Chapter 994 - Red Pepper Prawn (2/2)

“Lets alternate between the two then, starting from Head Chef Yuan’s dishes,” Zhou Shijie decided. Bai Xiaoxiao’s concern was valid so they had to take note of that.

“That is how it should be,” Zhang Yan was the first to agree.

“Chairman Zhou is indeed well experienced in such major events,” praised Bai Xiaoxiao.

“Let’s start from this Bell Pepper Prawn,” said Wang Xiang as he pointed at the dish at the middle that was arranged beside the Bell Pepper Prawn.

That’s right. Due to the similarities between the two dishes, the assistants had arranged them together.

In other words, the two rows of dishes were arranged in similar order according to the dish types.

And yes, this arrangement method was under the direction of that host. In all honesty, it was unknown what was the point of inviting this host here as they still had to pay for him to be here.

1

“I’ll try this prawn. It looks really good,” said Bai Xiaoxiao with a smile.

After they made their decision, the assistants filled their plates with a mantis shrimp each.

The outer shell of Yuan Zhou’s mantis shrimps were reddish-gold in color. A layer of red chili sauce was wrapped around the shrimps, and more importantly, the claws of the shrimps were still intact. The shrimps were rather whole in appearance.

“Both the claws are still there?” asked Bai Xiaoxiao doubtfully.

The first impression he had on this dish was that it looked pretty and the bright coloring scheme was incredibly appetizing.

But when the shrimps were taken out, one would notice that the claws were still intact.

Mantis shrimps had a wider torso that were split into six parts. Each part would have a pair of tiny claws on it. Thus, a single mantis shrimp would have about 12 claws in total.

When Bai Xiaoxiao lifted the shrimp with his chopsticks, the claws became even more obvious, while the astonishment on his face grew.

“Yes, all the claws are intact. Amazing,” said Wang Xiang. As someone specialized in seafood, Wang Xiang was naturally able to see how skilled Yuan Zhou was in achieving this.

“Nothing surprising about that,” remarked Zhou Shijie calmly.

Of course, his words would be more believable if he did not look so smug.

The judges all spent some time in astonishment when they saw the shrimps, yet that was not the case for Zhang Yan. He started eating directly.

With a crack, the entirety of the shell was removed.

“Chairman Zhang is pretty skilled in stripping a shrimp’s shell,” commented Wang Xiang.

“No, I’m not the skilled one,” said Zhang Yan after calming himself from the astonishment he was feeling.

Wang Xiang was confused, but he did not say much since Zhang Yan had already started eating.

But his confusion was answered shortly after. He only needed to slightly dig into the shrimp with his chopsticks and the shell was perfectly removed.

“This?” Wang Xiang looked at Bai Xiaoxiao’s bowl with astonishment.

Coincidentally, Bai Xiaoxiao had just removed the shell from his shrimp as well. Thus, Wang Xiang reached a conclusion.

“The shells have actually been removed in advance? But won’t that spoil the taste?” Bai Xiaoxiao frowned.

Bai Xiaoxiao was not a chef. Hence, he did not notice the greenish-color on the surface of the meat. Rather, he started worrying about the drainage issue from having removed the shell beforehand, affecting the taste as a whole.

Meanwhile, Bai Xiaoxiao lifted the thick shrimp meat with his chopsticks.

The meat of mantis shrimps are unlike other shrimps as it was very hard to cleanly remove the shell of mantis shrimps. Moreover, the mantis shrimp’s tomalley was harder and wasn’t as tasty as the tomalley of freshwater crabs.

Thus, Bai Xiaoxiao never really liked the tomalley of mantis shrimps.

But since he was now a judge, he decided to give it a try anyway.

He lifted the golden tomalley with his chopsticks. Like the tomalley of crabs, it was rough in appearance.

“Huh?” Bai Xiaoxiao’s eyes widened the moment he stuffed it into his mouth.

“It’s not rough at all and it’s very aromatic,” Bai Xiaoxiao remarked.

The tomalley was rather crispy as with a single bite, it broke apart while an astonishing aroma burst out within his mouth.

And due to how crispy it was, the more he chewed on it, the more aromatic it felt. It was the same as the core of a salted egg yolk where the flavor was intense and tasty. And since this was the tomally of a mantis shrimp, it had a unique flavor that was not present in salted egg yolk.

And the overwhelming sensation caused Bai Xiaoxiao to completely forgot about whether the meat would be nice after the shell was removed in advance. He quickly finished the tomalley before proceeding to eat the meat.