The Game of Life-Chapter 815 - 814 My Own Style

Chapter 815: Chapter 814: My Own Style

Chapter 815 -814: My Own Style

The second round of the scoring competition passed very peacefully in the first week, even the Sunday test was very simple, changing from the previous torturous route style to peace and love, it simply tested tasting abilities.

The testing mode was somewhat similar to the one Jiang Feng participated in during the “Good Taste” Culinary Competition, involving two cups of fruit and vegetable juice, each made from fifteen different fruits and vegetables. Correctly identifying one ingredient earned one hundred points, while a wrong answer deducted two hundred points. They had to name thirty ingredients in total, and naming less was considered a wrong answer.

Due to an innate advantage, the competition this week at Taifeng Building went too smoothly, so much so that Jiang Feng didn’t even want to cheat during the test; he tasted everything with his eyes closed, just so he wouldn’t see the hints above.

With their own capabilities, Taifeng Building’s team correctly identified twenty-seven ingredients and incorrectly three, earning a total score of two thousand one hundred points.

In the third week, Taifeng Building’s final score was 7413, still ranking first in the overall standings.

Taste House, suffering severely from not adjusting well to the local conditions, had a very dismal score this week, and they didn’t complete the task set by the Eight-treasure House of selling a combined one hundred dishes of the four assigned and obtaining fifty favorable reviews, losing two thousand points as a penalty. Although Taste House still ranked second overall, it was less than two thousand points behind the top restaurant, and at this rate, it was definitely going to be overtaken by the top restaurant in the fourth week.

The top restaurant, unexpectedly, completed their tasks without any penalties deducted, scoring well. According to insiders, Rolan was unexpectedly skilled in Cantonese cuisine, and his vegetarian dishes from Ding Lake were very authentic. Although not as skilled as Sun Maochai, he still managed to impress most of the diners and received numerous favorable reviews.

You never know what other culinary skills a French chef might possess beyond French cuisine.

Like Taste House, both Eight-treasure House and Cheng Ji Restaurant failed to complete their tasks, with a two-thousand-point deduction each. Cheng Ji Restaurant seemed to have adopted a careless attitude, already accustomed to being at the bottom, unbothered by their dismal score. The owner of Cheng Ji Restaurant didn’t care much either, as it was the weakest among the seven restaurants participating, and ranking last was expected.

Yonghe House, which hadn’t performed well previously, was in good form, completing their tasks successfully with impressive operational and test scores, ranking third this week, and once more stepping over Eight-treasure House.

By this point in the competition, the two advancing restaurants had become very clear.

Unless a restaurant could pull off a miraculous turnaround like Taifeng Building did in the first two weeks, the two advancing restaurants would definitely be Taifeng Building and the top restaurant. Moreover, considering the current scores, even if a dark horse emerged in the final week, it would only displace the top restaurant, something the production team would never allow — so there wouldn’t be a dark horse.

The lack of suspense made the final week of the scoring competition extremely bland and exceptionally peaceful and love.

It almost didn’t feel like a live-action competitive culinary show, but more like a leisure-centric dining show. The competition had been ongoing for a month, and everyone had grown accustomed to the atmosphere of the competition, feeling less and less like it was a contest. Even though they weren’t in their own restaurants, their demeanor remained unchanged from when they were operating normally — even with a cameraman nearby reminding them that this was a reality show, they still couldn’t help but feel as if they were simply at work, casually handling tasks.

Jiang Feng even began to consult Peng Changping on culinary matters during his free time, clearly reverting to his state from a few months prior when he was learning dishes at Yonghe House.

Of course, the segments where Jiang Feng consulted Peng Changping couldn’t be broadcast because they were culinary secrets; not only could they not be aired, but the cameraman couldn’t film them either.

Perhaps the production team also realized that the competition was somewhat mundane in the last two weeks, with no special material except for the severe setback in Taste House’s score and the imminent change of rank during the third week, and nothing else worth broadcasting.

Everyone was diligently cooking, managing their operations, and earnestly doing what a chef ought to do.

Even Chef Arno wasn’t cursing as much anymore.

What was originally designed to be extremely interesting, full of conflicts, explosive moments, and highlights, became bland and warm.

This was not what the production team wanted to see.

They wanted to see conflict, drama, rage, breakdowns, cursing, crying, laughter.

Not civility, democracy, strength, harmony, kindness, dedication, professionalism.

After several days of urgent discussions and meetings, the production team decided to organize an appealing test, which might not necessarily lead to drama but had the potential for it, and might not necessarily involve conflict but could do if it arose, under the premise that the outcome couldn’t be changed anyway.

They gathered the contestants from all seven restaurants together.

At the close of the scoring competition, they organized a real culinary contest.

This last-minute move by the production team baffled Jiang Feng.

He had assumed that the final week’s test would just be something trivial to get it over with, since whatever happened wouldn’t change the outcome. He had asked the crew previously, and was told that after the scoring competition ended, there would be a rest period of about twenty days before the semifinals and finals started.

He had all his plans for the next month ready, and if the production team told him, ‘sorry you still need to prepare, we’ve got a little highlight.’

Because it was the Sino-American King of Chefs Competition, both the semifinals and finals were set in Beiping, requiring the American contestants to travel across the ocean, which needed time for visa, accommodation, and other procedures.

According to the original plan of the production team, the finals were to be broadcast live, with the American side on television and the Chinese side online. The procedures required for a TV broadcast were much more complex than those for an online broadcast. Everything was settled, but there seemed to be some last-minute hitches as the American side was still haggling, possibly delaying the finals and semifinals.

