From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

In the morning, when He Yunqing arrived at Huiquanlou early and opened the door to the purchasing passage at the back of Huiquanlou, he felt that he was the first person to arrive.

As soon as he stepped into the door, he saw Feng Zhengming and Li Huidong walking out of the locker room.

"Chef, you, you guys didn't leave last night?"

Feng Zhengming yawned: "Well, I was going back last night, but suddenly I remembered that there was something I hadn't done, so I came back again."

Then he stretched himself and continued, "Big Brother also remembered something, so we came back together. But because it was too late, he didn't go back."

He Yunqing smiled bitterly: "Chef, you guys are really working too hard."

Li Huidong responded calmly: "Being a chef is hard work."

Feng Zhengming said, "Uncle He, you go do your thing. My senior brother and I will wash up first. The goods will be delivered soon. Please help count and weigh them."

He Yunqing agreed: "Okay, chef, why don't you guys sleep for a while? It's not even six o'clock yet."

Li Huidong shook his head: "No, we will be busy waiting for the goods to be delivered in the morning."

Watching his two fellow disciples walk toward the washroom, He Yunqing felt a surge of admiration in his heart.

Because we hosted this provincial reception dinner.

Feng Zhengming and his team have been busy these days.

On the one hand, we need to make various preparations for the dinner, and on the other hand, we also have to maintain the normal operation of Huiquanlou, which is indeed very hard.

He Yunqing also heard that after the dinner, a group of exchange chefs and a group of apprentices would come to receive training.

He Yunqing couldn't help but sigh in his heart as he thought about those scenes.

As expected, since Feng Zhengming won the first place in the national cooking competition, he must take on more responsibilities.

His original idea of ​​walking across the land of Qi and Lu had to be put on hold for the time being.

He Yunqing thought about it and could only shake his head helplessly.

Given Feng Zhengming's current status in Quancheng and the entire Shandong cuisine, there is indeed no one who can replace him in doing these things.

Walk from the back to the front restaurant hall and open the main door of the restaurant.

He Yunqing packed up and waited for the supplier who delivered the goods in the morning.

Some time ago, many suppliers came to us.

Everyone wants to become Huiquanlou’s supplier this year.

Feng Zhengming also personally conducted a screening and finally selected several suppliers.

What Feng Zhengming is most satisfied with about several suppliers is that they abide by the rules very much.

The quality of the goods they supply to Huiquanlou is guaranteed and there will hardly be any problems.

Even so, every time they delivered the goods, Feng Zhengming would either check them carefully himself or specifically instruct He Yunqing to check them carefully.

When it comes to purchasing raw materials, Feng Zhengming is really very strict and will not tolerate any flaws.

If there is even the slightest flaw, he will never keep it and use it.

He Yunqing often heard people discuss why many dishes made by Huiquanlou looked different from those made by other restaurants?
For the same dish, Huiquanlou’s taste is always better than other restaurants?
In fact, the reason is very simple, that is, Huiquanlou is very strict in purchasing raw materials.

Most restaurants and hotels will more or less turn a blind eye to the quality of their products after using a certain supplier for a long time.

Often it's enough to say "almost".

Many times, it may be the beginning of a downward slide towards worse and worse.

Therefore, Feng Zhengming's attitude towards suppliers has always been very strict. He would never accept anything that was not good enough and would ask the supplier to take it back and replace it with a better one.

Because of this, Feng Zhengming even had conflicts with his previous suppliers.

The supplier even teamed up with other suppliers to try to stop supplying Huiquanlou and force Feng Zhengming to compromise.

As a result, Feng Zhengming came up with a unique move.

He directly skipped the supplier in Quancheng and contacted the upstream supplier to order goods directly.

Of course, this was helped by Feng Zhengming's uncle.

His third uncle, who was in business, helped him contact a transport fleet from other places that supplied various goods to Quancheng.

Only then did Feng Zhengming contact various sources of goods from other places through them.

Then, through the transport fleet, we help bring the goods from other places to Quancheng.

In this way, Feng Zhengming directly skipped the middlemen in Quancheng.

Those middlemen were quickly subdued.

In the end, suppliers were forced to compromise.

Several companies that currently supply Huiquanlou also deliver goods to Feng Zhengming’s two dry rice shops.

So in fact, just from Feng Zhengming, several suppliers have already made quite stable and considerable profits.

Around six o'clock in the morning, suppliers arrived at Huiquanlou one after another with goods.

"Good morning, Lao He."

"Morning, Uncle He."

"Good morning, Old He."

Seeing the suppliers coming, He Yunqing responded to their greetings with a smile.

