Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

"Urgent notice, urgent notice!"

"Repeat, urgent notice!!"

"Chef Lin in the culinary zone requests support. All available personnel from the logistics team and hotel staff, please drop whatever you’re doing and assist immediately!"

"If you’re at the event site, please go directly to the booth to find the chef; if you’re near the hotel, please gather at the restaurant!"

"In the restaurant kitchen’s cold storage, there are prepared ingredients in all the thermal boxes. Please help transport them to the vehicle, including all fruits!"

"Apart from those helping with transportation, everyone else please quickly take the sightseeing bus to the event site to find the chef. Please respond if you receive this!!"

Upon hearing that Chef Lin requested support, as soon as Meng Qi finished speaking, the walkie-talkie exploded with responses from people confirming they heard.

During the event, there weren’t many guests at the hotel, and the only task was room cleaning.

As long as there’s one cleaner per floor, the rest can temporarily leave their posts to assist.

Meng Qi just left the event site and headed towards the nearby pickup truck, and right afterward, logistics personnel arrived at Lin Chen’s side, tasked with cleaning crayfish.

Although the logistics personnel’s job at the event site is to maintain security, most tourists were either queueing or eating, leaving not much security to maintain.

Leaving two staff for appearances is fine; the rest can help, and if anything happens, assistance is quick since this is the center of the event.

With the addition of over thirty staff, the urgent situation was effectively resolved.

Compared to the technical task of handling crayfish, skewering is much simpler and doesn’t require skill—after a brief demonstration, they could follow the example and get it done.

With these helpers, Jonathan and Lucas were freed up to assist with fruit cutting, a purely technical task that without proper training is hard to perform well, quickly, and efficiently.

Dais and Elsa were also exhausted, stretching uprightly, their spinal joints making distinct ’crack’ noises.

They didn’t idle either, fetching large bottles of icy cola from the free drink area to distribute among the chefs and colleagues. Everyone had been busy since noon without time for a drink, and prolonged work without hydration is unsustainable.

This hustle continued until after six in the evening, when all prepared ingredients were completely sold out, forcing a conclusion.

Even if they didn’t end it, everyone’s physical strength was at the brink; even the seasoned chefs, Chef Marchello and Nagishiro Sho, showed pale faces and unsteady steps.

Only Lin Chen seemed relatively well, with just a bit of rosy cheeks and light panting.

Sitting in chairs, they took a good half-hour to slightly recover, feeling no hunger, just a longing to lie down and sleep.

This intensity was more overwhelming than working in the restaurant kitchen, leaving no time for rest.

Tired as they were, remembering today’s revenue was undeniably exhilarating.

Crayfish had no market price, no demand, and Mr. John sold it to them at a mere labor cost of five euros for every ten pounds, making the cost negligible and pure profit.

Calculating with small portions of two pounds priced at twenty euros, it was ten euros per pound, and today they sold over three hundred portions, totaling nearly seven hundred pounds.

The revenue here alone approached seven thousand euros, not to mention the turnover from two other booths.

Grilled skewers were also major earners, with even more stock, and the profit was comparable.

A rough estimate suggests today’s total revenue was nearly twenty thousand euros.

[Ding—]

Closing eyes for rest, the system notification rang in the mind once again.

No need to think, it was definitely the stall settlement, rewarding only a Recipe Exchange Voucher, which could be guessed with eyes closed.

Recalling the third Food Truck Upgrade Card received earlier in the day, he planned to consider which vehicle part to upgrade now.

Just as he prepared to summon the food truck schematic, a crisp sound echoed in his mind again.

[Ding, successfully engaged a Michelin chef as an assistant and completed a Great Xia culinary stall, achievement unlocked: Glory to China, rewards: Recipe Exchange Voucher *5, Food Truck Challenge Card *3, Potion Fragment *1]

[Hidden condition met, difficulty-level challenge task unlocked: Revived National Banquet Dish]

Seeing the task’s name instantly stiffened Lin Chen’s expression.

Could it be... the kind of task he was thinking?

[Revived National Banquet Dish: A dish that only chefs whose culinary skills reach a certain level can resurrect, fleetingly seen in the long river of Great Xia’s history]

[Challenge task requirement: Recreate the national banquet dish according to the recipe, achieve over ninety percent recreation, and film the production process, uploading it online. Within twenty-four hours, task rewards will be settled based on the video’s natural social media impact.]

[Note: If uploaded to domestic websites, video data will be divided by ten for settlement; on international websites, settlement will proceed normally.]

