On Yuto's side, the flower cake was already steaming, while Erina had begun marinating the chicken.
Because the guests in the front hall were Yakumo Yukari, Yagokoro Eirin, and Kaguya, the atmosphere was much quieter than when the usual Gensokyo crowd came in.
Only Yukari and Eirin were speaking back and forth, while Kaguya sat off to the side, trapped in a gloomy sulk.
She really wanted to play games!
She really, really wanted to experience VR gaming!
But... she secretly glanced at the tall woman beside her.
Whether by coincidence or design, the Moon Sage's eyes happened to meet the princess's gaze at that exact moment.
Their eyes met, and the princess, feeling deeply wronged, huffed before turning her head away.
The sight made the Moon Sage sigh helplessly.
She was supposed to be a tall, elegant, and captivating sage, yet that sigh somehow made her sound like a tired mother.
Yakumo Yukari could not help smiling at the scene. No matter how many times she saw this, she would never get tired of it.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Yuto had already taken out a block of tofu and placed it on the chopping board.
That action immediately drew Erina and Hisako's attention.
Part of the reason the two girls had come to work at the restaurant was that Senzaemon intended to build a connection with Yuto, but another important reason was to learn.
Precisely because they understood the gap between them and him, they were willing to stay here.
Senzaemon had also reminded both of them that improvement in cooking could never come from shutting oneself away and working alone.
Cooking needed collision, inspiration, and the humility to ask for guidance.
It was like learning any craft.
Spending a month beside a true master might be worth an entire year of practicing alone.
No matter what skill existed in this world, the road to improvement was ultimately the same.
The fried chicken for Princess Kaguya was still marinating, so Erina had time to watch Yuto cook.
Last night, she had been so focused on competing with him that she had not properly observed his cooking process.
This time, she naturally did not want to miss anything!
Yuto noticed the looks in the two girls' eyes and smiled. "If you want to watch, then be bold about it. Come closer."
He did not care much for the idea that skills should not be taught lightly.
Back then, he had been fortunate enough to meet a good teacher himself. That teacher was an old chef who had once served as head chef at state banquets.
By the time Yuto met him, the old man had long since retired, and his hair had already turned completely silver, but his spirit remained exceptionally sharp.
He had only taught Yuto for a few months, yet those few months were extremely precious to him.
Yuto had not been the old man's only student.
There had been four others alongside him, five students in total, men and women, young and old alike, all learning under the same teacher.
That old man had taught all five of them without holding anything back. Even his best and most closely guarded techniques were brought out and shown to them.
As for the so-called traditional ideas of "keeping techniques within the school" or "not passing skills to outsiders," the old man had never cared about them at all.
He had once scolded those traditional prejudices in front of all five students, harshly criticizing the ideas that skills should only be passed to the eldest, not the younger ones; to men, not women; to family, not outsiders.
In his mouth, all of those rules were things worthy of being cursed at.
At the time, the old man had said something to them with deep helplessness and frustration.
"Treating your broom like treasure only cuts off your own road. So many good dishes have been lost that way... ah..."
In the end, the old man had only sighed.
He had been a man of real character, someone who carried the essence of traditional culture yet had an extremely open mind.
When it came to the strengths of foreign cuisine, he could calmly praise them without arrogance or inferiority, and he would even learn from them.
Neither humble nor overbearing.
That was what true dignity looked like.
Although he had spent his whole life as nothing more than a chef, he still deserved to be called a man with the bearing of a great nation.
Before the old man passed away, Yuto had visited him with the etiquette of a student visiting his teacher.
At that time, the old man had lain in his hospital bed, struggling as he tightly gripped Yuto's hand. His voice was faint and difficult.
"Don't... let it end... don't... be arrogant... learn... if it's good... then learn..."
His words were slurred, low, and hoarse, and only those fragments could be heard clearly.
A few days after meeting Yuto, the old man passed away.
From then on, Yuto changed a great deal.
He also came to understand many things. After that, he officially began learning about foreign cuisines.
Take in the strengths of others and learn from a hundred schools.
That was the correct path.
Hoarding one's own skills and shutting the door to work alone would only cause one to fall behind in the end.
If something was good, learn it.
Those four words were the essence.
At the same time, Yuto had never forgotten the old man's final words.
As long as someone truly loved cooking, he would never be stingy with his guidance.
That was what it meant to pass something on.
There were often people who fell in love with Chinese cuisine because of his teaching.
In truth, that too was a form of spreading culture.
When Erina and Hisako heard Kamisaka Yuto's words, they looked at each other before walking to his side.
The two girls stood around him, their faces filled with focus and seriousness.
For a moment, the kitchen seemed almost like a classroom.
"What are you making?" Erina asked curiously.
"Yipin Tofu. Have you heard of it?" Yuto smiled as he answered.
Yipin Tofu was also a classic Chinese dish.
When they heard the name, both Erina and Hisako looked confused.
The cuisines they were skilled in leaned toward Japanese and Western styles, so it was only natural that they had not heard of it before.
"Then watch carefully." Yuto took a light breath, and his expression grew more serious.
Since he had accepted the two girls as interns in the restaurant, he naturally would not be lazy when it came to teaching them.
The knife in his hand flashed, and the blade cleanly and decisively cut the whole block of tofu into eleven square pieces.
