novelraw Chapter 355 - 267: Shocking Fish Balls, Addictive Rich Broth with One Bite
Chapter 355 - 267: Shocking Fish Balls, Addictive Rich Broth with One Bite
He guessed that the young man learning to make pastries might not be very skilled, otherwise he wouldn’t be out looking for work; it would be much better to stay where he’s learning.
He might have failed the assessment and been eliminated.
Suzhou-style pastries require extremely high skill, it’s difficult to pass on, passed down through generations, each shop only has one or two successors per generation, and nowadays so few young people are willing to learn.
Generally, highly skilled master chefs adhere to the principle of "better to have none than to have mediocre," they would rather sweep someone out the door than let an unskilled apprentice stay and work in the shop, to prevent damaging their own reputation.
But it’s not a big deal; it’s still better than him, who is a complete outsider.
He can make Western desserts, but he’s truly unfamiliar with Chinese pastries, limited to things like buns, dumplings, and noodles; he’s never made dessert-type pastries.
As for Old Chen, since he’s from a rural area, the place he worked at previously probably wasn’t a big hotel, most likely just a roadside diner or a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.
After going over the two’s possible resumes in his mind again, roughly listing a few possible job directions he could arrange, he stopped thinking about it and focused on the task at hand.
For now, it’s just his wild guesses; specifically, he’ll have to wait until the two arrive here to ask in detail before making a decision.
Anyway, at the beginning, they definitely can only assist, familiarizing themselves with the environment, plus neither speaks French, there’s not much else they can do besides helping in the kitchen.
...
Carrying four bags, Su hurried into the hotel elevator, watching the elevator doors close relieved her suspended heart finally into her stomach.
She thought she’d definitely be ogled for buying so much, or at the very least get weird looks, but it turned out she was overthinking.
The few diners who noticed her just glanced at the bags in her hand with a hint of surprise, then quickly withdrew their gaze.
"Strange, though there’s no purchase limit, aren’t these people a bit too calm? Does no one find it odd that I bought so much by myself?"
Su always felt something was off about this situation; a woman’s intuition never fails.
They limit purchases to hotel guests only, but don’t limit quantity?
Is there no one like her exploiting this loophole?
Or are they implicitly allowing this to happen?
"Ding"
The elevator made a crisp sound, and the doors slowly opened.
She cautiously stepped out halfway, scanning her gaze from side to side.
No one in the corridor!
Perfect!
Glancing at the sequence of room numbers on the opposite wall, she quickly walked to the right.
Seemingly hearing footsteps outside the door, as she just stood still, the door ’click’ quietly opened.
"Hurry in!"
Three pairs of eager eyes stared intently at the bags in her hands, impatiently starting to sniff, but could only barely catch an extremely faint scent.
Once she stepped inside, the bags in her hand were immediately divvied up by the three.
A glass coffee table moved in from the balcony sat on the central carpet, without chairs.
The four women sat down like that, scrambling to undo the bag latches, swallowing saliva as they went.
"Ah~ it smells so good, the closer you get the better it smells, what is this aroma, why can it smell so good?"
"Su, what flavors did you buy?"
"I don’t know which one’s good, so I had the head chef make all four flavors. They’re divided into four boxes: one without soup, and the other three are bone broth, spicy bone broth, and tomato soup."
Since she hadn’t tasted it, she couldn’t describe the taste, so she just recited the menu.
The boxes were opened one by one, the women quickly discerned which box had what flavor.
There happened to be four people present, each initially chose a flavor to eat, then swapped flavors to avoid fighting.
Su glanced at the contents of the four boxes, revealing surprise in her eyes.
"Oh my gosh, chef actually thoughtfully distributed the ingredients evenly, I thought they were just placed randomly!"
She had witnessed Lin Chen cooking ingredients, dumping an entire basket into the mesh bag, then soaking in the soup pot to cook.
Unexpectedly, the cooked ingredients were retrieved and meticulously portioned out for her.
At this thought, waves of apology surged in her heart.
To satisfy everyone’s appetites, she deliberately chose four portions of each ingredient, ensuring everyone could fairly taste all the ingredients.
This meant when Lin Chen packed, he had to individually select each ingredient from the mesh bag for separate packaging, greatly increasing his workload.
The head chef’s pot had twelve orders simultaneously cooking, each order possibly having subtle differences in flavor, and there were over a dozen orders piled up beside.
Under such busy circumstances, he could still find time to cater to possibly needed little details for the guests; this kind of thoughtful act truly moved her.
Lin shared this situation with her friends, and the three housewives were amazed by Lin Chen’s thoughtfulness.
