The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

Fu Yu was very satisfied with the notes Sun Qingning took.

Sun Qingning was quite happy inside as well.

Fu Yu being willing to have him do things was a good sign.

It showed that Fu Yu thought he had the ability and was willing to trust him.

Being able to gain the leader’s recognition, the work in the future would surely be more smooth and effortless.

In the afternoon, Yao Shi had something to take care of and left temporarily.

Fu Yu and Sun Qingning handled the orders independently.

Just then, a kitchen station opened up, and Fu Yu straightforwardly gave the spot to Sun Qingning.

Both of them worked their respective woks, cooperating quite seamlessly.

The order taker came over with an order slip, and Fu Yu took a look at it.

It was a small banquet table of six dishes.

The other dishes were rather ordinary, but Fu Yu specially tore out the crispy melon with sea conch dish and left it for Sun Qingning.

Cooking this dish wasn’t particularly difficult; the key was in the final plating.

Plating had always been Sun Qingning’s weak point, so Fu Yu had been focusing on developing this aspect of his skills recently.

The customer chose a very large sea conch.

Sun Qingning held the sea conch, listening to Fu Yu’s guidance on the cooking process while following the steps.

”Take out the conch meat, clean it, cut off the tail, slice the conch head.”

”Wash the small cucumbers, slice them, and marinate them with salt.”

Sun Qingning worked quickly.

Fu Yu took a moment amidst his busy schedule to glance over and nodded in satisfaction: ”Since you’re free now, make this fresh abalone and sea cucumber diced rice bowl.”

This rice bowl wasn’t difficult; the premium long-grain rice in the shop was aromatic when steamed, each grain crystal clear.

Having done it once before, Sun Qingning was noticeably more skilled this time around.

The abalone was scooped out, the viscera removed, the edges scrubbed clean with a scouring pad, and diced into small pieces.

The sea cucumber was diced.

The baby bok choy was trimmed down to only use the heart.

The egg was beaten.

These steps were the daily routine for assistants; seeing Sun Qingning’s nimble and adept actions, Fu Yu felt assured to attend to his own tasks.

When Fu Yu finished a dish, on Sun Qingning’s side, the fresh abalone and sea cucumber diced rice bowl was also ready.

Fu Yu took a look at the plating and nodded in praise: ”Not bad!”

Immediately, Sun Qingning beamed with joy.

Now, standing before Fu Yu was like being in school before a teacher; receiving a word of recognition from the teacher was exhilarating!

The small cucumbers were marinated almost enough.

Fu Yu instructed: ”Use the press stone to squeeze out the moisture from the small cucumbers.”

Sun Qingning hurried to carry out the task.

”Add oil to the pot... pour a bit more... that’s enough... four-tenths hot, yes, now, add the conch slices.”

Sun Qingning was genuinely impressed with Fu Yu.

He couldn’t comprehend how the oil’s heat at four-tenths was defined with such precision!

But since he couldn’t grasp it himself, he decided to just obediently follow Fu Yu’s instructions. However Fu Yu said to do it, that’s how he would do it!

Fu Yu was also very pleased with Sun Qingning’s cooperative attitude in following instructions.

Over the days of working together, Fu Yu gradually discovered many of Sun Qingning’s strengths.

He worked swiftly, reacted quickly, and grasped things in an instant.

And he learned things especially fast!

In just a few days, he was already able to make some simple stir-fried and steamed dishes at the stove.

If there was time, with Fu Yu’s guidance, he could even make two stir-fried dishes independently.

This brought Fu Yu quite a pleasant surprise.

Especially during this period, whenever Fu Yu was plating, he had Sun Qingning observe on the side.

Under his deliberate guidance, Sun Qingning surprisingly advanced quickly and was already able to assist in some plating work without needing any rework.

This made Fu Yu’s work increasingly lighter.

Actually, Sun Qingning had a solid foundation in cooking.

This is a common trait for those like them who graduated from culinary school and went straight to the kitchen to work as assistants.

Both Fu Yu and Sun Qingning were hired into the kitchen after graduating from culinary school.

They were different from Yao Yihang.

People like Yao, who had experience working directly in the back kitchen of small restaurants, had begun taking charge behind the stove quite early.

After joining a large restaurant, they were relatively trusted to handle basic stir-frying and steaming tasks.

Whereas those who only received training at school, without practical experience, started with the most basic tasks like chopping and plating when they were brought on board.

In the kitchen, all the hard, tiring, and running tasks with no technical requirements were mostly delegated to them.

So, having worked so much, their basic cooking skills were often superior to those like Yao Yihang.

Especially since they had formal education and understood more about theoretical knowledge.

When they finally got hands-on practical experience, combining theory with practice, with dedication and hard work, their progress was often faster and more apparent.

For instance, the stir-fried and steamed dishes, Sun Qingning did them better and more meticulously than Yao Yihang.

After Fu Yu finished plating, he had the server take it away, and turned to glance at the steamed fish that Sun Qingning had just taken out of the pot.

The timing was just right.

After Sun Qingning carefully plated the dish, he deliberately asked Fu Yu for his opinion.

