Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 301 - 213: Frenzied Stockpiling, Endless Crawfish to Peel

Such an excellent employee, why didn’t he discover him sooner?

If he had discovered his hidden talents a few years earlier, maybe there would be seven or eight branches of God’s Kiss by now, and achieving Michelin stars wouldn’t be a problem.

Although Chinese cuisine is delicious, integrating its elements into Western cuisine is no easy task, as they are two completely different cooking systems.

While pondering how to merge the two, he immersed himself in slurping down a bowl of instant noodles.

The rich crawfish sauce and garlic fully coat each strand of noodle, and the sweetness of the garlic perfectly balances out the spiciness and numbness, with the noodles cooked to a perfect elasticity.

Adding a full serving of tender fish slices brings the aroma of scallion oil and pickled mustard greens into the mouth, colliding and intertwining with the crawfish noodles to form a brand-new composite flavor profile.

"Crunch."

While chewing, he bit into something very crisp; it was strips of beef stomach, called... Oh yes, thousand-layer tripe!

This thing also absorbs the soup incredibly well, with each piece covered in spicy, fragrant red oil, offering an average level of spice but abundant aroma when eaten.

In no time, several large dishes were quickly devoured by everyone, and even the rice was cleared, leaving everyone with round, satisfied bellies, leaning back in their chairs with happy expressions.

"If I could eat such a dinner every day, I’d be willing to work overtime every day~"

"Hey, that’s easy; you can start working overtime tomorrow, and we’ll eat crawfish until we’re sick of it."

John chuckled, "After tasting this, I can guarantee your business will be booming tomorrow; two to three hundred kilograms won’t be enough to sell, I alone can easily devour seven to eight kilograms and then mix it with some noodles."

"Indeed," Chef Marchello nodded in agreement, "Although the weight sounds considerable, the actual meat yield is pitifully low; with five kilograms of crawfish, getting one kilogram of meat can be a challenge, and big-eating men will definitely find it insufficient."

"However, I believe most customers haven’t eaten crawfish before and aren’t aware of the meat volume, so initially it won’t be very busy; once they’ve tried it, the order volume should significantly increase."

"That’s why we add noodles and cucumbers," Lin Chen said with a mysterious smile.

Everyone was stunned, then suddenly realized, and laughed together.

"Wow, Lin, you’re too sly!"

"How is this sly? This is wisdom! Do you want to peel crawfish until your hands cramp tomorrow?"

"I thought mixing the sauce with noodles was simply to avoid wasting such delicious sauce."

"If that’s the case, not only can it save a lot on costs and labor, but also make more profits, while satisfying diners’ appetites. Impressive, impressive, are Great Xia People naturally good at business?"

Marchello did some mental math.

If one were to eat crawfish to fullness, a big-eating man would need four kilograms, but adding half a bowl of noodles allows the crawfish portion to be halved, and visually it doesn’t seem lacking.

The most important thing is using this crawfish sauce to mix with noodles is absolutely delicious; even someone at his chef level didn’t realize it was a commercial trap, ordinary diners surely wouldn’t notice any issue.

The same selling price, but the cost is halved, equivalent to doubling the final income — what else could this be but sheer profit?

"That’s true."

Nagishiro Sho wasn’t surprised at all, as fellow Easterners, Sakura cuisine also uses tofu, radish, potato, and other hearty ingredients to trick diners.

As long as it’s delicious, there’s no problem.

"We’ve already experienced the crawfish; that’s Mr. Lin’s responsibility for tomorrow. What about the Teppanyaki ingredients I’m responsible for?"

"Oh my God, can’t you East Asian people stop talking about work? Can’t you take a break?"

Chef Marchello felt exasperated, after so many years of work, he was experiencing exhaustion for the first time.

"Mr. Nagishiro’s ingredients haven’t arrived yet, so there’s no hurry; the truck is on its way."

Lin Chen gestured for him to calm down, while scanning the faces of the others: "We have two proposals now, let’s vote and see which one to go with."

"Plan A: Wait in the restaurant for the truck to arrive, then start preparing tomorrow’s ingredients, some prepared in the evening and some in the morning, with the remainder prepared during business."

"Plan B: Go home now, freshen up and rest, and prepare food two hours earlier in the morning."

"I choose B." Chef Marchello raised his hand without hesitation, closely followed by Jonathan.

Nagishiro Sho hesitated for a few seconds before choosing the latter, given today’s long hours had left him physically and mentally drained; rest seemed more important.

With the three head chefs expressing their opinions, the remaining servers had no choice but to follow suit.

Everyone helped clean the tables and dishes, and mopped the restaurant floor twice.

During cleaning, Shunfu’s truck arrived, and everyone helped move the ingredients into the cold storage.

Checking the ingredient list was completed together by Chef Marchello and Nagishiro Sho; although tonight they decided to rest first, they were still curious about tomorrow’s menu.

