Who gave this heretical practitioner permission to cook?

Chapter 55: "Turtle Jelly Ice Cream" Appears on Shangbixiang Street – Is it a culinary disaster? Or a new god of cold drinks?

"Welcome everyone to our 'One Meal to Fame' live broadcast. The current competition theme is 'Snack Street Showdown.'"

"Haha, the reason why we used a live broadcast for this match is because the environment of the food street is complicated and the equipment is difficult to transport. In order to prevent the camera from affecting the final result of the match, we changed to a fixed multi-camera setup with hidden drones."

"In order to prevent our contestants from being recognized, we added mask props. Although we cannot completely prevent enthusiastic fans from going offline to check in, we have tried our best to ensure the fairness and impartiality of the final result."

Just like our "Kangaroo Supermarket," we bring every customer the freshest ingredients and the most attentive service!

"Alright, that concludes the commercial break. An hour has passed since the 'Snack Street Showdown,' and we're starting to see the sales figures for the six teams. Let's take a closer look."

"The first team to appear is our Team One. After the departure of the Sichuan-Chongqing Ice and Fire Chef, Xiaohua from the 'West 4th Grade' took over the responsibility of captain and led the banquet graduate students and the bald cook to continue the battle."

"This time, Team One has chosen 'grilled skewers,' which I'm sure everyone is familiar with. Food streets and grilled skewers have always been inextricably linked. Compared to the frozen dishes at ordinary grilled skewer stalls, Team One's dishes look exceptionally fancy."

"Beautifully sliced ​​fresh beef BBQ, exquisite duck wings, unique pork skewers with Sichuan peppercorns, and refreshing fresh shrimp—looking at this dazzling array of dishes, my mouth is watering."

"Furthermore, the 'secret chili oil' emits an irresistible aroma, and paired with a mojito—or a non-alcoholic version if you don't drink alcohol—it's simply perfect!"

At this point, the host pushed up his glasses.

"But then again, a perfect idea doesn't necessarily mean it will be accepted by the public, and most of the time, food streets aren't competing for exquisite plating."

"Although the dishes at [Team One] are very down-to-earth, their selection of ingredients and prices don't seem very attractive."

"A single skewer of grilled meat, which often costs more than 4 yuan, is considered expensive on a snack street where a bunch of grilled duck intestines only costs 10 yuan."

"Not to mention that a cup of mojito is now priced at 18 yuan, and a non-alcoholic one at 14 yuan. Compared to that price, a large cup of 'Lemon 7' ​​at the stall next door for 8 yuan looks more appealing."

"So, as of now, their revenue... well, to avoid affecting the players, the revenue is confidential. But I can tell you that Team One's revenue is currently fifth among the six teams, which isn't a very good result. Let's look forward to their performance this afternoon or evening!"

Actually, Xia Ming's initial strategy for Team One wasn't like this; he wasn't stupid enough to mistake roadside kebabs for yakitori.

But after the bald cook used Xia Ming's recipe to create a fragrant chili sauce, Xiao Hua had other ideas.

She believes that although the profit margin of barbecue skewers is high, there is a production process involved. With a cost of only 1000 yuan, their barbecue skewers are very popular and may sell out in a few hours.

At this point, with a fixed profit margin, their earnings are also fixed.

Moreover, even with the help of this chili oil, ordinary grilled skewers cannot create a significant difference from the surrounding skewers, so she decided to take the mid-to-high-end route.
Anyway, the competition lasts for 12 hours, so the ingredients will definitely sell out. Ensuring profits is more important.

Despite the graduate student's repeated attempts to dissuade her, she wouldn't listen. In order to prevent infighting within the team, the graduate student reluctantly agreed to her request.

The bald cook resisted desperately, but Xiao Hua was such a proud person. She could give in to Xia Ming, so who did the bald cook think she was?
In the end, it was the graduate student who persuaded him to stop and made an agreement with Xiaohua that if the effect was not good, the price would be reduced, which barely managed to keep the bald cook in line.

If Xia Ming knew, he would probably just laugh it off.

The recipe that the bald cook devised himself was significantly different from Xia Ming's original recipe, achieving only about 7% of the effect.

They can easily outperform ordinary vendors around them, but they are evenly matched with the "pure tech enthusiasts." This gap causes the team to lose its innate advantage in aroma.

Coupled with the erratic pricing of the flowers, it was predictable that the team's sales would be poor now.

After watching Team One, the host shifted the focus to Team Two.

The dishes served by Team Two are also down-to-earth, featuring cold seafood, hand-shaken milk tea, and crispy chicken.

Yang Yanbin actually had high expectations for "cold seafood", but in reality, it didn't sell very well. Price probably wasn't the primary reason; it's likely that the series of reports made people have a slight aversion to "cold seafood".

