Chapter 120: After All, It’s Not a Professional Restaurant

Chapter 120: Chapter 120: After All, It’s Not a Professional Restaurant

The moment Qi Pei’er left, Li Shan immediately turned to his camera.

"See? The service at this restaurant is terrible! Utterly unprofessional! This is a cardinal sin in the service industry!"

Bullet Comments:

[Qi Pei’er’s expression and tone really weren’t great...]

[Heh, that’s because she could tell this bullshit food critic was just here to stir up trouble! No wonder she couldn’t give him a pleasant look!]

[You call this stirring up trouble? Can some of you fans be reasonable? He’s a professional doing a professional’s job!]

[I think Li Shan is being a bit harsh. This place isn’t a professional restaurant to begin with, just a spin-off from a variety show.]

[So what if it’s a spin-off? Did the customers not pay? If you’re going to run a restaurant, you should act like one!]

...

In truth, Qi Pei’er began to regret her actions not long after she walked away.

She told Fu Chao what had happened.

Fu Chao had also heard that a food critic with ill intentions had arrived, and he immediately nodded in approval.

"Nice one!"

"But... what if he goes back and writes a bad review about us? Ugh, it’s all my fault. Why couldn’t I control my temper?"

Qi Pei’er was both annoyed with herself and worried.

Fu Chao fell silent, his mood suddenly souring.

Before long, the dishes Li Shan had ordered were delivered to his table one after another.

Li Shan was wiping his hands with a wet wipe.

His movements, combined with his handsome appearance and tasteful linen suit, gave him a refined and noble air.

Li Shan smiled again.

It was a knowing smile, mixed with disdain and an ’I-knew-it’ attitude.

"Look, even the order the dishes are served in is unprofessional. The waitstaff at this restaurant clearly haven’t had any professional training. Generally, you serve cold dishes first, followed by the main courses, stir-fries, and desserts. Among the main courses, the highest-quality and most expensive dishes should be brought out first—that’s called the ’lead dish,’ and there’s a specific etiquette to it. Also, dishes that are exceptionally savory or sweet should be served toward the end so they don’t overpower the flavors of the other dishes. These sweet and sour pork ribs and this pork and bamboo shoot soup came out far too early."

He shook his head as he spoke.

Then, he picked up his own personal chopsticks and tasted the first dish, the cold-tossed celtuce.

"Knife work is crucial for cold dishes. For a vegetable dish like this, you’d typically use a rolling cut, which requires precision and uniformity to ensure the seasoning is absorbed evenly and it’s easy to eat. Hmm, the cutting on this dish is decent, but only decent. It doesn’t reach a top-tier level. Now, let’s examine the seasoning."

With that, Li Shan nonchalantly popped a piece of celtuce into his mouth.

His movements paused, just for a barely perceptible moment.

Because...

This cold-tossed celtuce tasted incredible!

Even if the knife work had flaws, they were completely overshadowed by the flavor of the sauce!

The celtuce was crisp, refreshing, and sweet, perfectly complemented by a tangy and spicy sauce. One bite was enough to whet anyone’s appetite!

—That’s right. Xie Yu had cut the vegetables, but Nan Zhi herself had mixed the sauce.

The restaurant had very few cold dishes; Nan Zhi had only added them at the last minute to add more variety to the menu.

After all, it wasn’t a top-tier restaurant that needed to pursue perfection in every single dish. Xie Yu’s intermediate-level knife skills, combined with Nan Zhi’s flawless sauce, were more than enough to make this cold dish astounding.

As a result, the cold-tossed celtuce had been selling exceptionally well over the past few days.

Many customers would casually add an order of it while ordering other main courses.

At first, Li Shan hadn’t thought much of the cold-tossed celtuce on the menu.

Little did he know, he’d stumbled upon a "surprise"!

But Li Shan couldn’t bring himself to smile.

He forced himself to swallow the celtuce and plastered on a smile.

