True Cooking Master Boy
Amazing!
Yeah.
You're using both hands to simultaneously knead two balls of dough?
So you weren't all talk when you proclaimed yourself the best in the land.
I don't see your hands moving, gramps.
Though I doubt you can knead dough properly with the feeble hands of an old man.
I am Luo Kong the Dim Sum King.
If you're the best in the land, then I'm the best in the world.
Let me teach you something.
Dough is not kneaded with strength.
It is the circular motion of my fingers, arms, and cane.
In other words, the essence of dim sum cooking is rotation.
The extent of a dim sum chef's mastery of rotations is an expression of his skill.
Bai Luo Rotational Kneading!
Bai Luo Rotational Kneading!!
He's using torque to knead the smoothest possible dough.
Mao, what does that mean?
The majority of a sweet bun's flavor is determined
by how soft and fluffy the skin is.
When you knead yeast made from fermented potatoes
into flour and let it rest, the dough rises.
Th-That's...
This is what gives life to my sweet buns: lao mein.
Lao mein?
This is the dough passed down from the founder of the Bai Luo family
since the Three Kingdoms Era, Shuhan Lao Mein.
It contains the ultimate yeast, having survived for 1600 years.
It's so delicate from being thoroughly kneaded and abundantly fluffy.
It'll definitely produce incredible sweet buns like nothing anyone's ever tasted.
Xie Lu!
Don't worry. I've already finished my skins.
What?
It's flat.
You can't win that sad flat skin, bro!
The filling is usually made primarily from ground pork,
but what will Xie Lu do?
What?
Beef? That's not pork, Mao.
Is he going to be okay?
No, it's smart.
If you want to maximize the juiciness of the filling, you should use beef.
Which means Xie Lu's finally getting ready to use his staff.
A knife?
Steaks?
You're wrapping chunks of meat in deflated flat skins?
Just so you know, serving something that can't be described
as sweet buns is out of the question.
Sounds like you don't know what I'm doing.
You've fallen so far, Dim Sum King.
It seems most dim sum masters still have to have the last word.
These should be ready soon.
Eight clay pots...
Could it be?
Bamboo?
Allow me to show you the Bai Luo family's ultimate dim sum.
It's done!
This light...
A treasure ship packed with heaping mountains of multicolored sweet buns.
And golden sweet buns glittering on the back of the golden dragon.
It's practically blinding.
Let the judging begin.
First, Dim Sum King Luo Kong.
I see. You used the bamboo you cut earlier to build this treasure ship steamer.
By the way, what do they say?
Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird, and White Tiger.
With each of the Four Guardians of the four cardinal directions in their place,
they quell the seas, and ease the hearts of men.
They are the noble Requiem Sweet Buns of prayer!
Spare me the theory.
It only matters if they're good or not.
Not only are the skins as soft as cotton,
but they're overflowing with rich juices.
The mouthfeel and softness are of the highest quality.
This is sea cucumber!
It's damn impressively rehydrated!
This one contains scallops!
They dance from the skin with the excellent broth,
just begging to be eaten!
I had no idea abalone could be so crisp and soft!
The ultimate seafood has been sealed inside the ultimately fluffy skins,
producing supreme bliss!
Not only that, but they've all been cooked low and slow
to perfection in eight separate clay pots!
They're treasures. Treasures of sweet buns.
Just from eating high quality seafood?
What's going on?
The secret is in the skin.
East is sourness.
North is saltiness.
West is spiciness.
South is bitterness.
By applying the appropriate flavor according to each direction
of the cosmic dual forces and five elements, the ultimate balance is maintained.
These are the Bai Luo family's ultimate sweet buns, passed down for generations:
The Four Guardians Seafood Eight Treasure Buns!
Four Guardians Seafood Eight Treasure Buns
Few have mastered the Four Guardians Seafood Eight Treasure Buns.
No one can surpass 1600 years of history.
Boy, you never stood a chance at winning.
Next, Xie Lu.
Gold, huh? How flashy.
The golden dragon is a brilliantly crafted, too.
Those flat skins have puffed up quite a bit.
What's wrong with this dragon?
It's holding on tight and won't let go.
There!
It laughed! The sweet bun laughed at me!
