NOVPUBChapter 818 -817: Another Bowl! (4000+)
Chapter 818 -817: Another Bowl! (4000+)
At 4:47 PM, just thirteen minutes before the competition ended.
All contestants had entered the final phase of their presentation, those who hadn’t managed their time well were now stopped, pondering over the issue of plating. Jiang Feng’s almond dew was ready, and the preserved egg and lean pork congee was at the stage of adding the last couple of drops of sesame oil, to be stewed a bit longer.
It is worth mentioning that this time, Jiang Feng used a medium-sized clay pot instead of the extra-large one that was a signature of the Jiang Family.
The onlookers outside were already salivating eagerly.
Had it not been seen with one’s own eyes, it would be hard to imagine the scene—something even Xu Cheng was witnessing for the first time.
Soaked in the broth, each shark fin stood out brilliantly translucent and tender, as if dyed with the golden hues of the broth. Floating on the shark fins were large, enticingly oily chunks of mock crab roe made from salted duck egg yolk, while underneath lay the broth-soaked dried tofu, carrots, winter bamboo shoots, and shiitake mushrooms. A full serving of the shark fin with crab roe lay on the culinary workstation gleaming like a bowl of glistening gold, so eye-catching that it required no further adornment.
The three sets of duck one took out of the pot looked unprepossessing, with a large basin of clear duck soup in which a plump duck lay back up, feet in the air, its belly tied in a knot—and the only accompaniment was a few of the freshest, tender hearts of baby bok choy, which appeared modest indeed. But just one cut to open the duck’s belly would reveal the treasures hidden within, transforming modesty into understated luxury. 𝖓𝖔𝖛𝔭𝖚𝖇.𝔠𝖔𝔪
Not to mention the beef tower towering to eight centimeters, the high-calorie feast of lobster cooked with butter, fish stock, cream, crab roe, and cheese, the freshly stir-fried and still steaming hot deep-fried double crunch, the crab meat lion’s head looking as ornate and fat as a blooming flower, the white-robed shrimp flesh boasting the reputation of the opening dish of a state banquet, the texturally skilled Wensi tofu, and the vibrant array of white-case pastries from Taste House chefs and Zheng Siyuan’s production.
Even what appeared to be the most perfunctory dishes from Taifeng Building, prioritizing quantity over quality, such as the lobster baked in superior soup and Wenchang chicken, were quite good.
The aroma of the dishes had already wafted into everyone’s noses and into their hearts as well.
Han Youxin had already begun to swallow salvia without dignity.
At 5 PM, the competition ended.
The dishes of all seven groups of contestants were displayed on their respective culinary workstations.
All contestants looked at each other in confusion because they realized a very serious problem.
It seemed that there were no judges.
It’s not that they didn’t respect Peng Changping, Xu Cheng, and Han Guishan—those three were respectively the financier, the leading chef, and the top food critic, and they certainly had the qualifications to be judges, but…
They didn’t act as if they came to judge. Instead, they looked like they came purely for a free meal.
The competition had ended, yet the three of them still stood at a distance, watching from afar, showing no signs of approaching.
Everyone felt bewildered, and whispers began to spread.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please quiet down for a moment.” Just as everyone was discussing and began to express slight dissatisfaction and annoyance, a staff member finally came forward to take charge.
“Shit, who exactly are the judges today?” Chef Arno glanced over at Peng Changping in the distance, voicing his dissatisfaction.
The staff member who heard Chef Arno say “shit” involuntarily shuddered, but his professional training quickly restored his composure as he raised his voice to explain, “I will now announce the judging rules for the final scoring event of this competition.”
After the announcement in Chinese, an English interpreter repeated the statement for Chef Arno’s group in English.
“The evaluation method for this event will be exchange critique. Please, chefs, taste the dishes of the other six groups and rank them before 5:40 PM. Afterward, we will tally and analyze the rankings provided by each group and announce the final standings.”
A murmur ran through the crowd; no one had expected the final round of judging to be an exchange of critiques.
Chef Arno’s face turned dark at once; his beef tower certainly wasn’t enough for twenty-four people to share.
Forget twenty-four, sharing among six would already be a challenge.
Watching the reactions of the chefs on stage, Han Guishan expressed regret, “Actually, the program should have announced the swap critique from the beginning—it might have made the chefs prepare larger portions. It’s just that I don’t know whether we’ll be able to taste anything after the self-evaluation is over.”
“It wouldn’t have been fun if we had announced the exchange critique at the start, don’t worry, not everyone will get to taste,” Xu Cheng laughed.
Xu Cheng was not wrong—upon the program team revealing the rules for this critique being an exchange critique, all groups started discussions, each sending just one or two chefs to taste the other teams’ dishes.
