Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
Lee Yanyi felt he had ordered the too many dishes. Never had he expected the amount to be so big.
After he drank a gulp of soup, a blast of refreshing flavor instantly swept across his throat. It couldn’t be a better time to eat the pickled radish.
"Ka Ca," the crispness of the pickled radish along with the delicious taste of the Seaweed Soup formed a wonderful experience. The two different flavors merged into each other and yet, remained independent.
"Nice," Rarely did Lee Yanyi utter a word during meals. Moreover it was a compliment.
Twenty minutes later, Lee Yanyi had eaten half of the Egg Fried Rice dish and all side dishes, Seaweed Soup and Pickled Radishes. As for the Phoenix-Tail Prawns, there was only one prawn left and the untouched matching dish.
He touched his belly and felt he was fairly full, hence couldn’t eat anymore.
"Truly fantastic skills." Lee Yanyi was quite satisfied with this trip of looking for delicacies this time.
He let out a sigh contentedly and revealed a satisfied expression on his skinny face.
With a soft sound of "Peng", Lee Yanyi set the chopsticks down and then stood up, preparing to leave.
When he walked to the entrance in a few steps, Yuan Zhou suddenly began to speak.
"Excuse me, are you leaving?" Yuan Zhou asked politely and alertly.
"Why? Didn’t I pay you?" Lee Yanyi had never been an aged man who spoke in a polite way. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the nickname of Yan Viper.
"Yes, you have paid me. But you’d better read the rules on the wall now. If you leave now, I would have to do as the rules tell me," Yuan Zhou took no notice of the bad temper of the aged man. He just signaled him to look at the wall with his usual indifferent tone.
"What rules?" Lee Yanyi only ordered the dishes and didn’t actually notice those messy words.
In his opinion, what were usually written on the wall were either caring words to ingratiate the customers or some witty remarks to amuse them. There was no need to read them.
Now that he was requested by the chef, Lee Yanyi would for sure like to check.
The key point was because Yuan Zhou’s skills were pretty good.
"What does the word ‘blacklist’ mean?" Lee Yanyi asked with a solemn expression.
"It means he will never be admitted into my restaurant. There has only one customer blacklisted so far since the restaurant was opened," Yuan Zhou answered politely whenever asked, which was nevertheless not liked by Lee Yanyi.
"If this old man does not finish the dishes, are you preparing to prevent me from coming to eat again?" Lee Yan felt this rule was quite unreasonable. Until now, there had been no one who refused him yet. Instead, it was him who always refused others.
"I’ll do as what the rule says," Yuan Zhou said with a quite serious manner.
"If I want to eat here, I would like to see how you are going to stop me," Lee Yanyi said rascally.
"I’m the chef and I cook," Yuan Zhou directly hit the nail on the head.
That’s true. If he didn’t want to cook, Lee Yanyi naturally couldn’t think of other solutions in a short time. It had to be known that even if he had a meal in Huong River Michelin Restaurant, he likewise couldn’t finish all the dishes.
His slogan was just that eating was for filling the stomach while savoring delicacies was only for trying the taste. Eating a little of those dishes was sufficient for that purpose.
Lee Yanyi, who had always been flattered by other people despite his ever odd temperament, started to talk and swear, "Why the hell does this store have such an inexplicable rule? It has really widened my knowledge."
He stayed put for quite a while and eventually returned to his position while swearing. It seemed that he intended to finish the remaining dishes.
Seeing him do so, Yuan Zhou then turned around and went to prepare other dishes. It was still fairly busy at the end of the opening hours.
"I won’t come again next time. It’s really a clip joint."
Before he ate again, he even defined Yuan Zhou’s restaurant as a clip joint indignantly. Only after that did he begin to eat unwillingly. He was not the kind of person who had never been scolded before and would then think Yuan Zhou was special once he scolded him. After all, he was not a masochist.
He mumbled and spluttered something randomly in his mouth and revealed a discontented look. His actions, nevertheless, were quick. Lee Yanyi was very proud of his fondness for delicacies.
It seemed that scolding and anger could help with digestion. Having just said that he couldn’t eat up all the dishes, Lee Yanyi nonetheless ate quickly now until the plate was very clean.
This time, however, Lee Yanyi left immediately without any hesitation as soon as he got the plate clean and appeared to truly not return again.