Then packages of raw materials were taken from their cars.

The people who deliver the goods are very clear about the rules and will take the initiative to open each package for He Yunqing to check.

He Yunqing was very serious and checked every package carefully, even turning them inside out to check.

Make sure every package of goods meets Huiquanlou's requirements.

"Chef, why are you so early?"

He Yunqing was checking when he heard these words. He turned around and saw Feng Zhengming walking out of the door.

Feng Zhengming had a smile on his face: "It's getting late, it's already past six o'clock, you guys are a little late in delivering the goods today."

After hearing this, a delivery person immediately responded: "Chef, there was a traffic jam this morning, so I was delayed a little and delivered to you late."

Feng Zhengming nodded and didn't say much.

He Yunqing checked it over and asked, "Chef, do you want to take a look too?"

Feng Zhengming laughed: "Uncle He, how can I not trust you? If you think there is no problem, then weigh it."

He Yunqing nodded and looked at the delivery man: "Okay, weigh it."

The deliveryman immediately handed the delivery list to He Yunqing.

Then the packages were weighed one by one.

He Yunqing would check the cargo list very carefully.

If there is any slight deviation in the quantity, He Yunqing will check it in detail one by one.

While the meat was being weighed, the chefs and apprentices from the kitchen also arrived one after another.

Without Feng Zhengming saying anything, the chefs and apprentices began to bring the weighed goods into the kitchen one bag at a time.

Li Huidong was already waiting in the kitchen and saw the chefs and apprentices bringing the goods into the kitchen.

He gave the order directly: "Untie all the bags and pour out the food. Separate the vegetables and meat. Pour everything out first, and then quickly change your clothes."

The cooks and apprentices who came in immediately obeyed and poured out all the goods they brought in from the bags.

Then go to the locker room and change into chef's clothes and come back.

In the following time, they were busy clearing out the various goods that had arrived today.

In the kitchen of Huiquanlou, everyone has to be able to do almost all kinds of work.

Especially when new goods arrive in the morning, everyone will participate in the processing.

On the one hand, this can speed up the progress, and on the other hand, it can give every chef the opportunity to be exposed to the entire process.

Now no one in the kitchen dared to raise any objection to Li Huidong's arrangement.

Especially the apprentices were obedient to Li Huidong's words.

This is mainly because Li Huidong will patiently explain a lot of things to them in his spare time, and will generously teach the apprentices a lot of basics. During breaks, anyone who asks Li Huidong for advice will be taught some very practical skills.

But Li Huidong has his own requirements for the kitchen.

That is, if you want to work in the kitchen, you must be diligent enough.

Being diligent enough doesn't mean you have to work all the time.

It is necessary to know how to discover the work at hand in time, and to be able to complete the work at hand in time without being reminded by Li Huidong or Feng Zhengming.

This aspect really tests the apprentice's eyesight in the kitchen.

It is also a test to see whether the apprentice is serious about learning.

Feng Zhengming was outside the door and had almost finished counting all the goods.

Let He Yunqing pay the payment for the previous batch of goods to the delivery person.

This is also Feng Zhengming's rule.

Normally, he would not keep batches of payments for long.

Many restaurants and inns will hold on to the payment of goods for several months.

What's worse is that they may directly withhold payment for half a year.

Then the suppliers can only be paid on a month-by-month basis.

This puts considerable pressure on suppliers.

Feng Zhengming feels that holding back payment for goods for several months or even half a year will give suppliers an excuse to lower the quality of their goods.

Moreover, if you have too much money owed for goods, it may cause you considerable cash flow pressure when you finally settle the bill.

Therefore, Feng Zhengming usually asked He Yunqing to prepare the payment for the previous batch of goods before ordering the next batch of goods.

In this way, the payment for goods is settled in batches.

Feng Zhengming will not feel too much pressure because of the backlog of payments.

Naturally, he will have more initiative when bargaining with suppliers.

If the quality of the goods provided by the supplier is really too poor, you can just pay off the outstanding payment and then look for a supplier who can guarantee the quality.

When Feng Zhengming returned to the kitchen, the eldest brother had already arranged it very well and everyone was busy with their own things.

Cao Zhiguo came up to Feng Zhengming and said, "Boy, why didn't you call me when you came back with Senior Brother last night?"

Feng Zhengming smiled and said, "Wouldn't it be good to let you rest more? You still have a lot of work to do today."

Cao Zhiguo heard this and said, "Okay, I'll do the important work today. You and Senior Brother didn't get enough rest last night, so don't work too hard today."

