Chapter 944 - Advantages of a Deadpan Face (1/2)

Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

“It’s good to be young. Youth represents vigor and ingenuity. Head Chef Yuan, you are very good,” Zhang Yan tried to look for a topic.

Yuan Zhou nodded solemnly at the encouragement he was receiving from the Sichuan Cuisine Association’s chairman before greeting Lee Yanyi.

“Kid, your restaurant is getting more and more popular. It is getting hard to get a meal at your place,” Lee Yanyi no longer bothered with Zhang Yan and said to Yuan Zhou, “But I don’t wish for you to expand your restaurant either. You are the only chef. It’s pointless to expand it.”

The restaurant would only be Yuan Zhou’s restaurant with Yuan Zhou in it. Therefore, there would be customers occasionally requesting for an expansion but very little would request for a new branch.

“The annual Sichuan Cuisine Exemplary Restaurant Selection is probably the biggest Sichuan Cuisine event of the year.” Zhang Yan said, “Therefore, the related departments are very supportive of it. A lot of private and official media are here and many CEOs of different groups in the food industry have been invited as well.”

Zhang Yan was not only speaking, he was also kindly guiding Yuan Zhou with his eyes and explaining everything one by one. For example, when talking about the official media, Yuan Zhou followed his gaze and was able to see those from Sichuan Daily there. With the huge banner, it was obvious who they were.

They even had their camera with them. It would seem like this award ceremony was going to be broadcasted live.

Then there were also the CEOs of the food groups. Yuan Zhou looked over and found that they were all men in their 30s or 40s. He knew none of them.

“All those are not important. The truly important part is the fact that the person conferring you the award later will be someone from the Provincial Party Committee. Head Chef Yuan, you won’t be nervous, right?” Zhang Yan asked.

“…” Yuan Zhou sank into a long silence. He did not know if he should point out that he was initially not nervous, but after Zhang Yan’s introduction, he was getting nervous.

After thinking about it for a while, Yuan Zhou decided not to mention that and only nodded his head cooperatively.

“Ok, that’s enough. Little Yuan, you should focus your thoughts on cooking. As a chef, the most reliable thing is having good cooking skills.” Zhou Shijie said, “Moreover, the government seems to have attached great importance on the event this time.”

“Yes, it’s obvious when you see even Chef Zhu wearing a suit,” said Lee Yanyi as he pointed at a rather famous chef.

Apart from his cooking skills, one other reason for Chef Zhu’s popularity was the fancy way in which he always dressed himself. Even Yuan Zhou knew about this. Yet today, this person was actually dressed like a normal person. The change was quite drastic.

In any form of gatherings, people would gather in groups of twos or threes. For example, the entrepreneurs would gather to talk about business while the chefs would gather to talk about cooking.

Of the attendees, Zhou Shijie, Zhang Yan, and Lee Yanyi were naturally the ones that received more attention. And presently, all three of them were surrounding Yuan Zhou.

And of course, the head chefs of all 10 nominated restaurants were in attendance as well. In comparison, even the head chef of Chengdu Cuisine was much older than Yuan Zhou.

Thus, even though the Master Chef Restaurant was the Exemplary Restaurant for this year, those veteran chefs would still not take the initiative to greet Yuan Zhou owing to their status.

But now that the important individuals were surrounding Yuan Zhou, they had no choice but to come one by one and offer their greetings. This caused the entire award ceremony to revolve around Yuan Zhou.

“Chairman Zhou, Chairman Zhang, and Master Lee,” greeted Head Chef Tian. His restaurant was located at Nanchong, known as the number one restaurant in Nanchong, also a restaurant that had been nominated three times in the past. However, this restaurant had never won the award before.

To be frank, Head Chef Tian was 52 years old this year. One could say that when he was already famous in the cooking industry, Yuan Zhou was not even born yet.

“Head Chef Tian,” Zhou Shijie nodded before saying, “Good, I’ll take this chance to make an introduction. This is Yuan Zhou, a genius chef of our country.”

“Yuan Zhou’s Master Chef Restaurant is this year’s Exemplary Restaurant,” Zhang Yan joined in. “Little Yuan has a solid foundation and possesses the grace of a grandmaster.”