From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

After the first dish competition, the young chefs have already adapted to the competition process.

So during the next two dishes, the young chefs relaxed.

Some young chefs are beginning to show some personal ideas.

Of course, if you want to express your personal ideas, it will inevitably affect the final score.

However, Feng Zhengming still gave some encouragement to young chefs who dared to try.

Although he did not participate in the scoring of the next two dishes.

But before announcing the rankings, he gave the greatest recognition to every young chef who tried something new.

They were promised that after the competition they could enter the kitchen of Huiquanlou to observe and learn for a week.

After a month of intensive competition, the Qilu Young Chef Cooking Exchange Competition finally came to a successful conclusion.

After a three-course competition, the top ten young chefs were selected from the one hundred young chefs.

The result was not too surprising to the judges.

In the end, the champion of this provincial youth chef cooking competition was: Zhu Xu.

Zhu Xu is the great-grandson of Master Wang from Jubin Garden.

Although he is called a disciple, in fact, Zhu Xu spent most of his time learning cooking from Master Wang.

After Jubinyuan closed down due to poor business, the boss and Zhu Xu's master Cheng Guosheng went south.

Zhu Xu went to several restaurants and was finally arranged by Feng Zhengming to work in the old Fengjia Restaurant.

Although Zhu Xu was not able to enter the kitchen of Huiquanlou.

But he first learned under Feng Zhengming's third senior brother Yang Bin in the old shop, and later he was arranged to be the chef in the old shop together with Xia Mingye for a period of time.

During that period, Zhu Xu had a lot of exchanges with Xia Mingye.

From Xia Mingye, Zhu Xu learned some of the cooking skills of Xia family Confucius Mansion cuisine.

It can be said that Zhu Xu has learned three styles of Shandong cuisine.

Plus Zhu Xu’s own research.

For his third dish in this competition, he even took a risk and tried to make the Oolong Playing with Pearls dish that won Feng Zhengming the gold medal in the national competition.

Although the final dish has a quite obvious difference in taste from Feng Zhengming's dish.

But he was the only one who dared to try such an adventurous dish, which was the key dish in the competition and he had not specially learned it.

It still won unanimous recognition from all judges including Feng Zhengming.

In the end, Zhu Xu won the Young Chef Championship with a total score of 3 points ahead of the second place.

When Feng Zhengming presented the award to Zhu Xu, everyone was filled with joy.

"You performed very well. It seems that you have not slacked off in the old shop during this period. I hope you can keep up the good work in the future. In four years, you can become a chef representing Shandong cuisine and participate in the national competition."

Zhu Xu took the championship trophy awarded to him by Feng Zhengming, and he was very excited at this moment.

"Thank you, thank you, Chef. If you hadn't been willing to take me in, I'm afraid I would only be able to cook some mediocre dishes in the kitchen of a small restaurant."

Feng Zhengming saw that Zhu Xu was crying while talking.

He reached out and gently patted Zhu Xu's shoulder.

"Why are you crying? This championship is the result of your own hard work. How much effort have you put in for this championship? Now you should be happy and you should smile."

As he spoke, Feng Zhengming hugged Zhu Xu and walked to the award ceremony platform.

In front of everyone present, as well as the photographers’ cameras.

Feng Zhengming introduced Zhu Xu very seriously.

"This is our second Shandong cuisine provincial champion young chef. His name is Zhu Xu. He is the grandson of Master Wang and the apprentice of Chef Cheng Guosheng, the former head chef of Jubinyuan. Let us all applaud our champion young chef."

At Feng Zhengming's call, warm applause immediately broke out at the scene.

Even the other top ten young chefs on the stage applauded Zhu Xu.

Hearing the applause from the audience, Zhu Xu couldn't help but shed tears of excitement again.

These tears were also the tears that Zhu Xu had suppressed for a long time.

He was originally a disciple of the chef of Jubinyuan, and his master's grandfather was also a well-known master of Shandong cuisine.

But in the end, he did not do anything wrong, but watched Jubin Garden become a mess and even closed down in the end.

His master even left Quancheng and followed his boss south to seek a new way out.

Under such circumstances, Zhu Xu once deeply doubted whether his years of hard work in learning cooking were worth it.

The kind of despair that comes from trying hard enough but ultimately finding yourself powerless to change anything.

Zhu Xu was really depressed and couldn't raise his head for a long time.

