Free Web NovelChapter 511: Chapter 423: Stove Fired Up—The Squirrel Fish and Guobao Pork Combo
The fact that diners in Great Xia eat buffets with the aim of recouping their money, although slightly surprising to everyone, is actually not so bad.
Whether you’re white or black, as long as you’re male, coming to a buffet is definitely all about eating meat. It’s just that people may not necessarily choose the expensive items; it depends on personal preference.
From the outcome alone, the characteristics of diners eating buffets around the world are not much different.
Helena quickly returned with the anticipated news.
"The tourist group has booked rooms for three days?"
"Yes," Helena nodded and held up three fingers, "Today is the first day, and in the afternoon they’ll be going to the pier for a boat trip out to sea."
"Tomorrow is the second day, and they’ll be going to the farm, which they’ve already booked in advance."
"As for the third day, the front desk doesn’t know the plan either. I guess they might just wander around the nearby town? But they’ll check out by noon at the latest, possibly extending to the afternoon, and it’s uncertain whether they’ll come for lunch."
"Alright, then I’ll order a bit more pork ribs and lamb chops, and the rest will be the usual amount. As long as we can ensure an extra round of supply, that should be enough."
After resolving Jonathan’s issue, Lin Chen casually tossed the prepared pizza onto the baking tray, glanced at the remaining orders, and automatically started kneading the next batch of dough.
Simultaneously, he began to plan how to arrange tomorrow’s schedule.
If Zhao Shun wants to make Chinese-style bread, then Old Chen will definitely help him. Should I join them in making it, or should I do something else to sell independently?
While thinking about this, he glanced out the window.
Suddenly, he remembered something.
Isn’t there a construction team coming this afternoon to build the outdoor ovens?
The kind of rural ovens don’t concern themselves with appearances; as long as they can burn fire, it should not take much time to build. They might even be ready by afternoon.
If that’s the case, won’t they be usable by tomorrow?
If so, he needs to take them into account, rather than just focusing on the food truck.
However, he still needs to ask President Wang about the progress; there’s no point in guessing blindly. Better to finish the pizzas on hand, and then...
"Hey, still busy?"
Just as he was thinking this, Wang Ziqin walked in through the side door from the beach area, waving and greeting everyone.
"President Wang, you came at the right time."
Having made pizzas for over two hours straight, his body had already formed a muscle memory, so he could complete the pizza making without special attention.
After telling Wang Ziqin about what was on his mind, he nodded in agreement.
"That’s about right. I told them to build four ovens, just brick structures with some surface decorations to look decent."
"These four ovens should definitely be finished by this afternoon or evening, but I also asked them to make some more cooking ovens, like those for roasting ducks, chickens, whole lambs, and one for pizza."
"But these ovens definitely won’t be finished today. I don’t know the exact completion date. You can see on-site to estimate how long it would take, as you know this stuff better than I do."
As he spoke, Wang Ziqin glanced at his watch and turned to look outside.
"The construction team should be arriving soon. They told me they’re on their way. If you have any needs for changes, just let them know on-site."
"OK."
Lin Chen had a rough idea in his mind, but whether or not to use these ovens tomorrow would have to wait until after seeing the actual construction process this afternoon.
To be safe, it’s better not to consider them for now.
After spending a few minutes quickly making several more pizzas and completing the orders, he went straight into the back kitchen. While washing his hands, he pulled out the list of challenge tasks that he hadn’t looked at for several days.
He felt that his enthusiasm for completing these challenge tasks had waned a lot, and the only thing that still attracted him was the Skill Experience Card.
But from his current feeling, his existing capabilities and physical attributes were sufficient for most situations, and there wasn’t any particular skill he felt a strong urge to replicate.
He wasn’t interested in taking shortcuts for basic skills that could be gradually increased through practice, as gaining personal experience through bit-by-bit training offered more insight.
Replicating someone else’s skill level might achieve instant success, but those are someone else’s insights, not necessarily suitable for him.
The same tasks done by different people can yield different understandings of the details.
Unless it’s something he doesn’t have or is relatively weak in, like baking, he’s interested in drawing on those skills.
Another important aspect is that this thing is randomly selected; if the target person possesses other skills stronger than his, there’s a chance of drawing those.
Considering all these factors, he still felt there was no need to rush.
If a task that could collect Skill Experience Cards popped up, he’d complete it; otherwise, he’d do whatever he liked, whenever he felt like it.
"Oh right, pizza is also a challenge task; I nearly forgot. But I’ve made both durian and pineapple flavors. I wonder if it would be successful as a challenge?"