Once they saw the ingredient list, they’d have a rough idea.

"Watermelon, mango, strawberry, lychee, yangmei? Wait, what’s yangmei? I don’t remember hearing about it."

"Yangmei?"

Nagishiro Sho was also puzzled when he heard the name. After rummaging through several boxes of fruit for quite a while, he finally found a box of round, purplish-red fruit.

"So this is it. I’ve never seen fresh ones before. I didn’t expect it to be available here."

The Sakura Country has introduced yangmei cultivation but hasn’t promoted it much. The target audience is mostly Chinese people. Usually, only frozen yangmei is sold in Sakura Country supermarkets, along with some yangmei products like yangmei wine and yangmei juice.

"Is this an East Asian fruit?"

"Pretty much, I guess it belongs to Great Xia? I’m not too sure, but it tastes good, sort of sweet and sour. It’s very refreshing when chilled and juiced."

The two of them didn’t mind. They picked up two yangmei fruit from the box and popped them into their mouths, chewing and nodding.

"Mm-hmm. So that’s the taste, quite interesting."

"Chilled fresh yangmei is definitely tastier than frozen ones. This fruit would be great for icy treats. If it sells well, we might consider introducing it."

Apart from fruits, there were also many fresh milk, yogurt, and various vegetables and meats.

According to the delivery guy, this is only half the quantity. There will be another delivery tomorrow morning.

The originally empty cold storage is now completely filled, yet it’s only half the quantity?

The crayfish John delivered didn’t have any place to go. Some were kept in the kitchen sink, while others were stacked with their boxes in the cold storage aisle.

After being busy, everyone dragged their tired bodies toward the hotel.

"Huh?"

As they walked, Lin Chen suddenly remembered something and looked around puzzled but didn’t see any familiar faces.

"Yesterday, I invited Yuqi’s little brother and the others for dinner. I completely forgot. It seems they didn’t come? Maybe they had other plans."

After all, they’re big stars, so being busy is normal. He didn’t think much of it and went straight back to the hotel to wash up and rest.

It wasn’t too late at the time, only a little past nine. After a busy day, everyone quickly fell into a sweet slumber once they hit the bed.

The next day, at five in the morning, the sun had just risen from the sea level. Everyone arrived at the restaurant as agreed.

After eight hours of sufficient sleep, everyone’s complexion looked much better than last night.

Including Lin Chen, only four head chefs showed no obvious change. After all, this was their everyday work and intensity, so they were already used to it.

First, they arranged for four girls to wash and pick vegetables. The head chefs followed Lin Chen to handle various meats, which was also their first real hands-on practice of Great Xia’s meat curing technique. Their faces were filled with anticipation.

"Everyone must be familiar with kebabs, especially Mr. Nagishiro, so there’s no need to introduce them more. I’ll directly demonstrate the shapes and curing techniques of various meats."

"Today’s meat preparation includes beef skewers, beef fat skewers, beef tendon skewers, chicken tender skewers, pork tender skewers, squid tentacle skewers, squid strip skewers, and large squid skewers..."

The three were all seasoned chefs, so he didn’t need to explain or demonstrate much. Each type of meat needed only a couple of slices for them to take over the work.

There’s no hurry for curing; the priority was to cut the meat into the right shapes first.

According to Western restaurant hygiene requirements, each color of chopping board must correspond to different food types, so they also consciously handled all the same types of meat without mixing them.

Those cutting beef only cut beef, those cutting seafood only cut seafood, those cutting chicken only cut chicken...

Lin Chen also needed to prepare the dough for knife-cut noodles, which was a huge task. Even with a dough machine to help, it was quite challenging for one person to handle dozens of kilograms’ weight, so Lucas had to assist.

The girls were assigned to handle vegetables and fruits, which wasn’t difficult but simply time-consuming.

After finishing all the kebabs and ice treat ingredients, it was time for today’s main task.

Cleaning and handling the crayfish.

Looking at the pools filled to the brim and the piles of crayfish in the cold storage, everyone inwardly groaned but could only brace themselves, put on gloves, and get to work.

Meanwhile, Shunfu’s cold chain vehicle and Boss John came again for delivery, casting sympathetic glances at the busy restaurant scene.

The delivery guy didn’t rush to leave as this was the only place for him to deliver, so he took the opportunity to chat.

After asking around, he found out that the little guy, who looks like a mini lobster, is actually not seafood but freshwater and not available in the market.

"How does it taste compared to lobster? Is it tasty?"

"Absolutely tastier than lobster!"

Lucas blurted out without hesitation, "Lobster meat is too thick and lacks flavor when cooked. This meat is smaller, absorbs the taste well, and is perfect as a snack with drinks. Yesterday, we even mixed the leftover sauce with noodles!"