During that interim period, Jiang Feng planned to stay at Yonghe House and continue learning Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup from Peng Changping, striving to perfect it, and ignoring other dishes.

No matter what memories, what buff dishes, he wasn’t concerned about them anymore.

Jiang’s Sea Cucumber Soup was indeed listed as a recipe, but it had no buffs, and Peng Changping’s technique was a modification of Jiang Zhonghe’s method that was further adapted by Jiang Chengde, but this didn’t mean Peng Changping’s method was better than Jiang Zhonghe’s.

The modifications in the technique could be due to the cookware or the chef’s personal preferences. Each chef excelled in different aspects, some chefs had exceptional knife skills, others had sensitive taste good at seasoning, and some had extraordinary intuition in fire control. Like Jiang Feng, he was a master of three arts, but his weakest was seasoning because his taste was relatively poor compared to other masters.

This is an innate issue that cannot be changed.

Even though Jiang Feng had a game that allowed him to identify many things that the tongue couldn’t taste, for a chef, the most intuitive, convenient, and useful way to experience and improve was still one’s own tongue.

Actually, Jiang Feng’s best skill was knifework.

But most premier dishes focus on seasoning, and Jiang Feng’s advantage was hard to fully exploit. When discussing top-tier dishes that test knife skills, the first dish that comes to most people’s minds is finely-chopped tofu, but even with finely-chopped tofu, the knife skills are just a flashy part, and if you really want to enjoy tasty finely-chopped tofu, you still need to focus on fire control and seasoning.

Crudo entirely depends on knife skills, it’s just a pity that Jiang Feng isn’t keen on raw food and doesn’t want to develop in this area.

During his two weeks of unpaid work at Yonghe House, Jiang Feng discovered the true charm or unique feature of Yonghe House chefs.

Previously, when he learned cooking at Yonghe House, although he was very familiar with everyone, during business hours everyone did their own tasks, there was no interaction or cooperation, and no one disturbed others at work, he had seen but never experienced the management style of the Yonghe House kitchen.

After experiencing these two weeks, Jiang Feng understood why Lu Sheng dared to boast that Yonghe House was once the uncrowned king of Beiping.

Indeed, it was the uncrowned king.

The collaboration between each chef was too good.

Unlike other established restaurants, the chefs at Yonghe House are basically non-transient. Yonghe House trains a chef from scratch, from fundamental skills to mastering the kitchen, and as long as nothing unexpected happens, the chef’s entire culinary career is spent at Yonghe House. Even chefs from non-Tan Family cuisine are old employees who have been in the restaurant for twenty or thirty years, and such old employees are very rare in Yonghe House now, as all the younger staff are fellow disciples.

Because they are all from the same school, they understand each other very well.

From major flaws in culinary skills to minor habits during cooking, everyone in the kitchen knows each other inside out. Assigning each person the tasks they are best at, allowing them to excel in their strongest areas, and assembling countless best efforts into the best dish is how the chefs at Yonghe House provide the best dishes to their customers.

This philosophy was left by Peng Changping.

Peng Changping felt that a chef didn’t need to excel in every skill, only needing to be outstanding in one skill and competent in others to be a great chef. Then, when cooking, this excellent chef just needed to fully showcase their characteristics, their strengths, their uniqueness, making the dish their own.

This philosophy wasn’t new to Jiang Feng as Xu Cheng also supported this philosophy, and this was why Xu Cheng admired Wu Minqi but was not optimistic about Gu Li.

Even though Wu Minqi’s spicy dishes had not yet achieved greatness, or even success, she had her own style. In contrast, even though Gu Li appeared mature in style, he was always imitating his master, lacking a style of his own.

Jiang Feng understood the reasoning, but his two weeks of unpaid work at Yonghe House was the first time he saw this philosophy turn into reality.

Extremely useful, and inspiring.

Jiang Feng was well aware that he had always been imitating.

He had always been learning others’ dishes through the recipes and tutorials in the game, replicating them 100%, initially for buffs, and later out of habit. Moreover, he felt the tutorials provided by the game were problem-free and quite good, not requiring any changes, whether it was chicken and tofu or sweet and sour yam, because these buffs could enhance the dishes themselves.

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His dishes appeared to vary in style and have bizarre cuisines simply because they were not from the same person, hence naturally varied in style.

In a sense, he was similar to Gu Li, as they both were imitating; only Gu Li firmly imitated his master, while he was imitating many different people to the extent that others couldn’t tell he was imitating.

This was good, but also not good.

Just like Jiang Feng was well aware that seasoning was his weak point, and his real brilliance was in knifework, yet he didn’t have a signature dish that showcased his knifework, instead, it was the seasoning-focused chicken and tofu that brought him fame.

Jiang’s sea cucumber soup was clearly the most prestigious among Jiang Family dishes, being an S-tier dish, yet it had no buffs and wasn’t limited in production, looking like a regular dish that just happened to be listed in the menu.

Jiang Zhonghe, Jiang Chengde, and Peng Changping, their methods of making it weren’t completely the same, they all had their own styles.

Jiang Feng had always felt that he was less consistent in making Jiang’s sea cucumber soup than other dishes, and the final product quality was always mixed, because the dish was too complex, with too many points where errors could occur.

But now he felt that it might not be because of this.

The game never proactively told him anything, yet it always liked to congratulate him upon his discoveries, saying congratulations, you were right, and only after discovering it did he realize that the game had previously given very subtle hints.

No buffs, not limiting production times, were actually the best hints, but Jiang Feng had not realized it before.

Jiang’s sea cucumber soup should not be blindly imitated.

He needed to create a dish that truly had his own style.

A dish that accentuated his strengths and avoided his weaknesses.