Fu Yu took a look, nodded in satisfaction, and said, ”Looks good, go ahead and serve it.”

Getting Fu Yu’s approval, Sun Qingning immediately felt energized.

He learned all his cooking skills from Fu Yu, and in his heart, Fu Yu was now like his master!

Sun Qingning handed the steamed fish to the server, then returned to discuss with Fu Yu, ”Chef Fu, I noticed just now there was a dish called Lucky Meatballs? Can I give it a try?”

He quickly added, fearing Fu Yu would disagree, ”Making these meatballs involves mixing the meat and frying them, which is quite tedious. Once I learn it, I can take over this dish! In the time it takes to make this, Chef Fu, with your skilled hands, you’d easily finish two dishes, wouldn’t you?”

”Now that Chef Zhao is down, you’re the backbone of our team! How can we waste precious time on this, am I right?”

Fu Yu was already immune to Sun Qingning’s smooth-talking...

But what he said did have a point.

Now that he had an assistant, it made sense to work together as a team.

Tasks with little technical content and time-consuming aspects should indeed be handed over to Sun Qingning to save time.

This would also allow Sun Qingning to practice seasoning ratios.

Since it was mutually beneficial, Fu Yu was all for it.

Fu Yu smiled and handed Sun Qingning the note stuck to the kitchen wall, giving him tips on making the meat mixture and the seasoning ratios for marinating.

Sun Qingning learned quickly and grasped Fu Yu’s instructions thoroughly.

Lately, working together from morning till night, their coordination and daily interactions had become increasingly seamless.

They were bustling with activity.

Meanwhile, Gu Yunwu wasn’t idle either.

He had been a seasoned chef at Qianlima for many years, with plenty of connections and resources.

After sending a bunch of old customers to Zhao Meng, Gu Yunwu realized he needed to step it up and started pulling in his customer resources too.

He had contacted several waves of customers over the past few days to support them.

Many of these were local diners from Bei’an City.

They lived nearby and, hearing there was an event at the restaurant, spontaneously decided to dine there.

Or they just happened to need a banquet and took advantage of the event to book in advance.

Actually, Gu Yunwu had a good base for attracting customers, with plenty of resources, but he was somewhat picky about his clientele.

What do I mean by picky?

He wasn’t keen on attracting transient customers, influencers doing the rounds, or tourists visiting just to check in.

Or those with picky tastes and high demands, he wouldn’t contact frequently either.

With a lot of his customers having been directed elsewhere and the Mid-Autumn Festival activities coming up, he wasn’t as picky anymore.

Not worrying about the details, he aimed to get as many people to the restaurant as possible to order dishes, not wanting to be outdone by Zhao Meng again.

It wasn’t just embarrassing; if this happened a couple more times, could he still hold his head up in the kitchen?

Customers started arriving in droves, and there were also more orders from regular customers.

But a host of problems came rushing in too.

Now, he had to handle orders from regulars and walk-ins, and he definitely couldn’t manage it all.

While Yao Yihang had been helping out at times with no noticeable issues,

Suddenly, being truly busy, the speed of serving dishes was quite fast, but the attention to detail was somewhat lacking.

Being criticized by customers over plating issues was something Gu Yunwu never expected!

Thinking it over, Gu Yunwu pondered whether the carving chef could help with ideas, perhaps creating some innovative vegetable and fruit carvings for decoration to cover up the shortcomings in plating detail.

Li Shuli had mostly stopped taking birthday meal orders the past few days.

After that incident with the kids’ meal, he was quite troubled for a while.

Thankfully, Fu Yu was there to save the day; otherwise, if the customer had made a scene, how would it have ended?

So lately, for any birthdays, they just sent over a bowl of seafood longevity noodles from the cold dish station, while he coordinated with a fruit carving platter.

As long as customers didn’t have extra requests, he’d opt for the safest route to avoid any mistakes.

In fact, the cold dish chefs at Qianlima were really skilled!

Especially Wang Chengfeng, who had won national awards and was on par with some famous veteran chefs.

He had come to Qianlima thanks to Elder Dong’s connections, to oversee the cold dish section.

So many years had passed, and he was now considered a founding member.

However... despite his prowess, there’s something to be said for specialization.

Wang Chengfeng was getting on in years and wasn’t as open to new things.

And Qianlima wasn’t like a musical dining venue, offering set menus.

So for innovative kids’ meals, neither Li Shuli nor Wang Chengfeng was adept at it.

When Gu Yunwu wanted assistance from the cold dish section for creative plating,

Neither Li Shuli nor Wang Chengfeng took on the task.

It wasn’t about disrespecting Gu Yunwu but rather because they didn’t have the expertise for such specialized tasks.

Gu Yunwu was at a loss for a solution to address the detail deficiencies in Yao Yihang’s work.

He had to pay extra attention, keeping an eye on Yao Yihang’s plating regularly.

Then, of all times, he received the latest news from the boss that the provincial TV station’s interview had been scheduled for next week.

With Gu Yunwu swamped with tasks, he also instructed Yao Yihang to reach out to reliable old customers promptly, making sure to invite them to grace the place and make it look good.