After resting, they set off again. By the time everyone finished touring the entire imperial palace, it was already afternoon.
Her aunt had specially called Xu Yanxia this morning, saying that since they were having their finals tomorrow, her grandparents wanted to prepare some delicious home-cooked dishes to cheer them on. Xu Yanxia led her friends to the clubhouse where they were staying.
Her brother had accompanied her grandfather early in the morning to buy groceries. When they arrived, her grandmother, aunt, and sister-in-law Luo Jiajia were preparing to make dumplings.
Dumplings for over a dozen people was no small amount. The sensible friends immediately went to wash their hands and joined in making them together.
"Wow, shrimp with three delicacies, pork and cabbage, and even yellow croaker filling?"
Everyone exclaimed, "So many flavors of dumplings, this is too lavish!!!"
Xu Yanxia smiled and said, "These are all common fillings from our hometown. It's rare for my grandparents to cook for everyone, so they definitely want you all to try every kind."
"Exactly,"
Her aunt Xu Xuemei also smiled and said, "Don't stand on ceremony today, everyone. Eat whichever kind you like. It's not easy for young people to be away from home."
"Don't worry, Auntie. We've been walking all day today, so we'll definitely eat a lot later."
Ye Shu, as usual, was beside them filming material for their team-building. Just after she finished speaking with a smile, the phone in her pocket suddenly rang.
She took it out to answer. After hanging up, she said to Xu Yanxia, "The show's coordinator just told me that Decui Restaurant is adding assistants tomorrow, and asked if we want to add any. If we do, we need to tell them right away."
Xu Yanxia was a bit puzzled. "Didn't I tell them yesterday that we are adding my brother? Why are they still asking?"
"Mainly because we are only adding one person, while Decui Restaurant is adding three,"
Ye Shu said, "The coordinator is afraid we might blame them later."
"What, three?"
As soon as this was said, everyone in the room looked surprised. The humorous Bajin even exclaimed, "Good heavens, anyone who didn't know would think they were getting ready to fight us! Adding so many at once, are they planning to play a football match on set?"
"Exactly,"
Suisui also said, "They already have six people. There are only ten dishes in total for the finals, and they still want to add three more. Are they planning to have one person cook each dish?"
Xu Yanxia thought about it and said, "Could it be that they're worried one head chef can't handle it, so they want to transfer a few more head chefs from other branches?"
"Very likely,"
Lu Jingming immediately took out his phone. "I'll call and ask." He then stepped to the side.
A moment later, he returned and told Xu Yanxia, "Your guess was right. Yayan has transferred executive chefs from their flagship restaurants in Rong City, Jincheng, and Shencheng."
"Holy crap!"
Hearing this news, everyone in the room was so angry they almost laughed.
"They have no shame at all! Four executive chefs against our captain alone?"
"Exactly, it's the first time I've seen someone so lacking in sportsmanship! It's just a food show, do they want to win that badly?"
Ye Shu sneered, "Because they've been facing a severe reputation crisis these past two days. To quell the crisis, they bought trending topics everywhere to proclaim they are going on the show to challenge us. If they lose, wouldn't it be a huge slap in the face?"
"That's right,"
Then, Xu Yanxia's sister-in-law Luo Jiajia also spoke up, "There's something I almost forgot to tell you all. The day before yesterday, someone came to our teppanyaki shop to film a video, openly saying our dishes weren't good. A customer at the next table overheard, stepped up to argue with him, and directly drove him off!"
"..."
"Unbelievable!"
Everyone found it both amusing and exasperating.
Lu Jingming, however, humorously asked, "Did he pay the bill? Don't let him have gotten a free meal."
"He did, he did,"
Luo Jiajia immediately added with a laugh, "The moment he walked in that day, the server noticed something was off and kept an eye on him. No way we'd let him skip out on the bill."
"That's good then,"
Lu Jingming said with a smile, then shook his head and sighed, "So they still haven't realized where the real problem lies. If this continues, things will only get worse."
"Should we also consider adding more manpower?"
Xu Yanxia, however, said with a relaxed expression, "It's just a few more dishes. Having my brother come tomorrow will be more than enough. Our teamwork is getting better and better, but they've completely forgotten the original purpose of cooking. Even if they sent out ten executive chefs, they might not do better than us."
"The captain is right,"
The seasoned food expert Bajin also told everyone, "Actually, I've tried the flagship restaurants of Yayan. Honestly speaking, Decui Lou's dishes are still relatively decent. The others are all gimmicks—like putting sea cucumber and lobster in Maoxuewang, or adding black truffle to Lion's Head Meatballs.
It's a complete waste of good ingredients."
What???
The group was once again astonished.
Suisui couldn't help but complain, "Maoxuewang is all about tripe and blood curd. If you add sea cucumber and lobster, how can you even call it Maoxuewang anymore?"
Xiaoxian, who comes from Huaiyang cuisine, also nodded with a look of disbelief, "Exactly! Black truffle in Crab Roe Lion's Head Meatballs? Could you even taste the crab roe then????"
"So you see,"
Xu Yanxia said with a smile again, "There's really no need for everyone to worry. Tomorrow they'll definitely still rely on those gimmicky dishes. As long as we perform steadily, we'll have no problem at all."
As she spoke, she also informed everyone, "My menu is already finalized. We can have a meeting to assign tasks right after we finish eating."
"No problem!"
Everyone readily agreed.
As they talked, the dumplings were finished wrapping. The hot dishes prepared by Grandpa Xu and Xu Zhanpeng, who divided the cooking duties, came out one after another. Once the dumplings were boiled, everyone gathered around the table for a lively meal.
After dinner, they held a pre-competition meeting, assigned tasks based on the menu, then bid farewell to Grandpa and Grandma Xu and returned to the hotel.
That night, Lu Jingming was considerate and restrained himself, allowing Xu Yanxia to have a peaceful, good night's sleep.
When they got up the next day and had breakfast, Xu Yanxia, refreshed and energetic, went with her teammates to participate in the finals.
Based on the current program broadcast schedule, today's finals would likely air during the Lunar New Year Eve period, so the theme for the day was the New Year's Eve dinner.
Both teams needed to submit a menu consisting of two cold dishes, six hot dishes, one staple food, and one soup.
This workload couldn't be completed in just half a day anymore. Therefore, the program team opened up the morning preparation time for recording in advance. There was no host, and no need for makeup or styling; it was solely to document their preparation process.
The audience wouldn't be officially admitted for the live recording until the afternoon.
...
As the morning passed, everyone had finished their ingredient preparation.
After the lunch break, by the time Xu Yanxia returned to the studio after hair and makeup, the team from Decui Lou had already arrived.
They came in a large, bustling group—you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a football team!
After secretly observing them, Suisui whispered to everyone, "Those three new guys, each with a big head and a thick neck, they're definitely head chefs."
"That's right,"
Xiaoman chimed in, also in a hushed tone, "The one with slightly bigger eyes is surnamed Huang. He's the head chef at Jinchao in Rong City. I've watched his videos before."
Xu Yanxia, however, said with a smile, "This just confirms our intel was correct. Relax."
Just as she was about to go check on the simmering shark fin soup, she saw Zhao Yanting leading the three new "assistants" over to her.