What's going on?
Quiet, amateurs!
The essence of these sweet buns lies elsewhere.
The cracks in the sweet buns.
The two pots.
The strange glow of the dragon.
You fool, Xie Lu!
You fried your sweet buns!
Exactly. These are fried sweet buns.
Amateur! The meat's juices have flowed out of the cracks
created in the skin by the hot oil!
A sweet bun without a single drop of juice left is a shell of a sweet bun!
Are you sure about that?
Hot!
Hot, hot, hot!
Inside my mouth...
Piping hot, meaty juices are pouring out!
They're stuffed with full-bodied juices rich with beef flavor!
But it's so refreshing, and not too heavy at all!
Not only that, but the juices perfectly match the fluffy, crispy, and fragrant fried skins!
It's a new kind of snack! The ultimate deliciousness!
This super dim sum is supremely enjoyable to eat!
Impossible! How?
There should be no juices left!
Try breaking open the insides of a sweet bun.
What? This is...
Vermicelli!
That's right.
The filling of a fried bun should be light and refreshing.
That's why I absorbed the meat juices into the vermicelli.
I seared thick cuts of steak to seal the flavor inside of them.
Then I cut them into chunks and stuffed them inside, gramps.
I see.
Then why did the sweet buns laugh?
Listen closely, Dim Sum King.
These cracks didn't come from frying them. I made them.
I made small incisions from the start.
My dough was flat because I used baking soda,
a rising agent that rises when exposed to heat.
I used the rapid expansion of the skins
during frying to create these cracks.
And these are the true identity of the laugh.
That's...
Light chunks of beef that had their juices sucked out of them.
The oil that seeped in through the cracks hardened these chunks, as well
as the inside of the skins and the surface of the vermicelli, sealing the juices inside.
The meat chunks rattle around in the space created inside,
producing the sound of laughter.
They are the Golden Open-Mouthed Laugh!
Golden Open-Mouthed Laugh!!
In other words, laughing golden sweet buns.
This joy is what dim sum is really about.
The soothing top-of-the-line sweet buns,
the Four Guardians Seafood Eight Treasure Buns and the joyful, over-the-top sweet buns,
the Golden Open-Mouthed Laugh.
Who will win?
Tell us your judgment.
Who will they choose?
Xie Lu, unanimously.
It doesn't look that way, Shirou.
What?
They're struggling to decide!
The votes are split.
I've decided! I've made my choice!
So have I.
Yes. The choice is clear.
All right.
Very well, tell us the results of your judgment.
If you choose Xie Lu of the Steel Staff, raise your red spoon.
N-No way.
Wait, seriously?
No one's raising their red spoon.
No matter how talented, a youngster in his twenties can't beat him.
I don't believe it. I can't believe I lost this badly.
Then if you choose Luo Kong the Dim Sum King, raise your white spoon.
What is this?
What?
No one's raising their white spoon, either.
What's going on?
Governor Xiang, what's the meaning of this?
Sanjie, I once told you the Han Feizi's story of the spear and the shield.
The spear and the shield?
Once upon a time, a strange weapons dealer from the land of Chu
who was selling a spear that could pierce anything
and a shield that nothing could pierce.
Xie Lu's supremely delicious laughing fried buns,
the Golden Open-Mouthed Laugh,
are the spear that can pierce anything.
In contrast, the collected 1600 years of wisdom and technique
that are Luo Kong's Four Guardians Seafood Eight Treasure Buns
are the shield that nothing can pierce.
"So what happens when you strike that shield with that spear?"
The story ends with the befuddled weapons dealer being asked this.
Right now, we feel like that weapons dealer.
In the rest of the world, this spear and shield don't make sense.
We call it a paradox.
But it's also true that an unstoppable spear
and invincible shield can't be compared.
Therefore, this contest is a draw!
It's...
...a tie?
Guys...
What dreary sweet buns.
There's nothing fun about them.
Did you think you could beat me with such foolish tricks, brat?
What was that, gramps?!
Anyway, you shouldn't be writing on your sweet buns!
It's unappetizing!
Silence, boy!
The oil from your sweet buns made my hands sticky!
How will you make it up to me?!
Why is your steamer shaped like a boat?
