1984: Starting from a bankrupt Sichuan restaurant

Chapter 155 Strict Teachers Produce Outstanding Students (Bonus Chapter 329 for Monthly Tickets!)
Zhou Yan soaked three extra catties of dried bamboo shoots tonight in preparation for tomorrow's braised vegetarian dishes.

The popularity of braised vegetarian dishes has indeed increased the restaurant's revenue.

Today, we sold 30.6 yuan worth of vegetarian dishes alone, with a profit of half, which is quite considerable.

Most importantly, the customer base for braised vegetarian dishes differs from that for braised meat. While sales of braised meat have declined, the decline is not significant.

For those who enjoy drinking, braised pig's head is still the best choice.

Potatoes and lotus root are very popular, and the supply will be doubled tomorrow. Kelp is also selling well. Seafood is indeed a reliable source of quality, and everyone still recognizes it.

Zhou Yan didn't dare to add dried bean curd casually, as he knew it was particularly troublesome to make.

My aunt's health isn't very good right now. Laifu has to make tofu, dried tofu, and bean curd sticks all by himself, so the output is mostly not keeping up with demand.

Anyway, starting tomorrow, he'll take whatever they can produce.

Braised vegetarian dishes are selling at full capacity!

What's wrong with 40 cents a pound?
Selling 100 jin doesn't necessarily mean you can earn 20 yuan!

Zhou Yan took out paper and pen and made a plan in advance for the vegetables she needed to buy tomorrow, calculating and writing down all the quantities she needed so that she wouldn't be confused in the morning.

He had already contacted the two uncles who sell potatoes and lotus roots, and they would deliver them to the restaurant tomorrow morning. He ordered 40 jin of lotus roots and 100 jin of potatoes.

For a big customer like him, door-to-door delivery is standard procedure.

If you let them sell to individual customers, they might not be able to sell this many in a whole morning.

And now Brother Jie has become his second major customer, and tomorrow he plans to take five catties of pig's head meat to test the waters.

The flow of people at the dock is indeed quite good, with merchants coming and going, as well as residents from the town going to the market, all of whom have a certain amount of spending power.

Brother Jie and his team have already built up a reputation for Qiaojiao Beef. They can sell 80 bowls of Qiaojiao Beef a day for 60 cents a bowl, which is only 40 bowls less than his restaurant.

When it comes to selling soup pots, Brother Jie is indeed the authority.

Today's revenue was 602.4 yuan, and the profit reached 365.2 yuan, both setting new records.

Zhou Yan counted the money twice, beaming with joy.

Making money feels so reassuring!

Besides braised vegetarian dishes, braised beef also brought a very strong boost to revenue.

Feiyan Restaurant has ordered 20 jin of braised beef for tomorrow, which will bring in 60 yuan in revenue.

Benefiting from the decline in meat prices, profit margins have risen accordingly.

So far, it seems that customers are not particularly sensitive to this, at least not in terms of revenue.

The money was tied with a rubber band and put into the box. This money was all saved up to buy a house from Duan Yuyan.

Zhou Yan was a little uneasy, wondering if Old Lady Qiu had given her any definite answer. There had been no news for the past two days.

The Duan family is not short of money, and neither is Old Lady Qiu.

Even if the Qiu family's old house is left empty, it won't affect her at all; keeping it will only serve as a memento.

As long as it's rented out and there's foot traffic, even an old house won't easily collapse.

After all, it was a large family's house with blue tiles, unlike the rammed earth houses in their countryside that were prone to collapse.

Duan Yuyan made him a promise; now it remains to be seen whether she can persuade Old Lady Qiu.

Lying on the bed, Zhou Yan pulled up the taskbar and glanced at it.

Side Quest: Zhao Shulan's Troubles! Progress 16%

Side Quest: Master's Obsession! Progress 88%

[Side Quest: The Battle to Protect the Heritage of Xiba Tofu! Progress: 38%]

Ok?
Zhou Yan's eyes widened slightly as the progress bars for the other two side quests also appeared.

Zhao Shulan's problem is that if Huang Ying has lost 60 pounds and the progress is 16%, it means she has already lost... 10 pounds!
Zhou Yan raised an eyebrow. This girl is something else; she lost ten pounds in a week.

Having eaten three meals a day so frequently, Zhou Yan didn't really notice the difference.

However, weight loss is quite fast at the beginning of a diet. To lose 60 pounds, it takes willpower.

Back in college, the chubby guy who slept in the bunk below him in his dorm weighed 200 pounds and started to lose weight. He lost 30 pounds in the first month and became a popular figure on campus.

As a result, I spent two months in my hometown in Shanxi during the summer vacation and came back weighing 250 pounds.

This left Zhou Yan, who was just there to make up the numbers, speechless. He had even managed to develop abs during the two months of summer vacation.

This guy broke his dorm bed on his first night back and even got himself stuck on the bed frame.

Who knows? Firefighters came to the dormitory in the middle of the night and rescued him with a cutting machine.

Fatty once again became a sensational figure on campus.

See? Some people can become famous overnight just because of their talent.

Unlike him, who needs more than just good looks and a great physique, he has to work so hard to become even moderately popular.

However, Zhou Yan felt that Huang Ying had a good willpower and seemed more reliable than her brother.

Zhou Yan didn't care too much about this task; he'd just leave it hanging, thinking it might be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The most advanced progress is currently his master's obsession, which is to make a perfect dish of stir-fried pork liver.

Master Xiao hasn't come to the restaurant to learn for several days; he's been too lazy.

I'll try to find out what's going on tomorrow when I have some free time.

