Chapter 270: Establishing a Restaurant Alliance

Pierre lowered his head and whispered something to his son. Nicolas looked at Yue Ning and asked, "Leaving Paris and coming to Hong Kong?"

The waiter walked into the room carrying a long yellow-ground pastel plate covered with a porcelain lid of the same color. The long plate was placed on the table. When Yue Ning opened the porcelain lid with his own hands, steam rose up. A whole yellow croaker lay in the long plate, with morels and Ningbo rice cakes placed in between.

Miyamoto checked the menu: "Lamb hidden in the belly of fish?"

Yue Ning took the table knife from the waiter, turned it in a different direction, pointed the blade toward herself, and handed the handle to Miyamoto: "Mr. Miyamoto, you come and uncover the secret of the sheep hidden in the fish's belly."

Miyamoto took the knife and gently cut into the fish belly. As the blade separated, the fish belly was filled with meat filling, exuding the unique aroma of mutton. In the steaming hot air, the fresh fish and the aroma of mutton blended like old friends, making people salivate at the smell.

After the diners looked at the dishes, the waiter served them to everyone: each person received a small piece of yellow croaker wrapped in mutton stuffing, a piece of rice cake and a morel, and then drizzled with a little soup.

Everyone else lowered their heads to eat, only Nicholas stared at the fish on the plate in a daze. Yue Ning asked: "Nicholas, do you not eat mutton, or do you have other taboos?"

"No, no, I'm just wondering, the belly of this fish hasn't been cut open, why there are no bones inside?" said Nicholas.

"It's relatively simple to remove the fish bones without breaking the fish belly. Ningning can also remove the bones of a whole chicken without cutting open its stomach. Even if water is poured into the chicken's stomach, the chicken's stomach won't break," said Lucas.

Lucas was the one who had seen Yue Ning demonstrate this unique skill with his own eyes.

Nicholas heard this and became even more curious, asking, "How did you do that?"

"I'll take you to Baohualou for dinner the day after tomorrow. I agreed to cook Chinese blood duck for you. Now I'm going to make blood duck and show you the skills involved. This is one of the specialties of our Chinese cuisine." Yue Ning said to him.

After dinner, the guests returned to the hotel.

Pierre asked Nicolas to come to his room, and said to his young son, "I have always said that a chef not only cooks delicious food, but also spreads culture. A good chef must have cultural background, and this background is not limited to exploring the culture of food, but also to understand architecture, art, drama, etc. from many aspects. In the 17th century, Europe was fascinated by everything about China, porcelain, silk, Songjiang cloth, and they used these to imagine this oriental country. Later, Europeans knocked on the door of China, but found that China was ignorant, backward, and poor in their eyes, so they thought that China was not worth mentioning. We used to think that in the entire East, only Japanese cuisine was worthy of being on par with French cuisine. But how could a country that has been prosperous for thousands of years and once fascinated the whole of Europe be only ignorant and backward? Only by standing on this land and learning from real craftsmen can we touch the soul of its culture."

Nicholas was silent for a moment: "But I don't even understand Cantonese..."

"Language is a tool, and taste is the world language." Pierre said as he looked at the bright lights of Victoria Harbour.

The next morning, Yue Ning came to pick up several chefs to attend the opening ceremony of the expo.

Pierre told her in the car that Nicholas wanted to stay in Hong Kong and hoped to study in Yue Ning's restaurant, not only to learn how to cook Chinese food, but also to learn Chinese culture.

"Pierre, you and Ningning have the same idea. She also told me that she wants the best chef here to go to France, to study catering and hotel management courses in Lyon, and to intern in my restaurant." Lucas asked him.

Pierre didn't expect that they had this idea. Yue Ning said, "I want my excellent chefs to go to France and Japan for systematic training, so I discussed it with Lucas. One option is to simply go to the restaurant to learn, and the other option is to become my partner and improve academic qualifications while learning cooking. France has the best restaurant and hotel management courses in the world."

She smiled and said, "But I never thought that you and Lucas would want to send a chef to learn from me. You have the best restaurant in the world!"

This made Pierre very happy: "Ningning, you are also a top chef and run a top restaurant."

Miyamoto listened to Iwanishi translating what they said and said, "So can I send Takuya over?"

Yue Ning remembered Mr. Miyamoto's grandson, Takuya Miyamoto, and asked, "Do you want to join too?"

"Yeah! Takuya also needs to study. I was planning to send him to study in France."

Valere suddenly said: "Why don't we form an alliance?"

"Alliance?" Everyone's eyes were focused on Valer's face.

Valere looked at Pierre and said, "Pierre, we are all in trouble now. French cuisine today has fallen into a morbid state in its pursuit of 'simple, delicate, light and bold'. It disdains traditional methods and believes that rich flavors, five major sauces and complicated cooking processes should be abandoned. But these are the foundation for establishing the status of French high-end cuisine. I am not against light taste, but we should also allow for rich and heavy flavors, just like the French Rococo architecture, which is charming because of its complexity. Last time, the three of us made blood duck, beef stew in red wine and cassoulet, but we were criticized for saying, 'Louis XVI has been on the guillotine for many years, and we are still holding on to these old-fashioned dishes.'"

