"Young Master, is that really not the Arhat Crystal Slice?" Inside the maid café, the elderly man in the Zhongshan suit grew restless again upon seeing Mo Bai on TV, slicing and plating in a single step.
"Don't be ridiculous, Elder Han. Don't you know that the Arhat Crystal Slice is a complementary culinary technique that requires specific conditions?"
"He's even using the fish head and bones to make a soup. How is he supposed to perform a spiritual release?"
The young man whom the elder called Young Master understood that the core of the Arhat Crystal Slice was spiritual release and mercy. It was absolutely not something that could be imitated by just randomly chopping with a frozen knife. Only through the proper technique could the diner feel as if they were ascending to the Western Paradise.
The young man on TV's technique completely violated this principle. It was clear he was making full use of every part of the Leopard Coral Grouper, leaving no remains behind!
"One can only say it's similar, that's all." The young man squinted at the television, watching Mo Bai, who seemed to glow under the noon sun. Based on this display of knife work alone, he admitted he was starting to get interested in the food Mo Bai was making. "A culinary technique that makes you glow? That's so damn cool."
"Such fast knife work! Such precise skill!" Having witnessed firsthand the fish fillets fly and land on the black-glazed plate, layering themselves into the shape of a blooming Queen of the Night flower, one could only imagine the shock of the judges and the host.
The fish was processed in what was practically an instant.
"It's done? So fast?" Takagaki Kaede hadn't even recovered from the beautiful first scene of vibrant red scales flying everywhere, and in the blink of an eye, she saw the translucent sashimi covering the black-glazed plate.
Colson quickly looked at his watch. In the moment he glanced down, the second hand had just slowly swept past the number 12.
After a perfectly timed prediction, not a minute more or less, he had then used just one more minute to present the absolute peak flavor of the Leopard Coral Grouper in a stunningly beautiful form on the plate.
"Heavens! How on earth did the Auspicious Fish Shop manage to hire this young master?" Looking at the sashimi on the plate, he could almost imagine the exquisite peak flavor of the Leopard Coral Grouper exploding in his mouth.
"That was absolutely incredible! In just a brief moment, contestant Mo Bai has shown us a dazzling display of knife skills. And now, the judges will…" Kasuga Yanagi's heartfelt praise came to an abrupt halt.
"What? Contestant Mo Bai has turned on the stove! Is the dish not yet complete?"
"WTF!?" Colson swore. In his view, the only right thing to do with sashimi this perfect was to eat it immediately. Every extra second it spent in the open air was a criminal waste.
"Has Mr. Colson forgotten about that cleaver being chilled in liquid nitrogen? The Leopard Coral Grouper's peak flavor has already been firmly locked in." The tabby cat, suddenly energized, stared intently at the stove with its amber eyes. Its round body fidgeted restlessly in Chiba Eda's arms, and the ticklish sensation of the cat's soft fur made Chiba Eda let out a few soft giggles.
"Ahem, I lost my composure." After Colson awkwardly admitted his mistake, his gaze returned to the stove.
By now, the sun had paused directly in the center of the sky. Perhaps due to the reflection, Mo Bai, standing before the stove, seemed to be draped in a faint golden light.
Xiao Bai, diligently monitoring the oil temperature in the wok, spoke up. "Host…"
Just as it began to speak, slices of ginger slid into the wok, letting out a soft sizzle.
The oil temperature was perfect. The timing was flawless, not off by a single second.
"What the hell?" Xiao Bai was a bit stunned as it looked at the glowing Mo Bai. They had indeed practiced hundreds, even thousands of times in the Mental Time Chamber, but under the current conditions with a different stove, different heat, and a wok of different thickness, how did Mo Bai manage to be even more precise than it was?
The oil temperature rose again. Without any prompt from Xiao Bai, the scallion knot once again entered the wok at the right time and at the right temperature.
Sensing that something was a little off with Mo Bai, Xiao Bai quickly opened his status sheet.
The status sheet, which had just been put together yesterday, showed an unexpected change. In the Chef Skills section, an orange-colored skill was quietly glowing.
Chef Skill: Intuition (Beginner)
Skill Effect: Every flourish of the spatula is an act of unwitting creation. In this process, there are inevitably choices that lead to deliciousness and choices that lead to disaster. Believe in yourself, and make your choice.
Skill Description 1: Were you kissed by a god on the tongue? Were you kissed by a god on the nose? Were you kissed by a god on the ears? Were you kissed by a god on the eyes? Were you kissed by a god on the hands?
Sorry! I don't want this god!
RUA~!
Skill Description 2: With this skill, you might be able to try out for the Great Britain's Order of Gourmet Knights.
"He who pulls this sword…"
"Oh! Thou art Arthur!!!"
"Holy crap! Are you using a cheat?" This cheeky description was clearly its own handiwork, but! But when did Mo Bai get this skill?
Mo Bai paid no attention to Xiao Bai. With his spirit highly focused, his eyes saw only the wok before him.
After the oil was infused with the fragrance of the scallions and ginger, the chopped fish bones and the fish head, split in two, went straight into the wok.
The aroma of fish began to spread.
"It smells so good." Takagaki Kaede seemed to forget her idol status, her nostrils flaring as she greedily breathed in the scent. The genuine emotional display from the foodie girl was truly captivating. The two judges beside her were also breathing deeply with enchanted expressions.
"Time for the cooking wine." A soft voice seemed to ring in his ear. Mo Bai controlled the wok with one hand and grabbed the cooking wine with the other, pressing his thumb over the bottle's mouth as he poured.
He tilted the wok slightly, and flames shot straight up.
The burst of fire carried away the last trace of fishiness, and the incomparably pure fish aroma, catalyzed by the flames, instantly transformed into a surging wave that rushed toward the judges' table.
As the wave of aroma washed over them, the three judges felt any sense of fullness vanish completely, and even the flavor memories of the ten previous dishes were wiped clean from their minds.
"Why does it smell so fragrant? It's just ordinary scallion, ginger, and cooking wine to remove the fishiness." Takagaki Kaede, true to her curious-george principle of asking what she doesn't know, spoke up.
Once again, an agitated Colson slammed his hand on the table and shot up, his eyes behind his sunglasses fixed on Mo Bai. "For a chef, ingredients are like building blocks. It's true that the more you use, the higher you can build, but the fewer blocks you use, the more the main flavor stands out."
"That's right. The versatile peanut oil serves as the foundation, while the perfectly proportioned scallion, ginger, and cooking wine form the most stable triangle to support the Leopard Coral Grouper." The beautiful and sweet-voiced miko, Chiba Eda, stole the line that should have been Colson's, the shock in her large, watery eyes impossible to hide. "Contestant Mo Bai has used his superb culinary skills to present us with a lesson titled 'Emphasis and Construction'."
"Just by smelling the aroma, I can tell that the fish soup contestant Mo Bai is making will also be of the highest quality. I'm already starting to look forward to what kind of dish he will present," Colson said excitedly.
With no room to interject, Kasuga Yanagi swallowed her saliva with a resentful look on her face.
Argh! So frustrating!
They won't let me talk, they won't let me eat, which bastard assigned me to this job?
The cameraman frantically gestured for Kasuga Yanagi to look at the time from behind the lens.
"Damn it!" Kasuga Yanagi cursed under her breath, then plastered a fake, professional smile on her face and began to take control of the stage.
"With less than 20 minutes remaining, will contestant Mo Bai be able to serve his dish before time runs out? We shall wait and see."
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