Before Feng Zhengming could respond, the eldest senior brother's voice rang out first.

"Okay, this isn't the first time, so why is it so hard?"

Cao Zhiguo couldn't help but say, "Brother, how old are you? You should take a good rest."

Li Huidong was surprised to hear this and asked, "Are you dissatisfied with my age? Are you saying that I am too old?"

Cao Zhiguo quickly waved his hands: "No, no, absolutely not."

Feng Zhengming took the opportunity to fan the flames.

"I think that's what Fifth Brother meant. Big Brother, I feel like Fifth Brother wants to replace you."

Cao Zhiguo quickly said, "Hey, hey, hey, Zhengming, you can't say that."

Feng Zhengming laughed and said, "Fifth brother, hurry up and get to work. Big brother and I will be fine."

The three brothers naturally started to get busy.

The three of them also have their own main responsibilities.

Fifth brother Cao Zhiguo led people to select some vegetables suitable for carving, and then led the apprentices to start carving.

Feng Zhengming brought a few young chefs with him to prepare some soups. They also needed to debone whole chickens and shell fresh live shrimps.

And some other tasks like preparing shrimp oil and shrimp soup for the cabbage prawns.

The eldest brother Li Huidong plays a coordinating role.

This was a deliberate arrangement by Feng Zhengming so that the eldest brother could better command the kitchen in the future.

It can be said that Feng Zhengming is now intentionally preparing for his departure.

He personally led the young chefs to do a lot of the preparation work.

The goal is to make sure young chefs can understand the process.

From now on, Feng Zhengming can rest assured to hand over Huiquanlou to everyone.

After a busy period, Li Huidong took the time to make breakfast for everyone.

I invited everyone in the kitchen and some of the service staff who came earlier to have breakfast together.

During the meal, some apprentices began to ask Li Huidong, Feng Zhengming and Cao Zhiguo for advice.

Li Huidong often has the most apprentices around him.

Because everyone knows that Li Huidong will explain it in more detail.

Feng Zhengming and Cao Zhiguo communicated more with young chefs.

Through this kind of communication, the young chef also realized how powerful Cao Zhiguo is.

It seems that many times, Cao Zhiguo's abilities are overshadowed by Feng Zhengming and Li Huidong.

But Cao Zhiguo’s cooking skills are not bad, and he also has a lot of his own understanding and ideas.

Sometimes during exchanges and discussions, some of the ideas given by Cao Zhiguo could even give Feng Zhengming a lot of inspiration.

This is the unique atmosphere of Huiquanlou’s kitchen.

The kitchen of Huiquanlou is not just about cooking, but also about the collision of many cooking techniques and concepts.

This gives the kitchen of Huiquanlou a subtle academic atmosphere.

Everyone seemed to be bouncing off each other's cooking ideas.

Use traditional cooking techniques to create some new dishes.

After lunch, it was Huiquanlou’s official noon opening time.

Although the provincial government will be receiving conference participants in the evening, the lobby on the first floor of Huiquan Building will remain open as usual at noon.

Not long after, several tables of guests arrived in the hall.

Although there are not many customers at noon, Feng Zhengming still has very high requirements for the kitchen.

For every dish ordered by the guests at each table, even if Feng Zhengming did not cook it himself, he would watch over it and would not allow the young chefs in the kitchen to make any mistakes.

With Feng Zhengming and the two senior brothers watching over and guiding, there are almost no mistakes in the kitchen.

Customers’ impression of Huiquanlou is that if they want to eat the most traditional Shandong cuisine, they can choose to go to Jufengde.

But if you want to eat something different based on tradition, you must come to Huiquanlou.

There were not many customers at noon, which made the kitchen feel less busy.

But when the business closes at noon, the kitchen staff and the front desk staff immediately start to get busy.

In the afternoon, Yang Shuxia and her people arrived first, and together with the service staff of Huiquan Building, they decorated the building inside and out.

By the evening, people around Huiquanlou already knew that there would be a very important event at Huiquanlou that night.

Because I saw that the road in front of Huiquan Building was blocked.

"It seems that Huiquanlou is going to receive another important person tonight."

"Didn't I say it a few days ago? Huiquanlou has taken on a reception dinner for the province."

"Huiquanlou has the qualifications. There are not many restaurants in Quancheng that can compare to Huiquanlou now."

"There are also Jufengde and Taifenglou."

“I always feel that it is slightly inferior to Huiquanlou.”

As the dinner time approached, Feng Zhengming and his two senior brothers led the young chefs and apprentices to start making some final preparations, preparing all the dishes that could be prepared in advance. (End of this chapter)