When Zhao Li Yu entered the other room behind the staff member, the three judges had already taken a seat at the makeshift judges’ table and were looking at him expectantly.
When it came to Zhao Li Yu’s cooking, it had to be said that while he made simple dishes, they were still tasty. It really went to show that you didn’t need to make anything elaborate to have good food. In this case, they had high expectations for the stirfry he had made.
Zhao Li Yu picked up the bowl on the food trolley, bringing it over to the judges’ table himself, and nodding at the three of them before he took a step back.
Looking at the dish, Chu Yu An gave a hum. Actually, comparing this to what she had seen from him in the first task, she couldn’t say that this was unexpected. “Well, I have to say that compared to the congee you made, this looks a bit better. The presentation is still simple but I guess it fits the dish once again. In this case, the color of the ingredients alone makes for nice optics.”
Zhao Li Yu had really just cut up all the ingredients that they had provided and added rice as a staple before filling a few spoonfuls into a bowl and calling it a day. It couldn’t be said to be elaborate but then, this was a stirfry. It was a simple dish so why pretend that it was fancy?
While she did think that presentation was important, for some dishes, it was more important than for others. For a stirfry, she had to say that a clean and simple presentation was also in line with what people would expect.
Still, maybe there was a little room for improvement and as judges, they couldn’t just say everything was good every time. “You know, you could’ve kept some rings of the green parts of the green onion and sprinkled them on top to make this look just slightly nicer.”
Zhao Li Yu nodded. For the first task, Chu Yu An had also given him feedback on the plating. Now, she seemed to just be continuing to advise him on that topic. Considering how he had never really thought about that, he was quite happy.
While Chu Yu An had been talking, Mister Yu and Xiao Ming had already tasted the dish. The result was as expected.
Xiao Ming put down his chopsticks and gave Zhao Li Yu a smile. “It’s really tasty. Despite the short time, you prepared the ingredients well. The cuts are very even, which probably helped with stirfrying. You also timed everything right. It shows in the result: No matter the ingredient, they have all retained some texture while absorbing the sauce. The carrot could have been added slightly later but I guess that is a question of personal taste. Like this, it also isn’t overdone.”
Zhao Li Yu nodded. The last time, Mister Yu had also talked about the consistency of his congee. This time, it didn’t need to be taken into consideration as much since he hadn’t made this under the assumption of wanting to eat it while sick. Personally, he liked the ingredients to be a bit softer so this really boiled down to taste. With that, he turned to Mister Yu.
Mister Yu thought for a moment, wondering what exactly he was supposed to say. With Zhao Li Yu, it was a bit difficult. Really, his dishes were tasty, and he didn’t regret having him on the show, but he was also somebody who would always put the least possible amount of effort into his cooking whether it was the preparation, the processing, or the plating. What kind of feedback could you give this kind of person?
What Chu Yu An had suggested was something that Zhao Li Yu would probably do because it wouldn’t take more effort than his version. While Xiao Ming’s advice wasn’t bad, Mister Yu really didn’t think that Zhao Li Yu would follow it if it didn’t fit his taste. As for himself … well, he couldn’t think of anything that was worthwhile to say. “I think the seasoning is very good. Do you like spicy dishes?”
Surprisingly enough, Zhao Li Yu shook his head.
The three judges looked at him, and Chu Yu An who had only just now taken a bite to try raised her brows. “No? It seems a bit spicy.” Could it be that Zhao Li Yu usually ate so spicy that this didn’t register as spicy? But then, why would he do that if he didn’t like spicy food? It didn’t seem to make sense.
At her question, Zhao Li Yu pressed his lips together and frowned. “I … grabbed the wrong seasoning. Mine look different.”
The three judges stared at him, Chu Yu An’s mouth even gaping open a bit. What did he just say? He grabbed the wrong seasoning? How … how could somebody who made it into the first episode of ‘Golden Spoon’ make such a beginner’s mistake? This was pretty much on the level of mistaking salt and sugar!
“Didn’t you read the labels?”
Zhao Li Yu shook his head. “I just go by looks.”
Xiao Ming looked at him in astonishment but finally couldn’t help but give a laugh. “Honestly, I can understand that. When I cook at home, I do it the same way. Anyway, I’m the one who decided what goes where in the kitchen, the only one who uses it and puts it back, I’m also the one who decides which products to buy. Of course, I know how everything looks. So I don’t need a label or think about which one is which. I just know which one is which.
“It’s difficult if you have to cook with what the show provides though. In the future, you have to pay more attention to that. This time, it still turned out well but it also could have ruined the dish. Since the ingredients were the same for everyone and you used all of them up, starting over wouldn’t have been possible. At that time, it might have been difficult to save the dish.”