Although Xia Yuxingye's hand-shaken milk tea is affordable, they didn't draw a good lottery. There's a milk tea chain and a local milk tea shop next door, and although the platform has reduced food coupons, the beverage subsidies are still continuing, so sales are just average.

On the contrary, the crispy chicken is selling quite well. Basically, the current turnover is supported by the crispy chicken, which is a dark horse. Currently, Team Two is ranked third.

Next up is Team Three, which is Chen Xiaodong's team. This time, after much deliberation, he decided to cater to the public and pulled out his "secret recipe braised pork trotters rice".

The other two chefs also felt the food was more affordable, so they pulled out their "Secret Recipe Pork Chop Rice" and "Secret Recipe Smoked Chicken Rice," definitely high in carbohydrates. Although the profit margin wasn't as high as the previous dishes, they still managed to gain an advantage at lunchtime thanks to their aroma and price.

Their location was also good. Although there were many noodle shops around, there was only one roast chicken shop that was a direct competitor. The sales volume was good in the first hour, and they are now ranked second in terms of turnover.

In comparison, Team Four fared much worse. Luo Luo's special braised noodle soup, which she painstakingly prepared, was completely overshadowed by a "veteran braised noodle" stall around the corner. If it weren't for Zeng Huaijun's spicy Sichuan-style fried dumplings, they would have almost gone broke. Team Four also had the lowest revenue among the six teams.

But the handsome young man next to him was all smiles and not in a hurry at all, which probably meant he had some trick up his sleeve.

The five teams, composed of the three chefs who were voted out, offered a combination of "sliced ​​beef and tripe in chili sauce, small meatballs made with fermented rice wine, and cold rabbit skewers." Sales were not significant at lunchtime when everyone was eating.

But none of the three were worried, because their cooking was most effective between 3 pm and 5 pm, so even though they were in fourth place, they were not in a hurry.

Finally, it came down to Xia Ming leading a team of six.

Thanks to the popularity of fast food, Xia Ming's magical pig blood tofu soup has seen impressive sales.

Its extremely high profit margin shocked Chen Xiaodong to no end; selling this stuff was practically a crime.

But from the perspective of tourists or diners, three meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and a bowl of soup, plus the cost of buying a bowl of soup, would only cost 30 yuan, which is enough to fill a normal person up, making it an excellent value for money.

Not to mention there's also a large bowl for 10 yuan, which can satisfy a couple's needs. In an era where even iced mung bean soup can cost 4 yuan, most diners are quite accepting of this price.

Most importantly, it's optional.

If you don't want to drink it, you don't have to buy it. It's not like if you don't buy pig's blood and tofu soup, you can't buy fast food.

As a result, in just one hour, the fast food next to Xia Ming's restaurant was almost sold out.

As the fast food sales came to an end, his pig's blood and tofu soup gradually became harder to sell, but Xia Ming didn't care at all.

After selling the last of the fast food, he covered the pig's blood and tofu soup, tidied up the table briefly, and then took out a few small plastic bowls.

Next, he took a lot of ice from the freezer, put it into a food processor, added several large pieces of fresh mango, then added a little coconut milk and blended it. When it became a semi-paste, he added the cooled glutinous rice.

Viewers in the live stream quickly discerned Xia Ming's actions.

[This must be ice cream. They sell this after the fast food is sold out. It seems pretty good.]

The profit margin on this stuff is shockingly high. The cost is almost entirely just milk and fruit, but it's sold at an extremely high price. I charge 15 yuan a serving here.

[It's 8 yuan here, and the cucumber flavor of the ice cream is the best.]

Cucumber flavor, isn't that a culinary disaster?

[The person upstairs has probably never tried ice syrup before. It has the most authentic cucumber flavor.]

Just as everyone was discussing whether cucumber or mango flavored ice cream was better, Xia Ming, who had just finished making a batch of ice cream, took out an ice cube tray from the small freezer underneath.

Next, he found the box containing the mangoes, took out a slightly damaged transparent marble, chopped it up a few times with a knife in his palm, and threw it into the ice syrup.

After stirring it a few times, he divided a large serving of ice cream into four small bowls and placed them at the front.

Then he took out a piece of red paper, wrote on it: "[Mysterious Limited Edition Ice Cream, Mango Flavored Sample Pack for a Limited Time at Two Yuan!]" and stuck it on his stall.

The host sitting in the studio was stunned by Xia Ming's action.

If he remembers correctly, the ice cube tray was filled with turtle soup, right?
"My goodness! Our Sichuan-Chongqing 'Ice and Fire' culinary champions have brought us another unique dish after their fast food: 'Turtle Jelly with Ice Cream'!"

"Is this some kind of culinary disaster? Or a new god of cold drinks? Only the diners can answer that."

(End of this chapter)