From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

The first game had not yet ended, except for Feng Zhengming who finished it at an extremely fast speed.

The other chefs are still proceeding step by step.

Although the other chefs were not as quick as Feng Zhengming, the quality of their work was also very high.

Apparently, after the initial adaptation, the chefs gradually mastered the skills and rhythm.

After all, these are relatively basic things. It can be said that they are what the chefs do almost every day when they first enter the kitchen, so it is easy for them to find the feel for it.

Feng Zhengming finished his work, and after the examiner confirmed that he passed in all aspects, there were still veteran masters and judges on site to make further judgments.

The judgement of the masters is more detailed, not just looking at whether the flower knife is qualified.

The most important thing is that the chefs also have to taste the dishes.

Do you want to make sure that the taste of the dish is not deviated and that the taste of the ingredients meets the requirements?

After tasting it, the chefs were quite satisfied.

Feng Zhengming was under pressure as many people were staring at him and an examiner was testing him in class.

He still completed all four dishes almost perfectly.

The key is that he was the first one to finish on the scene.

It's like in the exam room, Feng Zhengming was the first one to hand in his paper.

Then after grading, it was found that his paper actually got full marks.

The old masters looked at Feng Zhengming, and they really had to admit that Feng Zhengming already had the strength of a master chef.

Master Cui said: "Zhengming, with your skills, it's no wonder that Huiquanlou has a second life in your hands."

Feng Zhengming humbly expressed his gratitude to Master Cui.

"Thank you, Master Cui, for the compliment. I think these are just the basic skills a chef should have. I am just following the standards."

Master Wang said: "It is not easy for you to do this."

Master Su agreed, "Not bad, especially in such a tense situation on the scene, it's really not easy for you to complete it without being affected."

The old masters' preference for Feng Zhengming is truly beyond words.

It has almost reached the point where it cannot be avoided anymore.

However, the masters' preference does not make others feel that there is anything wrong with it.

After all, Feng Zhengming is a young chef with real talent.

This is just like in the eyes of many people, good students should be favored by teachers.

After tasting the food, the masters were not in a hurry to give Feng Zhengming a score.

It is better to let the judges specially invited to the competition give the scores first.

The judges invited to the selection competition were specially selected by the Provincial Department of Labor to select the best Shandong cuisine chef representatives.

There are five judges in total, one is from the Labor Department, one is a well-known entrepreneur in the province, one is a representative of the provincial model workers, one is an invited overseas Chinese representative, and the last one is the professional examiner standing next to Feng Zhengming.

The examiner has given Feng Zhengming a score from a professional perspective.

The remaining four judges carefully observed and tasted Feng Zhengming's four dishes.

Then the four of them gave Feng Zhengming a score.

Representatives of model workers, entrepreneurs and overseas Chinese were all very satisfied with Feng Zhengming's dishes.

The model workers’ representatives, in particular, felt that Feng Zhengming’s technical level was truly too high.

As a representative of model workers who are also good at technical skills, he even has a feeling of sympathy for Feng Zhengming.

Therefore, the model worker representative gave Feng Zhengming a full score.

The entrepreneur representatives have been to Huiquanlou for many times.

Moreover, we have entertained guests from other places at Huiquanlou before.

After each dinner party, we receive unanimous praise from customers from other places.

So when they saw Feng Zhengming competing today, the entrepreneur representatives naturally had a certain filter for Feng Zhengming, and finally gave Feng Zhengming a full score.

The remaining staff of the Labor Department and overseas Chinese representatives also admired Feng Zhengming's craftsmanship.

However, they were quite well-behaved and did not bring in too many personal preferences. They just gave Feng Zhengming a relatively high score.

Feng Zhengming finished scoring and was allowed to leave and rest.

As for his final score, it has not been directly announced yet.

After Feng Zhengming's dishes were scored, other participating chefs also finished theirs one after another.

Several of the master chefs are as skilled as Feng Zhengming.

Although they are not as fast as Feng Zhengming, they are quite proficient in both theory and practice.

