Shokugeki no Imitation Chef

"The total score statistics of the individual competition have been released. So far, our 'Germinate team' has a total score of 54.73 points, ranking fourth... After adding the final team competition results, the top four teams can advance to the main competition. The situation is not good. Optimistic." Kojiro Shinomiya said, placing the newspaper with the list on the table in front of him.

It was already night, and the individual competition was a few hours ago.

As soon as the competition was over, Shinomiya Kojiro wanted to find Liu Maoxing, count everyone's scores, measure the "burden" of the team competition in the future, and at the same time simply determine the strategy for the team competition in advance...

However, Liu Maoxing did not return to the lounge of the "Germinate team" because of Erina's impatience. He was not blocked until after returning to the hotel. At this time, some unofficial tabloids had already counted the results. Naturally, Kojiro Shinomiya directly used!

Now Kojiro Shinomiya, of course, directly used their statistics. From the current point of view, the "Germinate team" seems to be in a good situation, and has already broken into the top four. That is to say, if everyone's scores in the team battle do not lag behind, this is just right. The tickets for the game have already been obtained!

However, what Kojiro Shinomiya said was exactly the opposite, and several others, including Liu Maoxing, did not refute it.

Liu Maoxing picked up the tabloid again, and looked at the provisional ranking...

Who made him, the "team leader", completely fail to fulfill his responsibilities?

I have been delaying in getting in touch with the "Seed Team" before, and now I have time to notice this ranking. No wonder Kojiro Shinomiya keeps giving him blank eyes.

Under the white eyes of the Fourth Palace, Liu Maoxing even couldn't help feeling a little guilty in his heart, but immediately the "guilt" was suppressed by Liu Maoxing, while he was silently saying in his heart: I am fighting for the cause of saving the world...

The words of Kojiro Shinomiya are indeed not alarmist. Liu Maoxing also noticed at this time that although they are now ranked fourth, but...

"54.73 points... It seems that there is not much advantage. The tenth place also has 54.25 points. The difference between the fourth place and the tenth place is less than 0.5 points!" Liu Maoxing said while supporting his forehead.

"That's right, that means there are still seven or eight teams that can compete with us in the team competition without being too weak." Fuyumi Mizuhara analyzed expressionlessly.

Jun Xijian, who hadn't realized anything before, suddenly exclaimed: "Ah! Isn't that bad? You said before that we are weak in the team competition, right?"

Xi Jianrun was also belatedly aware. This is the reason why everyone still thinks that the situation is not good even after finishing fourth in the individual competition!

But Liu Maoxing said at this time: "But the situation is not that bad..."

Seeing that everyone had read it, Liu Maoxing put the tabloid on the table, then spread his hands and said, "Although our previous plan was to get as high a score as possible in the individual competition, it would be nice if we could recite some points for the team competition... But In fact, do you really think that we have the strength to win the first and second place? With the current results in the individual competition, there is actually nothing to complain about. Afterwards, we can work hard to fight for the team competition without falling behind."

Although Liu Maoxing's statement is "rogue", Si Gong and others can't refute it!

Indeed, the previous plan was mostly encouraging. Didn't they ever think that the opponent was too strong to achieve the goal of the plan?

Although Liu Maoxing's words are not pleasant to listen to, there is no problem with the truth...

That is, the three of them have already played their due level in the individual competition, and it can even be said that they have played very well!

With a score of 54.73, it should be satisfied...

The cooks of the other ninety teams are worse than them?

Obviously not, the current score is already because they, as the cooks of the Yuanyue Department, are better than other chefs in terms of recipe creativity and on-the-spot performance, otherwise everyone will compete with each other with no restrictions on topics, and they will have already been eliminated up!

Why didn't you achieve a higher score? It's not a matter of planning, nor is there any mistake, but simply "skills stop here".

So from Liu Maoxing's point of view, there is nothing to say. In the team competitions afterward, it is enough for everyone to play at the strongest level. Whether the success or not is due to strength, there is nothing to say.

"Indeed, we miscalculated the strength of those veteran chefs and the attraction of 'All Blue'..." Sigong nodded.

At the same time, I looked at the rankings on the tabloid...

Indeed, the quality of this year's contestants caught Sigong and the others by surprise!

"It's not so much the attraction of 'All Blue', but rather the attraction of the four teams in the main game! Leaving aside the representative team of the American Development Association, the other three... Those famous chefs want to further their prestige , the only way is to defeat the representative teams of the three major culinary organizations!" Liu Maoxing said.

That's right, it is precisely because of the four recommended teams in the main match that the atmosphere of this "All Blue" has been heated up to the extreme. Those who have not been affected by the "curse" do not even know what the "Yulong Pot" is The biggest purpose of the famous chefs participating in "All Blue" is to defeat the bosses of the three major culinary organizations and win the number one title in the world in one fell swoop...

