If Zihan’s Mother’s actions left the other mothers at the table feeling disdainful, then when they saw Jingyi’s Mother scarfing down the leftover sauce from the i Cai Kou Rou with rice, the other won suddenly had an epiphany!
"You all sit tight, I’m going to get myself a bowl of rice too."
"Oh dear, my stomach feels a little off as well, I need to get a bowl of rice too."
All of a sudden, the mothers all got up from the table and went over to Chen Mo at the workstation to ask for rice.
"What’s this all about...?"
Things going awry is always suspicious.
Chen Mo looked over at the table and saw two mothers with rice bowls, their faces almost buried into them, and suddenly it all clicked for him.
Were they eating directly with the rice?
Oh well, since the guests requested it, Chen Mo couldn’t say much, lest soone go ho after the feast complaining that they weren’t even given a mouthful of rice, now that would indeed be a joke.
Of course, the one embarrassed here was Jiang Fei!
The commotion of so many people asking for rice naturally caught others’ attention quickly.
At the courtyard entrance, Wang Heng, already aggrieved by earlier events, stood on tiptoe to peer over at the crowd.
Upon closer look, he exclaid, "Damn!"
Before his colleagues could ask what he was doing, he dashed over to the station, "Chen Mo, too! too! Give a bowl of rice too!"
While speaking, Wang Heng couldn’t help but glance over at the mothers’ table, only to see the platters that should have had leftover sauces were now immaculately clean, as if they had just been washed.
It gave the illusion that no food had even been served; the plates looked like they had always been empty.
Thinking about how the plates at his own table hadn’t even been cleaned up yet, Wang Heng suddenly felt even more anxious.
Chen Mo handed the rice to a mother in white stockings, looking rather helplessly at Wang Heng, "That’s it, this rice was made for the uncles who helped out this morning, didn’t make much at all, it’s gone, they took it all."
Unconvinced, Wang Heng stood on his tiptoes to check the rice bucket behind Chen Mo, indeed finding it empty, "Ugh!"
He then turned around, disheartened, and thought to himself, what’s wrong with today, why can’t I do anything right, what bad luck!
Only when Wang Heng returned did Chen Mo quickly call out to Hou Yao, "Master Hou, these two dishes are up to you, I have to get started on mine."
Originally, according to the plan, these two dishes were supposed to be made by Chen Mo himself, but there had been too many delays already, so there was no ti to hold it off further.
Hou Yao nodded, "Don’t worry, I’m good at these two dishes."
This confidence cos from Yueyun Pavilion.
Chen Mo withdrew from his original position, leaving the main part of the workstation for Hou Yao and his sous chefs to use.
He then carried the pre-prepared ingredients to the small workstation next door.
With most of the necessary ingredients ready, Chen Mo could now start cooking this exquisite vegetarian stir-fry dish.
Say what you will, the speed of nine people working together was indeed fast.
Before long, as the sous chefs moved back and forth between the dining tables, serving dishes, the guests once again burst out in gasps of surprise.
The seventh hot dish, Lobster Three Ways!
These lobsters were the ingredients Mu Xin helped to airlift from elsewhere, costly enough on their own, and with the transportation fee, it could be said this was the highest-cost dish on the table today.
Seeing a delicately plated lobster placed on the table, Jiang Fei was stunned, wondering if this dish was really within the two thousand yuan standard?
Actually, just this Lobster Three Ways, was certainly worth at least a thousand at a restaurant, right?
What Jiang Fei hadn’t considered was, he viewed the cost per table from a custor’s "how much a table costs at a restaurant" perspective.
Whereas Chen Mo... based it on the cost of the ingredients per table, a huge gap, like the difference of spending two hundred yuan at a restaurant for an average al versus buying two hundred yuan worth of ingredients to cook at ho for a sumptuous and even luxurious dinner.
Hou Yao took the fresh tail at of the lobster and made it into sashimi, used the lobster’s head to make an egg custard with eggs, and cooked the lobster at with broccoli topping it with sauce.
This particular dish, mostly only seen in movies or TV shows, imdiately set the guests abuzz once it appeared.
As Hou Yao continued, he beca even more adept, even driven by a subtle sense of competitiveness in his heart.
"See that, Xiaochen’s cooking is delicious, mine is too! Aren’t they just as eager to gobble it up?"
That was exactly what Hou Yao was thinking, which led him to work with extra effort on the next two dishes.
The second dish, Hou Yao took over a half-finished product - Braised Pork with Abalone.
The ti for the braised pork in the pressure cooker was just right, and Hou Yao imdiately began the final, crucial step of cooking.
He combined the ingredients in the pressure cooker with the stock in a wok, thickened the sauce, plated the dish!
The Cantonese version of Braised Pork with Abalone emphasized the freshness of the abalone and the combination with the braised pork, using rock sugar for coloring and Huadiao wine for aroma enhancent.
When the brightly colored dish was brought out, the sight of sizeable abalone made the guests cheer again!
The third dish was relatively humble, not exactly high-end, but often seen at banquets - Oil-Braised Prawns.
Though it’s part of the Lu Cuisine, it’s also well-received in day-to-day restaurant business, and since it wasn’t particularly difficult to cook, Hou Yao felt right at ho making it.
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