Abnormal Gourmet Chronicle-Chapter 1057 - 514: You Can’t Eat It

Certainly! Here's the translated text:

7:36 AM, Zhao Cheng'an arrived at Yunzhong Restaurant one minute later than yesterday.

This is Zhao Cheng'an's work strategy.

Arrive at work one minute late every day, and over time, it accumulates to half an hour after a month, and an hour after two months.

Although Zhao Cheng'an can only stay at Yunzhong Restaurant for a month, it doesn't matter. If he can be late by one minute, he'll take that minute. This is Zhao Cheng'an's persistence and ethics in his career of slacking off, a tangible manifestation of his spirit of slacking.

With a bounce in his step and happily contemplating another successful day of slacking, Zhao Cheng'an walked through the Inner Door into Yunzhong Restaurant with a smile, greeting Xu Tuqiang, who was already seated at table 9 having breakfast, but for some reason, looked a bit downcast.

"Good morning, Mr. Xu!" Zhao Cheng'an had an excellent virtue of respecting the elderly and cherishing the young, respecting the elderly in the morning and cherishing the young in the afternoon.

"Good morning, Master Xiao Zhao." Xu Tuqiang forced a smile and continued staring unhappily at the window.

Following Xu Tuqiang's gaze, Zhao Cheng'an noticed Xu Tuqiang was staring at Qin Huai, who was busy at the culinary counter. Zhao Cheng'an glanced at Xu Tuqiang's breakfast, which was quite sumptuous.

Three Meat Buns, crab roe pork buns, pine nut shumai, and a serving of fresh meat dumplings. Each snack looked beautifully delicate; the fresh meat dumplings had thin skins and little filling, each piece was intact, and the dumpling soup had shrimps and seaweed floating on top, with chopped preserved vegetables at the bottom—clearly, these were Qin Huai's dumplings.

Chen An's dumplings always had thicker skins and a larger filling, the larger dumplings primarily intended to be filling, tastes decent but not as fresh as Qin Huai's small dumplings.

Qin Huai's small dumplings are all about enjoying the soup and the skin, a skill Qin Huai learned from Zheng Siyuan, with the meat filling mostly serving as a flavor accent.

Zhao Cheng'an found Xu Tuqiang's breakfast satisfactory, even more abundant than usual. Normally, Qin Huai was good to produce three or four kinds of buns at this hour, without time to make dumplings.

"Mr. Xu, are you having a bad day?" Zhao Cheng'an chose to ask directly.

"No." Xu Tuqiang replied perfunctorily, eyes still fixed on Qin Huai, mechanically chewing his bun, "I just feel like Master Qin is acting weird today."

"Huh?" Zhao Cheng'an looked at Qin Huai again, carefully observing for a dozen seconds, "Really?"

"Yes!" Xu Tuqiang said decisively, his one word filled with strength, "Master Qin made more snacks, but he just won't sell them."

Zhao Cheng'an: ?

Recalling if there were any special orders from Luo Jun at Yunzhong Restaurant today, Zhao Cheng'an decided it wasn't likely to be Luo Jun's private dish. Xu Tuqiang was among the primary tier of customers, a star senior patron whom Qin Huai remembered for his taste preferences.

Qin Huai even made sticky rice cake specifically for Xu Tuqiang—realizing Yunzhong Restaurant hadn't sold sticky rice cake for a while.

Sticky rice cake was relatively easy compared to other snacks, but a bit cumbersome as it required preparation the day before, and the process of handmade sticky rice cake was labor-intensive, which Qin Huai genuinely disliked making.

If it weren't because Xu Tuqiang loved sticky rice cake, Yunzhong Restaurant probably wouldn't sell this cumbersome, labor-intensive, yet non-profitable snack once a month.

"Come on." Zhao Cheng'an couldn't help but defend Qin Huai, "Mr. Xu, with the good relationship between you and Qin Huai, as long as it isn't specially ordered by someone else, even if there isn't enough to sell openly, if you want to eat it, Qin Huai would definitely give you a portion individually."

Zhao Cheng'an's words warmed Xu Tuqiang's heart. Although Xu Tuqiang hasn't fulfilled the achievement of eating inside the kitchen yet, he felt that having Zhao Cheng'an's assurance was enough, stopping himself from staring at Qin Huai and focusing on eating the dumplings instead.

Seeing no opportunity to linger outside and slack, Zhao Cheng'an had to go to the changing room to change clothes and work in the kitchen.

By the time Zhao Cheng'an entered the kitchen, it was already 7:47 AM.

Zhao Cheng'an: Haha, another 11 minutes of slacking, worth it!

A cheerful Zhao Cheng'an was unaware of what awaited him.

Since Zhao Cheng'an stepped into the restaurant, Qin Huai noticed Master Xiao Zhao had come to work. Qin Huai saw through Zhao Cheng'an's poor and deliberate slacking just now but didn't intervene as he was busy, busy boiling dumplings.

Rising early greatly boosted Qin Huai's inspiration, originally planning to make three kinds of potato dumplings, but ended up happily making eight kinds.

Friends who often make dumplings at home know, it's easy to season a large amount of filling, but difficult to season a small amount. It's easy to season enough filling to make hundreds of dumplings, but making just a few dumplings with a small amount of filling is harder than controlling the number of buns.

The dumplings Qin Huai wrapped were left uncooked, all reserved for Zhao Cheng'an.

He dared not cook them, if cooked, they must be eaten.

Now, these eight varieties of dumplings are ready.

Qin Huai glanced at the dumplings arranged in eight different plates.

[Potato Dumplings C-level]

[Potato Dumplings D-level]

[Potato Dumplings B-level]

[Potato Dumplings C-level]

[Potato Dumplings C-level]

There are three types that lack a visible level, probably because the ingredients were modified too much, making the game system not recognize them as potato dumplings made according to Zhao Cheng'an's recipe.