If they were ordering individually at a restaurant now, this kind of considerate service would be normal; it’s the waiter’s job, and that’s how they earn tips.
But these meals came from a food truck, and fast food typically involves no service at all — aside from the food, everything else is up to the diners themselves.
It was unexpected for them to still receive such thoughtful service under these circumstances.
"Hey, since everyone helped with sorting, if we’re swapping plates, shouldn’t we avoid eating food that’s already been tasted?"
"Every person only gets one portion of each, right? Okay, got it."
"Why don’t we all start with the balls? There are so many types, they’re easy to mix up. Eat one less one, the vegetables are easier to remember."
Su took the initiative to pick up a spoon, and scooped up a white ball from the white bone broth in front of her.
"Let’s all eat the same thing, that way we won’t confuse. Everybody pick this white fish ball, they say it’s made of fish with meat filling in the center."
The other three admittedly don’t like to overthink, so since Su had proposed the plan, they simply followed her lead.
The fact that they could gather in a luxury hotel room enjoying such delicious food was all thanks to Su — listening to her couldn’t go wrong!
"This red soup looks so spicy, will it knock me out with heat? No way, I better have some ice water ready."
"Mine doesn’t have soup but looks red enough, it smells amazing though, with a very intense aroma, lucky I’ve got ice milk ready."
While these two rushed to the mini-fridge for drinks, Su and the other housewife couldn’t help themselves; the aroma from the boxes in front continuously teased their noses, making their mouths water.
"Ah~ Chomp!"
Swallowed the snow-white fish ball along with the creamy white bone broth.
Su didn’t have the chance to bite into the fish ball and savor its taste before the bone broth’s umami burst first in her mouth.
It was distinctly different from the gelatinous and flavorful pork bone broth in the Japanese ramen she had before. This bowl didn’t have the sticky gelatin texture — it was purely delicious and refreshing.
The smell of fat was present but subtle; without careful tasting, it would hardly be noticed, likely because it had been specially treated, skimming off excess fat.
Though she wasn’t much of a cook, she loved watching culinary shows, so her theoretical knowledge was quite abundant.
Especially when she tasted something delicious at a restaurant, she would go home and look for related recipe videos online.
Before moving to Dieppe, she worked with her boyfriend in Paris and had a phase of being crazy about Japanese ramen; it felt like a day was wasted without it.
Hence, she had quite an authority on broths simmered from bones like this.
Lin Chen’s simmered broth was full of flavor, with a distinct taste of bone broth, fragrant but not greasy, unlike the intense Japanese pork bone ramen broth that gets overwhelming after a few sips.
This broth felt like a spring breeze — gentle, neither hot nor cold; the feeling on her skin could be summed in two words.
Comfortable.
"Hmm?!!"
Before she could recover from the deliciousness of the broth, her wrist was suddenly grabbed.
"This fish ball is so good! I’ve never had such springy fish balls before, the meat filling in the center is oily and fragrant, perfectly complementing the mild fish ball, with the rich sweet aroma of tomato — simply perfect!"
"What, what?? You guys actually started eating!"
"Stop talking, my mouth is watering already!"
The two who went for the drinks hurriedly sat back down on the carpet, picking up plastic forks to search for the white fish balls.
With that said, Su rushed to bite open the fish ball in her mouth; indeed, the texture was exceptionally springy, as if made from fish meat blended with springs and minced.
Typically, the visible ones are made from salmon, similar to making beef balls — chopping up the fish meat, rolling into balls, and baking.
But due to the inherent texture of salmon, fish balls don’t have a great feel; the juices are lost, leaving them dry and hard, unpopular, not often made by restaurants, usually for salmon burgers.
Westerners don’t eat much fish, and restaurants often make it look like steak, called fish steaks, or fried fish.
These springy, juicy, non-fishy fish balls were the first-ever for them, sheer delight.
"Fish balls can be made this delicious, how good will the beef balls be?"
"Not just the balls, the broth is delicious too!"
Having tasted the flavor of the bone broth, Su was immediately infatuated with curiosity about the tomato soup.
Tomatoes are purely vegetarian, with no meat broth, theoretically impossible to achieve the deliciousness of bone broth.
But from the friends’ reaction, it seemed like they discovered a new world, sipping away nonstop.
She quickly used her spoon to scoop some of the orange-red tomato soup to taste what it was all about.
She initially thought it would taste like most vegetable soups in Western restaurants, but with the first sip, she realized she was terribly wrong.
Just one spoonful of tomato soup was so rich as if she drank juice squeezed from an entire tomato; the sweet aroma of tomato was concentrated to the extreme!