Chapter 303 - 137: New Home-Style Dish, Max Level Rice Companion

Chapter 303: Chapter 137: New Home-Style Dish, Max Level Rice Companion

With Su Chen’s current skill, handling two woks at once was no problem at all. This would increase his serving speed severalfold.

’And now for a new dish. My Stir-Fried Yellow Beef has reached S Level for a home-style dish. Next up is...’

Su Chen looked at the list of thirty home-style dishes the mission had given him.

The second dish was as home-style as it gets.

It was no exaggeration to say that even someone who had never set foot in a kitchen couldn’t make it taste that bad on their first try.

This dish existed solely to save the world’s culinary idiots.

If your cooking skills were just average, you could serve this dish whenever you had guests over. Then you could coolly tell them, "This is my specialty!"

That’s right. It was...

Stir-fried tomato and eggs!!!

"This dish..." Su Chen sighed, heading to his practice room.

He finally understood. When the system said "home-style," it meant really home-style.

This dish was ridiculously easy to make. Su Chen first summoned a few eggs, cracked and whisked them, then blanched some tomatoes to peel them before cutting them into wedges.

Next, he sliced the white parts of the scallions into thin slivers. With that, all the ingredients for the home-style dish were ready.

"Do I stir-fry the tomatoes first, or the eggs?"

The eggs, of course!

In a mere six minutes, a fragrant plate of stir-fried tomato and eggs was ready.

’It feels like something’s missing...’

Su Chen examined the plate. The stir-fried tomatoes were red, and the eggs were yellow with streaks of white. The color palette seemed a bit too warm.

"A cucumber!"

He sliced the summoned cucumber into coin-thick pieces and arranged a few of them on the plate.

’That’s more like it...’

It’s often said that Chinese cuisine must excel in color, aroma, and taste. There’s a good reason "color" comes first.

Otherwise, where would the saying, "That looks good enough to eat," come from?

[Stir-Fried Tomato and Eggs: Evaluation, A Level]

Su Chen wasn’t surprised to reach this level with such a simple home-style dish.

It was one of those dishes with a high floor. As long as you followed the steps and used the right seasonings, it was hard to make it taste bad.

But to take it to the next level...

Su Chen activated his White Jade Hand skill right there in the practice room.

It would be a waste not to use it today.

...

Su Chen barely slept all night, shuttling back and forth between his practice room and the real world.

Only when the sky began to lighten did he finally lie down on his bed, satisfied. He made sure to message each of his employees their daily tasks before turning off his phone.

「Delicious, Second Floor.」

Due to the renovations affecting business, breakfast service had been temporarily suspended. A "Temporarily Closed" sign was now hanging outside.

Zhang Heping, however, still woke up bright and early, just as he had for the past few days.

First, he checked up on the latest news from the chef’s tournament.

’Whoa, Liu Ahbao actually steamrolled the competition and entered the world tournament in first place?’

As he scrolled through clips of the competition on his phone, Zhang Heping grew more and more baffled.

’Wait a minute... Liu Ahbao is a Hubei Cuisine chef. Why is he competing in the finals with a Huaiyang Cuisine dish?’

In the video, the dish Liu Ahbao presented to the judges was a famous Huaiyang specialty: Clear-Broth Crab Roe Lion’s Head Meatballs.

After watching the entire video, Zhang Heping was lost in thought.

’Ah Bao definitely learned something from Boss Su. For his Clear-Broth Crab Roe Lion’s Head Meatballs to get perfect scores from all five judges, it must have been truly exceptional.’

What he didn’t know was...

Although Su Chen had only made the Lion’s Head Meatballs twice in the kitchen, Liu Ahbao had been watching him like a hawk every time.

Moreover, Su Chen had shared some key points with Liu Ahbao the first time he’d made it. Combined with his recent training on the second floor, Ah Bao now had a completely new understanding of the cooking skills ’stewing’ and ’boiling’.

It was no surprise that he could produce a Lion’s Head Meatball dish that ranked somewhere between A Level and S Level.

After watching the tournament video, Zhang Heping made himself a simple breakfast, then began preparing the ingredients for the evening’s food stall.

Just as he was slicing the beef, his phone buzzed.

’The boss?’

He checked the time—it was only five in the morning. Zhang Heping scratched his head, wondering if Boss Su was already awake or hadn’t even slept.

[Boss: Today, go buy 110 pounds of tomatoes, 110 pounds of eggs, and 22 pounds of green onions. Prep enough beef for 100 portions. After slicing, store it at negative five degrees Celsius.]

Whoa!

’Is the boss adding a new dish?’ Zhang Heping was suddenly fired up.

He had to admit, while he was busy at the food stall in the Botanical Garden the previous night, watching Su Chen cook had given him some new insights.

Adjusting the seasoning to each customer’s personal preference was no easy feat, but Boss Su managed it. He was essentially bringing high-end, customized cuisine to the masses—it was basically a public service.

That was why, in Zhang Heping’s mind, Su Chen wasn’t a traditional chef.

He preferred to call him a gourmet.

’Looks like the new dish is stir-fried tomato and eggs. Hmm... I’d better prepare extra rice for tonight.’

If you were to rate dishes on how well they go with rice, Stir-Fried Yellow Beef would be a Level 7 at best. But stir-fried tomato and eggs? That stuff was straight-up Max Level!

There was one thing Zhang Heping didn’t quite understand, however.

People rarely ordered stir-fried tomato and eggs when they ate out. Usually, the only ones who ordered it were people who were truly starving and just needed to fill their stomachs.