Chapter 15

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation

Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

Xia Yu was stunned and joked, “Are you demeaning me or praising me?”

He had prepared for the poison tongue of Azumi Erina, so he did not think she meant anything. Instead, he was very concerned about some words. 

It would be a must-try dish. 

This was the chassis cuisine that could only be possessed by the top ten, or close to the level of the top ten. It was usually displayed in the competition or important scenes of Food Wars.

‘Magic Mapo Tofu’ had the potential to become a must-try dish?

Before that, Xia Yu was full of doubts.

However, when he saw the Togetsu commander’s ‘cloth burst’, as well as the praising words from the Tongue of God, Xia Yu felt that when he cooked the glowing Magic Mapo Tofu one day, it was a metaphor that he had mastered a must-try dish. 

Xia Yu secretly remembered the key cooking points that Rina pointed out to him, and his hands were itching.

As Rina said, his mediocre culinary skills – oh, not even a chef, an apprentice – must have defects in basic skills. He was afraid that was why the system did not give him higher score. 

Details, basic skills…

Xia Yu could not help thinking. Other people had practiced basic skills for more than ten years. What method should he use to catch up with them?

Hmm.

“Praise you?”

Rina crossed her arms and glanced him. “Thank me. Do you know what it will cost if you want me to eat your food? My appearance fee is a million dollars, and you need to make an appointment…”

Xia Yu smiled. “What are you talking about? Talking about money will hurt our feelings. Big deal. Next time, I will invite you to eat the must-try dish that I cook.”

“Do I know you?” Rina showed her contempt.

“Then let me introduce myself ceremoniously.” Xia Yu stood up and showed a very gentlemanly etiquette. “I, Xia Yu, am Chinese. I was brought to Nihon by my grandfather, Xia Qing, ten years ago. My primary school, junior high school, and high school after spring break have been or will be in Nihon.”

“I don’t need to introduce myself to ordinary people. You should have seen me in food magazines or on some food TV shows.”

After saying that, Rina added, “I’m the chief director of the Junior High School Department of Togetsu, the 10th of ‘Togetsu’s Top Ten’, Rina. Remember my name.”

“I see!”

Xia Yu got up to collect the dishes and went back to the kitchen. When he saw the old man sending Nagi Hidari and Rina out of the restaurant, he followed them, and the group of people stood at the door.

“Mr. Xia Qing, I look forward to your return soon.”

Nagi Hidari looked at Xia Yu again and handed over the offer of Togetsu to his hand with a smile. “Take it. Don’t rush to refuse it. There is still almost a month until the new term begins, and you still have enough time to consider. You should show your talents in Togetsu with your culinary skills. The ‘Jade Age’ will be more interesting if Togetsu has you.”

Xia Yu shook his head without any hesitation.

“The world outside Togetsu is very large. I don’t want to be bound by the school. On the contrary, running a small restaurant is more interesting to me. I yearn for life like that. I’m sorry.”

Nagi Hidari was not angry when he was rejected for the second time. Nagi Hidari nodded and walked towards his luxury car.

“You will regret it.”

Rina bit her lower lip tightly. Her face was full of anger.

In her opinion, it was a great insult to her that Togetsu’s invitation to enter the school was repeatedly rejected. After all, the Togetsu Academy and the Togetsu industry belonged to her family.

Before getting in the car, Rina could not help looking back. “With your poor cooking skills, this Chinese Cuisine Restaurant will be ruined by you. Don’t think it’s easy to run a restaurant. At least, as a chef, you are unqualified!”

“I hope that the next time I see you, it’s not when the restaurant is closing down on the street…”

Boom! The car door was closed, and the limousine left the street slowly. 

Xia Yu took back his sight and glanced at the old man beside him. He protested, “Hey, old man, Rina hurt your grandson like that. Can’t you say something?”

“If you want to run this restaurant, you should meet my requirements.”

The old man turned and walked into the restaurant.

Soon, when night came, Xia Yu was preparing to practice in the kitchen full of energy. Who knew that the old man came straight to him and gave him a thick notebook? 

