Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 292 - 204: I Don’t Want to See This Stuff Again for the Rest of the Year

"My sadness can only be understood by those who love eating meat!"

Saying this, Cam stuffed his mouth with a handful of fries, chewing fiercely, as if he was eating something meat-like instead of fries.

"I see." The man thoughtfully stroked his chin, his gaze falling on the few bags left in his hand, "Since you are so eager to eat meat, you probably don’t like these sweet things. How about selling them to me?"

"?!"

Cam immediately hid the bags he was holding behind his back, showing a vigilant expression: "Not selling, dude, if you want to eat, queue up yourself. These are appetizers before my main course!"

Just kidding, apart from croquettes and fries, there’s hardly anything filling, and two of them are fruit, which can be digested very quickly.

Do I look like someone who’s short on money?

How can you think so beautifully!

To prove he also likes sweets, he took out the box of banana chocolate ice cream crepe that was already starting to melt from the bag, stacking two together and stuffing them into his mouth simultaneously.

He left a small section exposed outside, letting the melting ice cream trickle down the crepe along the corner of his mouth.

The expression of the person behind him subtly changed, rolling his eyes big and speechlessly.

If you don’t want to sell, then don’t sell, but do you have to eat like this?

Anyone who doesn’t know might think you’ve never had a crepe before!

"So it’s ice cream crepe, it’s delicious, indeed, the only downside is that it gets really messy when eating it, so maybe I’ll skip buying it, thanks for the heads-up, bro!"

As they were currently near the end of the queue, many newcomers initially wandered around like headless flies, not knowing which stall to queue for. Seeing the food they were enjoying, they quickly made their own judgments.

"Both sides sell sweets, huh, I’ll queue randomly then, I’ll choose the crepe side."

"That meat sauce cheese fries look pretty good, I’ll queue on the left."

"Aren’t these candied haws? They’re quite popular in Paris."

"Does anyone know what this middle stall is selling?"

"Seems like it’s Chinese-style fried chicken fillet. Over there, the ones eating with bamboo skewers are. There’s also whole octopus balls and beef-flavored Soka."

"Sounds good, I’ll queue at the middle one, no wonder even the female celebrities are queuing there."

While the food vendors were bustling with activity in the food area, Wang Ziqin had already left the stage and returned to a temporary cabin nearby to enjoy the air conditioning.

Chu Yueyue was also here, having bought many snacks ahead of time, enjoying them beautifully with a cup of iced cola beside her.

Wang Ziqin glared at her playfully, "You’re almost about to become a mom, yet you’re not controlling yourself. How can you still drink iced cola? These chicken fillets aren’t spicy, are they?"

"Mind your own business!"

Chu Yueyue glared back with raised eyebrows, "The doctor said it’s okay to indulge occasionally, just control it before giving birth. You have too much to say!"

"I’m telling you not to mess with me, dude, my emotions are incredibly unstable now. If you provoke me, it’ll be your own bad luck."

Wang Ziqin shrank his neck, pursed his lips tightly, afraid that a big slap would land on him the next second.

He didn’t dare touch the food on the table either, fearing he might accidentally take something his wife wanted and upset her.

"Ah, married men are really miserable, working like a servant outside, and being a slave at home..."

He shook his head, voicing his complaints only in his heart, while taking a sip of iced cola to wet his throat.

"Honey, the kite festival is starting this afternoon. Want me to get you a kite to play with? The wind is pretty strong today, probably just walking can get it up in the air."

"Not playing, just watching is fine, for fun. It’s so hot during the afternoon, might as well blow the air conditioner and take a nap in the room to feel comfortable."

"That works too, since there’s nothing for me to handle later. Why don’t we go to the villa? The view there is wide, you can see the event area, plus there are umbrellas and a swimming pool."

"Villa?" Chu Yueyue blinked, suddenly realizing, "I would’ve forgotten if you didn’t mention it. We have a house but are staying in a hotel? Better to have an extra room rented out. Hurry, have someone refund the room now!"

"...You’re such a miser, totally immersed in money!"

"Mind your own business!"

While they bantered, two short figures mixed in the crowd outside, occasionally glancing over.

"We’ve collected enough information, when shall we act?"

"No rush, wait for the right moment. There are too many people now, plus they have cameras in the hotel and drivers to bother them when they go out."

"But no worries, they’ll be alone eventually, keep an eye on them!"

Busy times always fly by.

Over at Lin Chen’s place, he’d just finished off the chicken breasts sent from the farm when Shunfu’s delivery truck arrived precisely on time, even ahead by ten minutes, so he continued chopping and frying chicken fillets nonstop.

Until his wrist started to cramp and numb, and his thumb harbored a faint pain from grinding, did the queue finally reduce by more than half.

