Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

"Ah??"

The sudden difficulty upgrade caught him completely off guard.

These three challenge conditions don’t seem very difficult, but when combined, they do add some intensity.

The other two conditions are fairly simple, but the restriction of having to set up the stall within 60 minutes and deducting points for exceeding time is really tricky.

Based on his previous experience, once the number of dishes exceeds a hundred, the stall time usually won’t be less than an hour.

For two hundred dishes, it might take nearly two hours.

One of the reasons his sales have increased so much recently is due to the help of Lucas, Dais, and Elsa, plus he starts preparing two to three hours in advance before setting up the stall.

On the surface, it seems like he’s only out for about two hours, but the actual working time is four to five hours to make hundreds of dishes.

If he were to do it alone, the number would decrease significantly, or he would have to carefully consider the choice of dishes.

"From now on, will all the challenge tasks be this difficult? That’s... phew, whatever, let’s just treat it as a way to train my thinking and basic skills."

Lin Chen quickly adjusted his mindset; if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, and if it’s a disaster, there’s no avoiding it.

At least so far, whenever the system introduces something new, he always benefits in the end.

Come to think of it, the previous challenges were hardly challenging; they had nothing to do with the word ’challenge,’ apart from the fact that random buffs or debuffs would refresh within the food truck.

He cleverly circumvented this by using the restaurant kitchen, which was practically like having a cheat code.

Now that the food truck has been upgraded, it seems normal for the challenge difficulty to increase too.

After carefully re-examining the task details, he gradually found a breakthrough.

The task specifies that the selling time cannot exceed an hour, meaning preparation time isn’t included.

In other words, he can completely prepare the soy milk, porridge, and side dishes in advance and just serve them when the time comes.

The only exception is the fried dough sticks; they can’t be prepared too early. They taste best when they’re freshly fried, though leaving them for a few minutes after cooking doesn’t really matter.

If left out too long, it affects their crispness, making them soft and greasy.

This means the difficulty of this challenge lies in balancing frying the dough sticks and serving the meal.

Luckily, he originally planned to fry dough sticks, and the recipe is ready.

Given a cautious attitude, he feels it’s necessary to practice a bit before the challenge to feel more confident.

Just looking at theoretical knowledge and the actual feeling of hands-on work are different. Many small details will only gradually become apparent while genuinely working.

"How about this, tomorrow morning I’ll stick to the original plan and make glutinous rice balls, practice with some old fried dough to hone my skills, and then sell spicy hot pot in the afternoon, giving myself enough time."

Spicy hot pot is usually not eaten by Great Xia people in the morning; it’s mostly preferred at lunchtime or dinner, so this schedule makes sense.

He’s been making spicy dishes for a while; he’s a bit tired of the taste and wants to change things up. In the coming period, he might focus more on his hometown’s cuisine.

When it comes to Zhejiang Province’s specialties, many people think of vinegar fish, soup-filled dumplings, braised pork with thick soy sauce, bamboo shoots, pickled vegetables, rice cakes, and so on.

Compared to other provinces, Zhejiang’s regional characteristics aren’t very pronounced; there’s no unified standard, and each city has its distinct tastes.

For example, coastal cities eat a lot of seafood, either steamed or boiled, with simple soy sauce and vinegar.

In central areas, mild or soy sauce flavors are favored, or even sweet flavors. Regions that produce rice cakes and southwestern parts neighboring other provinces prefer spicy and fresh flavors, which are considered unique within the province.

More representative of Zhejiang cuisine are Hangbang dishes and derivative cuisines from surrounding cities, focusing on light flavors and excelling in cooking ingredients like mountain delicacies and fresh river fish.

This kind of light taste might be more suitable for foreigners.

Light doesn’t mean bland; Jiangsu and Zhejiang are close to mountains and lakes, and cooking emphasizes freshness.

This freshness differs from Fujian cuisine, which uses boiled seafood to enjoy its original taste; it’s about combining different ingredients to enhance the fresh flavor, with seasoning not being particularly bland, usually leaning toward savory.

In his mind, countless hometown delicacies suddenly appear, making his mouth water, and he quickly snaps back from his thoughts.

However, compared to dishes, he still misses the hometown rice cakes more.

Whether in soup or stir-fried, Jiangsu and Zhejiang’s rice cakes are undoubtedly exceptional.

"Let’s prepare tomorrow morning’s glutinous rice balls with the regular flavors, make one with purple rice to wrap various side dishes, and another with white glutinous rice for sweet taste, catering to both flavor preferences."

The mention of glutinous rice inevitably reminds him of rice dumplings.

Maybe could find some time to try wrapping some for a craving relief later.

"For the spicy hot pot in the afternoon, bone broth is definitely a must-have, and there should be tomato soup. How to handle the spicy soup — without the spicy flavors, it can’t be called spicy hot pot, right?"