"Let me see... The rewards accumulate based on the flavors; that’s okay. It seems not many people buy the fruit flavors, but surely not everyone dislikes them, right? There should be some chance."
He closed the task list, to prevent his thinking from getting limited by reading it too much.
"Breakfast... maybe we should just let Zhao Shun handle it. After all, foreigners like to eat bread and such, so there’s no need to make a special breakfast. I might as well prepare lunch directly."
This way, there would be enough time to prepare, without being limited to simpler dishes.
But he didn’t want to make anything too complicated either, no need to burden himself.
After some thought, he dried his hands, then took out his phone, logged into the voting page on the official website, hoping to find some inspiration.
Among so many dishes, he had only made spicy hot pot; there were many other cuisines he hadn’t had a chance to make.
"Hmm? How about making this?"
As he scrolled, he suddenly saw pictures of sweet and sour pork and squirrel fish, and a lightbulb moment struck him.
Foreigners aren’t used to removing fish bones, and you don’t see fish heads and tails on their tables, only cleanly processed fish fillets.
Sweet and sour pork, like the Westerners’ favorite sweet and sour meat, is essentially the same, differing mainly in shape and texture.
If he made squirrel fish, he worried that after seeing the head and tail, guests wouldn’t be able to swallow it.
If he cut the sweet and sour pork into shapes similar to fish heads and tails, and used boneless fish in the middle to make squirrel fish, it would be like eating two kinds of food in one dish. Both components are sweet and sour and deep-fried, so it should be popular with the foreigners, right?
Most importantly, assembling and selling it this way eliminates the need to retain the original shape of the fish, greatly reducing the production process and difficulty.
He could completely process the fish in a Western manner by removing all the bones first, then cut it to the desired size, and finally finetune it using Chinese cutting techniques.
So, which fish should he choose?
"If I remember correctly, the real name for squirrel fish is squirrel mandarin fish; it should be mandarin fish, right? Or perch?"
"But I’ve had it made with carp in my restaurant before, as long as the fish is thick enough with fewer bones, it should be fine, right?"
Speaking of thick flesh with fewer bones, his first thought was of the invasive blackfish at John’s Farm.
This species can only grow to arm size domestically, with no time to let them grow larger.
But in a foreign environment without any natural predators, blackfish grow uncontrollably, reaching sizes comparable to salmon, about the length of a whole leg.
At this size, the bones inside also grow thicker and longer, making them easier to remove.
However, blackfish meat tends to be tough, requiring thin slicing and marinating to tenderize. Eating it in chunks might not achieve the softness of squirrel fish.
"No, squirrel fish requires special knife work and cutting into strips; that’ll make the texture tender, right?"
Thinking this, he simply called John and requested him to send over a blackfish.
If blackfish didn’t work, he would ask Boss Magna to send some cod, which would definitely be useful.
Hearing that Lin Chen specifically wanted blackfish, John got interested and immediately contacted the fish pond to have a live blackfish sent over.
Half an hour later.
When he arrived at the restaurant, the last group of customers was just leaving.
John rushed into the restaurant through the side door with the blackfish, just about to greet everyone when a strong smell of durian hit his nose, causing his face to change color.
"Cough cough... this stuff still has such a strong smell. Are there many customers buying it?"
"Not bad, about a quarter of the customers are interested in trying it, better than expected."
Dais was tallying up today’s receipts and casually replied, pointing to the kitchen, "The chef is over there, go find him yourself."
Seeing the blackfish in his hands, Lucas’s eyes lit up.
"Wow? Such a big blackfish, what delicious dish are you making?"
"I don’t know either, Lin just asked me to bring it over."
John rubbed his hands expectantly and quickly walked towards the kitchen, while Lucas immediately followed, curious to see what good stuff Lin Chen was secretly up to again.
Various fish-related dishes flashed through his mind for a moment.
Boiled fish, sizzling fish, pickled fish, clay pot fish, scallion fish fillets...
Upon closer thought, it had indeed been a while since they had a proper fish dish.
The last time they had it was when a few chefs revealed some leftover dishes after proving their skills.
But if they were to serve it to customers, many dishes might not be feasible, right?
Most foreigners can’t handle spicy food, don’t eat meat with bones, and prefer not to see fish heads, so Western dishes usually come in the form of grilled fish or fried fish fillets.
If it were just for staff meals, that would be pretty boring and probably wouldn’t be anything good.
"You came?"
In the kitchen, Lin Chen had already prepared all the ingredients, with plates of flour, egg wash, and batter neatly arranged on the table.
Seeing these things, Lucas’s eyes lit up again.
