Gourmet: The God-Level Culinary Tycoon

The five password red packets were very cleverly designed.

The five red packets were set to be released in succession: at the 1-minute, 3-minute, 5-minute, 8-minute, and 10-minute marks.

Instantly, the entire screen was flooded with comments like "Brother Li is awesome!"

Riding this wave of activity and the hidden traffic brought in by the five password red packets, the number of viewers in the stream shot up to 100.

If other streamers saw this—a minor streamer like Li Xiao with only 2,000 followers... no, wait, his follower count was already at 2,090.

Seeing him with 100 active viewers in his stream, they would probably be green with envy.

After all, many big-name internet celebrities who claimed to have millions of followers didn’t even get 100 people in their streams when they went live.

Seeing the comments from the handful of trolls get instantly drowned out, Li Xiao spoke smugly:

"You trolls, take a good look at your Brother Li’s power!"

"These 99-yuan lucky bags? Your Brother Li just dropped five of them like it was nothing."

"With my financial means, what kind of restaurant could even afford to hire me for a promotion?"

"If I really took a sponsorship deal, the money I’d make wouldn’t even be enough to cover the red packets I give out to you guys!"

With the tangible proof of the lucky bags right there, the accusations that he was being paid for the review were finally, thoroughly suppressed.

’As expected, money talks.’

Having dealt with the handful of haters in his stream, Li Xiao could finally turn his attention back to the wonton noodles in front of him.

He had only tried the shrimp wontons earlier; he hadn’t yet tasted the bamboo-rising noodles underneath.

Li Xiao:

"This is a civilized stream. Let’s try to avoid personal attacks, everyone."

"Alright, now I’m going to taste these bamboo-rising noodles and tell you all if they’re the real deal!"

As he spoke, he extended his chopsticks and picked up a small clump of the translucent bamboo-rising noodles.

The noodles, coated in broth, were brought to his mouth.

The moment the bamboo-rising noodles entered his mouth, Li Xiao’s brow furrowed slightly.

A distinct taste of lye water came from the noodles.

Normally, bamboo-rising noodles are characterized by having little to no lye water. The greatest difficulty in making them is achieving that same smooth, springy texture without it.

But this bowl of bamboo-rising noodles was clearly a far cry from the authentic version.

To enhance the noodles’ crispness and resilience, they had added a considerable amount of lye water to the dough.

He glanced toward the kitchen at the two noodle-pressing machines working ceaselessly.

Honestly, due to cost and process issues, replacing masters with machines was understandable and part of a larger trend.

However, using lye water noodles to pass for so-called bamboo-rising noodles just to achieve a certain texture was a bit dishonest.

If the shop had only called this "wonton noodles," then using lye water noodles would have been perfectly fine.

After all, Cantonese-style wonton noodles are traditionally made with lye water noodles.

It was only because some customers disliked the strong taste of lye water that noodle masters developed bamboo-rising noodles.

Now he also understood why the system had only given this place a mediocre score of 71, despite the wontons being quite good.

It seemed the points were deducted because of these bamboo-rising noodles.

Li Xiao put down his chopsticks.

"The wontons at this Yun Ji Bamboo-Rising Wonton Noodles are excellent, but the noodles themselves aren’t so great."

"It’s not that the flavor and texture are bad. To be honest, the noodles here are quite crisp and springy."

Hearing his somewhat contradictory description, viewers in the chat immediately voiced their confusion.

"What do you mean the flavor’s not good, but the texture is crisp and springy?"

"I feel like my brain’s CPU just fried. Can some language expert in here please explain what he means?"

"So are they good or not?"

"I had zero interest in this place, but now that the streamer’s said this, I’m actually curious to go check it out!"

...

Li Xiao quickly organized his thoughts.

"Sorry, I didn’t explain that clearly."

"What I mean is, if this were just a regular bowl of wonton noodles, then the noodles here would be good, maybe even excellent."

"The texture is indeed crisp and resilient, the seasoning is decent, and you can taste a faint hint of egg."

"But unfortunately, this isn’t regular wonton noodles. This is *bamboo-rising* wonton noodles."

"Authentic bamboo-rising noodles are all-egg noodles, made with duck eggs and absolutely no water."

"A noodle master repeatedly presses the dough with a bamboo pole, which makes the noodles smooth and resilient, with a rich, fragrant egg flavor."

"But this bowl of noodles in front of me... for cost-saving reasons, it seems that while they use duck eggs, the flavor isn’t rich. It’s obvious they didn’t use only eggs, but rather a mix of water and eggs."

"And to compensate for the lack of resilience from not using only eggs, the shop added lye water to give the noodles a crisp, springy texture."

At this, Li Xiao shook his head in disappointment.

"There’s a saying that goes, ’After you tell the first lie, you have to tell countless more to cover it up.’"

"It’s the same situation with this shop."

"To cover up the ’lie’ of not using all-egg noodles, they had to use lye water. Otherwise, they couldn’t achieve that crisp, springy texture."

After hearing Li Xiao’s explanation, the viewers finally understood what he had meant earlier.

"I get it now. Basically, it’s a bait and switch!"

"The streamer is being too picky! Where can you even find real bamboo-rising noodles these days?"

"Can you really make resilient noodles using only duck eggs?"

"To be fair, I actually like lye water noodles. I love that lye water taste!"

"A minute ago I thought the streamer was paid for a promotion, now I feel like he’s just trying to stir up trouble!"

"The streamer is being way too nitpicky!"

"Wow, so now you can’t praise it and you can’t criticize it. The streamer just can’t win!"

"Where can you find real bamboo-rising noodles anymore? This is basically how everyone makes them. The streamer’s standards are too high!"

...

Seeing the skepticism in the chat, Li Xiao raised an eyebrow.

If he were just an ordinary person, he definitely wouldn’t be able to refute them. After all, being able to taste the difference and being able to make it yourself are two completely different things.

However, he had just received a reward from the system: two recipes.

After a moment’s thought, he came up with a solution.

"It seems many people have a different opinion than I do."

"Honestly, in my opinion, making bamboo-rising noodles is actually very simple. It just depends on whether the shop is willing to do it."

"Of course, talk is cheap. Many of you probably don’t believe me and think I’m just bragging."

"How about this: in the next few days, I’ll release a video on how to make wontons and how to make authentic bamboo-rising noodles."

"Of course, even with that, there will probably still be people in the chat who think a video doesn’t prove anything."

"So, when the time comes, I will randomly select 20 local fans from Yangcheng in the comments section."

"I’ll set a time that works for everyone, and I’ll make the wonton and bamboo-rising noodles then."

"When they’re ready, I’ll have delivery riders send the noodles out!"

"These 20 local fans will get to taste the bamboo-rising wonton noodles I made myself, for free!"

"Then, I’ll let those 20 fans be the judges of my wonton and bamboo-rising noodles. How does that sound as proof? Is that fair enough for everyone?"