Chapter 434 - 165: Two Giant Orders

Chapter 434: Chapter 165: Two Giant Orders

Jingzhou, Delicious, nineteenth floor.

"A little to the left. Yes, that’s it. Now a little higher on the left!"

Above the rows of photos on the wall opposite the elevators, a new award was being hung.

[Bocuse d’Or World Cooking Competition]

[Champion]!!!

Winner: Liu Ahbao.

"Why the hell do I feel like this championship is a total fluke?" Ah Bao stood by the entrance, staring at the award with a sense of unreality.

「One week ago.」

The host had asked Su Chen, "So, why do you insist on wearing a suit while you cook?"

Boss Su, who had never been known for his sense of humor, faced the television cameras and hundreds of thousands of viewers and gave what he considered a very witty reply.

"I think it makes me look handsome."

After that day, Su Chen earned a new nickname: the King of Cringe!

Meanwhile, Liu Ahbao, just as he’d hoped, had won the grand championship in the finals. The team’s winning dish, a collaborative effort, was Bobo Chicken—specifically, the kind sold for one yuan a skewer.

Afterward, sponsored by Fang Chang—Boss Fang—the Delicious crew had delightfully toured around for three or four days before returning home.

But after returning to the country, Su Chen felt that wasn’t enough.

So, he simply gave all his employees a three-day mini-vacation!

This act caused many people who came seeking out Ah Bao and Su Chen to make a wasted trip. For a time, a saying even began to circulate in the culinary world.

"The rest of us became chefs because we had to. Boss Su? He opens a restaurant and makes gourmet food just for fun."

Right. And while he’s at it, casually winning a world championship is no big deal either.

Of course, regarding Ah Bao’s world championship victory, the domestic culinary scene believed this particular title wasn’t very prestigious. The old-timers, in particular, felt that Ah Bao’s team had only won the finals through a gimmick and had failed to showcase the true strength of Huaxia cuisine!

Su Chen couldn’t care less about this.

When the three-day mini-vacation ended, the first order of business was to hang Ah Bao’s award up on the nineteenth floor!

From this day forward, Delicious had earned another honor!

"You think it feels unreal?" Zhang Jiayi shook her head with a wry smile. "For the past few days, my dad has been throwing me celebration banquets every day. He even bought a megaphone and makes me ’show off’ for our relatives at every party by performing the Bobo Chicken routine... Ugh!"

Zhang Jiayi felt she was the one who was truly suffering.

Standing at the dinner table in front of so many aunts and uncles, shouting, "Bobo Chicken, one yuan a skewer!"

If it weren’t for the fact that her aunts and uncles were so generous—giving her a red envelope worth tens of thousands of yuan every time she shouted it...

Zhang Jiayi would have lost her temper long ago!

As for Zhang Heping, he had somehow snagged a world champion team award as well. Old Er happily declared that from now on, when he traveled to other cities looking for work, he wouldn’t even consider a job for less than a 30,000 yuan monthly salary!

But the person who gained the most from this experience was undoubtedly Boss Su.

After returning to the company and giving his employees a three-day break, Su Chen himself hadn’t been idle.

Su Chen had kept the main entrance to the entire nineteenth floor locked from the inside, holing himself up in his office.

When he got hungry, he would casually whip up an SS Level dish to eat. When he got tired, he would crash. And when he woke up, he would go right back to the practice room.

On the first day back from vacation, Delicious welcomed its first old friends.

"We have you to thank for everything this time! If it weren’t for you, the Huaxia contestants would have been in real trouble!"

Lu Yongliang, with Shang Mingke in tow, had eagerly made their way to Jingzhou.

One look and it was obvious that Liu Ahbao had tipped them off. Otherwise, their timing couldn’t have been so perfect, showing up the moment work started again.

Su Chen’s smile was a bit strained. "Master Lu, as the saying goes, ’Read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles.’ This trip abroad was incredibly eye-opening."

"How so?" Lu Yongliang actually felt quite regretful that he couldn’t accompany his apprentice to the competition.

"Over the past few days, I’ve eaten at almost every Chinese restaurant in Malaysia, and I’ve found that the state of Chinese food abroad isn’t very optimistic."

Lu Yongliang stroked his chin. "I’m not too familiar with that, but most of the friends I know haven’t opened restaurants abroad."

Su Chen continued, "Chinese restaurants abroad generally have one problem nowadays. Huge portions that fill you up! Everything gets deep-fried. No matter what it is, they just fry it. Of course, anything tastes good after being fried... *Sigh*, but that doesn’t have much to do with us."

Su Chen was just feeling a bit emotional about it.

Currently, the international dining scene was indeed dominated by French cuisine. In Asia, Japanese food was the most popular.

The reason Chinese food still did decent business was: large portions, cheap, and filling!

Very few people ate Chinese food because it was delicious.

This phenomenon truly gave Su Chen a lot to think about.

Lu Yongliang took a deep breath. "Any chef with real skill can thrive here in our own country. There’s no need to go abroad to develop a career."

Seeing Su Chen’s expression, as if he were carrying the worries of the nation, Shang Mingke finally spoke up. "Boss Su, many things can only be changed one step at a time. It’s truly rare for you to have such magnanimity."

Su Chen turned his head. "Magnanimity? That’s not it at all. It’s just that a lot of foreigners have been contacting our company recently, and I’m stressing out over how to handle all these orders..."

Uh!

Shang Mingke suddenly recalled the new nickname for Su Chen that had been circulating online recently: the King of Cringe!

’This isn’t awkwardness at all, you’re just messing with us.’

"Oh? You’re getting foreigners asking you to cook for them now?"

Su Chen nodded. "After we placed in the competition, a lot of so-called foreign food critics, as well as food weeklies, newspapers, and magazines, all want to come and taste our food."

"Isn’t that a good thing?" Lu Yongliang was a little stunned.