[Challenge task opening conditions: You can use different quantities of Challenge Cards to initiate a challenge. The more Challenge Cards used, the harder the national banquet recipe will be, and the richer the task rewards will be.]

After reading this long list of task analyses, Lin Chen called out "Wow" in his heart, while secretly letting out a sigh of relief.

He was really afraid this national banquet challenge task would be like a regular task where you set up a stall by the roadside; that would be way off track. Fortunately, it only requires video recording.

Come to think of it, those vanished national banquet dishes probably have production techniques that are too complex, raw materials that are hard to obtain, or no commercial value, which is why no merchant is willing to make them, eventually leading to their phasing out.

This series of challenge tasks must be very daunting, so much so that they’re not easily completed, thus it’s naturally impossible to sell them to regular diners.

Recording the whole process on video is indeed the most reasonable way.

This way, every detail of the production can be showcased, related cultural explanations can be inserted, and the final product display can leave a strong impact on the audience.

He’s seen a few similar bloggers online; some make handmade products, like ancient umbrellas, weapons, lanterns, and so on.

Some do time-consuming things like inkstones, traditional soy sauce, sealing wax, various kinds of cloth and paper, consuming months and years. The spiritual shock imparted by these is unmatched by any technology.

Then there’s a few bloggers who also restore national banquet dishes, just watching their videos, you can feel the difficulty level is off the charts, even collecting ingredients takes a lot of effort and money.

Of course, there aren’t many bloggers doing this, you could count them on one hand. Mainly because these things are really hard to do, not something you can whip up casually.

He couldn’t help but contemplate whether to hint about this to dear President Wang, using the name of a restaurant or hotel as promotion, and get some expense reimbursements, while also leveraging various channels to acquire the necessary ingredients.

After all, most of his salary and income needs to be sent home, and he might not have the capital to self-fund such challenges in the short term.

A patriot like President Wang would definitely not disagree, right?

I’ll put the national banquet challenge aside for now, think it over slowly during tomorrow’s break. Besides, I still have the vegetarian challenge, breakfast challenge, and snack challenge on my plate waiting to be completed, no rush.

Not that rushing helps, just gathering ingredients may take a while, maybe even require airlifting from home.

He withdrew his wandering thoughts and mentally called out the food truck’s blueprint, starting to consider which parts to upgrade or what equipment to add.

After this food festival stall event, he already fully realized that the fame of the restaurant and hotel has been established, and in the future, the number of tourists visiting will certainly be more than before, gradually turning this place into a tourist town.

There’s no doubt that the food truck’s refrigerator must be upgraded, otherwise it won’t hold enough ingredients, limiting business income.

Sure, the restaurant’s cold storage can serve as backup space, but just in case?

He’s a cautious person, it’s going to be upgraded sooner or later, might as well do it now.

[Ding, the refrigerator has been upgraded, storage space increased by 40%]

Actually, he wanted to expand the capacity further, but was prompted that the current space has reached the food truck’s limit, and cannot be further expanded.

He immediately realized that he probably has to wait for the overall space of the food truck to expand before he can further increase the refrigerator’s space.

Including adding more stoves, expanding the worktop area, etc., they all have to wait for the food truck’s level to increase.

Thinking about it, it seems like there’s no equipment needed for now, so he might as well upgrade the already enhanced properties once more.

[Ding, the refrigerator’s cooling efficiency has been upgraded, the time required to refrigerate food to optimal status is reduced to 40%]

[Ding, the ice maker has been upgraded, ice-making speed increased by 40%]

Just after upgrading the ice maker, the expected system notification sounded again.

[Ding, the food truck has accumulated 15 upgrades, meeting the upgrade conditions, currently auto-upgrading, estimated completion time is 10 hours]

"Is it... upgrading already?"

He opened his eyes in disbelief, turned his head to glance at the red food truck parked on the nearby grass, and didn’t notice anything different, it’s still as ordinary as usual.

"10 hours, so the upgrade will be done around 4 AM?"

"Great, everyone will be asleep at that time, after today’s exhaustion, they shouldn’t wake up. But the problem is, what excuse should I use?"

Can’t possibly tell people the food truck just grew overnight, right?

"No, looks like I can’t set up a stall tomorrow, I need a reasonable excuse, better hide it somewhere, and then bring it back on Tuesday, just say it was taken for factory upgrades."

"Right, that’s feasible, it’s settled!"

Having made up his mind, he immediately got up to pack his things, ready to leave.

Forget staying at the hotel, might as well stay at Amiens’ place for a day, it’s the most secure, no one would think of it.