"Wait, I think our current situation is not as bad as we imagined before!" Liu Maoxing pondered and picked up the tabloid again.

Sigong also thought of something at this time, and said with some disdain: "That's right, some people are too anxious to be 'famous'."

"Eh? Famous? What are you talking about?" Xi Jianjun asked suspiciously.

Liu Maoxing found another tabloid from before, which contained brief introductions about the teams participating in the competition...

Since the readers are interested, naturally these tabloids have also compiled this information. Although they can't find out some things that are too secret, the main achievements of the team composition and the manager are still there.

"If you take a closer look, in fact, most of the current teams with similar results to ours are not 'original' personnel. They are almost the result of the combination of two or three old stores." Liu Maoxing said.

In this way, you can indeed have a greater advantage in the individual competition, but the price is that you will suffer in terms of coordination in the team competition...

"But even so, they must be stronger than us, right? After all, they can be regarded as a joint team of two or three teams, and all of us are hard-formed, and we don't usually cooperate..." Xi Jianrun was weak Said.

Seeing the words of Runyu splashing cold water, Xi Xi made Liu Maoxing's eyes light up and said, "No, maybe... that's right! Just do it!"

"What's your plan?" Sigong couldn't help asking, seeing Liu Maoxing's smile that made one want to punch him.

"What I mean is that they should also be in the team and then divided into two or three groups for unified planning and group management... We can actually do the same! Soma and Subaru first determine the two support candidates, and then The important point is that when it comes to the team competition, we will cook in the form of 2+2+1!" Liu Maoxing said.

"The problem is that even if we are divided into groups, it is impossible to achieve it in a short period of time... The assistants of other teams have worked with the chef for at least several years, or even decades, and the tacit understanding cannot be achieved quickly. If the tacit understanding is not enough ...It's better to only play four people at that time, and then fight each other!" Said Shinomiya Kojiro.

Obviously the four refer to himself, Liu Maoxing, Mizuhara Fuyumi, and Kanhiko.

Although Shinomiya's words made Soma and Subaru Misaku feel a little depressed, but it does make sense!

The purpose of "cooperation" in the kitchen is to assign some of the relatively simple tasks of the chef to his assistants.

If a chef cooperates with one or two chefs who have worked with him for decades and have a tacit understanding, he can even exert two or three times his own efficiency!

That is to say, although the chef's cooking skills are far inferior to the chef he is working with, as long as the two of them have a good understanding, he can even play the role of another chef when he cooperates with the chef...

Of course, this kind of super chef not only requires skills, but more importantly, the tacit understanding of cooperation!

The higher the chef's culinary skills, the higher the requirements for tacit understanding.

It's like after Si Gong realized the "heart of cooking" and his cooking skills improved by leaps and bounds, he felt that his assistant cooks were getting more and more "in the way"...

If it were Sigong's previous temper, I'm afraid he would have been told to leave!

Fortunately, in the past year, although Sigong can't say that he has cultivated himself, his temper has changed a lot. He also understands that this feeling of being "in the way" is his own sudden improvement, which makes the chef unable to adapt, so he teaches the other party more patiently... …

The most obvious manifestation is in the "cooking heart".

The highest standard for judging whether your chef has a tacit understanding with yourself is often the chef's handling of the ingredients, which will not affect your cooking heart!

The effect of cooking with heart is the process of infusing the cooker's own will into the food on the plate...

Naturally, the heart of the chef can only be poured into the "things on the plate" that he cooks with his own hands.

Otherwise, when the civilization of Atlantis and Lemuria were still there, wouldn’t it be equivalent to having countless "dragon chefs" by choosing some people from the two major civilizations to join forces?

But there are no absolutes. It is obviously unrealistic to pour one's own will into someone else's cooking.

Because the essence of instilling will is to use one's own cooking heart to change the "source" of ingredients into the form one expects...

But changing the "source" of ingredients is something anyone can do, and it's not at will, but inadvertently.

One of the special effects of spiritual kitchen utensils is the ability to recognize whether they have experienced artificial cooking from the changes in the "source" of ingredients...

Even a cook who doesn't know what the heart of cooking is, as long as the ingredients are processed, even if they are simply shredded, sliced, or diced, the source of the ingredients will be changed.

This kind of change is far less than the effect of directly changing the "source" with the heart of the kitchen. It can be said to be very small, but it does not depend on personal will...

And once the "source" of the ingredients has been changed, then when the chef wants to use his "cooking heart" to show his will, there will naturally be more obstacles!

If there is no obstacle at all, it means that when the chef processed the ingredients before, the change to the "source" of the ingredients is exactly the same as the change expected by the chef!

What is needed is not the high skill of the chef, but a terrifying tacit understanding...

