Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

"Is it really that exaggerated?"

The Black guy, tempted by the scene being described, couldn’t help but start swallowing his saliva.

Normally, his favorite dishes are those with gravy, like curry or stew, which he loves to dip bread in. It’s a perfect match.

Although he’s eager to try it, it’s currently non-business hours, and he feels embarrassed to ask them to make a fresh portion for him.

After all, he’s just a low-level worker and doesn’t have that kind of privilege.

"Daniel," Lin Chen suddenly called out to him, "I just placed another order. Can you deliver it directly to our event site when the time comes? Then find me and collect a few portions of food for free, just as your labor fee, how about that?"

"Free, free? How could I accept that?"

Daniel grinned, showing his snow-white, even teeth, visibly happy and patting his chest.

"I promise to deliver it on-site!"

After speaking, he happily stepped away, still contemplating what bread to bring for dipping in the sauce later.

Delivering goods to Lin Chen daily, this restaurant is the only collaboration partner in Dieppe, a special case, naturally making him curious about how tasty the food here is. He took some time to look it up online.

What he discovered was surprising. Previously, he thought that a restaurant with such a great ambiance would definitely serve Western food, but the videos found were all Chinese cuisine, and there were even clips of Lin Chen setting up a stall.

Especially the hand-held seafood and grilled oysters sold a few days ago; he was nearly licking the screen watching them.

With Shunfu Group supplying ingredients mainly from East Asia, focusing on Great Xia cuisine, each restaurant he delivers to daily is a Chinese restaurant. Thus, he’s no stranger to the cooking process and finished dishes of Chinese cuisine.

Compared to Western food, he actually preferred Mexican and Middle Eastern cuisine. He ate East Asian cuisine less frequently, but it was not too bad either.

These cuisines share one characteristic: the sauces are delicious, and they pair well with bread, unlike Western food, which comes with vinaigrettes, salad dressings, or tomato sauces—completely incompatible with bread.

He likes bold flavors in seasoning.

After Daniel left, silence fell in the kitchen again, with only the sounds of brushes and scissors at work.

Little lobsters were retrieved from the sink, forcibly cleaned, with tiny claws still struggling as their heads were chopped off.

Everyone’s speed at handling the lobsters increased, especially the four female waitresses.

Initially, they struggled even to grab them, but now they could slaughter with a poker face and pile shrimp heads in the basin before them.

Time flies when busy. In the blink of an eye, it was already half-past ten.

Everyone transported the processed ingredients to the event site stalls, stacking over twenty insulated boxes on the ground.

The three stalls were combined, and the tables were filled with various foods, with Lin Chen still in the middle.

With some time before the food festival began, Chef Marchello and Chef Nagishiro Sho were busily doing trial runs.

They’d watched the related videos seven or eight times, already knowing what to do, but it’s their first time practicing hands-on.

Fruit stir-fry ice cream is relatively simpler since no cooking accuracy is required; just keep crushing the fruit and mixing it with liquid before flattening it.

Iron plate grilled skewers, handled by Nagishiro Sho, require a higher skill level, though iron plate grilling is one of his specialties, making it manageable.

Since last night, Nagishiro Sho was still puzzled about why the skewers in the video suddenly caught fire on the iron plate.

Indeed, the seasoning oil squeezed from the sauce bottle is a combustion enhancer, but the question remains... where did the fire source come from?

"Mr. Nagishiro still seems to be puzzled?"

With only five minutes left before the official start, Lin Chen dared not keep them in suspense, taking a few steps forward to the iron plate, casually picking up a skewer of beef.

Add oil to the iron plate, heat it, place the beef skewers on it to fry, press with a spatula—there’s nothing novel about the initial processes, only different tools were used.

Nagishiro Sho’s eyes were fixed intently on Lin Chen’s actions, afraid to miss the crucial step, while Chef Marchello also came closer to stealthily learn and see what was going on.

The beef skewers weren’t large, cut into rectangular strips, changing color fully after frying for just a few seconds on the sizzling iron plate.

Lin Chen took the sauce bottle beside him and casually drizzled it on the beef.

In an instant, Nagishiro Sho and Marchello’s eyes widened, closely watching his hand.

Lin Chen’s lips curled, a faint smile on his face, intentionally slowing down his movements, moving the oil-coated beef skewers slightly away, tilting downward, nearing the fire source on the iron plate.

"Whoosh—"

The oil sparks met the fire and were instantly ignited, spreading along the skewers, surrounding the center region of the iron plate with a blazing fire in mere seconds.

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The two chefs’ expressions were incredibly peculiar, staring at him as if they’d seen a ghost.

They thought there was some mysterious technique involved, but it turns out you just stick the food near the fire and ignite it?

The iron plate’s fire source is hidden below and can be pulled out, a long strip-shaped stove.

