Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe

Chapter 441 - 353: Most Requested Encore—Garlic Grilled Oysters and Roujiamo

Lin Chen gave the two a brief recap of today’s work content, sticking to the principle of not doubting those he employs and refraining from intervening in their internal discussions.

"What should I make for myself tomorrow morning?"

Taking advantage of the free time now, he flipped open the task list and took a glance.

The pill smoothness challenge and state banquet challenge have both returned to the locked state, requiring a Challenge Card to activate and draw the task.

Currently, only the reappearance challenge, breakfast challenge, and childhood snack challenge remain, among which the reappearance is up to him to choose.

Thinking carefully, it seems that the reappearance challenge has been lying on the list for a long time without being tackled.

Even without doing challenge tasks, solely saying setting up a stall, he hasn’t repeated any dish for quite some time.

Making new dishes every day is undoubtedly great, but sometimes recreating previously popular dishes might yield better results.

Upon thinking this, he logged onto the Radisson Hotel’s website, opened the page he had ignored for several days, and glanced at the current voting results.

Ever since this page was set up, he hasn’t managed it, throwing it to Lucas to select dishes from previous videos and put them up for guests to vote on.

The voting activity isn’t over yet, though the result is evident, showing a massive gap conclusion.

"Garlic roasted oysters are still so popular? Leading the second place by more than two thousand votes, but this isn’t quite suitable for breakfast; I’ll put it in lunch."

"The second place is... Meat sandwich? Ah, such a distant memory; come to think of it, haven’t made it for a pretty long time either, though having this for breakfast doesn’t seem fitting; might be too greasy for those foreigners who don’t really eat breakfast."

Just as he was about to continue scrolling down, he suddenly remembered Zhao Shun saying peanut butter noodles sold well this morning.

"Wait, peanut butter is also all oil, yet people enjoy it vigorously!"

"Decided happily, since making meat sandwich, might as well arrange biangbiang noodles as well; with the tangy sweetness of tomatoes can appropriately alleviate the greasiness."

"At that time, let Lucas make some of his favorite ice powder too; hasn’t been made for a while, wonder if that lad is still keen to do it."

If memory serves, these three foods once had a very high praise rate, there’s no need for reappearance challenge; even if opened, it cannot be completed unless a hundred percent approval is accomplished.

"Seems like this reappearance challenge is quite useless; reward only being money, merely suitable for repeatedly challenging those dishes with not-so-high praise rates."

"Considering the current situation, the likelihood of low praise rate is minimal, unless it’s making dishes foreigners can’t quite accept, like organs or something."

"Forget it, no biggie, tasks shouldn’t be controlling, they merely serve me, making my work smoother, still have to follow my ideas."

Shaking his head, he soon tossed the task matter aside.

He hasn’t forgotten his original intention, doing this merely for earning money, everything else being incidental.

Unless task rewards involve enhancing personal skills, there’s no urgency to do them, other tasks aren’t important, can leave them be, do them when need arises later won’t be too late.

"If doing roasted oysters tomorrow, the stall location isn’t quite suitable at the farm; if business gets too good, needing replenishing won’t be timely, that place is indeed somewhat remote."

After brief thought, he decided to change location.

To Ocean Fishery Ferry Wharf!

Since he started working here, he hasn’t once gone there, might as well take this chance to see what’s going on over there.

To be safe, he directly made a call to Lucas, asking him to release a message online, announcing he’d be serving dishes at the ferry wharf tomorrow, selling meat sandwiches, biangbiang noodles, roasted oysters, and ice powder as a token to old fans.

The wharf typically doesn’t have heavy foot traffic, mainly composed of various ship employees and dock workers, and a portion of tourists going for leisure.

Without needing to visit, already knows Ocean Fishery’s visitor flow is definitely much lower than the farm.

Those going to play either need fishing skills or diving skills, and must have accompanying coaches, relatively high costs.

Without promotion, there’s a high chance of having little business.

Not doing task is one thing, earning money is still necessary.

"Hey, Magna, get me the big oysters going, just like I bought before, deliver to the cliffside dock tomorrow morning."

"That’s where we have our hotel boat, right, you’re quite savvy, worthy of mixing at the seaside."

"If possible, help me open all the oysters, whatever the processing fee is that’s how much it is."

"What? How much? Uh, that’s a good question, let me think..."

Can’t quite recall how many were bought last time, just remembered they weren’t enough at all.

At that time, the restaurant just opened, he wasn’t clear about guest taste preferences, didn’t dare purchasing too many.

"Considering if counting a dozen per person might be a bit too much? How about, calculate half a dozen then."

"Half a dozen is six, calculating for five hundred guests, that’s three thousand oysters, for safety prepare an extra thousand, get me a total of four thousand, also reserve some inventory on your side, in case of replenishing need."