Valere was a little emotional when he talked about this, and Pierre agreed with him: "French cuisine is now trapped in such a vicious circle. Those chefs think that the traditional five mother sauces are too old-fashioned and the complicated cooking process is a waste of time, but they don't understand that it is these seemingly complicated things that form the foundation of French cuisine!"

The translator relayed the words of the two chefs to Yue Ning. When she came into contact with French cuisine in her previous life, the French cuisine revolution led by Chef Bocuse had been completed, and the concept of new French cuisine had a wide impact on catering around the world, but now there is a fierce dispute within the French cuisine.

Despite Pierre's great reputation, he also became the main target of attack by the reformists.

But Pierre is not completely inflexible, he just wants to find a balance between tradition and modernity.

Yue Ning thought that in his previous life, blood duck and stewed beef were both included in the French state banquet menu, which showed that the chefs at that time had reached a reconciliation and worked together to push French cuisine to its peak.

The French people were chattering non-stop, and the translator didn't have time to relay what they said to Yue Ning.

Yue Ning simply ignored it and would definitely tell her when they came up with a result. They had already arrived at the Expo.

As soon as they got out of the car, they were focused on by the camera. Pierre attracted the most cameras. This chef is quite influential in the world of culinary arts.

The president of the Hong Kong City Trade Development Bureau personally welcomed the guests. The Hong Kong City International Food Expo is a large-scale event organized by the bureau.

Being able to invite five world-class chefs, especially a culinary leader like Pierre, will have a great impact on raising the profile of the expo.

Yue Ning sat in the front row of the guest seats with several chefs, and the Financial Secretary personally attended the event to give a speech to congratulate the opening.

After the opening ceremony, they visited the exhibition under the guidance of the organizer.

France's food and hotel exhibition is the best in the world in the culinary world. The exhibition in Hong Kong does have some gaps. Several chefs gave many suggestions.

Yue Ning would not miss the opportunity to showcase her own products. When walking through the mainland product exhibition area, the air was filled with the aroma of meat. This year she was not free, so she sent a few apprentices to distribute roujiamo and braised goose to the audience, these two foods have the strongest aroma.

Lucas looked at the food being distributed and asked Yue Ning: "One is braised goose, what is the other one?"

"Chinese hamburger." Yue Ning translated, "Want to try it?"

Lucas, being a bold person, said, "Okay!"

Yue Ning asked his apprentice to make some roujiamo, and handed them out on plates: "This is food from my hometown, which is in the northwest of China."

In such an occasion, Lucas didn't care, but Pierre was a little hesitant. But seeing Yue Ning and everyone else eating, he took it too.

He took a bite and tasted the soft and tender cured meat mixed with the aroma of wheat. The roujiamo at Baohualou was made from Tongguan roujiamo, and the puff pastry actually had some of the feel of French puff pastry.

Nicholas has already wolfed down one: "This is very similar to the Doenner on the streets of Berlin, but this one has more gravy."

Doenner is a Turkish kabob, a popular street snack in Berlin, Germany. It is a flatbread filled with grilled meat and onions.

After eating, Valer said: "I like this burger better. The gravy is so fragrant. I really don't understand why some people think that stewing with complex spices is a decadent and obsolete technique?"

When Yue Ning heard what Valere said, he lowered his head and smiled. Even though the chef is famous, he also has times when he feels wronged.

She walked to the ham area, where several types of Chinese ham were placed side by side. Yue Ning introduced them to them, and Pierre picked up a piece of Jinhua ham and said, "It tastes a bit strange."

"This kind of ham cannot be eaten raw. It is mainly used to make soup. The base flavor of many of the soups we make comes from it." Yue Ning picked up another piece of Xuanwei ham, "This ham is closer to French ham and is also an alpine ham..."

"Although the methods of consumption are different, the preparation methods are similar. It's a wonderful coincidence," said Valere.

Yue Ning smiled: "As long as the history is long enough, you will find many similar practices."

Lucas sniffed Xuanwei ham and said, "Once your foie gras is in mass production, we may be able to cooperate further and also develop meat products."

He looked at Pierre and said, "The reason why the reformists have the say now is because new French cuisine is popular and they have opened so many restaurants. If we can expand quickly, the say will return to us. They expand in France, and we increase our international influence. What do you think?"

Pierre agreed with Lucas' words. After all, Lucas is a descendant of an old food family and his thinking is more inclined to the business perspective. Pierre said: "So we need to cooperate with international peers even more."

"Yes!" Lucas responded.

Pierre said, "Let's discuss it in detail tonight and draw up a preliminary charter of the alliance?"

"good."

Yue Ning was a little confused after listening to Lucas's summary. Was this a big move? Could it be that they wanted to establish a new restaurant evaluation system? And Baohualou would be one of the initiators of this alliance.

Yue Ning, who could only rank 17th in the Bocuse d'Or cooking competition no matter how hard he tried in his previous life, suddenly found that everything is possible.

After visiting the exhibition and having a light meal at Chunfenglou, the first competition of the "Chef Contest" began in the afternoon.