Chapter 9

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation

Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

Chapter 5

The old man couldn’t help releasing the arms around him.

After thirty minutes, Xia Yu took away the wet cloth that covered dough. He had a sharp steel knife in his hand and cut the dough into strips and then sprinkled oil over the noodle and added a bit of starch. He started to stretch the noodles.

It was not easy for a newbie to stretch ramen, especially when they want to get very thin ramen. That was even harder. But Xia Yu’s action made the old man and Shinhara Masato open their eyes widely.

Every strip became thin noodles as he shook his hands easily. Noodles were flying in the air and each strip looked even, soft, and thin.

Bang, bang, bang…

Xia Yu placed three big bowls on the kitchen counter and used the sieve spoon to get the noodles. Xia Yu also found an empty basin to fill with hot water. He put the bunch of noodles inside the hot water and after a few seconds, he took them out and separated them into three big bowls.

After that, he opened the lid of pressure cooker. He got a spoon of soup for each bowl. In a blink, three bowls of hot ramen appeared in front of kitchen counter.

Xia Yu then took out the beef slices from saucepan and distributed them into three bowls. He also added some spring onions.

“Done!” Xia Yu took off the apron and didn’t pay much attention to the ramen he just cooked. But he focused on the reminder of Chef God System:

System: “Mirror Crystal consumption completed. You have mastered the new recipe. Chef experience improved.”

Huh…

He rushed to open his personal panel. Xia Yu found Xia’s Beef Ramen in the recipe column.

If he completed the initial task, he could also get the second recipe: Magical Mapo Tofu.

Xia’s Beef Ramen was a green recipe and Magical Mapo Tofu was blue. Did the color represent the quality of the recipes?

Xia Yu’s heart was full of doubt.

Good recipes could make good food, but they also depended on the cooking skills. If you gave the best recipe and foodstuff to a rookie, he would still make food that wasn’t even edible.

In Xia Yu’s opinion, recipes could only provide direction or guidance. What brought it into play were personal cooking skills.

“But what does the quality of recipe mean?” Xia Yu asked the system.

“Green recipes are normal, and it means the best quality the dish can get is normal. Blue recipes are rare. If you cook well, you have chance to get glowing dish,” the system answered.

Glowing dish!

The Tongue of God in ‘Little Chinese Master Chef’ seemed quite ordinary to Xia Yu now.

If you watched ‘Little Chinese Master Chef’, it was easy to find out the truth about cooking: any dish without glowing was not a good dish.

It really worked here in this parallel space? Xia Yu couldn’t help thinking.

“Is this the beef ramen you cooked?”

Someone made a sound behind Xia Yu. Xia Yu turned around and it was the middle-aged Shinhara Masato entering the kitchen. Xia Yu opened his mouth and shrugged when he saw the old man let Shinhara Masato enter the kitchen without any interruption. 

“Yes, please enjoy!”

Xia Yu took three bowls of ramen to the front counter carefully.

Shinhara Masato then sat back where he originally sat. Xia Yu took an empty bowl away and put the hot ramen in front of him then turned around and entered the kitchen.

Shinhara Masato was stunned at his seat. He never thought that Xia Yu would just leave like that.

As a rookie chef, why didn’t he want to hear other’s opinion on his dish? Unless… he was very confident about his dish!

Harboring doubt in his eyes, Shinhara Masato sniffed rich soup flavor and beef smell. He felt that his stomach fluttered, and he couldn’t help mumbling: “What a familiar feeling.”

“Why does it smell like the ramen I had before?”

He lowered his head and took a sip from the bowl and his face looked satisfied. His stomach wanted more and without any thought, he used chopsticks to bring ramen to his mouth. 

It was a bit hot. Shinhara Masato chewed and his eyes were wide open.

The flexibility and texture of these noodles were wonderful!

He couldn’t stop eating since the first bite. Shinhara Masato just devoured half of the bowl in a short moment. Someone reminded him: “You can try the soup. It is where the essence of Xia’s Beef Ramen is found.”

The voice was a bit old and with exclamation.

Shinhara Masato lifted his head up suddenly and the old man just stood next to him. There was an empty bowl in front of him. As the old man had finished off the whole bowl of ramen, even soup was not left.

“Soup?” Shinhara Masato just realized that eating too fast might miss the essence of this dish. He put down chopsticks and took a small spoon and fed himself a spoon of soup.

When the soup entered his mouth, Shinhara Masato felt his whole body become comfortable, as if he just had a bath in a spring and a secret warm liquid was washing his skin.

“Bull bone…”

“Sichuan pepper, keiko, tsaoko, ginger skin…”

“Wait, except bull bone, there’s the taste of ox liver? A bit of chicken soup… umm, carrot slices? To get rid of oil so the soup can look brighter?”

He talked to himself while closing his eyes. Shinhara Masato opened his eyes after a while and saw the other half bowl of the beef ramen, then he looked at the speechless old man next to him.

“Boss Xia, your grandson is really a great chef?” Shinhara Masato looked disbelieving.

From the taste and texture, this bowl of ramen had surpassed the other bowl he had half an hour ago.

Both were beef ramen. One was made by grandpa, the other was made by grandson. According to the level of culinary, the latter was far inferior to the former. The most direct embodiment of culinary was dishes.

However, the two bowls of beef ramen broke the common sense of Shinhara. 

What was more, he was very aware of the old man’s culinary, so he felt even more incredulous.

“Not a good chef.” The old man’s face was paralyzed, making it hard to see what he thought. “…Not even a chef. To be honest, as his grandpa, this is also my first time eating his dish.”

The old man glanced at the big empty bowl on the table and thought to himself.

“You are very lucky, Mr. Shinhara.”

“Lucky?”

“Right. Such great dishes, aren’t you lucky?” The old man smiled with eyes closed.

Shinhara Masato felt cold suddenly and nodded. “Lucky, very lucky.”

Xia Yu was cleaning the dishes in the back kitchen. He did not pay attention to the conversation in the store. 

Ding.

He completed the initial task of the Chef God System. With a system reminder, the Magic Mapo Tofu recipe appeared in the item column space. 

“Learn!”

Xia Yu used the recipe; a stream of information flew into his head. His eyes became empty for a few seconds and then recovered. 

“Soybeans, soup, tofu, pepper, pepper, minced garlic…”

He recited the materials that were needed for the recipe. The detailed cooking steps seemed to be repeated in his mind automatically. Xia Yu was eager to try.