While Liu Tong was praising Yuan Zhou's skills in cooking fish, the chefs walked towards the exchange venue slowly.
The exchange venue was in the banquet hall of the Century Hyatt Hotel.
The layout of the banquet hall was totally different from usual. There was an oval in the center of the banquet hall and it was separated by several cooking tables.
Behind the cooking tables were all chefs dressed in neat and tidy new chef uniforms. Opposite each cooking table was a table.
The ingredients were placed behind the chefs so that they could be taken conveniently.
The tables were made of solid wood and the color was the natural color of wood. Now, there were things for tasting on the tables.
A series of utensils, such as chopsticks, chopstick holders, mouthwash cups, five saucers with dipping sauces and so on. The chairs were made of matching wood.
Obviously, such an arrangement was for the convenience of the chefs' tasting.
Apart from the oval azure stone countertops and dining tables, there was also a circle of chairs around, which seemed to be a place for people to rest temporarily.
"They are really neatly arranged." Yuan Zhou had a good eyesight. Looking at the arrangement of the table and the distance between the tables and chairs, he couldn't help muttering.
"Tsk-tsk. The tables and chairs this year are definitely arranged by people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. I feel that every table and chair is copied and pasted except for the chefs. It's really neat." Wu Jun stroked his chin and said with interest.
However, his words were directly ignored. Luckily, the person in charge of reception from the Japanese side arrived at that time. This time, it was the chairman of the Chefs' Association.
"Hello, everybody. Thank you for coming from afar. Please forgive me." The chairman of the Japanese side appeared to be about the same age as Zhou Shijie. He was dressed in a traditional Japanese kimono, which was embroidered with delicate ukiyo-e. When he spoke, he nodded slightly to express his apology and appeared to be quite sincere.
Of course, this chairman spoke Chinese, but not as fluent as Chengtian Yilang who had received them at the airport.
"Chairman Masheng, you are too polite. Chairman Zhou asked me to say hello to you on his behalf." On such an occasion, it was definitely Zhou Shijie's first apprentice, Li Minghui.
"Mr. Li is really young and promising. Chairman Zhou is too polite. I hope we can learn from each other when we go to Huaxia next time." Chairman Masheng said smilingly.
"Of course. That's exactly what Chairman Zhou thinks." Li Minghui answered naturally.
"Alright. Since I'm done greeting you, I won't disturb you anymore. Let Mr. Narita show you around," Chairman Masheng said immediately after he got what he wanted.
"Okay, thank you." Li Minghui nodded.
Then, there was another round of greeting, but Yuan Zhou was not in the mood to watch. He was curious about the cooking skills of these chefs.
"I wonder what these chefs are good at." Yuan Zhou raised his feet and prepared to walk toward the chefs.
He saw that there was a small card on each table with something written on it. He was about to take a look.
"Gentlemen, please remember to go back to the chairs over there and have a rest after you finish tasting the dishes." Zhong Lili was the first to notice the intention of Yuan Zhou and the others.
"Um." Yuan Zhou answered casually. As for the other chefs who didn't like to communicate, they had already gone over there.
That's right. Not only Yuan Zhou didn't like those conventional greetings, there were quite a few people who didn't like them, including the talkative Wu Jun and the gray-haired middle-aged man who had a bad temper.
After Zhong Lili said that, there were only Li Minghui, Liu Tong, Zhong Lili and the representative of the Japanese on this side.
"It's really an introduction." Yuan Zhou walked to the table and picked up the card on the table. Only then did he confirm his thoughts.
There were only four kinds of information written on the small card, such as the one in front of Yuan Zhou.
Name: Matsumoto Kiyoshi
Age: 39
Length of Cooking: 19
Excellency: Cooking Pufferfish
"The length of cooking is really scary." Yuan Zhou muttered in a low voice.
"What's so scary about that? The chefs who can step into this meeting today are all the top chefs of the two countries. The length of cooking is just ordinary." Wu Jun appeared behind Yuan Zhou mysteriously.
