The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

Fu Yu smiled, but after smiling, he couldn’t help thinking, if others were to taste the food he grilled, what would they think?

In this barbecue tasting, with his skill level, what rank could he achieve?

Aiming for the top five, striving for fourth place?

When it comes to things he’s uncertain about, Fu Yu never indulges in arrogance.

He prepared and plated the fourth flavor of the takeout one by one, and gave them to Zhang Jinyu for packing.

Fu Yu looked at the sauce bowls in front of him.

Anyway, there are a total of five cooking progress storage disks, might as well try using one. If it fails, it doesn’t hurt.

If it really doesn’t work, he could just give up the task this time.

It was just about enhancing his taste skills; not acquiring them wouldn’t be a big deal.

With the system’s support, was he worried about not having a chance to turn things around in the future?

Thinking along these lines, Fu Yu was thoroughly reassured.

In the live stream room, Feng Xiaoxiao and Brother Hua watched as fans frantically spammed votes, feeling envious, but couldn’t help but exchange wry smiles.

No wonder he’s the country’s top promoting master, easily showcasing skills to draw fans in a way they should learn from.

The event was proceeding vigorously.

The fans enthusiastically built up the thread quickly.

There was a planner in the comments section leading the thread, listing seven restaurants each as a pinned comment, where people could directly thread under which they thought could take first place.

In the end, three old barbecue brands lined up at the top.

Qianlima ranked fifth, Four Seas Banquet ranked seventh.

...

Zhang Jinyu was busy packing, and didn’t notice Fu Yu’s little actions.

After handing the package to the waiter and helping to deliver, upon returning, he found Fu Yu smoothly blending the barbecue sauce.

Fu Yu has always been a man of action, deciding to use a cooking progress storage disk right away, he took it out and chose to use it.

The next second.

An electronic notification sounded in his ear:

[Ding! The one-time cooking progress storage disk has been activated.]

Fu Yu set the starting point at this moment.

If it doesn’t work out, he’d just come back and start from scratch.

Zhang Jinyu went to help the waiter with the takeout, while Fu Yu moved all the needed seasonings over to the red station himself.

He’d been pondering for a while about how a combination of a few seasonings could create a better taste.

Some ideas had faintly formed in his mind, but after careful consideration, he still felt that some adjustments were needed.

The task now was to improve on the existing sauces.

In this way, it was less effort for him.

However, as for which sauce to improve, Fu Yu currently had two ideas.

The first is the universal sauce that Master Chen taught.

This sauce is slightly bolder in flavor than classic sauces, very versatile, blending well with any ingredient.

Fu Yu tried to replace the seafood sauce in the universal sauce with the store’s secret chicken essence.

After all, seafood is inherently delicious, no need for additional umami enhancement.

Using no measurements, Fu Yu adjusted purely by feel.

Fermented tofu sauce 50g, secret chicken essence 10g... roasted sesame 30g, salad oil 50g, water 50g.

He mixed all the ingredients together evenly.

"Chef Fu, isn’t there a pre-made sauce? You’re remixing it again?"

Fu Yu nodded: "Well, didn’t they want to taste something amazing? I thought I’d give it a try."

Zhang Jinyu totally felt from the bottom of his heart that Fu Yu was incredibly skilled in cooking, so if he wanted to try, it must be fine. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

So, when the grilled seafood was presented steaming hot, Zhang Jinyu was stunned.

"Chef Fu, is this for me to eat?"

Fu Yu just grilled a skewer of prawns to test the sauce’s flavor.

"Yes, give it a try, how does it taste?"

Zhang Jinyu, flattered, grabbed a prawn without peeling it, directly plucked off the head, and tasted it carefully.

Fu Yu asked with concern: "How is it? Tasty?"

Zhang Jinyu worked in the kitchen for over a year and had tasted a lot of good food, which inadvertently raised his standards.

But even so, he candidly said: "It’s delicious! The shell is crispy, the prawn meat is tender, and the sauce is very fragrant."

Fu Yu further asked: "Does it taste amazing?"

Zhang Jinyu wanted to be polite, but since Fu Yu asked for his opinion, it showed trust in his ability to appreciate food.

After a slight hesitation, he decided to be honest: "It’s indeed delicious, but not extraordinary. The grilled prawn tastes a bit like Lao Liu’s Barbecue, though the prawn flavor is fresher."

Upon hearing this, Fu Yu also grabbed a prawn to eat.

Flavor-wise.

It was at best mediocre.

Tasty, but nothing special.

Improving this universal sauce wasn’t easy.

Since all the seasonings were already optimally balanced, making arbitrary innovative changes was challenging.

Fu Yu chewed on the prawn while lamenting the easy waste of a cooking progress storage disk, as his mind raced.

Since it failed, he decided to give it another shot and continue blending.

It didn’t matter if some time was wasted, he could always discard this chance and treat it as an unlimited experimentation mode in a tutorial session.

Having decided, Fu Yu relaxed completely and decided to implement all his previous sauce-blending ideas.

And every time a dish was grilled, he shared it with Zhang Jinyu, exchanging thoughts on the taste.

Zhang Jinyu ate with juice running down his chin, feeling a bit nervous.

This is abalone, after all. Is he really allowed to just sample it like this?

He chewed; it was truly delicious!

Rich people really know how to enjoy life!

After the universal sauce, Fu Yu began to try improving various sauces he had learned during tutorial sessions.

He unleashed his creativity, improving one sauce after another.

There were successes and failures, but even the most successful improvement still felt somewhat lacking to Fu Yu.

The flavors were very good, but he felt there was room for improvement, though he couldn’t pinpoint where.

Fu Yu was so focused on the sauce mixing that he completely ignored the passing time.

Relying on the cooking progress storage disk, he could reset and start over at any time, completely oblivious that time continued to move normally without ending this opportunity.

Yao Shi noticed that the live stream was prepping for a review, but the barbecue area hadn’t finished grilling yet, and he was starting to feel anxious.

When Yao Shi headed to the grilling area, he found Fu Yu eating a grilled saury, frowning in thought.

"What’s going on?"

Fu Yu heard the voice, looked up, saw Yao Shi coming over, and felt a bit guilty but thought, as long as he discarded this opportunity, the space would become virtual, emboldening him immediately.

He honestly explained his ideas to Yao Shi.

He carefully described several sauce blending methods he had tried.

"I always feel something is missing, Chef Yao, can you help me taste it?"

Fu Yu trimmed off the part he bit, handing the untouched slice to Yao Shi.

Yao Shi was at a loss for words.

Fu Yu’s idea was good, attempting to impress customers by blending and improving sauces.

But the problem was, this wasn’t the time to be experimenting.

This was just nonsensical!

Yao Shi took a deep breath, calming his emotions.

He first looked at the saury that Fu Yu handed over.

Fu Yu explained, "This is the one I feel has the best flavor after blending, it’s effective, very tasty, but lacks the wow factor."

No more words were necessary.

The only remedy now was to immediately complete the final flavor of the seafood barbecue and deliver it to the customer for feedback.

Yao Shi glanced at the grilled saury.

Since it’s a sauce already improved, if the flavor was decent, might as well use it directly for grilling.

Yao Shi picked up the saury, took a bite.

Yao Shi: "!"