Chapter 138: It Is All Just a Routine

"Come, come, please, my dear friends," Zhang Yunhui said, handing a pair of chopsticks and a bowl to Wang Bei and Han Jiayi.

The three of them took the tableware and stared at the dishes before them in silence. Was this not meant to be a humbling welcome? At a glance, the dishes were completely indistinguishable from real shredded chicken in chili sauce or boiled fish in spicy broth, yet these were actually vegetarian dishes!

After setting up her equipment, Wang Bei officially started the livestream. Bai Renzong delivered a brief opening, briefly introducing "Grey Wolf" and the situation of this restaurant before presenting the dishes on the table.

"Mumu, why don't you try it first?" Bai Renzong turned to Han Jiayi with a smile.

"You promised not to call me Mumu in front of outsiders!" Han Jiayi shot him a reproachful glare and began to taste the food.

She started with the saliva chicken. The poached white chicken and red chili oil dressing were tossed together. She picked up a slice of chicken to taste, immediately furrowed her brows, glanced at Bai Renzong, then at Zhang Yunhui, and pondered for quite a while before replying, "Is this... some kind of soy product?"

"This thing... looks really fierce." Bai Renzong glanced somewhat warily at the deep red, almost blackish chili oil. He also picked up a piece and took a bite, his pupils instantly dilating as he gasped a couple of breaths of cool air. A burning sensation spread through his mouth, and he quickly took a few gulps of water.

The livestream chat scrolled past: "Eating it is even fiercer." "Sweat is breaking out on his forehead."

In truth, as Bai Renzong ate it, if no one had told him it was vegetarian, he might have genuinely believed it was chicken.

That slightly dry texture was no different from chicken. Moreover, the seasonings blended from chili oil, Sichuan peppercorns, and various spices masked any unwanted raw flavors of the ingredient itself, and the taste was "almost" entirely identical to real saliva chicken...

If he were an ordinary person, he probably would have reacted just like Han Jiayi, assuming it was a soy product. But while the texture could fool him, the flavor could not.

Bai Renzong put down his chopsticks and said, "Though I don't know how this restaurant managed to give this thing such a texture, from a flavor standpoint, this chicken should be made from king oyster mushrooms."

"King oyster mushrooms?" Han Jiayi asked, looking at the "chicken" before her in disbelief. "Do king oyster mushrooms have this kind of texture?"

"Spot on!" Zhang Yunhui raised an eyebrow in pleasant surprise and smiled. "It is indeed king oyster mushroom. You dry the king oyster mushrooms in the sun, fry them in oil, and then simmer them for a long time to get this texture. Impressive, you actually managed to taste it."

"I actually couldn't tell from the texture alone, but I could recognize the flavor," Bai Renzong explained with a smile.

Next, Han Jiayi tasted the sliced beef and ox tongue in chili sauce, wearing a wronged expression. "Is this... some kind of mushroom?"

"Here it comes, the classic 'some kind of mushroom'," Zhang Yunhui laughed, amused. "Let me tell you, you guys aren't the first up-and-coming streamers I've brought here. I even brought 'Chef Hong' here to eat once before. You know Chef Hong, right? He's a streamer with over two million followers, a chef who has cooked for state banquets, and his culinary skills are unquestionable. After I brought him here, the phrase he said the most was 'some kind of mushroom'."

Seeing Han Jiayi's aggrieved expression, Bai Renzong couldn't help laughing either. He stroked Han Jiayi's head and said gently, "Alright, alright, leave it to me. Just focus on enjoying your food."

With that, Bai Renzong's expression turned serious. He picked up a slice of tendon and tasted it, musing for a moment before saying, "It's white fungus."

Then he ate a piece of beef heart: "Wheat gluten." Followed by a taste of beef tripe: "Porcini mushroom."

He tasted every single dish on the table one by one and accurately named the ingredients used: "The raw material for this one is a soy-based product made from soybeans. For the boiled cabbage in clear broth, the soup base is brewed from chicken-like mushrooms. The fatty-looking pork on top of the braised pork belly is winter melon cooked until soft and tender, while the lean meat below is made by grinding mushrooms into a mushroom paste and then shaping it into meat chunks."

Having revealed the secrets behind every dish on the table, Bai Renzong turned to Zhang Yunhui and smiled, "Brother, did I guess right?"

"Actually," Zhang Yunhui said with a mysterious smile, "I don't know either! Let's call the head chef over and ask."

With that, Zhang Yunhui summoned a waiter and gave him a few instructions. Moments later, a dark-skinned chef with narrow eyes walked out from the back, wearing a faint smile and looking completely composed.

"I am the head chef here, Chen Bin," the other party introduced himself. "How can I help you two?"

"My younger brother here asks you," Zhang Yunhui said with a smile, turning to Bai Renzong, "if he can guess all the ingredients used in these dishes, will you treat us to this meal for free?"

"Hey, brother! I didn't say that!" Bai Renzong quickly explained. "With someone's culinary skills being this good, eating a free meal would be way too..."

"No problem," Chen Bin nodded with a smile. "As long as you can guess the main ingredients used in these dishes, I'll give you a twenty percent discount. If you can guess every single ingredient, then this meal is on the house."

"This..." Bai Renzong felt a bit embarrassed. "It feels a bit like taking advantage of you, I'm quite shy about it."

"The young man looks quite modest, but he sure talks big," Chen Bin rolled up his sleeves and laughed with amused interest. "Get the answers right first before you talk. Let me tell you, out of every ten people who come to eat at our restaurant, eight can't even guess a single ingredient." At this, Chen Bin turned toward the camera and pointed to the sign behind him: "Do you know the nickname of our restaurant? It's called 'The Some-Kind-of-Mushroom Restaurant'."