Ever since Qin Huai had a flash of insight at Zhiwei Restaurant last time, he hasn't made a large batch of snacks with such a low level.

Qin Huai claims he is absolutely not seeking revenge, given Zhao Cheng'an hasn't offended him. Zhao Cheng'an, apart from being a bit impulsive, speaking harshly, having a loose tongue, and liking to slack off, doesn't have any major flaws. Qin Huai decided to let Zhao Cheng'an try the batch of potato dumplings, because potato dumplings are originally Zhao Cheng'an's recipe, and Qin Huai believes Zhao Cheng'an should know a thing or two about how normal potato dumplings should be made.

Even if he didn't know before, after eating these eight types of potato dumplings, he should rely on his snack master basic skills to grasp some knowledge.

Testing food needs professional expertise. Now in the whole Yunzhong Restaurant, besides Qin Huai, Zhao Cheng'an is the most professional. With Tan Wei'an and Zheng Siyuan not around, if Zhao Cheng'an doesn't eat, who will?

Of course, Qin Huai didn't treat himself poorly either; he prepared something equally exciting for himself.

[C-Level Rice Cake Soup]

While making potato dumplings, Qin Huai already sensed something was amiss; he suspects it's because he watched too many video tutorials, getting somewhat led astray by them.

To assess the impact of video tutorials on himself, Qin Huai picked what he currently figured out was the lowest level recipe, used ready-made rice cakes bought from the cafeteria to make a pot of rice cake soup, and found it to be true.

When making rice cake soup normally, Qin Huai couldn't possibly make it taste this bad, but once he thought whether he should follow video tutorials, the rice cake soup would uncontrollably turn into a bad-tasting version.

Sometimes being highly imitational is also a flaw.

The good can't be imitated, but the bad can't be forgotten.

This pot of D-Level rice cake soup is Qin Huai's breakfast reminder to himself, to not be constrained by the recipes provided by the game. Some recipes simply don't work.

Zhao Cheng'an's first world level was just like that, and there's nothing much to learn from a C-Level recipe. Qin Huai can't directly judge the specific level of those three ungraded potato dumplings as he hasn't eaten them, but based on the feeling while making them, he feels they should be better than C-Level and D-Level.

Qin Huai couldn't make other versions of potato dumplings at all, so while thinking last night, he was consistently using Zhao Cheng'an's recipe as the basis. It was only after completing the eight types, Qin Huai realized this starting point might be flawed.

Thinking and extending from the basis of C-Level dumplings isn't as good as creating randomly.

But whether this idea is correct would depend on Zhao Cheng'an finishing all eight dumplings.

Qin Huai smiled so warmly that Zhao Cheng'an involuntarily took a half-step back upon seeing his smile.

"Qin Huai, I didn't come late on purpose; I just talked to Mr. Xu outside for a bit." Zhao Cheng'an explained.

"I know, I saw it." Qin Huai pointed to the steaming dumplings, "Specially made breakfast waiting for you to eat."

"Mr. Xu asked earlier if there were other snacks and I didn't tell him. You are the first to try these dumplings."

Zhao Cheng'an was touched, directly picked up chopsticks, and unfortunately chose the plate with the lowest D+ level, picking up a dumpling without asking for vinegar and stuffing it into his mouth.

While chewing, Zhao Cheng'an mumbled unclear words, "Eight dumplings per plate, isn't it a bit much? I can't finish them."

"What... what kind of taste is this? Why is it so awful?" Zhao Cheng'an almost spat out the dumpling, struggled to chew and swallow, then realized, "These are potato dumplings?"

"How did your potato dumplings end up tasting worse than mine?"

Looking at Zhao Cheng'an, Qin Huai said, "Even you know your potato dumplings taste bad."

Zhao Cheng'an: "…They're not that bad actually; if you eat them carefully, they have a unique flavor. I'm telling you, potato dumplings are like this, delicious potato dumplings aren't really potato dumplings. You followed my recipe, right? My recipe is the authentic one!"

Zhao Cheng'an, having lived for eight lifetimes, didn't master other skills but surely honed the art of stubbornness. Even with seven more plates of untouched potato dumplings, he could still lie with open eyes.

"These dumplings are so good that it's not right for me to eat them alone. How about sharing them with others, doesn't Youyou eat them?" Zhao Cheng'an wanted to deploy a distraction tactic, letting the still asleep Three-legged Golden Toad share the load with him.

"These dumplings are really for you to eat; all eight types were made from your recipe. You need to taste them all and tell me if your recipe has room for improvement. But I think there's no improvement needed."

"Impossible!" Zhao Cheng'an was furious, determined to prove his recipe had no issues, and stuffed another one in, "It definitely has room; my recipe is guaranteed to have no problems!"

Qin Huai couldn't bear watching: "This plate is the lowest level; how about changing to a higher-level one?"

Zhao Cheng'an promptly dropped the dumpling: "You should've said that earlier."

"It's fortunate Mr. Xu didn't eat; this is way too awful, if Mr. Xu had eaten these dumplings this morning, wouldn't he stop being a fan?"

Qin Huai thought seriously for two seconds, then disagreed: "He probably wouldn't."

"You don't understand Mr. Xu; when he tested Four Happiness Glutinous Rice Dumplings he had the most."

"Speaking of which, it's been a while since making sticky rice cake, not sure if now I can stably make it to A-Level. If possible, I really should make it daily; I quite need the sticky rice cake buff."

Meeting Zhao Cheng'an's expectant eyes, Qin Huai added: "You can't eat it."

"You really can't eat it!"