Have you ever seen glowing food? That's why you draw a food-themed anime.

His slightly immature face stood out in the crowd.

When they saw me looking at them, they eagerly ran over and asked, "Expert, I want to take the class too. Can I be a special admission student?"

Special enrollment?

Xu Zhou asked, somewhat puzzled, "Didn't Dean Jiang recruit you? Didn't he already specially recruit you?"

"Yes, but I want to be a master's apprentice."

Zhang Wanqiu clenched his fist and made up his mind: "Since the master has let me know such an important formula, I will definitely stay in the master's shop for the rest of my life."

"Don't you want to open your own shop in the future?" Xu Zhou asked, puzzled.

How could a young person not want to open their own shop?

Especially those with certain talents like Zhang Wanqiu.

After saying this, Zhang Wanqiu pondered for a long time before honestly nodding, "That was what I was thinking."

"Hmm? Originally? You don't want to anymore?" Xu Zhou was a little curious when she heard his answer.

Chapter 132 Targeted

Zhang Wanqiu scratched his head, chuckled, and his eyes shone brightly: "Because I want to find a master to be my teacher."

"What kind of logic is it for a master to teach an apprentice, only for the apprentice to then open their own shop?"

"What's more, the expert lent me money, which allowed me to pay back the money I owed to Songbei Culinary Academy."

"I cannot be ungrateful."

Zhang Wanqiu did not hesitate at all, leaving no room for negotiation.

Seeing his stubborn expression, Xu Zhou was exasperated by his obstinacy: "You enroll first. If you can get first place in the grade, I'll transfer you to my name."

Zhang Wanqiu's eyes lit up immediately: "Great!"

...

the other side.

On-site at the Songnan City Potential Award Selection Committee.

Compared to other awards, the results of the Potential Award are usually selected within one or two days of the nominations being announced.

After all, compared to the Rising Star, New Talent, or Silver Spoon and Gold Spoon awards, the Potential Award is merely an encouragement award for newcomers.

But this year seems a little different.

The other categories of the Potential Award were decided long ago, but a dispute arose only when selecting the Songnan City's top potential dish.

The Potential Award has four nominees.

However, since Yu Er and Fu Hongyu both won other awards, the "Potential Dishes" award is practically a choice between rice soaked in soup and rice soaked in tea.

...

There was a great deal of internal strife within the organizing committee.

"The most popular potential dish has already been Yu Er's Three Flavors Soup. I think this heavyweight potential dish should be Tea Rice."

The judge who spoke was Zhang Yuanshan, a food research expert, who could naturally tell at a glance that this dish was unusual.

"And I don't know if you've noticed, but Yi Cai Yi Fan and Yi Zhou Izakaya both participated in Songnan University's food festival, but Yi Zhou Izakaya won."

“I think you should not underestimate this restaurant just because it is a new one. This ochazuke was recommended by Jiang Yonghua, the dean of the Department of Culinary Arts at Songnan University.”

As soon as he said that, someone next to him curled their lip.

"If it weren't for giving face to Elder Jiang, this tea-soaked rice wouldn't even be qualified to compete with soup-soaked rice."

"One dish and one bowl of rice is enough for an eight-star restaurant."

"Yes, if it weren't for considering Elder Jiang's feelings, this dish would have been cooked long ago."

Several representatives from the Songnan City Chefs Association nearby frowned and echoed his sentiments.

"Xu Zhou is too young. If we were to select the most promising talent, it would definitely be the rice soup with a simple dish."

"You should know how popular this soup-based rice dish is in Songnan City this year, right?"

Kang Qiang, the representative of the Songnan City Chefs Association, thought that he had drunk with Chen Xianjun a few times, so he naturally supported Chen Xianjun without hesitation at this time.

They hung their votes directly on Chen Xianjun, and many others did the same without hesitation.

"This dish is for entertaining foreign guests, so I think rice soup would be a better choice."

The Italian travel agency, which has a partnership with the Songnan Municipal Government, serves the award-winning dishes to tourists every year when they visit.

This is related to Songnan City's policy plan to build itself into a popular tourist destination on the internet, although it has only been implemented for a short time.

However, it has already been quite effective.

...

A seasoned gourmet, Zhou Pang, couldn't help but shake his head: "I think you should try it before making a decision. You've probably all tried the other dishes, but this ochazuke (rice with tea), you haven't tried it before, have you?"

Zhou Pang is a gourmet and a professional food critic.

He has gained a lot of fans because his food reviews are genuine, and many people from Songnan City have also gone to check out the restaurants after reading his reviews.

When the topic of rice soaked in soup came up, he shook his head and denied it without hesitation.

"To be honest, I think the soup rice with one dish is just average. It's not nearly as amazing as their dishes from the past two years."

"If you're going to vote for rice soup, you might as well vote for Sanbao Tofu. Even if Fu Hongyu wins two awards, it would be better than rice soup."

...

Almost none of the people present had ever eaten at Ichishu Izakaya.

