Expecting good Cantonese food from a French chef might sound like wandering into a seafood restaurant and ordering a sirloin. But just because a chef doesn’t come from a food’s country of origin, that doesn’t automatically disqualify them from being able to cook something (and cook it well). That concept was put to the test by Alex, a French amateur chef, in his cooking YouTube channel. In the video, Alex tries to master restaurant-style egg fried rice as a master chef from a Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant evaluates his work.
Photo: Alex/YouTube
Watch a French Cook Attempt to Make Egg Fried Rice for a Chinese Master Chef
In the video description, Alex writes, “After having built my own stove, learnt from the best stir fry chefs on bilibili, after having practiced for days using my stir-frying rig, the time has finally come to be evaluated. The chef of the Shang Palace, the only Michelin starred Chinese restaurant in France, chef Samuel, came to my house to taste my own fried rice and my overall stir frying skills.”
He cooked with ingredients that evoked his own childhood memories, including roast chicken, peas, pickles, and potato chip powder. After trying the rice, the chef gave Alex a positive review, praising the combination of local Parisian ingredients Alex incorporated into the dish.
On a scale of one to ten, the master chef rated the dish a seven — a rousing endorsement of Alex’s “amateur” egg fried rice. It’s definitely a better reaction than what Gordon Ramsay got after attempting pegao, a style of crispy Puerto Rican rice.
While the original video is certainly entertaining, perhaps even more entertaining is this reaction video from a Malaysian comedian with the username mrnigelng. No spoilers, but he’s less than impressed by Alex’s efforts. 