In fact, not long after Master Wang went to Beijing, he contacted Zhu Xu and asked him if he was willing to go to Beijing.
Master Wang told Zhu Xu that if he was willing to go to the capital, Master Wang could recommend him to some restaurants in the capital.

But Zhu Xu finally did not choose to go, as he still hoped to prove himself in Quancheng.

So he found Feng Zhengming, hoping to join Feng Zhengming's team.

At first, Feng Zhengming arranged him to work in the kitchen of the dry rice shop.

Zhu Xu didn't say anything, but he was somewhat dissatisfied in his heart.

He felt that Feng Zhengming's arrangement was clearly intended to suppress him.

Zhu Xu even thought at one point that Feng Zhengming's arrangement was revenge against his master.

However, in the kitchen of the dry rice shop, Zhu Xu gradually understood the purpose of Feng Zhengming's arrangement.

At that time, Yang Bin was the chef in the old shop's kitchen.

Zhu Xu found himself like a child in front of Yang Bin.

Even when Zhu Xu was most confident about his dish, he found that he was no match for Yang Bin.

It was then that Zhu Xu finally realized that his cooking skills were not as good as he thought.

Zhu Xu put away his arrogance and began to learn from Yang Bin seriously, starting from the most basic things. Even if Yang Bin asked him to do odd jobs, he would complete all the work very seriously.

Later, when Yang Bin was teaching Sun Hai, he would ask Zhu Xu and Xia Mingye to listen and watch beside him.

Gradually, Zhu Xu and Xia Mingye also made great progress.

This is why, when Feng Zhengming opened a new store, he arranged him and Xia Mingye to work in the kitchen of the old store.

Zhu Xu and Xia Mingye worked together in the old shop's kitchen, and they also helped to support it.

Zhu Xu and Xia Mingye learn from each other, compete with each other, and strive to make progress together.

It can be said that Zhu Xu felt that he could finally win the title of No. 1 young chef in the province.

The person who deserves the greatest credit should be Feng Zhengming.

He had already accepted in his heart that he should be considered a chef under Feng Zhengming.

But what he didn't expect was.

When Feng Zhengming introduced him, he said that he was the great-disciple of Master Wang, and also introduced his master Cheng Guosheng.

Only at this point did Zhu Xu truly witness Feng Zhengming's courage.

It turns out that Feng Zhengming never thought of suppressing anyone.

He has always just wanted to inherit and promote Shandong cuisine better.

So even though Cheng Guosheng had fought with him for a long time, the two had many different ideas.

Feng Zhengming still gave Cheng Guosheng enough respect and introduced to everyone on the scene that Zhu Xu was Cheng Guosheng's apprentice.

Perhaps even Zhu Xu himself would not have thought of it before Feng Zhengming introduced it in this way.

Master Wang, who rushed to the scene, was also moved by Feng Zhengming's introduction.

Several masters admired Feng Zhengming even more. Master Cui praised him with certainty: "Zhengming truly has the spirit of a master."

Master Su asked rudely, "Why? Does Lao Cui think Zhengming's skills are not yet at the level of a master?"

Master Cui was immediately amused: "Hahaha, okay, okay, Lao Su, you are waiting for me here, right?"

The other masters also laughed.

Master Wang sighed: "Zhengming's cooking skills have reached the level of a master. We are old now, and the future of Shandong cuisine depends on him."

This point was recognized by the master.

What makes the masters most satisfied is.

Feng Zhengming is not a general who charges into battle, but a marshal who can truly lead everyone.

From this young chef cooking competition.

Everyone can see that Feng Zhengming has excellent coordination skills.

The whole game went very well under his coordination.

Moreover, Feng Zhengming not only mobilized the enthusiasm of the judges, but also mobilized the enthusiasm of the event organizers and sponsors.

He really brought everyone into the game.

It made everyone feel involved and realize how difficult it is for every young chef in this competition.

Feng Zhengming did not say any more profound truths, nor did he say anything profound at the end of the game.

He was so simple and unpretentious as he announced the top ten finalists of the competition.

It was announced that Zhu Xu won the championship of this competition.

Then let the people at the scene cheer and applaud for Zhu Xu.

Applause to every young chef who participated in this province-wide competition.

The old masters are sure that even now they cannot do better than Feng Zhengming.

If it were when he was young, it would be even more difficult for the master craftsman to do what Feng Zhengming did.

The award ceremony continued, and Feng Zhengming, the national number one, presented the award to today's champion.

