sbdcsierra Chapter 467 - 379: Guests from All Directions, Chinese Dinner Feast
Chapter 467 - 379: Guests from All Directions, Chinese Dinner Feast
When Nagishiro Sho and Raphael appeared one after the other, but Chef Marchello was nowhere to be seen, Lin felt something was off, but was too embarrassed to ask directly.
Now it seems that was indeed the case!
"Uh... Hi, isn’t this Chef Marchello? Long time no see~"
Raphael squeezed out an awkward smile, waved a bag of unknown ingredients in his hand, and greeted proactively.
"Don’t pretend to be clueless!"
Marchello snorted coldly, quickly walked up to him, "Ignoring phone calls, huh? Your restaurant manager has already sent emails complaining to me!"
"Do you know how many customers complained yesterday? You created the problem, so deal with it yourself!"
"Complaint?"
Raphael blinked, "Anyway, I’m not the one they complained about, it’s fine, people always need to learn and grow."
"I can’t just stay in the kitchen and watch over them all the time, can I?"
Marchello rolled his eyes, having anticipated this attitude from him on his way there.
Not bothering to entangle with him further, his attention quickly fell on the food packaging bag in Raphael’s hand, and he casually glanced at the variety of ingredients piled on the nearby cart and some oddly shaped equipment placed on the ground beside them.
"What are these?"
"Lin ordered these from the Great Xia, I don’t recognize them either; waiting for him to explain."
"Oh?"
Upon hearing they were shipped from Great Xia, Marchello’s eyebrows raised with interest.
He casually rifled through a few bags, all labeled in Great Xia scripts, completely incomprehensible.
The appearance of the ingredients revealed through the transparent wrapping was something he had never seen before.
"Lin, are these for testing dishes for dinner?"
"Indeed they are."
"Haha, I came at just the right time!"
"... Then please help with moving the items, chef."
Since being treated as cheap labor wasn’t new, Marchello readily joined the transportation crew without another word.
By the time everything was roughly sorted, two hours had already passed.
Wang Aiguo and Daniel hadn’t left either, staying at Lin Chen’s invitation to snag a dinner.
But the question is... what to cook?
The ingredients at hand were overly diverse, so much could be made that it actually gave him a bit of choice paralysis.
He glanced at Zhao Shun and Chen Dongliang, who were assembling the small equipment according to the manual instructions, and although the three chefs who couldn’t read Chinese, they joined in out of curiosity, comparing pictures with the manual.
Lin paced back and forth in the restaurant, arms crossed, deeply in thought.
"I can’t make anything too complicated and time-consuming, later there’s dough preparation for tomorrow’s pizza."
"Having pizza for breakfast seems odd; let’s keep it for lunch instead."
"Old Chen and Xiao Zhao originally said they’d prepare something for breakfast... forget it, who cares, having so many fresh ingredients without using them would be a waste."
"We could try out the rice noodle roll machine later to see if it works well. The challenge with rice noodle rolls is the ratio of rice slurry and simmering the sauce. I’ll get the formula from the system, and leave the rest to Zhao Shun to fiddle with a few times, and it should be pretty much settled."
"Breakfast will be rice noodle rolls, simple flavors for now – try beef rice noodle rolls, egg rice noodle rolls, chicken rice noodle rolls, and pork rice noodle rolls and let the guests add ingredients as they please."
"What else do foreigners like... Oh right, spring rolls, they surely love those, make some with three delicacies and chive, keep it simple."
Old Chen and Xiao Zhao could each manage one dish; it’s simple and convenient, while also highlighting the flavors of Great Xia.
The purchased equipment also includes three round breakfast frying pans peculiar to the domestic scene, the kind used by roadside breakfast stalls for cooking Fried Dumplings, with a certain depth.
The skillet bought previously had the wrong shape, inconvenient to use, not even worth taking out again.
If memory serves, when selling shrimp dumplings last time, customer reactions were quite good, so similar spring roll flavors would surely be more popular.
Thinking of those three frying pans, several culinary memories from home flash briefly in Lin’s mind.
Stuffed egg pancake, chive pockets, sauce pancake...
"Gurgle"
He secretly swallowed his overflowing saliva, impatient to showcase his skills once more.
Thinking back, it’s really been many years since savoring those authentic hometown flavors.
Even if not for others, simply for himself, he’d be willing to replicate them slowly one by one, just to appease the insatiable inner craving.
"Tomorrow’s menu is decided, now onto considering what to make for tonight’s dinner."
The ingredients purchased this time hail from all over domestically, abundant with delicacies from land and sea.
If one must point out any shortcomings, it’s that fresh ingredients are relatively few, mostly dry goods or items requiring refrigeration or freezing.
It’s an inevitable situation, after all, it’s cross-border transport and fresh ingredients spoil easily.
"No summer meal would be complete for Jiangsu and Zhejiang people without bamboo shoots; later we’ll make something with bamboo shoots."
