The Game of Life-Chapter 788 - 787 Mr. Hans Appetite

Chapter 788 -787: Mr. Han’s Appetite

Chapter 788 -787: Mr. Han’s Appetite

The café was still staffed by the original workers, though fewer in number, likely because they were out guiding other contestants on field inspections of the restaurants.

Upon seeing that Jiang Feng and his group had returned after their assessment, the head supervisor approached them with enthusiasm, even going as far as to offer them four cups of coffee. Such warm behavior left Jiang Feng and his companions feeling both flattered and rather puzzled.

To those unaware, they might think that the supervisor was welcoming the team ranked first, not last.

The coffee was a bit hot, so Jiang Feng just held his cup symbolically without drinking. Sun Jikai, on the other hand, took a few sips.

“I have this feeling that their attitude is a bit off,” Sun Jikai said.

“I feel the same way; it’s been kind of strange since we came in this morning,” Wu Minqi nodded in agreement.

Just as Jiang Feng and Sun Maochai were about to join the discussion and delve into the peculiar attitude of the supervisor, the door opened.

Chef Arno entered with the imagined background music of an absent war-torn megastar.

Proud and imposing, he gave off the air of a mafia boss, an Italian Godfather, making the workers and chefs from the top-tier restaurant trailing behind him look like his henchmen.

Chef Arno saw Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng was also looking at him.

Their eyes met.

Chef Arno’s expression was one of disdain, self-satisfaction, and even a hint of pride.

Jiang Feng read the message in his eyes as though it said, “Aren’t you going to hurry over and thank me?”

Jiang Feng: ?

Just as Chef Arno was about to approach Jiang Feng, the supervisor sprang out from nowhere, enthusiastically engaging in conversation with Arno and having someone bring him a steaming cup of unsweetened bitter coffee.

The exchange between the two chefs was thus nipped in the bud.

Soon, the other restaurant contestants started returning to the café one after another, with the last group arriving at ten to ten, giving them time to choose their restaurants ahead of schedule.

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There were many familiar faces among the chefs present; the four chefs from Yonghe House were as familiar with Jiang Feng as colleagues, enthusiastically greeting him upon entry and engaging in casual conversation. They even asked him what dishes he had been practicing lately, giving the impression that Jiang Feng was part of their team.

Jiang Feng knew half the chefs from Eight-treasure House, Tong Deyan, and Zheng Siyuan.

Pei Shenghua led the team from Huaiyang Building. Even though Jiang Feng and Wu Minqi’s confession and romance were spontaneous, in the eyes of the performance-driven Pei Shenghua, this achievement also counted as his own. He watched Jiang Feng and Wu Minqi so intently that their mere presence together made him nod in satisfaction, causing both Jiang Feng and Wu Minqi to feel tingles down their spines.

Another familiar face was somewhat unexpected yet anticipated—Gu Li from Yonghe House was one of the competing contestants.

Ever since Gu Li demonstrated his worth as more than a simple, hardworking mediocrity in the Good Taste Culinary Competition, he seemed to have a breakthrough moment akin to Zhang Wuji from the martial arts novels, unblocking his meridians. While not advancing at the dramatically rapid pace of a wuxia novel’s protagonist, he certainly assimilated years of relentless effort and reaped the rewards, now a recognized White Chef at Yonghe House.

With his viable strength and experience in winning championship competitions, it was quite normal for Gu Li to represent Yonghe House.

With all the competing chefs present, the organizers reiterated the regulations of this test. They didn’t bother with the superfluous talk commonly seen in reality shows; instead, they went straight to the point, allowing the contestants to begin selecting their shops.

Since the selection order was determined by ranking, though the production team did not disclose the scores of each restaurant to the contestants, the sequencing was evident. As expected, Yonghe House ranked first. As a restaurant specializing in White Chef dishes, they held a significant advantage in this volume-based challenge.

Yonghe House chose the pastry shop, evaluated by Jiang Feng and his companions as one of the four busiest businesses, and left promptly after making their selection.

With Yonghe House setting the tone, the remaining contestants followed suit, choosing their shops without unnecessary words and then quickly departing, every second counted.

As expected, the top-tier restaurant ranked second and chose the dessert shop tailored for them.

Eight-treasure House, ranking third, surprised everyone by choosing the fried skewer shop that Sun Jikai had his eye on.

For a team with top-notch White and Red Chefs to choose a fried skewer shop was quite puzzling for other knowledgeable contestants.

Huaiyang Building ranked fourth and picked the milk tea shop, which, while not technically demanding, was sure to be busy.

Yonghe House, ranking fifth, opted for a bakery.

The somewhat inconspicuous Huaiyang Building, ranking sixth, swiped the rice noodle shop that Sun Maochai had been interested in; Jiang Feng speculated that one of their four chefs must be skilled at making rice noodles and perhaps specialized in Cooking Porridge.

It might also have been a sign that they held no hope for advancement and chose simply in a sort of defeatist fashion.

With the rice noodle shop taken, Taifeng Building had no choice but to pick the large porridge shop that Jiang Feng fancied.

Once the shops were selected, the original staff would all withdraw, leaving only the contestants. In order not to affect genuine results, the cameramen had the day off, with no filming on site. Correspondingly, countless cameras were installed in and around each shop, especially in the porridge shop.

Arriving at the porridge shop, Jiang Feng inexplicably felt like he was back at UAL University.

It was as if this wasn’t a snack street’s porridge shop, but rather the Healthy Stir-fry Restaurant at the back gate of UAL.

“Jiang Feng, can you make it in time for the lunch rush?” asked Sun Maochai as he glanced at his watch.