Provincial leaders and chefs then came on stage to present awards to the remaining nine outstanding young chefs.

Feng Zhengming did not announce the rankings of the remaining young chefs.

He just announced that Zhu Xu was the champion with the highest score among all young chefs this time.

Zhu Xu and the remaining nine young chefs are the top ten best young chefs of this session.

The top ten young chefs include Sun Hai, Xia Hui, Xia Mingye, Gu Zhicheng and Bao Feng.

If the champion Zhu Xu is also counted.

Among the top ten, six were chefs under Feng Zhengming.

But no one at the scene would be dissatisfied with such a result.

Because these are the rankings of one hundred young chefs based on the total scores of each chef’s three dishes.

When awards were presented to nine other outstanding young chefs on the spot.

Many people expressed their congratulations to Xia Zhennan, the father of Xia Hui and Xia Mingye.

He also praised Xia Zhennan for his ability to train younger generations and for being able to cultivate the brother and sister into excellent chefs.

Xia Zhennan felt very embarrassed to be praised by his peers.

Of course, he was very clear that Xia Hui and Xia Mingye's current achievements had little to do with him as their father.

If Xia Hui had not run away from home to learn cooking and had not met Feng Zhengming.

Maybe Xia Hui would not have the cooking skills she has now.

Not to mention Xia Mingye.

Don't think that he came in second in the first session.

In fact, it was indeed a coincidence.

In the first session, there were not many young chefs who signed up for the competition.

At that time, some outstanding young chefs were unable to participate in the competition for various reasons.

This time it’s different. The province notified all parts of the province more than half a year in advance.

Young chefs from all over the country can be said to have put in their best efforts to participate in the competition.

The entire competition process can truly be described as a strong battle between many masters.

Xia Zhennan really didn’t dare to say whether Xia Mingye could still become one of the top ten outstanding chefs in the province if he had not gone to Feng Zhengming for a year of “intensive training”.

So when Xia Zhennan received congratulations from others, he just smiled and expressed his gratitude.

When he heard others praising him for the good way he raised his daughter and son, he could only remain silent.

In addition to ten outstanding young chefs.

There are also twenty outstanding young chefs behind.

This provincial youth chef cooking competition has achieved a successful conclusion.

Although the game is over, many people are still talking about it.

Especially in the next week, the TV station will make the recorded competition process into a program and broadcast it in episodes so that food-loving audiences in the province and even the whole country can watch it.

It also invisibly increased the popularity of the Qilu Young Chef Cooking Competition for a period of time.

Taking advantage of this popularity, the provincial TV station interviewed Feng Zhengming.

Feng Zhengming was also invited to participate in a talk show with the top ten outstanding young chefs.

It was a relatively formal interview.

I would like Feng Zhengming to talk about his mental journey from being the national number one scholar to being the head of this jury.

And some experiences of the top ten outstanding young chefs.

The most important thing is that I hope to see some interaction between Feng Zhengming and the young chefs.

The TV station made some arrangements for the recording time of the program and notified Feng Zhengming and ten outstanding young chefs to be ready.

After the competition, Feng Zhengming and the young chefs were really busy.

Just after the top ten young chefs were decided, more people took the initiative to approach them.

There are many bosses who want to recruit them to help open restaurants.

Many restaurant owners from other places also came to see them specially.

For this purpose, Zhu Xu, Sun Hai, Xia Hui, Xia Mingye, Gu Zhicheng, Bao Feng and others specifically asked Feng Zhengming.

If they were poached, how would Feng Zhengming feel about this matter?

Feng Zhengming’s answer was very direct.

"If you feel that the salary offered by the other party makes you excited and you feel that you will not suffer any loss if you go, and you can discuss the contract with the other party clearly, then you can go."

Feng Zhengming's answer surprised everyone.

They came together to find Feng Zhengming, thinking that Feng Zhengming would reject them directly.

Seeing everyone's surprise, Feng Zhengming said calmly: "People always strive for higher positions. If there are better opportunities in front of us, why not go for it?
I just want to warn you that no matter where you go, you must remember that you are Shandong cuisine chefs, you must stick to the bottom line of your craft, and never give up on studying cooking."

Feng Zhengming merely warned everyone and did not interfere with their being poached.

But in fact, everyone knows that staying with Feng Zhengming is a better choice.

So the six people did not accept any invitations to them.

This made some people who wanted to see what Feng Zhengming would be like after his chef was poached, but they didn't see any jokes in the end. (End of this chapter)