Choosing this method came as a complete surprise to everyone; ordinarily, a culinary competition’s panel consists of three to six judges, and having six is already considered quite a lot. Although this competition had a lengthy duration, everyone had spent this extensive time on the preliminary preparations, such as making high-quality broth, soaking, and marinating ingredients, with each team from Taifeng Building producing only a small quantity.
Taifeng Building was only concerned with filling people up—with porridge, that is.
The medium-sized clay pots yielded no small amount of porridge.
The limited quantity meant it was impossible for everyone to taste the dishes, and with different personal tastes, as the saying goes, ‘to each their own’. If a dispute over rankings arose among team members, it would be difficult to determine the overall standing. Having each team send one or two representatives, the strongest, to do the Food Testing was sufficient.
Quickly, everyone reached a consensus; each team would appoint one person to taste—to select the best among them.
Taifeng Building’s representative was Sun Maochai, leaving Jiang Feng to watch with a hint of regret as he eyed the dishes he wanted to try.
He wanted to taste the beef tartare tower, the crab roe shark fin, and the triple duck set, though he had little hope for the beef tartare tower. He figured he still had a chance to try the crab roe shark fin and the triple duck set.
The seven chosen chefs, under everyone’s watchful eyes, began circling around for the food tasting. The cameraman could only carry his camera, silently swallowing his saliva as he followed behind to film.
Because the cameraman was filming nearby, everyone’s facial expressions were restrained. The only exception was Chef Arno, who couldn’t help being himself—in essence, with every bite, every pore on his body seemed to be shouting loudly—
“Is that it?”
“Garbage!”
“None of it tastes as good as mine!”
Even when tasting the triple duck set and the crab roe shark fin, Chef Arno was more or less in the same state.
That was until he stopped in front of Taifeng Building’s culinary station.
For some reason, every chef was deliberately avoiding Taifeng Building’s culinary station. Clearly positioned in the center, Taifeng’s station was unavoidable no matter the path taken. Yet, as though following a silent agreement, no one passed by—choosing instead to make detours, even if it meant going out of their way to Huaiyang Building’s station over passing by Taifeng’s.
Chef Arno was the first to stop in front of Taifeng Building’s culinary station.
He was the quickest to sample dishes, typically taking a bite and moving on after just two seconds, without savoring the flavors. While other chefs were still on their third or fourth restaurant, Chef Arno had already tasted from five.
Chef Arno approached Jiang Feng and the two locked eyes.
With confidence and composure, Jiang Feng gestured for him to proceed, clearly confident in his offerings.
Wu Minqi and Sun Jikai stood behind, watching eagerly like spectators.
Chef Arno glanced at the dishes on the table. Compared to the other restaurants’ signature dishes, Taifeng Building’s offerings could only be considered everyday home cooking, with the exception of the two meat dishes by Sun Maochai; the rest really were just simple home-cooked dishes.
Four Gods Soup, fish-fragrant eggplant, almond pudding, and preserved egg and pork congee—these were the epitome of common home-cooked dishes.
To Chef Arno, Wu Minqi and Sun Jikai’s culinary skills were only at the level of preparing home-cooked meals.
Chef Arno picked up his chopsticks disdainfully and began eating. The more he ate, the more disdainful he became, his face full of contempt, which didn’t fully fade even when tasting the lobster baked in superior soup and Wenchang chicken.
Jiang Feng always felt that Chef Arno was holding back some sarcastic, sharp, and scornful words, simply because he hadn’t finished eating yet.
“What’s this?” Chef Arno pointed to the still-covered clay pot and asked in Chinese.
“Preserved egg and pork congee,” replied Jiang Feng, as he lifted the lid of the clay pot.
Instantly, the fragrance of the preserved egg and pork congee burst forth from the pot.
Yes, it exploded, not wafted—as if a bomb made of preserved egg and pork congee detonated within the venue, its aroma stoked by sesame oil and sweeping across the entire area the moment Jiang Feng lifted the lid, overpowering the scents of all other dishes.
If the earlier competition scene was a flourishing display of diverse cuisines competing for attention, the scene now was dominated exclusively by the preserved egg and pork congee.
Master Xu ate the Three-Set Duck, yet the scent he detected was that of century egg and lean pork congee, to the extent that he even tasted the congee while eating the Three-Set Duck.
Everyone was astonished, including Jiang Feng.
He knew that after the congee was ready, adding a few drops of sesame oil and covering it to let it steam would better bring out the fragrance of the century egg and lean pork congee. He hadn’t expected this time to be so over the top; it was as if special effects had been added.
Ever since the century egg and lean pork congee was ready, Jiang Feng had been totally confident.
Even though the dishes made by others were crab roe shark’s fin, Three-Set Duck, Wensi tofu, oil blast double crunch, and beef tower, he remained entirely confident.
Because he had seen the rating the game gave to today’s century egg and lean pork congee.
[A Perfect Century Egg and Lean Pork Congee]
Perfect.