When lighting the fire, just pull it out slightly to let the flame show, then use a skewer to ignite it. There’s really no difficulty at all.

From the diner’s perspective, they can’t see these small actions at all; their attention is all on the skewers.

"Just like this?"

"Just like this, what else? Do you really believe us Great Xia people can perform magic?"

Lin Chen smiled as he grabbed a handful of green onions and onions, sprinkled them on the iron plate, and used the skewers as chopsticks to stir them around.

The two types of onions soaked in oil mixed with the meat juices and seasoning powder sizzled away, quickly emitting a strong aroma.

No need to fry for too long, it can be taken off as soon as the fragrance comes out.

He got a paper box, placed the beef skewers on it, then used a spatula to spread the green onion and onion pieces over the skewers, and finally sprinkled some cumin chili powder.

This style of teppanyaki was quite novel for the two chefs, especially for Chef Nagishiro Sho; he had tasted Lin Chen’s stir-fried rice live before, and with or without the flame, there was a completely different flavor.

The beef skewers smoked by the flame, paired with the two kinds of onion pieces, were clearly delicious just by smelling them. Combined with the flame performance earlier, he could almost foresee how booming the business would be later on.

Even now, due to Lin Chen’s recent demonstration, the eager diners outside the fence emitted bursts of exclamations, obviously having never witnessed such a technique of cooking with flames.

Each of them quickly grabbed a skewer full of seasoning to taste, fearing they wouldn’t have time to eat once they got busy.

The specially marinated beef was exceptionally tender, so tender that teeth biting down would make it bounce back noticeably, and the juice was incredibly abundant.

The beef’s inherent aroma was not overshadowed by the marinade, but instead intensified by the support of the green onion and onion pieces.

The marinade itself was quite heavy, mainly with a sauce flavor, and with cumin and chili powder, making it even heavier. However, because of the sweet onion pieces neutralizing the greasiness, it actually felt a bit light.

"I must say it’s quite tasty, one skewer is definitely not satisfying, you just start to taste it and it’s gone. No wonder they’re sold in batches of five."

The crowd tacitly nodded, understanding that such thinly sliced beef could only be sold as snacks, to try the taste. The main dish was the crayfish knife-cut noodles next door.

There’s no way someone would directly order a bunch of skewers to fill up, right? That would be too extravagant.

Judging from the price alone, a bunch of such small skewers at five euros seems okay, but only after tasting do you realize that five skewers are just a bite’s matter, selling at five euros is indeed daylight robbery.

And this is just the skewers, the cost of those vegetarian dishes next to them is even cheaper, sheer windfall profits.

Great Xia people are indeed good at doing business!

"Alright, everyone back to your posts, ready for today’s battle?"

"Yes chef!"

Not only the assistant chefs, but even the two head chefs and Jonathan shouted in unison.

Regardless of the original position, whoever is the general controller for the day is the chef, this is the rule of the kitchen team.

Seeing the situation over here, the other stall owners simply sat down on their stools, clearly giving up.

Yesterday, the three chefs competing with each other was already so popular, today turned into a team collaboration, what does it have to do with them?

Maybe it’s better to take a nap and wait for them to sell out their stock before setting up?

Only the two ice cream vendors looked unconcerned, watching the excitement over there. They were the only ones selling that, no matter what the chefs sold, there was no competition for them and it wouldn’t affect their business.

o’clock sharp.

With the sound of a whistle, the entry gate was opened, and the impatient diners swarmed in.

Their goals were clear, moving in the same direction, footsteps flying, heading straight over here without even glancing at the other stalls.

They had seen the flaming iron plate display here with their own eyes before, especially those diners who had already been here a few days ago and witnessed Lin Chen stir-frying rice and dishes, they were even clearer about the meaning of this flame.

Any dish roasted by the flame would have a unique scent, taking one bite and you’d be hooked.

"Good morning everyone, chefs! What delicious food are we selling today?"

"For this meal, I haven’t eaten anything from last night till now, haven’t even had a sip of water, just to save my stomach capacity for your delicacies!"

"What was that flaming thing just now? It looked really interesting!"

"Why are there fruits and milk next to the iron plate here? Are you going to make crêpes?"

Marchello explained with a friendly smile: "It’s not crêpes, it’s fried fruit ice cream, which is made by mixing these fruits with milk or yogurt on the iron plate into ice cream blocks, a specialty dessert from the southern part of Great Xia."

"What??"

"I know fruit ice cream, fruit ice? Fried?"

The explanation only confused the diners even more, their eyes full of bewilderment.

"Haha, honestly, even I only found out about this method last night, you have to admire the Great Xia people’s amazing imagination."

One thing Marchello didn’t say was that he hadn’t tried this fried ice cream himself.

Of course, he couldn’t possibly share this with the diners.