Four thousand oysters may sound a lot, in fact, really isn’t much.

Gillardeau, being the most popular oyster type, having a dozen per person is standard operation.

Were it not considering breakfast serves fullness-generating foods, and lunch may not have many appetite, he’d even think of doubling the quantity.

Just back onto the stall not even settled yet when Magna received the call, sprung up immediately, started calling the farming site.

Gillardeau is produced by specialized farming companies, can’t be casually harvested from the sea; ordering requires specific sources.

"Good afternoon, dear Angelica, it’s me, Magna, I would like to quickly get a batch, the highest grade, about ten thousand pieces."

"What? Ten thousand premium oysters???"

An obvious sound of astonishment came from the other end of the phone.

"Where did you negotiate such a big order from? If I remember correctly, the most you ordered before was two or three thousand, right?"

"Haha, that’s probably right, since restaurants usually get Gillardeau directly from you, I mostly sell them individually here; buying too much would mean I can’t sell them."

"So this time?"

"You heard about the new Great Xia head chef at Radisson, right?"

After a few casual chats, Magna didn’t keep anything from Angelica and explained everything in detail.

There’s no way to hide it, and if they want to open four thousand oysters in one evening, his employees wouldn’t be able to do anything else, even going out to sea to fish would be delayed.

After all, his business is seafood supply, not solely serving Lin Chen, relying on himself just wouldn’t work.

"Opening four thousand first? My God, that’s the first time someone’s made such a strange request. Aren’t oysters supposed to be opened and eaten fresh?"

Although Angelica was puzzled, she wouldn’t refuse an order delivered to her door.

On the contrary, she became very interested in this recently famous Eastern head chef.

After hanging up the phone, she immediately clicked on the website Magna sent and began to browse the stall videos with interest.

Before long, she found the video of the garlic roasted oysters.

"200k likes? 500k views?"

Seeing the data under the video, her eyes flashed brilliantly.

Opportunity!!!

After learning about the dishes Lin Chen’s going to prepare tomorrow, Zhao Shun and Chen Dongliang immediately changed their plans and decided to sell the same menu as Lin Chen.

But they couldn’t sell roasted oysters at noon, as the kitchen had limited ovens, which they had to share with Jonathan, indeed a bit troublesome.

Since roasting was impossible, steaming was an option.

Lunch tomorrow is still home-cooked style dishes, with the addition of garlic vermicelli steamed shrimp and steamed scallops.

After reporting the finalized menu to Lin Chen, he was just about to order ingredients when his gaze swept over the time and suddenly realized something.

"Wait a minute!"

"No, tomorrow’s Sunday, the restaurant is closed."

"You two save the menu for Monday, come with me to set up a market stall at the seaside tomorrow, I’ll buy some barbecue grills so everyone can roast quickly together."

"Huh? Is it already Sunday tomorrow?"

Old Chen and Zhao Shun looked completely bewildered, apparently unaware of how quickly time was passing.

But since the restaurant is closed on Sunday, it means they could rest.

If they follow to set up the stall, it would become overtime.

Overtime... Will there be wages?

The two exchanged glances, neither daring to ask.

Even though it was clearly stated pre-employment that overtime pay would be legally issued, but... who knows.

Aren’t there plenty of companies not adhering to labor laws?

Lin Chen found their little gestures amusing, now he finally understood why small movements in class always got caught by teachers, those movements really were obvious!

"Don’t worry, it’s not mandatory, go if you want. Going will be paid 1.5 times, if not just find a place to enjoy yourselves, learn some language, adapt quickly to life here, anyways roasting oysters isn’t rocket science, just spread the sauce and it’s done."

Even though the head chef said so, the two still felt a strong urge to go.

Besides, people who go into culinary jobs usually aren’t great at studying.

Don’t mention Old Chen, at his age and being from the countryside, he didn’t even finish high school.

As for Zhao Shun’s English level, asking him to learn French might be less effective than just doing away with him.

"Go, of course we’ll go, we’re here to make money, not to enjoy life, right?"

"That’s right, Chef, what time do we set up tomorrow morning? I’m familiar with Roujiamo, I can help with rolling the dough."

"Hm?"

Lin Chen raised an eyebrow, this was indeed an unexpected delight.

"Alright then, you two look at it yourselves tonight, prepare the dough for the buns, roast them in the morning and they’re ready, save some time."

"How many portions to prepare?"

"Hmm... Prepare for over four hundred, if there’s more freeze them and we’ll eat them ourselves."

Just as he finished setting up the plan for tomorrow, Raphael and Nagishiro Sho stepped out of the kitchen one after the other, looking curiously at the two unfamiliar faces carrying flour into the kitchen as they passed by.

"Lin, those two are the employees you hired from Great Xia, right? What are they up to? Doesn’t seem related to dinner?"