Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

The crayfish on their two tables were noticeably redder than those on the tables of other guests around; a thick layer of red oil floated under the mashed garlic, making it look spicy.

Even though Lin Chen had used a lot of mashed garlic to mellow out some of the spiciness from the hot pot base, foreigners who could handle spice were still few and far between, so most of the crayfish he made were mildly spicy.

Each pot only had a quarter of a block of hot pot base, divided into three and a half portions, with a lot of mashed garlic added. By the time you eat it, there’s actually not much spiciness left, instead, the numbing flavor is more pronounced.

The butter hot pot base primarily highlights its fragrance; the spiciness is actually fine.

For those who can handle spice, he would use half a block, and with people like President Wang and Yuqi who were familiar, there was no need to be stingy, just dump the whole block in the pot.

The more flavorful the sauce base, the better the crayfish would taste when cooked.

"These shrimps are nice, big with lots of meat, and even have roe in the head. You can chew some flavor out of the claws too."

Chu Yueyue just tasted a bite and nodded in satisfaction. It was already quite a challenge to have crayfish abroad, and of such high quality, the satisfaction was off the charts.

"Old Lin’s garlic sauce always tastes great," Jiang Shuqi peeled a few shrimps into the palm of her hand, ladled some mashed garlic over them, and then opened her mouth wide to swallow them in one go, not caring at all about keeping up appearances.

"The last time with the grilled oysters, it was the same garlic sauce flavor, so appetizing that you’d feel it could make even shoe insoles taste delicious."

After sucking down a few shrimps, the trio’s taste buds were thoroughly awakened, and they were worried that the knife-cut noodles beneath would get soaked and swell.

They exchanged glances and, with tacit understanding, began to quicken the pace of peeling the shrimps, tossing them back into the pot once done, ready to mix them with the noodles.

Freshly split crayfish were super easy to peel. Aside from the traditional method of peeling, you just needed to lift the back shell with two fingers, pinch the shrimp meat, and pull it out. Once familiar, you could do one in two to three seconds.

Soon, three full boxes of two-pound crayfish became pure shrimp meat, soaking in the tempting garlic sauce.

For crayfish of this size, one pound would be 16-20 pieces, so two pounds would be just under 40 pieces, but the visual effect was still pretty staggering, with the red and white crayfish tails covering almost the entire surface of the box.

They took off their gloves and picked up disposable chopsticks, first taking a commemorative photo, and then eagerly plunged the chopsticks in to quickly stir everything together, letting the knife-cut noodles, garlic, butter base, and crayfish meat mix thoroughly.

The noodles, once mixed, looked astonishing, coated in golden red garlic and red oil.

"Gulp"

All three couldn’t help but swallow their saliva.

"This is way better than any pasta!"

"I’d bet that even pasta made by a Michelin three-star restaurant couldn’t match this bowl of spicy garlic crayfish mixed noodles!"

They quickly pulled out their phones to take photos, such a tantalizing scene simply couldn’t be enjoyed alone; good things needed to be shared with all friends and family.

Next to them, Yuqi saw the three finished boxes on their table and was amazed, hurriedly knocking on the table.

"Hey! Look, that’s the right way to enjoy crayfish mixed noodles! Stop eating, start peeling the shrimps before the noodles get all clumped up!"

"Oh right, there are noodles beneath, I almost forgot."

They had all tasted Great Xia’s knife-cut noodles, that unique texture left a deep impression, completely different from their kimchi sliced noodles.

Imagining such a delicious crayfish sauce mixed into the noodles already made their mouths water. This was definitely the favorite dining method of us Kimchi People!

"Sluuurp——"

The trio next door had already started slurping up the noodles, and the sound was absolutely tempting.

After being soaked in iced water, the texture of the knife-cut noodles became even more chewy, and they were cooked to just the right doneness. The thin edges were slightly translucent and soft, while the thick center was pleasantly chewy.

Soaked in the sauce for a few minutes, the noodles themselves had already absorbed a considerable part of the flavor, and with the mashed garlic and butter covering the surface, it combined salty, umami, numbing, spicy, and fragrant flavors into one bite.

With every bite, you could feel the sweet garlic melting in your mouth, not having any of the pungency of raw garlic left, only pure fragrance.

Adding in the aromatic butter and the wheat fragrance of the knife-cut noodles, once you started slurping, you just couldn’t stop.

"Delicious, too delicious!"

"I never would have thought that mixing knife-cut noodles with crayfish sauce would taste so much better than mixing with instant noodles, Old Lin is simply a genius!"

"I bet those who use instant noodles do so for convenience, being lazy. Making knife-cut noodles is too troublesome, they’d have to hire a noodle-cutting master, and the wages surely aren’t low."

"Indeed, if a Lanzhou Noodles restaurant could sell crayfish, wouldn’t it be like breaking in with overwhelming force?"

The trio almost wished they could bury their heads in the bowls, their hands never stopping as they kept shoveling garlic-coated noodles into their mouths, eating with an incredible relish.