After all the participating chefs had finished, they were scored on site.

After some statistics and summaries, the final scores and rankings were finally announced.

At the end of the first game, Feng Zhengming's name was ranked first, and his overall score was 4 points higher than the second place.

Looking at the combined scores of the remaining chefs, the top ten were basically only one point apart.

It was only after the tenth place that the gap gradually widened.

When they saw the first score announced, everyone at the scene was very convinced and naturally paid more attention to Feng Zhengming.

The next day's newspapers published a report saying "Young chef has excellent skills and has become the representative chef of the new generation of Shandong cuisine."

The appearance of such reports has made many people look forward to Feng Zhengming even more.

Feng Zhengming also received invitations from newspapers and TV stations for interviews again.

However, he still postponed the interview for the time being and focused on the next game.

Although he scored a lot in the first game, he was far from being the best.

If he doesn't perform well in the next two games, he may still be surpassed by other master chefs.

Not knowing what the next two games would be, Feng Zhengming could only make some preparations silently.

Fortunately, there are still two days for everyone to prepare before the second game starts.

Feng Zhengming was in the kitchen of Huiquanlou, making serious preparations for the next two games.

But as the TV station broadcast the recording of the first game on TV.

Some of the discussions about the game were still very heated.

Many people who have never worked in the culinary industry only realized through this competition broadcast on TV that there are so many details involved in just making flower cuts.

The video clip that was edited and released by the TV station was like popularizing knife skills knowledge to everyone.

In the past, many people did not have a unified standard for whether a dish was good or not.

After the first game video was broadcast on TV, it provided everyone with a standard.

This way, almost any diner can make a professional statement in any restaurant.

Many people will even compare Feng Zhengming's cooking skills. For example, your knife skills are obviously not up to standard, but Chef Feng's knife skills are standard.

Once there is a comparison, pressure is immediately placed on the chefs in the kitchens of many restaurants and hotels.

Even Yan Jianxing of Yan's Restaurant felt a bit stressed.

Originally, Yan Jianxing had also thought about participating in the selection.

However, because Yan's Restaurant had just opened for less than a year, he felt that he still needed to stay in the restaurant and improve its reputation, so after weighing the pros and cons, he did not participate in the selection.

Because I am participating in the selection, I need to make more preparations for the competition.

Especially once selected, they will need to receive intensive training from senior masters and go to other places to participate in national competitions.

All of this requires a lot of time and effort.

Yan Jianxing was still worried that such a long time would delay the business of Yan’s Restaurant for too long.

Now watching the game being broadcast on TV, Yan Jianxing feels that the pressure of the game is indeed quite great.

Especially in the first round, the examiner will be there and ask about the theory of each flower knife.

Then the practical ability and experience of the chefs in the competition need to be tested.

Finally, a professional team of judges will give the final scores.

This series of processes is a great test of the mentality and abilities of the participating chefs.

Seeing Feng Zhengming's quick, accurate and steady performance on the spot through the TV recording made Yan Jianxing quite impressed.

So Yan Jianxing took the initiative to communicate with his father.

Master Yan seemed to have expected that Yan Jianxing would take the initiative to communicate with him.

He didn't speak first, but looked at his son quietly, wanting to hear some of his thoughts.

"Dad, Zhengming performed very well in the first game. It shouldn't be a big problem for him to represent Shandong cuisine in the national competition this time."

Master Yan nodded: "If he doesn't slack off, there shouldn't be any problem."

Yan Jianxing added, "Dad, you were right to ask Zhengming to come to the restaurant to give us guidance. He pointed out many of our problems and it was a wake-up call for me."

In response to his son's words, Master Yan said calmly: "Every industry needs to constantly supervise itself. The emergence of Zhengming is of great significance to the development of our Shandong cuisine.

In the past, our Shandong cuisine enjoyed certain government support, so we all lived a relatively comfortable life.

But now that the market has been liberalized, the direction of the market is starting to become a more important factor.”