Upon hearing Zhou Pang's words, they shook their heads: "It's too late."

"Tourists will be arriving in a few days, so we need to finalize the menu tonight."

"Compared to a brand new restaurant that we know nothing about, rice in soup is at least a safe choice."

The speaker was Su Miao, another member of the Chefs Association, who was also quite well-known in Songnan City.

He is the principal of an institution that specializes in providing exam preparation education for chefs.

She also cast her vote for Yi Cai Yi Fan: "Tourists from Italy are coming soon, it's mid-June, and we need to make preparations these days. At least the soup-soaked rice won't go wrong."

"If Xu Zhou is really talented, he's still young, so we can just give him an award next year."

They had absolutely no prior knowledge of the chef, Xu Zhou.

It appeared out of nowhere.

She has now become a specially recruited teacher in the Culinary Arts Department of Songnan University.

What if it's difficult to cooperate?

...

If everyone was initially somewhat hesitant...

After Su Miao finished speaking, almost everyone crowded forward to vote.

"One dish, one rice, one ticket."

"One dish, one rice, two tickets."

"You all vote for one dish and one rice? But I want to vote for ochazuke (rice with tea). I think ochazuke sounds really appealing."

The voting ended quickly.

When Kang Qiang saw the vote count, he squinted his eyes with delight: "That's more like it."

"If a greenhorn wins an award in his first year in the industry, wouldn't that make him arrogant?"

When Zhou Pang and Zhang Yuanshan saw the results, although they felt that their voting was too casual, they didn't say anything.

After all, newcomers don't really have an advantage when it comes to winning awards.

This Xu Zhou is already quite good.

Generally, other newcomers are eliminated in their first year; they have to honestly join the association and network before they can receive awards.

...

night.

Xu Zhou had just finished eating when he received a call from Jiang Mingzhu.

On the phone.

She cursed for a full five minutes, using the most vulgar language ever seen before, and only asked her a question after she calmed down a bit.

What's making you so agitated?

"Win an award!"

Jiang Mingzhu was so angry her lungs hurt: "That damn lousy rice soup actually won an award? I'm disgusted. Did these judges vote with their feet?"

Hearing this, Xu Zhou was somewhat surprised: "Wasn't it just a nomination? How come the results are out already? Wasn't the awards ceremony supposed to be at the end of the month?"

"The awards ceremony is at the end of the month because there are other awards to vote for besides the Potential Award. The Potential Award is for newcomers and is not that important, so it was voted for first. The result must have been leaked."

Jiang Mingzhu's face darkened. She took a deep breath, her lungs about to explode with anger at the thought that her favorite salmon ochazuke had been defeated by a soup rice dish.

He even considered going to confront the group of chefs from the chefs' association.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got: "Everyone in the chefs' association is congratulating the head chef of One Dish One Rice..."

"But the awards ceremony won't be held until the end of the month. Even though the voting is over before then, it can't be said that everything is completely decided."

It's highly likely that it's settled.

But anything is possible before the awards ceremony.

Jiang Mingzhu was afraid that Xu Zhou would be unhappy, so she tried her best to comfort him.

...

Xu Zhou quickly saw the screenshot she sent; it was an internal screenshot from the Chefs Association.

I clicked on it and took a look.

Kang Qiang from the Chefs Association directly announced the voting results in the group chat.

[Kang Qiang: The potential heavyweight award, of course, was a foregone conclusion; the result was 27 to 2.]

[Li Zhenyu: Who's 27 and who's 2?]

[Ye Shuang: It should be rice soup on the 27th, right? Rice soup is indeed very popular in Songnan City this year.]

[Kang Qiang: Of course. Those who voted for tea-soaked rice probably only did so because of Grandpa Jiang. Unfortunately, winning an award requires real ability; connections won't work.]

In this picture, many people are congratulating Chen Xianjun, and Chen Xianjun, the head chef of Yi Cai Yi Fan (a restaurant chain), hadn't said much at first, but after seeing so many people congratulating him, he replied with a few words:

[Chen Xianjun: Thank you everyone for your support and votes. I feel very honored that my soup-soaked rice won an award; it's an affirmation of my abilities.]

[Chen Xianjun: Receiving affirmation from these professionals proves that my soup-soaked rice is a success.]

Chen Xianjun finally felt a sense of relief.

fortunately.

The award is safe.

It was a disgrace that the food festival lost to a new store ranked over nine thousandth.

"Master, our rice soup has won an award, but the online support rate..."

The kitchen helper, who was responsible for preparing one dish and one meal, asked hesitantly, "Should we try to control the online comments?"

When it comes to online public support rates...

Chen Xianjun's expression turned somewhat grim again.

One dish and one rice only managed to overpower Xu Zhou's tea-soaked rice on the first day with an absolute advantage.

But later...

With the addition of students from Songnan University, rice soaked in soup has never surpassed rice soaked in tea, and it even seems to be trending towards being overtaken.