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The Japanese youth, Shibuya Style, was chatting with friends on Twitter, complaining to some fellow songsters on the niconico website.
His name was Shuigu Jun, a top student at Tokyo University. His girlfriend, Ren Xue, was from China and also a top student at Tokyo University. In fact, they had been dating even before taking the university entrance exam, and this year marked their fourth year together.
Shuigu Jun's diligent posts on niconico wouldn't be possible without his girlfriend's support. He was a songster, and his girlfriend was a dance seer. They mutually encouraged each other and made progress together, finding common ground on many topics.
To outsiders, they seemed like a golden couple.
But Shuigu Jun knew that maintaining a cross-cultural relationship required much more than just a bond.
For instance, they often disagreed on culinary matters.
Ren Xue, who had studied in Japan during high school, had an obsession with her hometown cuisine, while Shuigu Jun had a terrible experience with Chinese cuisine in middle school. Since then, his impression of Chinese cuisine plummeted, and being Japanese himself, he was often dissatisfied with his girlfriend's enthusiasm for Chinese cuisine in their daily lives, staunchly supporting Japanese cuisine instead.
Neither could persuade the other, and it had become a cultural war.
Huff, huff.
Mu Xiaoyue, who was playing on her phone, couldn't help but sniff the air. She suddenly lifted her head, gazing towards the closed kitchen, catching the faint aroma of vegetarian dishes, and her stomach growled with hunger.
"So hungry..."
Mu Xiaoyue couldn't continue playing on her phone, her beautiful face wrinkling into a frown, filled with distress.
The casserole was vegetarian, and the aroma was sealed within the clay pot, separated by the tightly closed kitchen, so others in the restaurant barely noticed the scent.
However, when Xia Yu was cooking two meat dishes, the spicy beef mixed with peppers and the rich aroma of pork and fish exploded into the room like a gas bomb.
"What is this smell!"
A group of songsters was comforting Shuigu Jun in the chat group, and his mood gradually calmed. At this moment, the intense aroma of cooking wafted into his nose.
Gurgle.
His stomach protested, and gastric acid began to secrete.
Just the smell made Shuigu Jun feel unsettled!
He wanted to eat! He wanted to eat! He desperately wanted to eat!
Shuigu Jun put away his phone and glanced at his girlfriend Ren Xue, seeing her with a similar expression of closed eyes in delight. He couldn't help but think, "...Why does just the smell make one so hungry?"
On the other side, An Ya handed her best friend a tissue, her shoulders shaking as if suppressing laughter.
"You pig, wipe your drool!" she mocked with a low laugh.
Mu Xiaoyue, however, seemed immersed in the aroma's illusion, ignoring her friend's voice.
An Ya had no choice but to wipe her friend's mouth with a tissue. It wasn't an exaggeration; the intense aroma stimulated the salivary glands to the maximum. Mu Xiaoyue was a foodie, and it wasn't the first or second time An Ya helped her with drool.
Bang!
At this moment, the sealed kitchen door swung open, and Xia Yu, wearing a white chef's hat and apron, carried a freshly stir-fried dish of Chinese cuisine in each hand, placing them on the counter.
"Take them over yourselves."
Leaving those words, Xia Yu returned to the kitchen, using a cloth to lift the steaming hot clay pot, and carried out the Southern-style vegetarian casserole.
The two Chinese young ladies practically lay on the counter, like puppies sniffing bones, intently eyeing the fresh dishes.
"Mind your image!"
Xia Yu placed the clay pot down, patted their shoulders, fetched two clean porcelain bowls, and returned to the kitchen to scoop two bowls of steaming rice. "Take the rice—"
In that short time, An Ya and Mu Xiaoyue had already transferred the three dishes to the table, each grabbing chopsticks, sitting dumbstruck in their chairs, clearly having begun tasting.
For some reason, the couple also gathered around the table, holding chopsticks stained with a bit of oil.
The young man from Shibuya Style had a petrified look, slowly chewing the beef in his mouth.
He was tasting the satay beef.
This was a Cantonese dish, more accurately a Chaoshan dish.
The secret lay in the satay sauce and peanut sauce.
But knowing how to make it and making it delicious were two different things. In the God of Cooking Space, Xia Yu had spent three days perfecting this dish. Even while cooking double dishes with fish-flavored pork simultaneously, the final product scored an impressive 80 points from the system.
The golden beef slices were scattered on the white porcelain plate, drizzled with thick and fragrant satay sauce that mixed with a hint of pepper, truly stimulating the appetite to the fullest.
Under Xia Yu's watchful eye, after swallowing a slice of satay beef, Shuigu Jun's eyes lit up like a beast finding prey, with bloodshot eyes unable to stop his chopsticks.
His girlfriend transformed into a hungry ghost as well.
The shop fell silent, the only sound the crisp clink of chopsticks touching plates.
In mere minutes, a large plate of golden beef slices was devoured clean.
But evidently, Shuigu Jun's appetite had been whetted, with a hungry expression as he eyed the remaining satay sauce on the plate, his Adam's apple bobbing, seemingly about to lick the plate.
"Tastes good, doesn't it?" an unexpected voice brought Shuigu Jun back to reality.
Looking towards the voice, Shuigu Jun saw the young chef he had previously looked down on from the bottom of his heart, whose expression was very calm.
"It's... good..." Shuigu Jun's face stiffened, wanting to smile yet unable.
A mysterious silence ensued.
"What is this sauce, why have I never tasted it before?" Shuigu Jun pointed to the thick sauce on the white plate, secretly swallowing his saliva.
"Satay sauce."
"Originating from the Chaoshan area of China, it is popular in multiple provinces and considered a mixed condiment. The ingredients include peanuts, white sesame seeds, fish, dried shrimp, coconut, garlic, mustard..." Xia Yu rattled off a list of ingredients casually.
"Satay sauce?" Shuigu Jun felt it sounded somewhat familiar. His girlfriend Ren Xue seemed to have bought a bottle from Chinatown once.
"Don't compare store-bought bottled satay sauce to our homemade satay sauce at Xia's shop," Xia Yu said. "With homemade satay sauce, we can cook many dishes, and satay beef is just one of them. Others include satay noodles, satay dumplings, satay ribs, and more. You should come and try them sometime."
After speaking, Xia Yu turned back to the kitchen, washing pots and cleaning up the counter debris.
Shuigu Jun stood there for a while, savoring the lingering taste in his mouth. Oddly enough, after tasting this satay beef, the impression of Chinese cuisine in his mind seemed on the brink of collapse.
"Delicious!"
Mu Xiaoyue's exclamation made Shuigu Jun realize he hadn't tried the other two dishes!
He put aside his complex emotions and quickly reached for the table, engaging in a food-snatching battle with Ren Xue, An Ya, and Mu Xiaoyue.
The fish-flavored pork was even more aromatic and flavorful, and Shuigu Jun nearly bit his tongue.
The second plate was soon emptied.
The two bowls of rice were completely forgotten, as the four pairs of eyes now turned their gaze toward the still-covered clay pot.
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