Chapter 997 - : The Gap Appears (2/2)

“Yuan Zhou’s dish was finished by them. What do you think about that, Head Chef Liu?” asked Chef Li.

“His portion is smaller, so it’s nothing special for his dish to be finished. Moreover, his dish might taste decent too. But it won’t be better than mine,” said Liu Jie.

“Haha, with these words, I am assured,” said Chef Li with a laugh.

The two did not keep talking as the judges were starting to eat.

For this dish, the flame stayed burning for about 20 seconds before it stopped. Then, steam started coming out the aluminum foil while an aroma of squid spread out.

Whoosh. Whoosh. The assistant took the aluminum foil off before making an inviting gesture with her hand, hinting that the judges could start eating now.

“Um. So who’s going first?” asked Zhou Shijie as he turned around.

“You first, of course,” said Wang Xiang.

“Yes, you,” Zhang Yan said.

“Yes, please go ahead, Chairman Zhou,” said Bai Xiaoxiao.

“Ok. I’ll start then,” Zhou Shijie smiled, yet he was cursing inwardly.

“These old foxes are definitely trying to fill my stomach with this dish so I can’t eat too much of Yuan Zhou’s dishes later on. How treacherous of them,” thought Zhou Shijie as he reached for the squid.

From how the judges were letting the others start first, it was clear this Flaming Squid was inferior to Yuan Zhou’s Eight Clawed Flaming Mountain.

And that was without even mentioning the very tiny trace of fishy scent Bai Xiaoxiao smelled when the aluminum foil was opened.

That wasn’t the flavor of the “sea”. Rather, that was the bad smell of seafood that hadn’t been handled properly. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had just eaten Yuan Zhou’s perfect squid just a moment ago, this tiny scent might even go undetected.

Unfortunately, that scent failed to stay undetected.

To be fair, the squid made by Liu Jie was still decent. Squid should be eaten while hot. Therefore, heat control was very important. Therefore, the squid wasn’t burned just for show. Rather, it also served as a form of heat control.

That’s right. Liu Jie’s dish wasn’t completely cooked when served. Rather, when it was about 60% cooked, the squid was wrapped in aluminum foil. After being served, the squid was completely cooked using the liquor and fire.

If the squid was eaten right after that, it would be the perfect timing as the temperature would be just nice. But he had not considered the fact that wrapping up an uncooked squid would cause some bad fishy smell to linger within.

“If I hadn’t tried Boss Yuan’s squid, I would still love this dish greatly,” lamented Bai Xiaoxiao inwardly.

That’s right. He used to love this dish in the past, but now, he did not even feel like eating it. Bai Xiaoxiao felt like the gap between Yuan Zhou and Liu Jie was the gap between a master and an apprentice.

Fortunately, Liu Jie’s dish wasn’t that large of a portion as well. After they each took a skewer, only four skewers were left. Clearly, Liu Jie had prepared two skewers for each judge.

But the four judges seemed to have some sort of tacit understanding as they completely ignored the four remaining skewers and moved on to the next dish. When Liu Jie saw the leftover skewers, he felt awkward.

Chef Li patted Liu Jie’s shoulder and comforted him. For him, the defeat of one or two dishes did not matter. They only needed to obtain higher total points than Yuan Zhou.

In the following dishes, they still tried Yuan Zhou’s dish first. In the opinion of Chef Li and company, this was an act of keeping the best for the last, while Yuan Zhou felt that these judges were very childish as they would always select the better dishes first.

Thus, the two parties understood the same situation in a completely different manner.

Before long, they reached the last dish, also the main course of the day, the crabs. Strictly speaking, in terms of preparation method and ingredients handling, this was the hardest dish to prepare.

“Let’s start from Head Chef Yuan’s dish as usual,” said Wang Xiang expectantly.

“The crabs look really good,” Zhang Yan nodded.

“These crabs were imported by me from California. Each of them is large and fresh. More importantly, the meat of the pincers make up 60% of the crab’s meat,” said Bai Xiaoxiao proudly.

“Sure, sure. They are even twins,” teased Wang Xiang.

“I’ll have to properly try it,” said Zhou Shijie.

“Next are the final dishes of this match, Head Chef Yuan’s Big Crabs and seafood alliance’s Rolling Crab Dumpling. First to be tasted is Head Chef Yuan’s Big Crabs,” said the host.