"Ahem, then I'll begin," Bai Renzong smiled, and then began to repeat what he had told Zhang Yunhui earlier, but this time he was much more detailed. Not only did he name the types of mushrooms, but he also laid out what seasonings and spices were added, what kind of salt and oil were used, dish by dish, all the way to the final boiled sliced meat in hot chili oil.

"Head Chef, did I get it right?" Bai Renzong asked tentatively.

By now, Chen Bin's eyes were wide open and his lips were tightly pursed, leaving him speechless for a good while before he finally turned to Zhang Yunhui with a laugh, "Well, you little rascal. No wonder you were so full of confidence when you bet me on this meal; you came prepared."

Zhang Yunhui raised an eyebrow triumphantly. "Uncle Chen, didn't you know? He's quite famous on the internet. At a wine exhibition, he was blindfolded and successfully identified over a dozen different wines."

Chen Bin looked at Bai Renzong and applauded. "Impressive, truly impressive. His reputation is well-deserved."

"So, Uncle Chen..." Zhang Yunhui asked with a smile, "How many did he get right?"

"Spot on, every single one of them," Chen Bin nodded. "Never mind those edible mushrooms and chicken mushrooms; even the type of oil and salt, the black vinegar and white vinegar, he got every single one right. Good grief, I've been a chef for over twenty years, and I've never seen someone like this. That level of precision is like a machine."

How hateful, as expected of my Lao Bai, so handsome... Han Jiayi held her face in her hands beside him, giggling quietly.

"Oh my, the livestream room is about to explode now..." Wang Bei whispered excitedly to herself nearby.

Meanwhile, the livestream chat was currently flooded with a uniform stream of "666" being frantically spammed.

Zhang Yunhui joined in the applause beside them. "I surrender, my brother, I truly surrender."

With that, Zhang Yunhui turned to Chen Bin and smiled, "Don't worry, Uncle, though. I won't freeload off you. This meal is on me."

"You better pay for it," Chen Bin pointed at Zhang Yunhui and joked, "You brat, making your uncle look foolish in front of so many people."

"Hey! Look at what you're saying! This is helping you show off your prestige! Apart from your place, where else can anyone eat such exquisite vegetarian cuisine?" Zhang Yunhui brushed it off with a laugh and then escorted Chen Bin away from the private dining room. "Alright then, back to work with you!"

So they actually knew each other all along. Bai Renzong thought to himself: No wonder the guy dared to be so arrogant, it was all an act!

"Oh man," Zhang Yunhui patted Bai Renzong's shoulder and laughed. "My brother, you really helped me vent my frustration. Generation-wise, this old master is my martial uncle. Back when I first came here to review his restaurant, I got thoroughly chewed out by him in front of the camera. Because I'm also part of the 'some-kind-of-mushroom' school—I couldn't taste anything either, haha!"

"Heh..." Bai Renzong was amused by his attitude, then turned back to the camera. "However, my dear viewers, despite me figuring out what ingredients were used in these dishes, I honestly have no idea how they make them. At first bite, the texture and flavor are completely identical to real meat, and the seasoning is extremely authentic. If I didn't tell you, you wouldn't be able to tell it's a vegetarian dish at all. Only beneath those seasonings can you catch a very faint, extremely subtle trace of that unique fragrance belonging to fungi and mushrooms."

With that, Bai Renzong shook his head in admiration. "To be honest, I truly respect this culinary skill. And the most crucial thing is, not all the dishes are spicy. Look, this boiled cabbage in clear broth, this braised pork belly—none of these are spicy."

At this point, Zhang Yunhui explained, "Sichuan cuisine, its characteristic isn't actually spiciness. What is its characteristic? It's seasoning, complex seasoning. Take this saliva chicken, for example. Look inside: sour, sweet, salty, numbing, spicy—every flavor is there. And precisely because it pursues this 'complex seasoning,' many of its dishes feature chili peppers and Sichuan peppercorns."

"Mhm... Today I learned," Bai Renzong said in sudden realization, then looked at the boiled cabbage in clear broth before him. "But everyone must find this dish quite surprising, right? Did you completely not expect it? Actually, this dish is quite famous; it's a state banquet dish, it's just that many people don't know it belongs to Sichuan cuisine."

Waving his hand, Bai Renzong said, "Alright, next up is just normal eating, no more talking."

This meal could truly be described as painful yet happy. Though it was very spicy, the spiciness made it go wonderfully with rice. Bai Renzong finished two bowls of rice alongside the heat in one go, then let out a sigh of deep satisfaction.

"To be honest," Bai Renzong recovered his breath and spoke to everyone watching the livestream in front of the camera, "although the chef's skill here astounded me, I have to mention one thing: the average spending per person here is over four hundred yuan."

The livestream chat instantly exploded: "What!? Spend over four hundred yuan to eat a table of fake vegetarian food? Am I out of my mind?" "Seriously, with over four hundred yuan, couldn't I just go straight and eat real Sichuan cuisine?" "It's fine, their skill is right there." "If you don't understand, stop blindly bashing it, okay? Fungi and mushrooms of equivalent weight are much more expensive than meat."

Bai Renzong offered a final summary: "So, if you are a vegetarian, then I strongly recommend you come and eat here. But if you are not a vegetarian... whether you should come here depends entirely on your spending power. If you feel this price is acceptable, then it's well worth experiencing once. If you think it's too expensive, just find any random shop on the street and grab a bite. That's all."