On the next day, Yuan Zhou got up at 5:30 as usual and jogged an hour for exercise. After that, he returned to the restaurant, cleaned himself and prepared to make the Steamed Assorted Vegetable Buns.
As if it had confirmed Yuan Zhou’s route yesterday, the dog Broth also started to follow him to jog. No matter how long Yuan Zhou ran, it just followed.
When Yuan Zhou went back to his restaurant from the back door, Broth likewise returned to its doghouse, not intending to go inside with Yuan Zhou.
Similarly, Yuan Zhou didn’t want to let Broth in. He just slowed his pace while jogging.
After he washed out the sweat and cleaned himself, Yuan Zhou changed the Han Chinese clothing with lotus flower design and walked downstairs, preparing to make a new dish today, the Steamed Assorted Vegetable Buns.
There were various ways of making this dish. The simplest was the vegetable stuffing and meat stuffing, with various other stuffing mixed in it.
As usual, he kneaded the dough first and then waited it to rise. As the required time was a little long, Yuan Zhou started to process the stuffing first.
This time, he chose fresh lentinus edodes, carrots, dried white tofu, Chinese flat cabbage and a little lotus root as well as some dried sergestes and used these ingredients for the stuffing. Of course, the prepared beaten egg was the best bonding agent to get these different ingredients together.
"Duk Duk Duk", the touch of the chopping knife and wooden cutting board constantly emitted melodious and pleasant sound.
Yuan Zhou liked doing the preparation work of the stuffing by hand, even if the system had already provided him with an electric blender to shred these vegetables.
However, Yuan Zhou believed that he would have more control over the stuffing preparations and would suit his intentions if they were shredded by hand.
"It seems my obsessive compulsive disorder cannot be cured," wearing a face mask, Yuan Zhou muttered to himself.
Then, he began to process every vegetable.
Even the dried sergestes were baked on the spot. Sergestes were originally an extremely fresh and delicious shrimp. In Japan, it was used in many dishes as ornaments due to its magnificent colors and that it could be eaten fresh at the end. That way, there would be quite a fresh and palatable taste, which was said to give off extreme freshness and sweetness.
As the yield of the sergestes was limited and it was difficult for this creature to live through means of artificial breeding, the dried sergestes therefore came into being. However, baking them would inevitably take away the slight special fragrance, which was only reserved in the just baked sergestes.
This was the very fragrance that Yuan Zhou intended to obtain.
Along with the sound of flowing water of "Hua Hua", the lentinus edodes in Yuan Zhou’s hands were cleaned well.
The fresh lentinus edodes originally had the name of "King of Mountain Delicacies" due to its fresh and tastiness along with its very high nutritive value.
Yuan Zhou washed them clean and chopped them into small granules. He then left them at the side along with other prepared ingredients.
At that time, there was only Chinese flat cabbage left unprocessed. The color of the vegetable was dark green, but after stir-frying, it became emerald green.
When the vegetable was cooked to a medium-rare, it tasted crisp and tender. Meanwhile, it also could be used for vegetable congee. When it was thoroughly cooked, the cabbage leaves emitted strong delicate fragrance. This vegetable was very practical.
After the hard veins were removed, only the fresh leaves and crisp stalk were left. Rather than chopping, he cut the cabbage up in order to prevent the juice of the cabbages from coming out and to maintain the freshness and tastiness of the leaves.
While Yuan Zhou was busy cooking in the kitchen, customers started to line up outside the restaurant for breakfast.
However, there was one person who attracted Mu Xiaoyun’s attention in the line this time.
It was Lee Yanyi. He had just said yesterday that he would never come again, yet he came to line up outside the restaurant today. He broke his promise.
The first blacklisted person was a business partner of Ling Hong. Ever since he was told not ever to be welcomed, he truly hadn’t appeared once more.
Lee Yanyi, however, thought silently in his heart, "Anyway, he has only a few dishes. I surely won’t come again after I savor all of them."
And, "If there are delicious dishes and I don’t eat them, my stomach is going to be upset. It would not do justice to the dishes I had last time as well."
Having comforted himself, Lee Yanyi arrived at Yuan Zhou’s restaurant in the early morning to wait in line with a careless expression. As for Mu Xiaoyun’s glance, he disregarded it automatically.