Chapter Seven: Cao Yidao

  "You think it's beautiful, but I'm just a little shocked..."

  After Zhou Yi left the system, he secretly picked up a piece of fragrant wine meat and stuffed it into his mouth: "I didn't expect that in this old place, such a small restaurant would have a first-class chef. I don't know what kind of price the old place paid to invite him."

  "Isn't that an exaggeration?" Zhu Xiaohua shook her head and said, "This dish of fragrant pot meat is delicious, but can you be sure it's the craftsmanship of a top-grade chef?"

  Although he is also a qualified foodie, he still can't distinguish the level of chefs. This dish of fragrant pot roast pork is quite good and must be made by a top-notch chef, but whether it's top-notch or not is hard to say.

  Looking across the country, how many truly top-notch ones can there be? Those are characters that appear in Terminal South~Sea, State Guesthouses, and People's XX Halls. Would they run to a mid-range small restaurant in a second-tier city? Even One Thousand and One Nights doesn't have such fantasy.

  "Hehe, Xiaohua, you don't understand this. This dish of braised pork in soy sauce looks simple, but it actually tests the chef's knife skills and control over heat. Look at these slices of meat, each one is 5 cm long, 3 cm wide, and 3 mm thick, with no deviation; look again at the color of the meat, each slice presents a jade-like color, just cooked through, but not curled up due to excessive heat..."

  After reaching the top level of culinary skills, Zhou Yi has officially transformed from a foodie to a top-notch gourmet connoisseur. If he were invited to be a judge on a food channel now, it would be well-deserved.

  Moreover, the system has determined that the person who made this dish is equivalent to a level 8 chef, which corresponds to a first-class chef in reality. This means that Zhou Yi, this ninth-level great perfection cooking god, is already an existence beyond a first-class chef.

  "There's also this wine lees, made from red glutinous rice. It's said that the best glutinous rice in the world comes from three places: Yuanyang, Sheyang and Danyang, with Danyang being the best. If I'm not mistaken, the red glutinous rice used to make this wine lees should be the first batch of 'Dantop Glutinous Rice' harvested last autumn in Danyang, which is known as the king of glutinous rice and the best in the world!"

  Zhou Yi spoke eloquently, spitting words left and right, leaving Zhu Xiaohua's eyes wide with wonder. She wanted to ask questions but couldn't find the words, her face a picture of "though unclear, yet feeling intimidated".

  At this time, Zhou Yi has a bit of a master's demeanor and can easily deceive people.

  "Good heavens? I didn't expect a small place like Chu Du to have such a gourmet! This young man is not simple at all... My dish of fragrant wine-braised pork doesn't seem to be wasted after all..."

  "Is this dish cooked by you, sir?"

  Turning back to look, I only saw an old man standing behind me, in his sixties, with white hair and beard, wearing a blue cloth shirt and black cloth shoes, looking very spirited.

  "Not bad, it's exactly what I did. This time when my old man came back home to visit his relatives, he saw the restaurant opened by his juniors and got a little itchy, so he made this dish. He thought all the guests were just ordinary people, but unexpectedly met a friend like you who understands him, it's really refreshing..."

  This old man was very familiar, and while talking, he sat down beside Zhou Yi, looking him up and down: "Is the young friend also a person in the cultivation circle?"

  His background is not small, a veteran of Beijing cuisine, a living ancestor-like figure, and one of the few first-class chefs in the country. If it were an ordinary day, ordinary people would find it as difficult to taste his cooking as the God of Earth looking up at the Queen Mother's peaches.

  This time in Chu Du, he came to visit several old friends and brought some younger relatives from his family. The old man had no children, no wife, and no companions, so the few nephews and nieces in his household were his only relatives. It just so happened that one of his nephews was the boss of this old restaurant, and the old man was delighted to see him, also wanting to help his nephew's business, so he didn't mind his identity and passed on the recipe for the fragrant sauce meat dish to the chef in the store. However, the dish that Zhou Yi ate was actually made by the old man himself.

  However, after the old man made a few dishes, he began to regret it. As the saying goes, "Bo Ya smashed his zither" because he couldn't find anyone who appreciated his music. With his status, cooking for these guests in this small restaurant who didn't understand the nuances of food was really not pleasant. So he stopped what he was doing and went out for a stroll, but unexpectedly overheard Zhou Yi's comments.

  "Hehe, old sir, you're mistaken, I'm just a foodie, how would I know how to cook?"

  Zhou Yi shook his head and smiled. Looking at the old man's demeanor, he was definitely a senior with status in the jianghu, if he revealed his true abilities, he would definitely get into trouble, no way, he had to hide it.

  "Oh?"

  The old man took a look at Zhou Yi and was somewhat skeptical. To say nothing of other things, just now Zhou Yi's comments were absolutely not like the style of an ordinary chef.

  "Old man, surprised? Hehe, don't be modest, my friend's ancestors used to cook for the Empress Dowager Cixi, although it was because she didn't bring a chef with her on the Western tour... but you can see how awesome my friend's ancestors were..."

  Zhu Xiaohua saw that the old man sat down and started talking to Zhou Yi, ignoring her. She felt a bit unbalanced and deliberately brought up this topic to shock the old man.

  "No wonder... it's because of family influence..."

  The old man couldn't help but take a few more glances at Zhou Yi: "Old Cao Lang, being able to meet young friends in Chudu is also a fate, so let's leave a way of communication. When you have the chance to come to Kyoto, you can contact me."

  He took out a business card and handed it to Zhou Yi, while ignoring Zhu Xiaohua who was staring at him eagerly.

  "I knew it, the old man is from Kyoto... Ah, Cao Lang, Cao Yidao!"

  Seeing the name on the business card, Zhou Yi was shocked. As a foodie from a family of foodies, if he didn't know Cao Yidao, a veteran figure in Beijing cuisine, then he would have lived in vain.

  It is said that Cao Yidao had once performed a knife to cut the cow in public, a skill of separating bones and flesh, which shocked the entire Kyoto food industry. This nickname was derived from this. Zhou Yi never thought that he would actually meet him in person.

  "So, Little Friend also knows about this reputation of mine..."

  Cao Lang stroked his goat beard, smiling complacently. This was the effect he had been aiming for: "I think you're a natural-born cook, just like me. It's just that after several generations, I'm afraid your family's culinary skills have been lost. But if you're willing to learn... old man will teach you everything, without holding back."

  Learning cooking is like learning martial arts, a good apprentice who can inherit the master's skills and reputation must be sought after by the master himself, and the master also needs to provide for the apprentice's food, accommodation and even major life events, this is called an inner disciple.

  As Cao Lang, many people want to worship him as a teacher, but cooking is easy to learn and difficult to master, and it's extremely dependent on innate talent. Knife skills and fire control can be honed through diligence and practice, but the innate sensitivity to ingredients and the ability to discern flavors are not something that can be acquired through hard work - it all depends on whether the ancestors have bestowed this gift or not.

  To put it bluntly, being a good chef is not difficult, as long as you put in the effort, ordinary people can do it. But to be a top-notch chef, or even a culinary god, first and foremost, you need to have a good tongue, which is something you're born with, and cannot be forced.

  In Cao Lang's view, Zhou Yi was a genius with a good tongue, so he had some intention to take him as an apprentice. After learning about his family background, he really wanted to take him on. But what he didn't expect was that this disciple of his would turn out to be the true culinary god. As for teaching cooking skills, neither of them knew who would end up teaching whom...