The game never used such definitive ratings for dishes not in the cookbook, preferring to use ambiguous terms like “taste is passable,” “taste is superb,” or “approaches perfection,” which made it hard to determine the actual level of the dish, and then pointed out detailed improvements, telling you the dish was actually full of flaws and needed refinement.
The fluctuation in these ratings was actually quite significant.
Take “approaches perfection,” for example. Jiang Feng found that the range for this rating should be from B+ to S, a broad and confusing spectrum, since he had never before created a dish that was rated as perfect.
Sometimes when he felt a dish should have reached S grade, the game’s rating would still be “approaches perfection,” only the conditions for improvement were stricter and harder to achieve.
This made Jiang Feng doubt whether “perfect” was something only achievable at S+ grade, or whether there was even such a rating as “perfect,” because he could hardly imagine what a perfect dish would be like.
How could there be a perfect dish in this world?
That was, until ten minutes ago, the game told him, yes, there are perfect dishes in this world.
A perfect century egg and lean pork congee.
It was these two words, “perfect,” that gave Jiang Feng his confidence.
Chef Arno was dumbfounded. He stared at the century egg and lean pork congee in front of him, speechless for a long time. His overly forceful breathing revealed his inner turmoil.
Chef Arno felt that the century egg and lean pork congee in front of him was overturning his culinary beliefs.
Although he was an American through and through, he had tasted congee before, naturally including the benchmark of savory congees, century egg, and lean pork congee.
But how could the congee in front of him possibly be century egg and lean pork congee?!
Or to put it another way, how could century egg and lean pork congee possibly be cooked in this manner!
This is unscientific!!!
Of course, this was unscientific. Dishes at S grade or even S+ grade were rare, but that didn’t mean no one could make them. Chef Arno could do it, Peng Changping could do it, and other master chefs with exquisite culinary skills could achieve it when making their signature dishes.
Beef, lamb, pork, sea cucumber, shark’s fin, abalone – it might be easy to cook these ingredients to S+ grade, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to make S+ grade congee.
To some extent, the quality and quantity of a dish’s raw materials can play a decisive role in its deliciousness. The more abundant and fresh the ingredients, the higher the probability that the final product will taste delicious.
The chances of making a perfect century egg and lean pork congee with ordinary century eggs, quality lean meat, and top-grade rice are practically zero.
Only someone like Jiang Feng, who had an exceptional talent for porridge, good intuition, and had apparently hacked the system, could take on such an impossible challenge.
You’ve tasted S+ grade braised shark’s fin, but have you ever had S+ grade century egg and lean pork congee?
Jiang Feng’s perfect century egg and lean pork congee could justifiably be said to redefine one’s entire perspective on congee.
It redefined century egg and lean pork congee.
If Jiang Feng had not prepared the dish alongside everyone else, with all the ingredients taken from the same place, Chef Arno would have almost suspected Jiang Feng of adding some new kind of food additive or chemical product, maybe even hallucinogens, to the congee, causing him to have an illusion.
He had never seen century egg and lean pork congee like this before.
This congee, just by smelling it, without even tasting it, awakens an insatiable appetite, ignites the most primal desire for food, and makes one’s stomach burn and cry out that it could drink ten bowls, no matter how much there was, it could take it all in.
At that moment, Chef Arno wanted to shout to his stomach, “Shit, shut up and show some dignity.”
But he couldn’t do that, for he truly wanted to taste the congee in front of him.
He wanted to taste it like never before.
Jiang Feng was ladling the congee for Chef Arno.
To say something a bit embarrassing, when he was ladling out the congee, his thought was not to hand it to Chef Arno but to scoop up a mouthful for himself first.
How does the saying go? Your cooking exceeds your imagination.
The allure of the perfect century egg and lean pork congee indeed exceeded Jiang Feng’s expectations.
Still, he abided by his principles and handed the first bowl of congee to Chef Arno.
A generous half-bowl of congee, freshly made, steaming hot, with small pieces of century egg and smooth diced lean pork interspersed, the rice grains thick and just right, aromatic and enticing.
Besides potentially being a bit too hot, one could hardly find any faults with this bowl of century egg and lean pork congee.
Even the cuts of century egg and lean pork appeared to be done so well.
Don’t ask why the cuts of cooked century egg and lean pork can still be appreciated for their precision—just accept that not only can the eyes see it, but the nose and tongue can tell too.
Chef Arno couldn’t wait and took a sip.
Everyone was watching him.
“Shit!”
The crowd: ???
Chef Arno: It’s scalding!
Having learned his lesson from the first scalding sip, Chef Arno learned to blow on his congee before drinking—a common-sense technique even kindergarteners know—and quickly emptied the bowl.
Everyone was still watching him, waiting for his verdict.
Chef Arno stared at the bowl, lost in thought, as if savoring the taste.
Eventually, his lips moved.
“Shit!”
“Another bowl, please!”
Jiang Feng: ???
?????
