Gourmet: From a Stall in Northern Europe-Chapter 118 - 108: Grabbing Seafood by Hand, Spicy Edition (Part 2)

The receptionist clearly still remembered the two of them, after all, they would be future colleagues. Hearing that it was the Head Chef's arrangement, she immediately called the fishery over there to notify and arrange boats and diving instructors.

Aside from the restaurant not being opened yet, other areas were prepared months ago, since farming these things takes a lot of time.

To save money and create a natural environment, you definitely want the species to breed on their own for a while.

The farm is easier to handle as you can purchase adult animals and young ones, but for seafood, if you buy from the market and then release them back, you must really be burning money.

The simplest way is actually to charter a boat for deep-sea fishing and then release them at the fishery.

Apart from allowing guests to personally catch their ingredients, both the fishery and farm have complete supply chains, providing supplies to the market and supermarkets to ensure income and the operation of the whole industry.

Lin Chen obviously investigated thoroughly before daring to make such arrangements; the only issue is whether or not to charge the employees.

This business model sounds exactly like a one-stop farm tour.

However, the boss likes to play mysterious and hasn't revealed any information, only stating that he will visit the site on Sunday to personally taste the dishes formulated by the two Head Chefs and host the opening ceremony.

Upon receiving news that the two women had already set off for the fishery, Lin Chen was also not idle, eagerly changing clothes and summoning Lucas to head back to the seafood market.

Fishing and diving will at least take a day, not to mention the two ladies also needed to do some basic learning first, and they would return to shore no earlier than the evening.

The other set of three people seem to have vanished as if evaporated; none of the six-person group has sent any messages.

He was too lazy to manage and would rather they don't meet each other.

Without acquaintances, there is temporarily no need to worry about the risk of being recognized.

After careful consideration, he ultimately didn't come up with a good solution and could only take it step by step.

In theory, when in the restaurant, he is in the kitchen and won't directly touch customers, so naturally won't be recognized. The only ones who might recognize him are these few acquaintances and the hotel receptionists.

He also thought seriously about why he was worried about this issue.

He later realized that perhaps because he was an introvert... afraid of trouble, he liked to keep a low profile.

"What delicious food should we make today? I didn't get to eat yesterday's grilled oysters, such a loss, today we better buy more so we can eat our fill first, right?"

When Lucas appeared, although he was still carrying the cat bag on his back, Lu Xiaohei seemed to have learned an incredible skill, steadily perched on his shoulder, with his two front paws on his head, standing like a person and curiously looked around.

"Yo, you've been demoted from a servant to a footrest?"

"... If you can talk, say more."

Lu Xiaohei saw him and uttered a short "ah~," clearly recognizing he was the rich guy sitting on the oyster mountain last night.

"Oh, oh, I've heard this sound before, isn't that the call of that internet-famous cat Bumpy, which asks when it's time to eat."

"Bumpy? What Bumpy, I haven't come across it."

"Nonsense, you've definitely come across it, just haven't seen it in person probably, it's that GIF of two cats talking, the aggrieved cat on the right."

"Oh oh oh!! Now that you mention it, I do remember, but who's got a good cat named Bumpy, got my attention."

The two chatted as they reached the parking lot, didn't move the food truck, and drove the pickup straight to the seafood market.

In the car, Lin Chen kept checking information and only realized that Brittany Blue Lobsters are high-end goods, saying there is only one out of two million lobsters, taking seven to eight years to grow to a normal size, and they're quite expensive.

Obviously, they can't be used for street stalls, but using them as the restaurant's signature dish might be a suitable idea.

Normal lobsters are a bit troublesome to make into food suitable for selling from a food truck, the shelling process is more tedious than shucking oysters, for now, it's better not to consider it, put it off for later.

Today his target is mussels, scallops, and razor clams.

Speaking of these three types of seafood, the most common method should be like yesterday, made into garlic flavor, definitely getting 100% positive feedback.

But since it's already confirmed that this flavor will be popular with tourists, selling it again doesn't align with his original intention.

Market research.

The restaurant's menu hasn't even been finalized, time to try different flavors.

Anyway, it's not a challenge task, without a Food Truck Upgrade Card, whether or not there's double rewards doesn't matter.

"Besides the regular garlic flavor, what else is there... Scallion oil? Seems a bit ordinary, doesn't have that... that... satisfaction of dining out?"

"Indeed."

Lucas looked ahead and nodded, "Scallion oil is suitable for eating at a small restaurant, selling from a food truck indeed feels lacking, how about we make hand-held seafood?"

"Hmm?!"

Lin Chen suddenly straightened up, slapped his thigh: "Wow, are you a genius?"

Hand-held seafood itself is actually a dish from the American cuisine, a specialty of the southern region, later introduced by Great Xia vendors and modified, and it was popular for a while.

He's tried both the authentic and modified versions, and can say the overall taste isn't much different, the difference lies in the oils and seasonings.

The American version of hand-held seafood uses a lot of butter for flavor enhancement, but butter is expensive domestically, so vendors switch to other oils to reduce costs.

Honestly, it's still just garlic sauce flavor, only a bit more complex.

This dish, already verified by the foreign market, he definitely wouldn't make, but speaking of hand-held seafood, it reminded him of crayfish.

Crayfish has so many types of flavors, doing it with shellfish would surely taste great, right?

Like yellow wine chilled or spicy ones, foreigners might not accept them much, but thirteen spices garlic flavors should pose no problem.

After a quick run through in his head, he immediately made up his mind.

Fusion!

On the base sauce of American hand-held seafood, adding flavors from spicy crayfish, control the level of spiciness, make it slightly spicy, should be very popular.

After several attempts, he found that some foreigners are quite capable of eating spicy dishes, so the spiciness level is best adjustable; hence, spicy sauce and garlic sauce should be made separately, not mixed into one, to allow for flavor adjustment.

Don't add salt in the spicy sauce, just adjust the saltiness in the garlic sauce, so adding spiciness won't make the sauce overly salty.

Listening to Lin Chen's idea, Lucas was already starting to swallow his saliva.

"Alright, alright, stop talking, quickly get the ingredients, I'm hungry!"

Just walked into the seafood market not far, the oyster seller from yesterday spotted the two and enthusiastically waved greetings.

"Hey, sold all those oysters? Looks like business is good, buy more today? Our visitors here are quite supportive."

Adding oysters too should be fine, right?

Taking into account that they've come this far, and the quality of this stall is indeed good; having a full variety, it's the largest booth in the market.

Lin Chen casually picked out some scallops, razor clams, and mussels, the boss skillfully handed over tools.

"You can eat them raw; they were caught two hours ago, try some, it's free~"

Here at the stall, the main target customers are major restaurants; bulk sales are how they make money, obviously the boss knows how to do business.

Smelling the fresh seafood aroma, Lu Xiaohei anxiously meowed, made Lucas's golden hair look like a bird's nest, but since it was too high, he didn't dare to jump down.

Lin Chen skillfully pried open three of each type, sniffed them at the nose tip, slicing the shellfish meat and stuffing it in his mouth to taste, nodding with satisfaction, casually tossing the yellow and fringe of the scallop to the meowing Xiao Hei.

It's not inedible, just these two parts he personally prefers eating cooked, while the scallop meat raw is gelatinously sweet, tender, and melts in the mouth.

"Nice, your goods' quality is excellent, Gillardeau needs to be top-grade, fifty dozen, also, these scallops, mussels, and razor clams, how much for each box? How many can it approximately hold?"

Upon hearing the unit 'box', the boss laughed.

"Come on, I'll show you on-site, I've got cold storage trucks parked at the back, got as much as you need, we'll move it directly!"