there were too many people, other restaurants in Taoxi Road also had a much better business today. The most obvious one was Li Li’s western restaurant not far away.

It had 35% more customers today than during normal times. There was a saying, “A fall into the pit, a gain in your wit”. Seeing the current situation, Li Li would never think that he could serve better dishes again.

Instead, he summoned one chef under him and ordered him to go ask if there was an activity in Yuan Zhou’s restaurant today.

The chubby chef stroked his own fat belly and took a look at Li Li’s complexion carefully and then answered, “That Yuan Zhou seems to have served new dishes.”

Li Li nodded his head and indicated that it made sense. He said, “Cheer up. That restaurant serves new dishes today and thus, we will be very busy. We must be conscientious and responsible and never cold-shoulder every customer.”

The situation was roughly like that. This kind of overcrowded situation lasted for three days.

At noon on the third day, Yuan Zhou finished his work again and then fully stretched himself, which made his bone joints emit a sound of “Ka Ba Ka Ba”.

Yuan Zhou dug a hole and buried himself. He was too tired as he had served too many new dishes at a time.

“Hooo… I must win the competition quickly later. Otherwise, it won’t be good to delay the dinner.” Yuan Zhou muttered to himself.

“Let’s try to get back before 6.” Yuan Zhou looked up at the clock and estimated.

That’s right. This afternoon was the scheduled time of the competition against the 28 restaurants.

If this attitude of Yuan Zhou was known to Chef Li and other 27 chief chefs, they would definitely fly into a rage. In order to maintain the best competitive readiness, they hadn’t drunk and played cards for several days. Besides that, they had been staying in the kitchen for these few days.

“Hua La La”. Having pulled the shutter door down, Master Cheng waited at the side in silence.

He was of quite high status in both the China Chefs’ Alliance and Sichuan Cuisine Alliance. Therefore, he was very clear about this kind of challenge.

Master Cheng especially came over here to be a driver today. He straightforwardly invited Yuan Zhou into the car and then drove to Renyu Building quickly and steadily.

This kind of competition was usually held on a whole floor. And the people from Sichuan Cuisine Alliance had already rented a whole floor and got everything arranged yesterday.

Apart from the kitchen counters, even things about reporters and publicity had been well arranged. Though there would be no live broadcast through TV or relay broadcast through the Internet, there was still quite the momentum

Not to mention those 28 restaurants still had a group of supporters.

Yuan Zhou showed the electronic invitation letter on his phone and got it verified. After that, he came to the main hall.

Renyu Building was a luxurious office building, which could be seen by its size. Yuan Zhou looked around and couldn’t even see everything.

In the center of the main hall, there were two kitchen counters with two different colors, red and blue. Behind them were the food ingredients stacked neatly. Everything was prepared beforehand according to the menu provided by both parties.

Chef Li and his men had already arrived. There were 35 people in all and crowded together.

Actually, more people prepared to come, but the invitation letters were limited. After all, they didn’t come here for a gang fight.

Frankly speaking, Chef Li had very few opportunities to experience such a big occasion. When he was interviewed by the reporters later, they chatted for a little while.

“Concerning this competition, somebody said you all had doubts about the winner of the Appraisal of Exemplary Restaurant,” the reporter asked courteously.

“We don’t have doubts. Precisely speaking, we hope the winner can cook better. After all, Head Chef Yuan is so young and he still needs to learn a lot from the old chefs,” said Chef Li.

Just like Yuan Zhou said, Chef Li wasn’t like a chef. He was more like a businessman.

By comparison, Yuan Zhou kept a lower profile. With neither an assistant nor a sous-chef, he arrived in a suit of Han attire. The patterns of lotus flowers embroidered at the sleeve opening and lower hem looked elegant and simple.

“Master Yuan, I’m going to wait at the side until you finish,” said Master Cheng respectfully.

“Um.” Yuan Zhou nodded his head and didn’t refuse him.

Seeing Yuan Zhou nod his head, Master Cheng turned around and left.

This time, Master Cheng didn’t ask Yuan Zhou if he needed his help. After all, the 28 restaurants couldn’t even be regarded as a clown. It was simply an insult to Yuan Zhou’s craftsmanship to ask him if he needed any help.

Therefore, Master Cheng stood at the side in silence and waited to drive Yuan Zhou back later.

After talking with Master Cheng, Yuan Zhou walked up to the blue kitchen counter to get familiar with the kitchenware. First of all, he needed to use the knife deftly. He began to cut the potatoes to practice.

The four judges of Zhou Shijie, Zhang Yan, Bai Xiaoxiao, and Wang Xiang had reached the designated position.

There was a change in the judges. Apart from the two chairmen, the remaining two judges of Wang Xiang and Bai Xiaoxiao weren’t really familiar to Yuan Zhou.

The reason why they weren’t really familiar to Yuan Zhou was that he seemed to have heard of these two names before.

Bai Xiaoxiao was only 40 years old this year, but he had been the biggest seafood dealer in Sichuan Province. Sichuan wasn’t a coastal province and 30% of the seafood consumed in this province was transported here by Bai Xiaoxiao. Most importantly, the high-end seafood market in Sichuan Province had been monopolized by him.

Bai Xiaoxiao liked eating very much, therefore, he had a very good relationship with many chefs and also had a high tasting attainment for seafood.

Wang Xiang had a nickname, King of Haimen, formerly. A dozen years ago, he was known as the biggest prawn chef of Sichuan Province.

He cooked the Mashed Garlic Steamed Baby Lobster very well. A special explanation, the so-called baby lobster was actually the Australian lobster.

Generally speaking, it was quite rational to invite Bai Xiaoxiao and Wang Xiang as the judges of the competition. By the way, all the food ingredients to be used in this competition were supplied for free by Bai Xiaoxiao proactively.

The competition was about to commence. As it was a contest of Sichuan Cuisine, the chairman of the Evaluation Committee was Zhang Yan. He would declare the opening of the competition.

After the opening remark of the competition was the introduction of the dishes to be served by both parties.

“The following are the dishes of both parties for competition,” Zhang Yan turned to look at the screen and then said primly.

Then, there appeared 14 dishes on the screen. On the left side was the red, Chef Li. On the right was the blue, Yuan Zhou.

Red: Hot and Numbing Mantis Shrimp, Winter Bamboo Shoots With Sea Cucumber, Pickled Pepper North Shellfish, Dried Pot Little Yellow Croaker, Salad Sea Snail, Flaming Squid and last, Rolling Crab Dumpling.

Blue: Bell Pepper Prawn, Red Sea Cucumber Bamboo Shoots, Chilli Seashell Meat, Three Fishes Served On Stones, Sea Snail Soup, Eight Clawed Flaming Mountain and last, Big Crabs.