Their actions seemed to provide a perfect demonstration for the surrounding foreigners, who initially didn’t know how to eat, as they all joined the ranks of the crayfish mixed noodles army.

For a moment, the whole dining area was filled with scenes of heads down slurping noodles, everyone’s faces were red and sweaty, yet they couldn’t stop their hands from moving.

Some people even came up with the idea to wrap the skewers from the grill with garlic sauce from the crayfish to eat together, and there were some dipping options with red oil, especially for vegetable skewers, which created a unique flavor.

Among the crowd, two small figures silently watched Wang Ziqin and his companions, captivated by their impressive eating manner, and couldn’t help but swallow their saliva.

"This looks way too tempting; we can’t just stand around, how about we buy some food to fill our stomachs too?"

"Makes sense, even if we’re going to act, it’ll definitely be at night. Eating well gives us the strength to work, let’s queue up, and not worry about them for now."

Perhaps it’s because all the tourists came for the food; the grassy cliff top had far fewer people flying kites, with only a few lonely kites floating in the sky.

Some locals passing by from afar were puzzled by the scene.

"Isn’t there supposed to be a kite festival this weekend? Why are there only a few kites?"

"Today is really strange; yesterday, there were a lot of kites. Has today’s event not started yet?"

"How could it be? It’s already afternoon, the perfect time for kite flying."

"Didn’t you know?"

"Ah? Know what?"

"There’s a food festival over there, with many stalls, and they’ve invited two very popular Michelin chefs. The Great Xia chef from the hotel restaurant is also there."

"Ah, that’s why! No wonder. Kites can be flown anytime, but food made by Michelin chefs isn’t something you get to eat every day."

"Are there any entry requirements? I’d like to try it too; it’s not like there’s anything else to do."

"Let’s go together? I went yesterday; besides needing to queue, there are no other requirements, and everything’s super delicious!"

It has to be said that the hotel’s promotion was spot on. Everywhere in the town, you could see banners promoting the kite festival, complemented by yesterday’s lively scenes uploaded on the website homepage and various social media platforms. The number of visitors today far exceeded yesterday’s.

Even folks from across the strait in Fu Country couldn’t resist their curiosity and flocked over to join the fun.

After all, it doesn’t require a visa, just buy a boat ticket, and that’s it; it’s quite convenient.

It’s not just the folks from Fu Country; at the event site, one could also see many tourists from neighboring countries, especially from several countries in Northern Europe.

Nordic people have a slow-paced lifestyle, good welfare, no worries if they’re not working, as the government provides subsidies, leaving them with no real life troubles.

They don’t compete among themselves, wishing everyone could enjoy life lying flat; most people who don’t wish to work spend their time vacationing abroad.

Business may be booming, but it’s tough on the few handling the crayfish; their hands almost cramped, barely keeping up with the selling pace.

Every pot holding ten pounds means two pots amount to twenty pounds, nearly four hundred pieces need to be processed within ten minutes, and only Lucas, Helena, Lucinda, and Jonathan, or occasionally rotated in Dais and Elsa, have time to handle the crayfish.

Each person must handle one every six seconds on average; at that efficiency, almost leaving afterimages with the scissors.

But as the queue of customers showed no sign of diminishing, instead slowly growing, the first to encounter issues wasn’t the crayfish or the fruit ice, but the grill skewers under Nagishiro Sho’s charge.

"We’re running low on stock!"

His expression was somewhat grim, so many guests were still behind, and everyone was too busy to assist him, which could prove to be quite a problem.

There were backup ingredients, but they were in the kitchen’s cold storage, all unskewered, merely marinated there.

Originally, considering yesterday’s stock levels, they had prepared 30% more today, expecting it to last till evening, but didn’t anticipate afternoon having barely halfway through and running short.

Rough estimates showed that today’s visitors exceeded yesterday’s by at least 50%, filling the entire food area densely with people.

Upon hearing the situation was critical over his side, Lin Chen and Marchello weren’t surprised at all.

After all, preparing these skewers takes a large amount of work and space; given the limited area here, not being able to accommodate much is quite normal.

Lin Chen glanced around quickly, snatched the megaphone from Lucinda, who was covering others by handling checkout and packaging, and shot towards the entrance.

"Can someone from logistics come over, someone from logistics, Meng Qi, I’m talking to you! Hurry up, gotta be quick!!"

"Huh??"

Meng Qi had been standing guard at the entrance for most of the day, legs turning numb, suddenly hearing the megaphone shouting for him, instinctively turned his head, limping over towards that side.

"What happened, what happened, I’m here! Do you need help?"

"Go help move all these types of insulated boxes from the restaurant’s kitchen over here, best if you can call some people over to assist me, whether it’s you guys from logistics or hotel staff, whoever’s free, bring as many as possible, gotta be quick!"

He shouted loudly, pointing at the empty pile of insulated boxes behind him.

Being an old acquaintance of his, Meng Qi didn’t need further explanation, immediately realizing the lack of supplies and manpower, nodded and turned to run, extracting the walkie-talkie strapped to his waist as he ran.