"Um. You go to taste the dishes now." Yuan Zhou answered indifferently.
"I know, I know. Just make it short when you talk about it later." After saying that, Wu Jun didn't pester Yuan Zhou this time. Instead, he went straight to the dishes.
Yuan Zhou didn't taste the dishes at the very beginning. If he didn't sit down, the chefs wouldn't start to cook the dishes either. Because the process of the exchange of pointers meeting also required the chefs to watch.
Walking around the oval table for a lap, Yuan Zhou picked up every card and looked at it carefully.
The contents on the cards were almost the same. One of the chefs had been cooking for 35 years, but he was good at only one dish, namely the San Tian Beef Cuisine.
Yuan Zhou knew what the San Tian Beef Cuisine was. Actually, it was Kobe beef in the common sense.
However, Kobe was actually a city and didn't raise cattle at all. Those cattle came from the villages around Kobe and among them, the San Tian Beef Cuisine was the best.
The quality of the cattle here was judged by a certificate, a certificate named Son Cattle Registration Certificate.
The certificate would trace back three generations of the cattle, including the names and phone numbers of the breeders and the artificial fertilizers.
Such a cow would need to be inspected again fourteen to twenty-nine months after the certificate was issued.
The association that issued the Son Cattle Registration Certificate also held a competition every year. The first prize of the cattle at that time would be worth tens of thousands of Japanese Yen for a single sperm.
"Tsk-tsk. Life is really different. I'd rather be a cattle in my next life." This was the sigh of Yuan Zhou when he just got to know the cattle.
"There's surprisingly even Ramen. Isn't it our Lanzhou Ramen that is famous?" Yuan Zhou picked up the card on the last table and ridiculed inwardly.
That's right. The chef recorded on the card was good at Ramen.
The first dish that Yuan Zhou tasted was neither Ramen nor beef, but eel, the Kabayaki Eel.
The chef was a middle-aged man who had been cooking for 20 years. He was good at Kabayaki Eel and Eel Hand Holding.
"Hello. What would you like to eat?" Seeing Yuan Zhou sit down, the chef immediately asked. His Chinese was very awkward. Luckily, Yuan Zhou could understand him.
"This one, please." Yuan Zhou picked up the introduction card and pointed at the Kabayaki Eel while saying that.
"One moment, please." This person spoke Japanese this time, but Yuan Zhou understood it to be a moment. Thus, Yuan Zhou sat down at ease.
However, since the chef started to process the eel, Yuan Zhou had knitted his brows without loosening.
The eel had no scales and its body was slippery and difficult to hold. The chef wiped a fish knife with a clean white cloth and then grabbed the eel with his left hand and directly cut it open.
The slippery and difficult to hold eel was like a cucumber, allowing itself to be slaughtered by others. His actions were also smooth and natural.
However, Yuan Zhou had been denying such an approach in his heart.
"The ironware spoils the freshness of the fish. The action is rough and the knife is crooked just now." Others acted smoothly and naturally like moving clouds and flowing water, but in the eyes of Yuan Zhou, there were flaws everywhere.
The five senses that were different from those of ordinary people gave Yuan Zhou an extremely picky and strict feeling.
Therefore, after eating up the two pieces of Kabayaki Eel prepared by the chef, Yuan Zhou went back to the chair in the resting area directly.
At that time, he happened to start talking about the food he had tasted.
"What do you think of it, sir?" Narita Yilang asked Yuan Zhou who had just returned smilingly.
Actually, Narita Yilang was waiting for a compliment. After all, he was a professional in cooking Kabayaki Eel.
Yuan Zhou nevertheless thought of Zhong Lili's words that it was not his home ground and he couldn't say too much and should keep a low profile. Therefore, Yuan Zhou summarized the shortcomings he had found just now and commented,
"Except that it's not delicious, everything else is pretty good."
...
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