Yuan Zhou’s room was on the 21st floor, but the banquet hall of the meeting was on the 7th floor and on the 6th floor was the western restaurant. Chairman Zhou was quite generous this time. He directly booked both the 6th and 7th floor.
Of course, the 7th floor was used for the meeting place while the 6th was a place to have discussions and rest. The 6th floor had already been decorated, but Yuan Zhou didn’t go there.
The elevator carried him directly to the 7th floor.
After a sound of “Ding”, the door of the elevator opened and Yuan Zhou walked out.
“This hotel looks quite magnificent.” Yuan Zhou looked at the conspicuous slogan in front of him and sighed with emotion.
Jiali Hotel was indeed quite magnificent. A conspicuous signboard stating “Sino-Japan Exchange Meeting” in both Chinese and Japanese was hung right in front of the door of the elevator. Moreover, the characters were all large bronze letters.
The slogan was in the middle while at both sides, were two big open wooden doors, which were also decorated with the cotton flannel and hence looked beautiful and magnificent.
With his decidophobia, Yuan Zhou walked to the left side habitually and took out his entrance card.
“Ding”. Yuan Zhou swiped the card gently and then, the door opened instantly.
“There seems to be nobody here,” Looking at the dark spacious hall, Yuan Zhou couldn’t help muttering.
Along with the sound of “Pa”, the lights were all turned on by Yuan Zhou. As a result, bright lamplight suddenly illuminated the whole banquet hall.
The arrangement of the banquet hall was similar to the one in Japan. The kitchen range and azure stone countertops were also arranged in a circle.
However, the meeting place in China was much larger. There were a total of 18 kitchen ranges for 18 chefs and each of them was equipped with an energy-saving gas furnace and an appropriate wok over it.
Yuan Zhou’s place was quite conspicuous. It was one of the best places, usually prepared for chefs of the highest status.
And there were two places of the same kind. Apart from Yuan Zhou’s place, there was another kitchen range at the side.
At the very edge of every kitchen range was the knife holder to put knives for cleaving, chopping or both. Of them, the cleaving knife was for processing boneless meat and vegetables while the chopping knife was for meat with bones or very hard ingredients.
Among all the kitchen ranges, 17 of them had these three knives in the knife holder, including Yuan Zhou’s kitchen range. Only the one beside Yuan Zhou’s was different. There were two knife holders on it.
“There really are a lot of knives.” Yuan Zhou observed the knives very carefully.
There was a chef’s knife, a boning knife for slicing meat and deboning, a small cutting knife for processing vegetables and steak as well as wavy-edged tomato knife especially for cutting the tomatoes.
All these were knives prepared for western chefs and each of them shone with a cold light.
“This is definitely Chu Xiao’s place.” Without looking at the nameplate, Yuan Zhou knew it was Chu Xiao’s.
In the eyes of Yuan Zhou, only Chu Xiao knew how to use so many knives. Of course, the reason was that Yuan Zhou didn’t know other western chefs besides Chu Xiao who was qualified to come to attend the meeting.
He had absolutely no idea that Li Li from the neighboring restaurant would also come to attend the meeting.
Yuan Zhou leaned forward to look at the nameplate in front and really found Chu Xiao’s name written in both Chinese and Japanese on it.
“It turns out to be so.” Yuan Zhou was quite proud of himself.
“What does my nameplate look like?” Yuan Zhou suddenly remembered that he hadn’t looked at his own nameplate carefully.
He reached out his hand to grab it, but nevertheless misestimated the length of his arms and thus didn’t bend down. As a result, he ended up grabbing nothing. Well, such short arms.
He only managed to get his nameplate on the second try and start to check it.
Name: Yuan Zhou
Age: 24
Working experience: three years of official working experience
Good at cooking: freshwater fish, meat, main courses, and Chinese dim sum.
“Three years of official working experience?” Yuan Zhou was quite puzzled about this working experience.
“Did it start from the year when I worked in that restaurant?” Yuan Zhou suddenly thought of the hotel where he had worked before.