Therefore, the more "cooking heart" and the more skilled the chef is, the higher the requirements for the tacit understanding between the chef and himself, otherwise it would be better if no one assists him.

However, there are too few examples of this kind. Even chefs and chefs who have worked together for decades may not be able to do it. Usually, if the process that the chef is responsible for is 50/50 with the chef, it means that two people work together to cook together. At the same time, when their respective workloads are similar, the weakening of the chef's "cooking heart" is less than 30%, which is considered a very tacit understanding!

And this kind of tacit understanding cannot be achieved overnight...

That's why Sigong questioned Liu Maoxing's "2+2+1" strategy.

"However, if the four of us fight on our own, the final result must be that the matching degree of the dishes in the 'one meal' is extremely low! The current '2+2+1' is already considering that I can fully cooperate with the dishes of the other two groups, It is equivalent to as long as the two parties coordinate with each other." Liu Maoxing retorted.

Well, the time for the team competition is also two hours, but the title is "one meal" instead of "one dish", which means that the final presentation, whether it is Chinese or Western, must be a complete meal consisting of several dishes. meal……

The overall consideration is the standard for the team competition, otherwise what is the difference from the individual competition? There are five players in each team, four of them are watchmen and one is for cooking, isn't that all right?

According to the rules of the team competition, the optimal ratio should be "four guarantees and one", that is to say, four of the five people can be perfectly qualified as the other's cook, so that they can exert 500% efficiency...

In this way, all the cooking is done by one person, and the conditions are met in terms of time and coordination.

However, there are only two such teams in the qualifiers! And none of them can threaten them...

Because chefs have their limitations after all, when they cooperate with their old partners, they can play the role of a chef, but their own cooking skills are definitely not as good as a true solo chef, because most of their time, they have to For a cook who is willing to be a chef and is used in coordination, his talent is definitely not that good...

In the "All Blue" competition, each team has five candidates and two candidates. If four places are given to chefs, it means that there can only be three chefs who can truly be independent chefs!

Even if you don't consider the "star" issue when you sign up, there are only three chefs, which means that you have no choice but to play three of them in the individual competition, and then in the team competition, only the one with four When the assistant chef comes on stage, there is no room for choice. Once a very unfavorable problem arises, it will easily lead to a complete loss.

Looking at the current score rankings in the individual competition, one can see that as long as one person makes a major mistake, the entire team will miss the promotion!

On the other hand, even if there is absolute self-confidence, it is very rare for a chef to have four chefs who are in perfect harmony with each other...

Because the more chefs who cooperate with you, the more processes you have to tell the chefs to handle!

In this way, in fact, most of the teams that set their goals on the main game are mostly a chef and one or two cooks, and then use the "2+3" tactic in the team competition, divided into two groups Cooking is generally a team of four chefs and three chefs...

If a chef takes the lead, there is no need to consider the coordination of "one meal". If he cooks alone and the final dishes are not coordinated with each other, then he is not worthy of being a chef at all.

If they are divided into two teams, they need to communicate and cooperate with each other to a certain extent. Although it is a "one-on-one" cooperation, it is also a lot of trouble.

And if they are divided into three teams...the difficulty of coordinating will increase exponentially!

Liu Maoxing proposed "2+2+1" because he defaulted himself to "1", because his cooking skills are all-encompassing, so he is confident that the other two groups will not consider how to cooperate with him, and he can take the initiative to integrate into it. , or equivalent to a "one-to-one" cooperation.

And because his basic skills are the most solid, and the cooking speed is the fastest, the help from the cooks is the least... Unless there are more cooks to cooperate with him alone, his efficiency will not be significantly improved, because compared to As for the cook, Liu Maoxing's speed is much faster.

But the four of them are fighting on their own... Not to mention wasting one person's position, the coordination of "one meal" alone is already useless!

The standard of consideration for "one meal" is definitely different from "one dish"...

Not only consider the independent deliciousness of a dish, but also consider the cooperation between each dish.

In the simplest way, if the last meal that the judges tasted was composed of a dish of "scrambled eggs with tomatoes", a dish of "scrambled eggs with tomatoes", a dish of "boiled eggs with tomatoes", and a dish of "tomatoes with boiled eggs", they would definitely not be in a good mood. How wonderful!

Sigong and Liu Maoxing's thoughts, in the end, they had to neutralize...

"Then in the next nine days... no, in the seven days, let's first try to see what level of cooperation can be achieved, and finally decide the final strategy three days before the start of the competition! If the level of cooperation is still good, you should try your best." Prepared according to '2+2+1'." Liu Maoxing said.

Sigong and the others obviously had no objection to Liu Maoxing's decision at first.

But Sigong immediately realized, looked at Liu Maoxing suspiciously and said, "You don't remember anything wrong, right? Although the team competition lasts for ten days, the order of the competition is to be drawn tomorrow morning! How can you be so sure that we will on the last day?"