Make a normal shape!
It's the best shape for circulating the aroma of the bamboo, you moron!
And your dragon is the most useless thing imaginable!
What's an old man doing with long hair, anyway?
You should trim your sideburns, damn it!
You never used your staff a single time!
If it's just for show, take yourself and your staff to the Shaolin Temple!
It was generous of them to call it a tie.
No matter how you look at it, your sweet buns are undeniably delicious, gramps.
More importantly, boy, frying your sweet buns was a bold idea
not even found in the Bai Luo family's dictionary.
Who taught you to do that?
The Shanxi Province where I was born has few ingredients.
Since I was a kid, I've been traveling across all of China
in search of ingredients and dishes I've never seen.
These sweet buns are my twist on a recipe I learned
from the locals when I traveled far to the north.
In bitterly cold lands, you can't make fluffy hot sweet buns by steaming them.
That's why they fry them.
This land is vast.
Practices we'd never think of are being used all over the place all the time.
And encountering those ingredients, dishes, and chefs
is almost more fun than I can bear.
King, what's this?
Boy, I've decided.
I'm going to travel across China to learn all the flavors it has to offer.
What?
I've spent the past century learning the Bai Luo family's techniques
and working in the palace kitchens.
I haven't seen sunlight since I joined the underworld.
It seems I've been indoors for far too long.
Boy.
When I think of all the new talent like you sprouting across this vast land,
I can't sit idly by.
Xie Lu, you won this battle.
You can't be serious, gramps!
You can't just decide that!
The word "tie" doesn't exist in the Bai Luo family's dictionary.
There's no point in a contest without a winner.
Maybe so, but I don't remember winning!
Don't get the wrong idea.
You didn't seize victory. I'm giving you the win, for now.
And my staff.
We'll fight again ten years from now.
And when we do, I'll crush you thoroughly so
I can take back my staff and the victory.
Fine, gramps.
Xie Lu of the Steel Staff will hold onto this for you.
You heard me.
I appreciate what the underworld has done for me, but I'm quitting now.
After acknowledging your own defeat,
you think you'll be allowed to leave the underworld, Luo Kong?
H-He vanished.
Don't forget, boy. Ten years.
Ten years? Gramps, how long are you planning to live?
King... He's a crafty old man.
The first round of the Huangpu River Warship Pavilion banquet contest is won by Xie Lu!
Dim Sum King Luo Kong was defeated by Xie Lu of the Steel Staff,
then fled the scene.
Wh-Wh-What shall we do, Shao An?
This is fine.
We will undoubtedly have one victory and one loss after the second round.
You did it, Xie Lu!
That was amazing, bro!
One more victory, and we win!
Their backs are to the wall now. They have to win.
The second round is the main dish round. Brace yourselves.
They'll send that woman leader next.
I get the sense she's incredibly dangerous.
Lei En of the Seven Star Knives, step forward!
After all, she cannot lose.
And in the third round, I, Shao An,
will thoroughly crush Mao,
and get revenge for what happened at the Chrysanthemum Tower.
Lei En.
Are you okay? Won't it be hard fighting another member of the underworld?
Mao, I once told you
that I made an unforgivable mistake.
I escaped the underworld after it made me lose my way, knowing it would kill me.
I have no hesitation!
Open the bilge tank!
The skills of a spineless runaway decline every day.
I shall generously make the subject of our contest your specialty, seafood.
That pridefulness of yours once made me commit that mistake.
I swore an oath that I would never commit the same error.
The water burst!
The appetizer comes before the main course.
Taste this, judges.
Seven Stars Army Destroyer Raw Cuttlefish!
The cuttlefish! The cuttlefish has already been sliced!
Incredible! The Seven Star Knives are sharp enough to cut water!
I, Lei En, seek nothing else from this world
than to settle my debts with my Seven Star Knives.
This is why you're naive.
You still haven't let go of that incident.
What?
Such weakness will prevent you from properly seeing this!
I am the cooking underworld's Ten Feet of Blue Xiang!
I-Impossible.
It can't be...
Those knives are the Seven Star Knives!
Next Time
"Clash of the Two Seven Star Knives"
"Clash of the Two Seven Star Knives."