"To put it simply, it's just lobster risotto and stir-fried asparagus with grouper. In some Western restaurants, the longer the dish name, the more expensive it is. I heard that each extra letter in the dish name adds eight cents. I once dined at a five-star restaurant, and their signature dish had a total of eighteen words. They practically wanted to include the beef's pedigree."

Cui Qingli tilted her head back and called to Li Ning in the room to watch the game together:

"Guan Wenyan is on stage, aren't you going to watch?"

There was no response from inside the room. Xu Milu glanced around and patted Cui Qingli, saying:

"Let him shut up for a while, we can watch the replay later—actually, the naming conventions for Western dishes originated in medieval Europe and have continued to this day. They are generally named using 'main ingredients' + 'cooking method,' partly for the sake of the style you mentioned, and partly so that diners can see the ingredients of the dish more clearly and directly."

At this point, Xu Milu couldn't help but have a strange expression:

"Why don't you guess what 'Special Mediterranean-style sweet and sour slightly spicy baked pork tenderloin with scallions, black fungus and carrot shreds' and 'Fresh and fragrant garlic sauce with Mexican-style spicy and numbing mixed meats' are?"

To prepare for this competition, she crammed through all the competition videos from the past five years, which actually brought her a lot of fun.

"Stir-fried pork tenderloin with carrots and black fungus, could that be shredded pork with garlic sauce? And what about the garlic-flavored mixed meat?"

While chatting casually with her, Cui Qingli was intently watching the chefs in the holographic image. Just as the two were talking, an hour and a half countdown began, the bright red numbers kept jumping, and the chefs, who were ready to go, had already started to move.

—After all, preparing enough dishes for four judges and sixteen food critics to critique within a limited time is no small feat.

"You wouldn't guess, would you? I didn't realize it at first either. Pork tenderloin with scallions is Yu Xiang Rou Si (shredded pork with garlic sauce), garlic-flavored mixed meat is actually Mao Xue Wang (a spicy Sichuan dish), and 'Xi'an-style stewed pork with gravy and roasted small pancakes with green pepper flakes' is our Chinese Roujiamo (meat sandwich), and 'crispy fried black fermented soybeans with flamed mandolin chili garlic sauce' is actually just stinky tofu."

Xu Milu couldn't help but chuckle:

"These dish names sound complicated, but they're just gimmicks. In the end, they're still the same ingredients. They just clearly state the side dishes and cooking methods so that it's easy to choose at any time."

Heaven knows why they wrote "100% Australian Crystal Jelly" for steamed egg custard, "Chinese-style pickled egg with selected pork tenderloin and crystal rice" for preserved egg and lean pork congee, and even transformed tomato scrambled eggs into "French sweet and sour tomato slices with buttered egg pieces".

If we continue translating it this way, as long as we translate Jianbing Guozi as "Finger-licking good egg flavor, ultra-thin and crispy vegetable and fruit Mexican tacos with volcanic stone sausage and crisp potato shreds", this friendly street snack can be transformed into a favorite of star-rated restaurants.

— There are also two classic sauces for diners to choose from: the refreshing wild soybean fermented sauce (soybean paste) and the chef's special Sichuan-style chili stewed meat sauce (Pixian Doubanjiang).

"Pfft, hahaha, little aunt, your translation is amazing! The fermented bean paste that costs a few dollars a bottle in the supermarket suddenly sounds much more high-end after you described it like that."

Cui Qingli laughed so hard she almost fell over, while Xu Milu remained completely calm.

"In my opinion, the longer the dish name, the lower the restaurant's culinary skills. Because they lack confidence in their own cooking skills, they use all sorts of high-end origins and ingredients to package the dishes. They say things like 'crispy' and 'flavor' in advance. In a sense, they are shifting the responsibility of the chef. If diners can't taste the flavor and crispiness, it's because the diners don't know how to taste. Anyway, it has nothing to do with the restaurant."

Xu Milu suddenly stopped talking because she noticed that Guan Wenyan had already started processing the grouper. She immediately dropped the topic and stared intently at the holographic image.

...

...

Grouper has tender flesh with a texture similar to chicken, earning it the nickname "sea chicken." In addition, it has the effects of strengthening the spleen and replenishing qi, and is characterized by low fat and high protein. Therefore, grouper is very popular in the Chinese market and is a very excellent high-quality edible fish.

Because of the immersive holographic projection, every movement of Guan Wenyan was captured by the camera and fully displayed in front of Xu Milu, so she could clearly see all of Guan Wenyan's methods of handling ingredients.

Guan Wenyan deftly opened the insulated box, revealing the main character inside:

A brownish-brown grouper about one meter long, with an ugly appearance, its large head and round spots all over its body indicate its identity.

"Wild grouper?"

Xu Milu couldn't help but sit up straight, her curiosity piqued:

“I’ve seen Guan Wenyan’s profile before. Fish dishes are his weakness. This time, he just happened to draw the topic of ‘the sea’. I didn’t expect him to be so bold as to use wild grouper directly?”

"Little nun, what happened to the wild grouper?"

Cui Qingli didn't know how to cook, so she didn't understand what she was talking about. Xu Milu patiently explained:

"In terms of taste, wild grouper has firmer flesh. There are differences between farmed and wild grouper when cooking. However, wild grouper eats seaweed all year round, and a kind of 'ciguatera toxin' from seaweed accumulates in their bodies."

This toxin is heat-resistant and cannot be broken down by stomach acid. It can remain in the human body for three to six months and is a neurotoxin that is a hundred times more toxic than tetrodotoxin.

Ciguatoxin accumulates in the seminal vesicles, roe, internal organs, and head of grouper. If a chef handles the grouper improperly, this toxin can enter the fish meat.

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