"By the way, there are also two hams. Let’s slice some and soak them. We can make a wild mushroom and three-treasure soup. They’ve definitely never tried it before."
"I remember there’s also a bag of fresh tender lotus roots. We can simply stir-fry some lotus root strips and then make a tangy and spicy lotus root dish with chopped chili. Perfect."
"So far, it seems like it’s all vegetarian? What should we do for a meat dish..."
Lin Chen held a list of ingredients, his eyes scanning up and down, his brain working quickly, flashing with thoughts of various delicious dishes.
"The meat dishes I’ve made the most before were mainly Sichuan cuisine, and some marinated flavors, but I haven’t really made proper meat dishes for the chefs."
"It’s perfect timing, now that Old Chen is here. He’s familiar with home-cooked cuisines and can help."
"Since we’re doing this, might as well include flavors from different regions and open the chefs’ and ladies’ eyes all at once."
With this in mind, he instinctively looked towards the four curious waitresses gathered around the equipment.
Especially towards Dais and Elsa, whom he trusted from the bottom of his heart and felt a bit apologetic towards.
Unlike him, who has a body that’s been enhanced, they are genuine, ordinary people who grew up in Western society.
Ever since they came with him here, it’s been as if they’re away from home, without time to reunite with their families, and even on their only day off, they get pulled in to work overtime.
Even though they clearly expressed their willingness to do this, to say he doesn’t feel sorry would be a lie.
So he walked straight over and waved his hand.
"Ladies, question!"
"Anything you’d like to eat? Vegetarian, meat, or desserts and drinks, give me some opinions."
"Me me!" Lucas, who was sitting on the side editing videos, immediately perked up and stood up quickly.
"You sit down!"
Lin Chen glared, "You’re the laziest one. You’ve been in the Great Xia for so many years, what haven’t you eaten? This time, it’s not about you. Just wait to eat and let the ladies have a chance."
"This is gender discrimination!! Protest!"
Despite his protests, the kid sat back down obediently, looking over here with a face full of grievance.
"Protest invalid."
The ladies covered their mouths and giggled, but soon fell into a deep dilemma.
They whispered a few words among themselves and quickly reached a consensus.
Dais stood out to speak on their behalf: "Chef, we have no concept of Great Xia cuisine. We just want to try things we haven’t eaten before."
"I have a few dishes I’m interested in. I saw them on food videos before sleeping recently. If it’s convenient to make, that would be great."
"Oh? Tell me about it."
Hearing that it was from food videos, Lin Chen was immediately interested.
She didn’t expect Dais to start watching Great Xia food videos before bed. Probably got accurately recommended by the algorithm after watching Lucas’s videos?
"There’s a dish made with pork belly, similar to the soy-braised meat you made before, but it’s a darker red, and the meat is cut into cubes, made very delicately."
"Oh, oh, red-braised pork! No, it must be Dongpo Pork, right?"
Before Lin Chen could speak, Lucas’s eyes lit up, and he raised his hand high.
"It should be Dongpo Pork, the food videos probably wouldn’t feature regular red-braised pork, more like the delicate version from fancy restaurants or hotels. This can be made, it’s quite simple."
Lin Chen nodded, indicating no problem, but to get pork belly, he’d have to ask John to deliver it, so it seems like he’d be inviting one more person to dinner.
No, since he’s already inviting John, might as well invite that old guy Magna too.
If making Dongpo Pork, he could also make a basic version of red-braised pork for comparison.
After all, the version he ate often as a kid was cooked with rehydrated dried squid, fresh abalone, and dried bamboo shoots, all available now, and there’s no time like the present.
"What else?"
He wasn’t in a hurry to make the call, planning to first hear all of Dais’s dish ideas before reporting them in one go.
"It’s another pork dish, but fried. You cut the pork into palm-sized slices, deep-fry until golden, and coat them in a sweet and sour sauce. Seems like it’s called bao... bao..."
"Sweet and Sour Pork?"
"Right, right! It’s Sweet and Sour Pork, heard it’s a famous dish too."
"No problem, Sweet and Sour Pork is indeed an internationally known dish. Anything else?"
Regarding the two dishes Dais picked, Lin Chen was quite pleased, even beyond his original expectations.
Dongpo Pork and Sweet and Sour Pork are arguably among the classic dishes representing the South and North respectively, and they’re also widely loved by foreign tourists.
Their commonality lies in their sweetness, and it’s not subtle.
"As for other dishes... let me think," Dais pinched her chin, contemplating for a moment, as if searching her memory for related images.
"Oh right! I read in the comments on those videos that Great Xia’s desserts are completely different from other countries, not just in form and taste, but most importantly, they’re not sweet at all!"
"To say desserts are not sweet is the greatest compliment to Chinese desserts, is that right?"
"You’re not wrong, that’s indeed the case."
Lucas got excited again, giving her a thumbs up: "Not bad, seems like you’ve watched quite a bit of Great Xia food videos. I recommend trying egg tarts; once you’ve had them, you won’t be interested in any other egg tarts in the world."