“We’ll make it.” Jiang Feng said, looking up at the menu on the wall. “The simple cold dishes we can still sell as usual. Should we put a notice on these marinated dishes that we’re not selling them for now since we don’t have time to marinate them? These dozens of porridge types can all be cooked at once with no problem. Assign the stir-fried beef ho fun and fried rice and such small stir-fries to Old Sun and Qiqi; Master Sun, you focus solely on the dim sum.”

Sun Maochai and Sun Jikai nodded, indicating no problem.

“We can sell jelly noodles and mung bean jelly. Mung bean jelly can be made on the spot in time. By the way, do we have the ingredients for jelly noodles and mung bean jelly here?” Wu Minqi asked.

“I’ve just asked the staff, and if there are no ingredients, we can call them and ask for them.” Jiang Feng said, entering the kitchen on the first floor.

The kitchen of this porridge shop was made of transparent glass so that one could clearly see the environment inside and the state of the chefs. The kitchen was very clean. If you didn’t consider the business aspect, this porridge shop was actually quite OK.

The vegetables in the kitchen were all washed, and the meat was fresh, requiring the chefs to process and handle it themselves. Sun Maochai was responsible for the dim sum, which involved a lot of work, so Sun Jikai helped him with some of the food preparation. Jiang Feng and Wu Minqi dealt with their own ingredients separately.

The four worked on their tasks, busy with their own duties. If a customer walked in and saw the scene through the glass window, they would definitely think this was a very professional and strict porridge shop.

It’s just that there were no waiters.

Soon after, the ingredients for the dozens of porridges were ready, and after putting them in the pot with water to stew, Jiang Feng, having a bit of free time, realized this problem.

It was normal for other stores not to have waiters; either they simply did not offer dine-in service, or the number of tables inside was too few to need waiters.

But theirs was a two-story porridge shop.

It was too odd to be without waiters, and they definitely needed waiters to clear the tables.

Jiang Feng immediately called the program team to inform them about this issue. The program team expressed a good attitude, admitting it was their oversight. They immediately sent two non-professional staff members to act as waiters.

One of them was the same lady who showed them the shop.

The lady who was suddenly roped into working extra hours was all smiles.

At eleven ten, all the porridge was ready, the ingredients were processed, the first batch of dim sum was steaming in the baskets, and the porridge shop was ready to open.

They just waited for customers to come.

Unfortunately, between the phrase “just waiting for customers to come'” lay several Somalian trenches.

Until twelve o’clock, only two tables of guests came, totaling three people.

These two tables of guests were not all there to eat. One couple was clearly tired and hot from walking around, looking for a place to sit and cool down. They only symbolically ordered two glasses of plum drink and did not order anything to eat.

Since they hadn’t had enough preparation time, the plum drink wasn’t freshly stewed but was made from cheap plum powder, a mass-produced product. These mere two glasses of plum drink failed to attract the couple.

The other diner was an elderly man, apparently a local resident who looked like a regular. He ordered a basket of shrimp dumplings and a bowl of green vegetable porridge. After eating, the old man enthusiastically complimented the waiter that the chef’s cooking was particularly good today, as both the shrimp dumplings and vegetable porridge tasted great. He then expressed that he would bring his wife to eat here in the evening.

When Jiang Feng heard this, he couldn’t help but pity that the old man could only have one wife.

After twelve o’clock, the number of customers and delivery orders started to increase modestly—not enough to fill the first floor, let alone the second floor. Although the response and feedback from each customer after eating were very positive, some even packed extras to take away, the base was just too small for it to make a significant difference.

If this test wasn’t for twelve hours but three or four days, Jiang Feng was confident that in the next two or three days, he could make the business of this porridge shop flourish.

Unfortunately, they only had twelve hours.

At one twenty-three in the afternoon, the porridge shop welcomed Han Guishan and his family.

At this time, there were hardly any customers left in the porridge shop. Jiang Feng and the others were idling in the lobby, discussing whether to post a poster outside to attract customers as the program team hadn’t said they couldn’t.

As the four debated what font to use on the poster and Jiang Feng hesitated whether to avoid the program team’s cameras and take a chance to pull out the promotional board from the prop bar, Han Guishan walked in with skewers in his left hand and a crispy cake in his right.

Wang Jing held half a piece of osmanthus cake in one hand and led Han Youxin with the other, who was loudly wailing that he wanted to eat sugar figurines, not drink porridge or eat buns.

“Eat sugar figurines? You kid really doesn’t know what’s good,” Han Guishan said. “I’ll tell you, porridge and buns are delicious. The porridge and buns here are made by your brother Jiang Feng, his cooking is so tasty!”

Han Youxin became even less interested in eating.

Jiang Feng could hear their conversation from outside the shop before they even entered. Just as he was about to get up, Han Guishan walked in and was taken aback.

Han Guishan clearly didn’t expect their team’s performance to be this poor.

From Han Guishan’s reaction, Jiang Feng and the others could tell their group’s performance was probably really bad.

Han Guishan quickly adjusted his expression and attitude, after all, he was a business owner and an investor. He was very clear about why he was here.

The family of three found a window-side table and sat down. Han Guishan scanned the menu on the wall and loudly ordered, “One basket of siu mai, two baskets of shrimp dumplings, two char siu buns, a bowl of wonton noodles, and a portion of cucumber salad and chicken feet.”

Turning to his wife and child, he then asked, “What would you like to eat?”

Everyone: …

Sun Jikai couldn’t help but mutter softly. “With an appetite like Mr. Han’s, it’s really a pity he doesn’t do competitive eating.”