Zhao Li Yu nodded, naturally aware of that. In fact, spicy dishes, he really didn’t like them. You wouldn’t know it, but he had a bit of a sweet tooth. Not much but just a bit. Very spicy dishes, he actually felt that they hurt his tongue.
Looking at the three judges, he opened and closed his hands once or twice in quick succession and then couldn’t help but motion at the bowl. “Are we finished?”
The three judges exchanged a glance and then felt that indeed, there didn’t seem to be much else to say.
Since Mister Yu hadn’t had much to say before, he took the lead. “Yes, I don’t think there’s much else to say about this dish. It’s a simple one again but one you made very well. Everything we could say would come down to personal preference so we’ll let you leave already.”
The other two nodded and Chu Yu An used the opportunity to speak up. “About the task for tomorrow, you will get some information from the staff members before. So look forward to that!”
Zhao Li Yu nodded, went up to take a bowl, and then turned to leave. At the door, he stopped though and turned back to the judges. “The pot with the stirfry, can I take it home?”
Xiao Ming’s eyes widened a bit and he couldn’t help but think of when Zhao Li Yu had finished the first task. Back then, he had gone back to his seat, taking the bowl of basic congee with him, and silently eating. It seems that to him, ‘Golden Spoon’ was an opportunity to get free food. Well, it was tasty, so that might be expected.
He smiled and then motioned over to the staff. “Well, I don’t see a problem with it but I’m not sure what the show intends to do with it. You should ask the staff and see what Ms. Yang and Producer Bian think. If they don’t have anything against it, then of course, you can take it.”
Zhao Li Yu nodded and then turned around, following the staff member outside. The staff member that had accompanied him over had already heard, so he went directly to Yang Shu Na while Zhao Li Yu went back to his cooking station, putting down his bowl and eating the remaining stirfry in it while looking at the pot.
Even though it was a bit too spicy for his taste, he didn’t think that it was right to let this go to waste. No, he would take all of it home! In the worst case, he’d invite some friends over and let them eat their fill. Food may not be wasted.
As soon as Zhao Li Yu was out of the room, Mister Yu and Xiao Ming turned to Chu Yu An to discuss the task.
“Ms. Chu, it’s your task so what would you prefer to do?” Mister Yu had his own thoughts on the matter but this wasn’t the task he was giving the contestants so he felt that it was best to let her choose as far as possible.
Chu Yu An looked troubled. “I want to give the contestants time so it would be better to inform them today. At the same time, we’ve seen with your task before that it isn’t feasible to have us judge all the dishes at the same time. When we’ve done the first thirty or so, the others will have had to wait too long. It affects the dish, even if they try and keep it warm.
“So starting from tomorrow, it would be best to have them cook in smaller groups. But that makes the announcement difficult. We can’t announce it at the same time to everyone if not everyone will start cooking at the same time. We have to make sure that everyone has the exact same time to prepare. Otherwise, it’d be an unfair advantage.”
The other two nodded. This was clearly the biggest problem with Chu Yu An’s task.
Xiao Ming couldn’t help but furrow his brows. “I guess we should first consider how big the groups should be and how we want to deal with the starting times. Like, how much time should be between the starting time of one group and the next? After we have that figured out, it should make clear how to arrange announcement.”
Chu Yu An nodded. This was true. After all, the more people there were in one group, the more time needed to be between them. Between each group, there’d need to be enough time to clean the room and prepare everything again so there’d have to be a minimum amount of time. Both things considered, this might make some announcement times impossible.
“Well, there are sixty-four people. Just having that halved would already be a help but the waiting time would still be pretty long. I’d say maybe we could make four groups. That way, we’d have eighteen people in each group. That is still a lot but I think it’d be doable.”
Xiao Ming calculated. “For each of them, we’d need a couple of minutes. So in that case, an hour between each group would be necessary for sure.”
Chu Yu An nodded. “Yes, that’s true. Maybe a bit more but they only need to make one dish so the first group might have even finished by the time the second one starts. I don’t think we’d need to worry about overlap.”
Mister Yu shook his head though. “If we expect to spend nearly an hour on tasting all these dishes, then I think that the groups are already too big. I’d say we should only have eight people per group so that there’d be eight groups. Or maybe ten in two and eleven in four to make six groups.
“If we say that we have two or three minutes to judge per person, that will still take a good half an hour for each group. With time for the crew to clear the studio in-between, we’d still be here for six or seven hours just for one task. That is already a lot.”
Xiao Ming and Chu Yu An couldn’t help but frown as well. Right, not even considering how long they’d be here, just the time to judge would already be long once again. With this kind of cooking show, that was really the biggest problem. Why hadn’t they thought of that before?