Yan Jianxing agreed with his father: "Yes, the current market trend is really a very important factor. If you can't keep up with the market trend, you may not be able to attract customers with your craftsmanship alone."

Master Yan said: "You have misunderstood this point. The more market demand-oriented it is, the more important craftsmanship is."

When Yan Jianxing heard his father say this, he was stunned at first, but he soon understood what his father meant.

"I understand. Dad, what you mean is that if you want to keep up with the market trend, you must have solid skills as a foundation, just like Zhengming."

After hearing this, Master Yan began to look at his son with a new respect.

In the past, in Master Yan's eyes, his son often seemed a little conservative.

Just like the dishes he makes in Yan's Restaurant are always traditional classic Shandong cuisine.

There is nothing wrong with making traditional classic Shandong cuisine.

It was just this kind of conservatism that doomed Yan Jianxing and Yan's Restaurant to be unable to achieve further development.

Yan Jianxing's words today made Master Yan feel that his concepts were changing.

Master Yan nodded and said, "You are right. If you want to keep up with the market trend, you really need a more solid craft as a foundation."

After a brief pause, Master Yan continued, "So this time in our selection competition, we will pay more attention to testing your basic skills. This is also a key concept of this national competition."

It was the first time that Yan Jianxing heard his father mention the national competition.

He immediately perked up and listened to his father very carefully.

Master Yan briefly talked about this national competition.

"The focus of this national competition is to standardize cooking techniques and establish a national standard. Therefore, this national competition will assess the basic skills of chefs from various provinces and cities to test their basic skills.

The basic skills in this national competition will be the standard, and future exams may also be based on this one.”

Yan Jianxing was shocked by his father's words.

From the matter of Shandong Province selecting chefs to participate in the national competition.

Yan Jianxing originally had some guesses.

I think this national competition may be very special.

But he didn't expect that this national competition would actually be about establishing a set of standards.

But after thinking about it, Yan Jianxing could vaguely guess the reason for doing this.

"Dad, is it because more and more foreign restaurants are entering China? So we need to have a standard in China so that we can cope with the competition from foreign restaurants?"

Master Yan was a little surprised. He didn't expect his son could guess this.

He nodded and said, "That's one reason. Another reason is that, with a set of standards, we can also have a goal to improve the abilities of chefs across the country."

Obviously, this was not a decision made by Master Yan and other Shandong cuisine masters.

It should be the result of discussions between domestic master chefs and some experts who specialize in domestic cuisine.

It's like the last two national competitions.

The first session was a true gathering of many talents, which truly brought together top experts from all over the country to showcase Chinese culinary skills and also identified some characteristics of different regions.

In the second session, some standards are being gradually established, more classic dishes are being discovered, and a group of chefs who can pass on their skills are being introduced.

Now that it is the third session, the goal is to directly establish a standard that will be applied nationwide.

As a result, when many foreign restaurants enter China, domestic restaurants will also have corresponding methods to deal with the competition.

Of course, the more crucial point is what Master Yan said.

Establish a standard so that chefs across the country have a goal to improve themselves.

Whether it is competing domestically or competing with foreign restaurants.

In the end, it all comes down to your own skills.

If your skills are solid enough, you don't have to be afraid of competing with others.

Master Yan said: "Under such circumstances, Zhengming's participation in the national competition is not only what we old men hope for, but also what the national competition wants to see, because his basic skills are solid enough to be used as a standard."

At this moment Yan Jianxing suddenly couldn't help but laugh and said, "Dad, sometimes I feel that Zhengming is like a robot."

These words made Master Yan stunned at first, but soon he started laughing.

"This, I talked about it with your uncles and uncles, and we sometimes have this feeling, thinking that Zhengming is like a standardized robot when he cooks."

Then Master Yan added, "But after tasting his four dishes in the first round of the selection, we all knew he was not one of them."

Yan Jianxing was a little surprised: "Oh? Did he make a mistake on the spot?"

Master Yan smiled and nodded: "There was a mistake, but the judges didn't notice it." (End of this chapter)