Chapter 779: What’s So Good About Congee

A new day arrived, and for Yuan Zhou, it was yet another day of suffering. After what he experienced the day before, he no longer believed that there were any delicious foods in Thailand.

Yuan Zhou already had a tentative evaluation written about Thai cuisine in his notebook. Due to the geographical location of Thailand, it was a country rich in spices.

Therefore, ingredients such as vanilla grass, galangal, lemon leaf, eggplant, and so on became the main ingredients for cooking here. In Yuan Zhou’s opinion, these ingredients or spices worked against the main ingredient, suppressing the natural flavor of the main ingredient.

Apart from raw cucumbers or some other raw vegetables, it was very rare to get a taste of the main ingredient’s natural taste in Thai food.

“Perhaps this cooking method is a unique style of theirs so I can’t be too hard on it. Or perhaps I have merely been eating at the wrong places and have not encountered any chefs that can actually use these ingredients and spices properly.”

Through the system reward page, Yuan Zhou checked the remaining culinary funds he had. It was 6800/100000, and this caused Yuan Zhou to start tearing out. He still had to find ways to spend all the 6800 he had left.

“System, it is always good to never burn bridges.” Yuan Zhou started talking, “I am only staying in Thailand for seven days and I have to spend all 100000 in such a short period of time on food? That’s too wasteful. We need to be frugal. Give me a buffer. A hundred thousand is really too much.”

Yuan Zhou spoke with all his emotions. This way, even the person with the coldest of hearts would be moved by his pleading, right?

For the past few days, Yuan Zhou had been tipping everyone who as much as talked to him during his meals in order to finish the fund.

After all, one needed to tip when eating at the restaurants here. Therefore, the tips could be deducted from the fund as well. Even so, he still couldn’t finish the fund.

After the system heard Yuan Zhou, it remained silent for a bit before it displayed, “A buffer would be given. The host only needs to use 99,999 of the fund.”

This time, Yuan Zhou was the one who sank into silence. A buffer of only one THB? What was the point of that?

If the system was an actual person, Yuan Zhou would do what Wu Lin did to Wu Hai and rubbed the system’s face on the ground.

“Fine, you got me good.” Yuan Zhou knew that he had completely fallen into the system’s trick and there was no way out of it. Nevertheless, he still vowed that he would have his revenge.

Just as Yuan Zhou was mumbling and complaining, someone called him through Wechat. Although he had already made arrangements for international phone calls, talking through VoIP was still better. This was how he had been staying connected to his tour guide all along as well.

It was the tour guide calling him. Yuan Zhou quickly put his shoes on as Xiao Xing was probably waiting downstairs for him.

Apart from the roasted duck at Chinatown for dinner, he had nothing planned for the day. Therefore, they would be roaming about aimlessly for a bit.

Xiao Xing was under quite a pressure. Most of the tourists he brought would be going to some tourist attractions to have fun. Even though he would have foodie customers every now and then, they would be visiting places while eating.

It was the first time he had seen someone like Yuan Zhou who apart from going elephant riding, had focused all his time on food even after several days here in Thailand.

Xiao Xing had already suggested everything he knew and all the food he thought to be delicious. Unfortunately, not only had he failed to satisfy Yuan Zhou, Yuan Zhou had even gotten diarrhea off the food he suggested.

Yuan Zhou was a person who cared about his image a lot. Therefore, he had been pretending to be fine all along. However, Xiao Xing was no idiot and could easily see through that Yuan Zhou had been unwell. Therefore, Xiao Xing was feeling rather guilty.

On the contrary, Yuan Zhou was clear that although the tour guide spoke Chinese, he was an ethnic Chinese local of Thailand and had never stepped foot in China his entire life.

The only reason the tour guide could speak Chinese and knew of Chinese culture was thanks to his grandfather. Simply put, Xiao Xing’s food preference was no difference to a Thai. It was understandable that his recommendations would be something that did not satisfy what Yuan Zhou wanted.

“Little Yuan, you are a chef, right?” Xiao Xing suddenly asked while driving.

Yuan Zhou nodded. He had indeed introduced himself as a chef before.

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Xiao Xing said, “Your stomach might feel slightly unwell. Don’t all Chinese take congee whenever they feel ill? I have some rice at home. Do you want to make some congee at my home?”

This was Xiao Xing’s way of compensating for Yuan Zhou. As for why he hadn’t offered to make the congee himself, it was because he couldn’t cook.

The difference between congee and gruel was quite big.

“Um?” Yuan Zhou’s eyes lit up. This was a very creative idea. He felt like if he continued eating what he had been eating, he would die. He had to eat something different for lunch to give his stomach some sort of relief.

Since the tourist guide was kind enough to extend him this invitation, Yuan Zhou agreed to go cook lunch at Xiao Xing’s house.

After asking a few questions, Yuan Zhou gained a rough understanding of the ingredients and condiments Xiao Xing had at his home.

He should be able to make two variations of salad to go along with the congee.

After strolling around for a bit, Xiao Xing brought Yuan Zhou to his home. There would be ups and downs in the tourism industry. As a huge portion of tourists to Thailand were Chinese, their tourism industry would be affected by politics at times.

A while ago, there was some tension between the two countries but now that they had a new king, the tension had eased. Xiao Xing was making a decent amount of money doing this. As a man with a girlfriend, even if he was not staying with his girlfriend, he still needed to ensure that his room was clean. His house had one bedroom and one living room, and although it was quite bare of furniture, it was spacious and neat.

“This is my home. Is it clean?” Xiao Xing introduced proudly.

“Not bad.” Yuan Zhou noticed some long hairs at the corner of the room and some dust on the glass windows, but he still nodded out of politeness.

“Of course. My girlfriend came over to clean the house after I left yesterday. She is pretty and good. What is the term you guys have for a girl like her?” Xiao Xing asked proudly.

“Virtuous,” Yuan Zhou said.

“Yes, she is virtuous,” Xiao Xing nodded repeatedly as he brought Yuan Zhou into the house.

When talking about Xiao Xing’s girlfriend, Yuan Zhou wasn’t paying much attention. He only nodded politely to indicate that he was listening.

After all, his stomach wasn’t feeling very good. He did not have the energy to focus on some love story.

“This is the kitchen. I don’t normally use it, but my girlfriend will use it every now and then to make some food for me. The rice is in the cabinet, the vegetables are in the fridge, and the condiments are on the table. Use anything you want,” Xiao Xing gave a short introduction.

“Thank you.” Yuan Zhou nodded.

“Don’t worry about it. Do you need my help with cooking?” Xiao Xing asked.

“No. I will make some congee and two salads for lunch. Will that be fine?” Yuan Zhou asked.

“Yes. Use anything you want. My girlfriend was the one who bought them,” Xiao Xing could not stop talking about his girlfriend.

Yuan Zhou was somewhat speechless as he grumbled inwardly, “Is having a girlfriend that big of a deal? Um… yeah, that seemed to be quite big of a deal indeed.”

“Let’s have congee together for lunch then,” Yuan Zhou said.

“What’s so good about congee? It’s tasteless. I’m fine. I will eat some instant noodles,” Xiao Xing shook his head.

That’s right. As far as Xiao Xing was concerned, the congee the Chinese people would eat were completely bland and was not delicious. With how mushy the rice grains would be and how bland it would taste, he had no interest in it.

“You will know what’s so good about congee after trying it,” Yuan Zhou gave a nonchalant reply.