Xiao Ming rubbed his forehead but then perked up. “One moment! Ms. Chu, the contestants only need to make one dish, right? And they can choose what kind of dish it is, right?”
Chu Yu An nodded. “Yes, I only specified one ingredient. Otherwise, they are completely free to do whatever they want.”
Xiao Ming nodded. “In that case, I think we can expect them to need varying amounts of time. So even though we will need about half an hour or so to actually judge everything, it won’t be a continuous half an hour. Some people will finish earlier than others.
“I mean, we’ve seen Zhao Li Yu today. He is already done while everyone else still needs at least a couple of minutes. I’d expect that to happen tomorrow as well. If we look at what we know from the contestants based on what they did in the casting and also for my task today, then we can probably sort them so that some faster and some slower contestants are grouped together. It’s not a guarantee but I think it might help.”
Chu Yu An nodded. “Good. In that case, I think we can do it like that. That still leaves the question of when to make the announcement though. Any ideas?”
Mister Yu held up a hand before they could start to discuss. “Regarding that, there is one other thing that I’m worried about: That group around that Mister Si and his assistant, they clearly know each other. If we make timed announcements for everyone, they might talk about it with each other beforehand. That wouldn’t be fair to the other contestants.”
He didn’t want to be like Fan Mei and make any baseless accusations but in this case, the possibility was there. As the ones who came up with the tasks and had to judge them, they at least needed to consider the possibility if they already knew that it was there.
Chu Yu An thought back to how that Mister Si and his assistant seemed to have known at least that Fan Mei’s brother and that Mister Shi. She wasn’t sure about anyone else but at the very least, there were these two. “Well, maybe we can put them all in the same group?” That seemed like an easy solution.
Mister Yu and Xiao Ming exchanged a complicated look before turning to her.
“That won’t be possible. There are twenty of them. So that’d be two full groups plus four people in another group if we really had eight groups and I think that number would be preferable.
“If we really set all the groups half an hour apart, then even if we have them start as the first ones, that would still mean that eight of them have an additional half an hour, while four have one and a half additional hours. I guess that doesn’t make much of a difference but still, it would be unfair.”
Chu Yu An nodded but she also didn’t see a way around it. “Well, I guess it’s not a problem with just them either. I mean, you know that they have something to do with each other but we don’t know about the others. It could also very well be that some of them made friends over the break today and exchanged contact details. They might contact each other as well.”
Xiao Ming nodded, feeling that this would not be a problem if everyone cooked together. “Do you think we should still take it into consideration?”
Chu Yu An tilted her head and finally shook her head. “Well, I don’t want to but I guess this is just something we will have to agree is a possibility. I’d say we should still time the announcement so everyone will have the same amount of time and inform everyone that they shouldn’t share the details with anyone as they will be cooking in different groups. Then, we can only rely on their honesty.
“There’s just no other way for the show to handle this. Unless … we only told them after they came to the venue.” Saying this, her expression suddenly turned thoughtful. “Actually, maybe this would be an idea. I wanted to give them more time but since we can’t be sure they won’t communicate, maybe we could have them arrive one or two hours before their set time, turn in their mobile phones, and then they could get something from the crew to research here. Maybe that would be possible.”
Xiao Ming nodded slowly. “It would give them less time but it should be possible.”
The two of them turned to Mister Yu, wondering what he thought.
His expression was thoughtful but there seemed to be a hint of disagreement. “Looking at it from the side of the contestants, this is indeed not a problem. But what about the crew? They will need to organize the ingredients. If somebody wants something that is difficult to get, they won’t be able to do it.”
Chu Yu An also figured that this might be a problem. “Well, in that case, maybe my task needs to be adjusted. The most difficult ones to get will be my specified ingredients. If we made a list and only let the contestants choose from that, then not only could we make sure that all of them are actually edible, but also, we could make sure that the crew will have everything that’s needed before the first contestants even get here.”
At that, the other two nodded. Yes, it wasn’t completely in line with what Chu Yu An had originally thought of, but it was something that was possible and took their new insights into the judgment process into consideration.
Also, even with the adjustments, this was still somewhat in line with the original task while allowing them to make sure that it was fair for everyone without making things difficult for the crew. This really seemed to be the best way to go about everything.
Seeing as they were on the same page now, Chu Yu An nodded. “Alright, in that case, I guess we should think about who to group up. Also, I still need to film the announcement. I guess that is what we should do first. That way, we will also have more time to see how everyone will do on Mister Xiao’s task. That’ll let us have a better grasp on who to put in which group. Well, I guess I’ll go and get Ms. Yang then.”
Just when she wanted to get up, steps sounded from outside and the next contestant came in, following a staff member with a food trolley. This time, the person in question was actually one of the ninjas of the Si clan.