Yipin Tofu was not an especially difficult dish.
The only slightly tricky part was pan-frying the tofu. No matter what dish one cooked, heat control was vital.
"Heat control" sounded almost mystical, but in reality, even the slightest change in heat could affect the taste of a dish.
Tofu itself was tender and contained a great deal of moisture.
The instant Yuto placed the eleven pieces of tofu into the oiled pan, the oil began to bubble violently.
Sizzle—
White steam rose from the pan.
The eleven pieces of tofu were arranged in groups of three, with two pieces left at the end, while golden cooking oil splashed lightly around them.
The tofu's white surface gradually began to turn yellow.
Yuto held the pan handle with one hand and gently moved his arm, causing the tofu in the pan to follow the motion and circle along with it.
His eyes remained fixed on the changing color of the tofu.
When the timing was right, his wrist flicked upward and downward, carrying his arm with it.
The eleven pieces of tofu lifted into the air, bringing a few tiny droplets of oil with them as they turned midair before landing steadily back in the pan.
Not a single drop of oil splashed out.
Behind that solid foundation were countless repetitions and painstaking practice.
Small bubbles gradually rose on the surface of the tofu.
Once the color became a pale yellow, Yuto poured the tofu out of the pan.
If he kept frying it, the tofu would turn golden and become crispier and more fragrant, but Yipin Tofu did not require it to be cooked to that point.
This was a light dish, so a brief pan-fry was enough.
Yuto poured away part of the oil in the pan, leaving only a thin layer at the bottom.
That remaining oil still carried the fragrance of tofu, and if used for the next stage of cooking, it would allow the following ingredients to take on that same subtle tofu aroma.
Leaving the base oil for continued cooking only suited dishes where everything belonged to the same flavor profile.
If one used the oil from frying tofu to make braised eggplant, the flavors would clash.
Yuto tossed finely chopped scallions, garlic cloves, and ginger slices into the pan. The instant those three ingredients entered the oil, their fragrance burst out.
He stir-fried them briefly, then added the eleven pieces of tofu back into the pan.
At once, the aroma filling the air became richer and more layered.
Immediately afterward, however, Yuto added a ladleful of water, and the fragrance was instantly pressed back down.
This was the final sauce-reducing stage of Yipin Tofu.
Yuto added the seasonings, then mixed in a little starch slurry. Thickening with starch slurry was widely used in many dishes.
He covered the pan with the lid.
All that remained was to wait.
In truth, Yuto had only spent two or three minutes making this Yipin Tofu.
He looked toward the two girls beside him.
Their faces carried thoughtful expressions, Yuto believed that they had already memorized the entire process.
After all, the steps for Yipin Tofu were not especially complicated.
"So? Anything you want to ask?" Once the demonstration was done, he naturally could not forget to answer questions.
That was what made a qualified teacher.
"It's very different from the Chinese cuisine I know." Erina's face carried a hint of wonder.
Although she had been in the restaurant kitchen last night, she had mostly been handling sashimi and had not really seen Yuto make Chinese cuisine.
Today was the first time she had watched him cook a Chinese dish this carefully.
"What is the Chinese cuisine you know like?" Yuto found Erina's words rather amusing.
"Spicy. Numbing-spicy, fragrant-spicy, sour-spicy... all kinds of heavy, intense heat." Erina's expression was completely serious.
Yuto's face turned a little strange.
'How had the countless flavors of Chinese cuisine been reduced to nothing but spice?'
"There's actually a genius among the Totsuki Elite Ten who specializes in Chinese cuisine," Hisako said, taking the initiative to explain when she saw Kamisaka Yuto's expression.
Yuto immediately grew interested.
He was rather curious about what Chinese cuisine looked like in another world.
However, as Hisako and Erina explained one sentence after another, his face gradually became speechless.
'So this Kuga Terunori had basically only learned "spicy"?'
'That was far too embarrassing for Chinese cuisine.'
'Among the thousand flavors of the eight great culinary traditions, he had chosen to focus only on "spicy"...'
'Wasn't that a ridiculous waste?'
"If that's all he has learned, then his Chinese cuisine is far from good enough. Focusing on one path can indeed lead to mastery, but for Chinese cuisine, choosing only that one road is foolish. Chinese cuisine has thousands of flavors. A single spicy note is nowhere near enough to represent it. Maybe that person should go to China and receive a proper education there, just to clear his head."
Kamisaka Yuto felt a little regretful, and his words naturally carried a trace of reproach.
"Boss, if Kuga-senpai heard you say that, he would probably be furious."
As Hisako spoke, she imagined that scene in her mind and could not help laughing.
"So what if he gets angry? I'm only telling the truth. Chinese cuisine is supposed to be a hundred flowers in bloom, a thousand flavors existing together, yet he has turned it into nothing but numbing heat and spice.
That is giving Chinese cuisine a bad name. What are people who don't understand Chinese cuisine supposed to think? You two can go back and tell him exactly what I said. Abandoning a hundred flavors and blindly chasing stimulation is not the original spirit of Chinese cuisine. That isn't genius. That is nothing more than foolishness."
Yuto kept shaking his head.
Although he was usually gentle and did not like arguing, everyone had their own principles.
Hisako and Erina exchanged a glance, and both of them could see the seriousness in Yuto's eyes.
The two girls casually found another topic and let this one pass.