“If calculated in that way, the working experience would be correct. However, the dishes shown are really different from those shown in the exchange meeting in Japan. None of them have a specific name.” Yuan Zhou put his own nameplate down and then looked at Chu Xiao’s.
The dishes shown on his nameplate were easier. There were only a few words, Creative Cuisine.
“Haha. As expected, this guy really has a lot of years of working experience, but the creative cuisine sounds pretty interesting.” Yuan Zhou first saw the dishes that Chu Xiao was good at before he saw his working experience.
After that, Yuan Zhou directly started to familiarize himself with his own kitchen range instead of checking the rest.
He stayed put and took up every piece of the kitchenware, no matter if it was the spatula or spoon or the frying pan.
He even took up the portable stove and weighed it on his hand for a while before he put it down.
“Well, both the weight and quality are good. It’s quite convenient and easy to use. Now I’m going to try it personally.” Yuan Zhou nodded his head. He was quite satisfied with the stove.
This time, he turned on the portable stove to check the temperature of the flame and how long it would take to heat the frying pan and spatula.
Every detail was carefully noticed and then borne in mind by Yuan Zhou.
After that, he cleaned each and every piece of the kitchen range including all knives, frying pan, and even the chopping board.
“The chopping board is comparatively inferior. It even has the scent of new bamboos. Nevertheless, it can be mitigated.” Yuan Zhou smelled it carefully.
The whole process took Yuan Zhou about one and a half hours. When he finished, it was already 2:00 a.m.
Compared with other chefs, Yuan Zhou’s method was quite strange.
Before Yuan Zhou arrived, the other 16 chefs had to familiarize themselves with the kitchen range respectively by cooking a dish that they were best at in order to examine the kitchenware and knives.
However, Yuan Zhou didn’t cook a single dish even after he examined the flame.
“In this way, I don’t need to tidy them up. The kitchenware is fairly good.” Having put things back where he found them, Yuan Zhou took a look at them contentedly again before he left.
That’s right. The reason why Yuan Zhou didn’t cook a single dish was very simple. There will be oil and smoke if he did that and thus, more work had to be done to remove it. However, there were only guards on the night shift at that time.
Therefore, Yuan Zhou straightforwardly changed a familiarization method that neither delayed him getting familiar with the kitchenware nor caused extra inconvenience.
According to Yuan Zhou’s principle, he will never bring others trouble because of his own problems.
“It’s almost time to sleep.” Yuan Zhou checked the time and then turned off the light before he left.
He needed to get up early. Even if he was in Shanghai now, Yuan Zhou didn’t intend to quit exercising. After all, the unpleasant taste of the medicine and the tinnitus on the plane constantly reminded him of the importance of the exercise.
Therefore, Yuan Zhou was more reluctant to halt his own exercise.
Having returned to his room, Yuan Zhou washed up and then went to sleep following his usual.
At 5:00 the next morning, Yuan Zhou woke up on time.
“It feels like I didn’t sleep for long before getting up.” Yuan Zhou covered his head with the quilt and didn’t feel like getting up.
“Xi Xi Suo Suo”. Yuan Zhou directly rolled about the bed and then caught sight of the medicine for airsickness. Immediately, he became clear-headed.
“I should get up.” Thinking of the painful tinnitus, Yuan Zhou sat up and put on his sportswear at once, preparing to go downstairs and exercise.
The first time will be strange but the second time will be easier. Yuan Zhou was already quite familiar with looking for places to exercise at the hotel. Therefore, he returned as scheduled after exercising.
After he finished washing up, Yuan Zhou didn’t change into his casual clothes anymore. Instead, he took out a set of gorgeous clothes from his suitcase.
It was a complete set of blue Flying Fish Clothes 1 with cloud patterns, even including the hat and shoes.
“Chairman Zhou said quite a few reporters would come to live broadcast the whole process this time. A prince charming like me naturally must make an entrance. Or else, I should stay inconspicuous and behave cultured. It’s also a nice choice,” Yuan Zhou said that quite naturally while tidying the lower hems of the cuffs carefully.
…