“You must learn everything in seven days. I booked a ticket seven days later. If you haven’t completed your studies, you will go to Togetsu when school starts.”

What?

At this time, a system prompt popped up:

“Obtained the task [Inherit Chinese Restaurant].”

“Task content: Satisfy the inheritance conditions and get Grandpa Xia Qing’s approval.”

“Reward: [Jade Knife] (Purple Kitchenware).”

Another task!

Xia Yu took a deep breath and his eyes burst with endless fighting fire. “Let Rina see if I can run the Chinese Cuisine Restaurant well!”

He threw down the spatula and picked up the notebook. Xia Yu’s palm touched the old cover.

The notebook had obviously seen some years, but it had been kept very well. After opening it, the contents recorded in pencil on the paper were very clear, without any signs of fading.

The system suddenly asked, “Cooking book detected. Add it?”

Xia Yu was shocked. “Add?”

“Yes. Copy the content of the book to the Chef God System. The system will rearrange and arrange the content, removing the unnecessary parts, leaving the essence. This will help the host improve the learning efficiency.”

“Then add it quickly!”

“Successfully added. Please name the book.”

“Name?” Xia Yu touched his chin and thought. “Call it the Old Man’s Manual. Oh, no, the Old Man’s Cooking Manual.”

Di. 

The system gave the identification information of the book:

[Old man’s cooking manual]

Evaluation: Excellent (Blue)

Contents: Basic skills include knife skills, heat control, selection of ingredients and some common basic cooking skills, including 11 green quality recipes such as [Kung Pao Chicken], [Fish Flavored Pork Shreds], and [Pork Lungs in Chili Sauce].

Estimated learning time: 5 days.

“It is possible to learn it completely in 5 days?” Xia Yu let out a sigh of relief and turned to focus on the several prepared ingredients on the kitchen counter.

He turned on the gas stove switch, ignited it, and poured hot pepper and spicy pepper, stir-frying it.

Then, he took out the spicy oil, filtered out the peppers, and poured the minced garlic and ground soybeans and stir-fried it. 

This time, Xia Yu was full of confidence.

When frying the soybean ground meat, he specially took the timer which controlled the frying time within a millisecond’s precision.

The first shortcoming that was pointed out by Rina no longer existed.

The second shortcoming was the time to add tempeh sauce, bean paste, soy sauce, salt and sugar, frying red oil, and add the broth.

The third shortcoming was the stir-fried tofu after boiling.

In summary of the second point and the third point, it was the fire control!

These two points were very easy for Xia Yu to achieve with the aid of a timer and the concentration of attention.

“System, help me see if there is any content about thickening skills in the cooking manual of the old man…” Xia Yu did not forget to ask the most critical point when he was busy frying tofu.

As soon as his voice fell, the content of the notes turned into a vivid learning image. A middle-aged chef with a vague appearance was wearing a white chef uniform, standing in front of the kitchen counter and repeatedly showing Xia Yu how to deal with ‘thickening’. 

‘Thickening’ was to pour the cooked powder into the pot so that the marinade could be further adsorbed on nearly mature dishes to improve the taste and colour of the dishes.

It could be said that the properness of ‘thickening’ affected the quality of the dishes.

This was also the reason why Rina decided that Xia Yu was a novice chef.

Because ‘thickening’ was the most basic skill of cooking. If it was anyone else after systematic cooking training, they would not be as immature as Xia Yu when dealing with ‘thickening’.

The video played in his head, and Xia Yu realized that his Magic Mapo Tofu still had such a terrible defect.

And now, this big flaw was about to be corrected. Could a glowing dish appear?

He took a light breath and added the sesame oil to the dish along the side of the pan. Xia Yu did not rush to install the plate. Instead, he turned on another gas stove, and heated the hot plate with a fire. Finally, he put the dishes on the plate and sprinkled green onion.

When he finished cooking, the kitchen at night was as bright as day.

A kind of golden light flowed in the kitchen.