Afterwards, the team competition will actually start tomorrow...

But unlike "individual competitions," team competitions are not packed together.

Because since the competition is "one meal", the time for the judges to taste the dishes of each team must be very long!

Once there is a situation where the "one meal" is completed one after another, the team that finishes one step later will be unlucky, and it may take half an hour to finish cooking before it is their turn to present...

In this way, how to keep the dishes in the best tasting period during this half an hour will be the biggest problem.

If it is a dish that has strict requirements on the best tasting period, it is basically half useless!

Therefore, under the lessons of blood and tears of countless contestants decades ago, the rules were finally changed to a fairer "time-staggered" competition.

That is to say, each group has its own entry time and cooking time, neither early nor late, and the time of each group is staggered by one hour!

Since the time has been stretched, naturally I don’t care about making it longer, so there are only five judges in the team competition regardless of the venue. From the first day, I will taste the dishes of ten to eleven teams from 12:00 to 10:00 every day , Ten days later, all 102 teams were audited.

In the ten days starting from tomorrow, all teams that did not appear will be prohibited from leaving the hotel. At the same time, the hotel will also block all external signals to ensure that there will be no "missing questions".

However, what ingredients are needed for practice can be brought in from the outside after being inspected by the competition party.

Anyway, there are all kinds of entertainment facilities and venues in the hotel, so don't worry that these ten days will be boring...

And even more so for the "Germinate Team"!

Ten days will be boring? joke! For them now, ten days of practice time still feel too little!

But looking forward to ten days is the best, but it doesn't mean that there are really ten days!

What if the luck is too bad, and the first group that enters the venue at ten o'clock tomorrow morning is directly drawn?

"No, since the competition has notified that the team leaders will draw tomorrow morning instead of the official draw, then no matter what the draw is, I will definitely be able to draw until the last day!" Liu Maoxing said confidently.

"..."

Although Liu Maoxing is very confident, but in the eyes of Si Gong and others, this is obviously "mysterious self-confidence".

Liu Maoxing opened his mouth to defend something, but he stopped in time...

The lessons learned by Erina before are still in front of me!

Liu Maoxing felt that it was not wise to expose his special abilities of "super five senses". For example, Liu Maoxing would tell them that the combination of his super vision, super hearing and brain supplementation could achieve a perspective-like effect?

"If you don't believe it...then it's like this, if tomorrow's draw is not the last day's session, then use the method of the fourth house!" Liu Maoxing said.

Although Sigong and the others don't know where Liu Maoxing's self-confidence comes from, they still believe it for now, and just wait until the next morning...

At eight o'clock the next day, Liu Maoxing and others arrived at the lottery spot on time. Obviously, Sigong and the others had prepared for the worst, that is, they would enter the competition on the same day.

"Congratulations, the fourth overall score in the individual competition... Hehe, if you don't lag behind in the team competition, maybe you will be able to advance!" Nina cut Ji walked towards Liu Maoxing.

Even though he stretched out his hand not to slap the smiling faces, Liu Maoxing just found Nakieji's fake smile not pleasing to the eye.

He doesn't need to draw lots, but as one of the important heads of the "American Development Association", it is not difficult to come to the scene of the lottery.

"Where is it, how can it compare to going through the back door!" Liu Maoxing also responded with a smile.

"Hehe, I wish you a smooth draw..." Nakiri Ji didn't answer the question at all.

Originally, the only thing Liu Maoxing was worried about was that Naki Qieji would make trouble and make himself the last few to draw lots. By then, there might be no more late games.

But now he already knew that the order of the lottery was determined according to the total points of each team in the individual competition, and Liu Maoxing was the fourth to go up to the draw, so he was worried that there would be no later rounds?

And before Liu Maoxing drew lots, it was the Italian Royal Cuisine Team, the Hundred Stars Sanying Team, and... the Seed Team!

That's right, the Seed team ranked third in the individual competition. After all, in the "Seed team", Dojima Gin ranked in the top three among all contestants in terms of personal strength, and won a high score of 19 or more!

"Italian Royal Cuisine Team, Baixing Sanying Team... It seems that they have already secured two tickets for the main match in advance, and the remaining eight teams from the third to the tenth place will compete for the remaining teams. There are two." Liu Maoxing looked at the two teams and said.

It's not that Liu Maoxing was discouraged, because these two teams are the only "four guarantees and one" team. Among the seven contestants, there are only three chefs, and the other four are the chefs of one of them!

Originally, they were ahead of the other groups in the individual competition, and the team competition was their dominant event, and their advantage was so great that they "don't know how to lose"...

The reason why they are not a threat is because they are destined to be the first or second place. Of course there is no threat to the "Germinate team" who is going to compete for the third and fourth place!