"Mm, the flavor is passable. A little better than I expected. It seems there’s a reason for its popularity. Of course, that’s from a diner’s perspective. From the perspective of a professional food critic like myself, I can still find fault."

Then, Li Shan launched into a long-winded speech about the intricacies of cold dishes.

In the bullet comments:

[He praises it one second and starts criticizing it the next... He’s really messing with people’s heads.]

[As expected of a professional food critic! He’s so knowledgeable! How interesting, truly interesting!]

[Why do I feel like this guy is deliberately nitpicking? That cold-tossed celtuce looks delicious.]

[They already said experts are different from regular people. He’s more impressive because he’s so worldly and experienced! I guess all those people who hyped Nan Zhi’s cooking skills to the heavens have been proven wrong now, haha!]

[Anyway, I think what Li Shan is saying makes a lot of sense. Like when he pointed out the flaws of this cold dish from the perspective of culinary aesthetics—that’s a really novel point of view!]

...

Li Shan had become a famous food critic for a reason; he clearly had the fundamentals down.

Some of the less-convinced viewers in the live stream were now becoming firm believers, urging him to move on to the next dish.

Li Shan did not disappoint.

After finally letting the cold-tossed celtuce go, he rinsed his mouth with tea and tried a new dish.

Coincidentally, the vegetable dish he chose was one stir-fried by Xie Yu.

With Nan Zhi’s guidance, Xie Yu’s skill level had reached a solid seven out of ten.

But in Li Shan’s mouth, it became a five.

While tasting the dishes, Li Shan also ate the sweet and sour pork ribs and the pork and bamboo shoot soup that Nan Zhi had personally made.

He cleverly avoided talking about these two dishes, giving them only a brief mention.

Then he latched onto the flaws of the other dishes and criticized them extensively.

No dish in the world could withstand such scrutiny!

Gradually, more and more people in the live stream began to believe Li Shan.

Even the viewers who had initially spoken up for Nan Zhi and her team started to waver.

Their supportive tone became much more subdued:

[Nan Zhi isn’t a professional, so you can’t have expectations that are too high.]

[Exactly, it’s already amazing that they’ve gotten this far. It’s completely exceeded my expectations.]

[Mr. Li Shan is a professional. It’s normal for him to be critical out of professional integrity. Don’t be discouraged, everyone!]

[Of course Nan Family’s Small Restaurant can’t compare to a professional one.]

...

However, this kind of reserved defense only served to stir up the emotions of the onlookers:

[Ooh, look at you, not hyping her up anymore? That wasn’t your attitude a few days ago when you were buying trending topics calling Nan Zhi a god of cooking!]

[Yeah, weren’t you all so arrogant a couple of days ago? Saying Nan Family’s Small Restaurant was better than top professional restaurants, and that when Nan Zhi cooks, all other chefs would be out of a job!]

[You can’t be too arrogant in life, or you’re bound to crash and burn sooner or later, hahaha!]

[Mr. Li Shan, please say more! This is so satisfying to watch!]

...

At that moment, Li Shan’s tasting progression arrived at the main event of the entire meal.

It was also a new dish Nan Zhi had just launched today—

The Texas Roasted Chicken.

Li Shan began another one of his long-winded speeches:

"Did you all know? We have four famous styles of chicken in Hua Country: Texas Roasted Chicken, Daokou Roasted Chicken, Fuliji Roasted Chicken, and Goubangzi Smoked Chicken. As a food critic, I’ve had my fair share of Texas Roasted Chicken. I’ve even had the one made by the great Lu Cuisine master, Ren Yunqing himself. Now that was truly so tender the meat fell from the bone, the ultimate delicacy! As for this little restaurant’s Texas Roasted Chicken..."

Li Shan looked at the beautifully presented whole chicken on the plate, scoffed, and reached out to prod it with his chopsticks.

CLATTER.

The meat simply fell away from the bone!