"Dais, how many servings of Chicken Fillet have we sold so far?"

He’s still working on the chicken breast beside him, the work in the kitchen is just like this, it can’t stop. Once you stop, the accumulated fatigue will surge like a tide, making it difficult to start working again, at least mentally there will be significant resistance.

Dais glanced at the time, before she knew it, it was already past two in the afternoon, they had been operating for more than three hours.

Originally, they should have been receiving cash, but fortunately, he had the foresight to drive the food truck over in advance, so they could utilize the food truck’s cashier system and POS machine for statistics.

Let Elsa help with greeting customers, Dais jogged back to the food truck, pulled up the backend data, and took a quick look.

"Chef, we’ve already sold over eleven hundred servings of Chicken Fillet, about four hundred servings of takoyaki, and Soka is also over four hundred servings."

She didn’t mention the profit amount behind, it’s not suitable to shout out in front of so many people, just knowing it yourself is enough.

Just from these sales, you can roughly estimate the current turnover.

The Chicken Fillet alone has sold for nearly six thousand euros, the other two combined are also about close to six thousand, the total has exceeded ten thousand.

If they sell out the remaining stock, the total turnover should be close to the twenty thousand mark.

He’s been doing stalls for so long, and this is the first time he’s gone all out like this, tired as he is, the rewards are still worth it.

If it weren’t for finally making it to the position of Chef, he would even consider quitting.

With this income, why bother working? A half-day stall is enough to earn two months working.

But he can only think about it, at least until his mom recovers, he still needs to keep this job.

His mom is a typical Great Xia parent, especially since his family conditions were poor when he was a child, she suffered a lot and worked many part-time jobs, just hoping he could have a stable job and not suffer outside.

Money or no money, as long as he can support himself, it’s enough.

Now suddenly making such a large sum of money, his mom will definitely be suspicious.

Can’t hide it, can only delay, so he hasn’t called his mom in recent weeks, afraid she would ask where the money came from.

With a legitimate job and a promotion and raise, using spare time to earn extra from stalls, even if his mom finds out, at most she’ll just nag for a bit, feeling sorry for him.

If he were to quit and do stalls full-time, he’s really afraid his mom would get upset and develop new ailments.

In his mom’s eyes, stability is above all else, no matter how much money you make in a day, it can’t compare to earning a stable salary.

She often says, ’Even if you make money today, can you guarantee you’ll make money tomorrow and the day after?’.

Communicating with parents with such old-fashioned views is useless, you have to prove practically that you can do it, only by throwing money at their face can you shut them up.

Once you can take out thirty years’ worth of stable salary at once, there should be no more to say, right?

The most important thing is, in this day and age, there’s no such thing as a stable job, except for iron rice bowls, but even those are just like that, outsiders are breaking their heads to get in, while many insiders regret and want to leave, because life is really hard to endure.

Stable is stable, but aside from stability, there’s nothing to gain, the rest of your life’s path is predictable at a glance.

He, anyway, doesn’t like such boring days, getting rich with your own hands is much more interesting.

He turned to look beside him, Lucas and Elsa visibly tired.

The two have never worked in the kitchen, they can’t imagine this kind of nonstop labor, working for over three hours straight, their backs almost unable to straighten.

Lucas used to help when Lin Chen had his stalls, but that was merely making some ice powder, settling accounts, no real work intensity.

Until today, he deeply experienced just how exhausting working in the kitchen is.

Just a beef scallion Soka alone, he doesn’t remember how many times he’s made it, nor how much longer he has to keep doing it, he can only grit his teeth and keep doing, like a robot.

"Old Lin, what are we selling tomorrow, surely not this again? I feel like I don’t want to see this thing again for the rest of the year."

"Tomorrow? We’ll talk in the evening~"

Lin Chen glanced at Chef Marchello and Chef Nagishiro Sho beside him, the two remain as they were at the beginning, only slight fatigue can be discerned from their expressions.

Even Chef Marchello, who proposed the challenge, likely didn’t expect this self-run food festival would attract so many tourists, originally, if they just made one kind of food, the workload would be much lighter.

Now this way, it’s purely self-inflicted pain.

Luckily, there are a few employees to help, or they’d really be overwhelmed.

"Look, it’s kites!"

Elsa, who’d been bowing her head, stretched herself, wanting to relieve her stiff body, suddenly spotted more than a dozen kites of varying shapes floating in the azure sky.

Below these kites, many different colored kites are flying, gradually ascending into the sky.

Blue sky, white clouds, multicolored various kites drifting in the sea breeze, while the ear is filled with the waves crashing against the rocks.

Finally, there is a bit of kite festival atmosphere.