"Making an authentic version won’t work; I need to tone down the spicy flavors so guests can accept it. Perhaps, like always, adding garlic sauce?"

"Oh, right, speaking of spicy hotpot, it seems like in the north they add chili oil, sesame paste, and sugar. Maybe that flavor would suit foreigners better?"

"Whatever, let’s just prepare it. No problem if the seasoning isn’t used up. Let guests choose what they prefer; it’s pointless for me to overthink it here."

To make the bone broth base, chicken and pork bones are needed, which he plans to have Boss John deliver, as the cost would undoubtedly be cheaper than wholesale, and the delivery speed faster.

However, the broth for spicy hotpot is different from regular broth; it needs milk powder for flavoring. He definitely doesn’t know the exact ratio, so he’ll have to exchange recipes to make it.

Right now, there’s nothing to do. Dinner guests haven’t been informed yet, and the ingredients haven’t been delivered either.

Lin Chen thought for a moment; being idle was indeed idle, so he decided to initiate a second voting session.

The theme of the vote is a comeback.

Listing all the dishes made before, and incidentally linking Lucas’s social media platform account, letting diners check it out themselves, and finally choose some of the most popular dishes to make a comeback.

[Ding, conditions met, comeback challenge task activated!]

"Whoa? Is that even possible!"

Just after typing a title on the computer, the familiar system prompt sounded in his head.

Thinking about it carefully, it seems like it’s been some time since triggering a challenge task on his own. Mainly because he’s indeed busy, with no time to explore the activation conditions for this stuff.

The tasks at hand are overwhelming.

[Comeback challenge task: This challenge can be repeated. The challenge content is limited to dishes made before. Each time completed, if the evaluation surpasses the last one, it is considered a successful challenge.]

[Every time the challenge is completed, a basic reward of 1,000 euros will be given. This reward will be stacked according to the number of challenges—2,000 for the second time, 3,000 for the third time, and so on.]

[Regardless of whether the challenge is successful or not, this task will enter a seven-day cooldown period.]

"A challenge task that keeps stacking rewards?"

Lin Chen nodded with satisfaction. The emergence of this task perfectly solved the problem he was currently facing.

The income from the restaurant job isn’t considered high compared to stall income; the monthly salary is just 10,000 euros. But actually, this number isn’t his real salary; it’s equivalent to doing a few people’s work.

Before the opening, Jonathan had said that whether to recruit in the restaurant kitchen depends on themselves; not recruiting means getting more money, which is the idea.

The basic salary here is over 1,700, and the basic salary for chefs is about 2,000. Income increases with rank; most restaurant chefs’ earnings range from 2,000 to 5,000, with only higher-end restaurant head chef earning more.

To calculate rigidly, his salary is actually 6,000, plus two assistant chef spots, only temporarily allocated among team members.

As business gets better, this model will surely be insufficient, and professional chefs must be recruited to help.

Considering this, he initiated recruitment information targeting domestic prospects.

However, kitchen salaries aren’t fixed either. The set salary now is just an estimate for the first month. If business improves, the budget will surely increase, raising salary income.

Even President Wang likely didn’t expect the hotel’s and restaurant’s popularity to surge so quickly.

But, how to say.

Having run stalls for a long time, he really doesn’t care much about this salary.

Nestling twice or thrice would earn more than the monthly salary. Given the current twice-a-day stall frequency, a full count would be two days.

Rather than wasting a lot of time in the kitchen for some fixed salary, it’s better to recruit more people to replace his work and focus on stall operation.

As the head chef, he just needs to control the general direction and quality of dishes, without the need to do everything personally.

All head chefs in major hotels do this.

Unless there are important guests, the head chef personally prepares dishes; otherwise, the focus is on coordinating the overall situation.

A head chef like him running a stall outside the restaurant is likely unique in all of Europe.

When the recruited chefs arrive, he won’t be tied to breakfast and lunch restrictions as he is now, and can stall whenever he wants, solely needing to personally cook for dinner.

But the visa processing period is quite long. It’s said online that it usually takes about fifteen days, with luck there are cases where it’s faster. He plans to ask President Wang if there’s a way to speed it up.

Given the current trend, the flow of customers will likely double in two weeks, making it truly overwhelming.

Because in ten days, it’s the Olympics start date, leading Romantic Country to have an explosive growth in tourist influx.

No need to wait ten days; every following day will see an increasing number of tourists from around the world pouring in, with numbers only growing.

The Olympics last for about two weeks. If this free flow of tourist benefits can be seized well, its effect will definitely be stronger than a year of normal operations.

So as he said, he directly pulled out his phone to call President Wang.

If these employees’ visas don’t come through before the Olympics, forget about any tourist benefits; it’d be a blessing just not to make mistakes.

"Hello, President Wang, there’s a serious matter here requiring your participation!"