This is unacceptable.

A strict teacher produces a good disciple.

He's still waiting for his master to give him a big reward.

The progress bar for the tofu defense campaign increased by another 8 points, which was somewhat unexpected.

Is this happiness derived from making dried bean curd and tofu? Zhou Yan wasn't quite sure what was going on, but she thought it was pretty good.

The progress bar seems to reflect the changes in Grandma Sun's mindset. The fact that it's increasing shows that she's becoming more and more certain that Laifu can make a living by making tofu.

Zhou Yan picked up a copy of "How the Steel Was Tempered" from the bedside table; it was a copy that Grandpa Wang had brought him the day before yesterday.

"Paul's wages increased from eight rubles to ten rubles. In the past two years, he has grown taller and stronger..."

The book closed, the lamp went out, and Zhou Yan peacefully drifted off to sleep.

……

The next day, Zhou Yan delivered five catties of pig's head meat, along with fourteen other separately packaged portions of pig's head meat, to the dock.

"What are these?" Zhou Jie looked at the dozen or so oil paper packages and asked Zhou Yan in confusion.

Zhou Yan explained with a smile, "It's sliced ​​pig's head meat. The brothers who came yesterday gave each family a package. I'll have to trouble Brother Jie to make the trip. Yesterday was so short, I can't even recognize all the houses anymore."

“Oh dear, brother, let’s not talk about that. This bag of yours weighs a pound. You don’t need so much! If you give away so much, you’ll have worked for nothing for days.” Zhou Jie shook his head repeatedly.

"I braised it myself, why are you calculating the bill like this? It won't take a whole day." Zhou Yan smiled and held Zhou Jie back, preventing him from putting the braised pig's head into his basket. He said seriously, "We're family, let's not talk about money, just let everyone have some braised pig's head to try. I can't let you repay this favor."

This isn't just about a few pounds of pig's head meat. If it were anyone else, no matter how much pig's head meat they had, they couldn't summon a dozen or so of their own kind to do whatever they were told.

“This…” Zhou Jie hesitated a bit.

Huang Caiyun, the sister-in-law standing to the side, couldn't help but say, "Just accept the call when they ask you to. When you deliver the meat, make it clear to them that it was sent by Zhou Yan. This is to repay the favor. Next time Zhou Yan needs anything, he can come as soon as he calls. Why are you dawdling?"

Zhou Jie immediately withdrew his hand and nodded, saying, "Okay, I'll send it to them later."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Two packs are for you and Hai Zi. Let me tell you how to cut this braised pig's head meat so you can sell it better later."

“Okay, I also brought a new cutting board today, specifically for cutting braised meat, so the flavors won’t mix.” Zhou Jie took out a new cutting board.

"Professional," Zhou Yan said with a smile.

Zhou Jie has been butchering cattle for ten years. His knife skills are not as good as Zhou Miao's, but they are definitely not bad.

Zhou Yan only needed to teach him the standard thickness for cutting. He cut three slices, which were of uniform thickness and basically met the standard.

"Alright, this standard is enough," Zhou Yan nodded.

Zhou Yan suggested that Zhou Jie should only sell pig's head meat, firstly because pig's ears and pig's snouts should be prioritized for supplying restaurants, and secondly because pig's ears require higher knife skills and would take him more time.

Regardless, Jay Chou's core business is beef offal, and braised meat is just a side dish.

After chatting for a few minutes, Zhou Yan hurried back to the hotel.

The chopped vegetables are eagerly awaiting braising; today's quantity is extraordinary.

Forty catties each of potatoes and lotus root, two catties of dried bean curd sticks soaked, that's all we have at home, and six catties of kelp soaked.

This morning he went to Laifu's tofu stall and got three jin of dried tofu, which he braised today.

I sent him six catties of dried bean curd, but I can't soak it today, I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Zhou Yan told Lai Fu that he would take as much dried bean curd as he could make, since it keeps well anyway.

Starting tomorrow, we need five catties of dried tofu. If it sells well, we'll add more.

After hearing this, Laifu's eyes became clear.

Three catties of dried bamboo shoots, after being soaked and rehydrated, weighed fifteen catties.

This exaggerated absorbency even shocked Zhou Yan.

Dried bamboo shoots cost 50 cents a pound, which means that after soaking and rehydrating, a pound only costs 10 cents.

Zhou Yan thought for a moment and decided to price the braised bamboo shoots at 60 cents per pound, placing them in the same price range as the braised tofu.

However, Zhou Yan scooped out a soaked bamboo shoot from the bucket; it was a thin bamboo shoot tip that he had specially picked out yesterday.

These dried bamboo shoots were bought to braise with beef, so they're a little overcooked.

Generally, tender bamboo shoot tips are used for braising dried bamboo shoots, so that the dried bamboo shoots are both visually appealing and crisp and tender enough.

Today, after finishing the braising process, I'll check the finished product and customer feedback. If it sells well, I'll go find some better quality dried bamboo shoots suitable for braising.

In his memory, the bamboo shoots of Ebian in Jiaozhou were quite famous. He wondered if they were sold in Suji. If not, he might have to make a trip to Jiaozhou to check.

Today, the amount of vegetable broth in this pot has increased significantly. The fire is already lit, and Zhou Yan is putting various vegetables into the pot and taking them out one after another.

Each batch was cooked in a separate pan, the heat carefully controlled, and I dared not be distracted for even a moment.

Finally, add the dried bamboo shoots and simmer them in the braising pot over low heat. It will take at least an hour for them to become soft and tender.

Zhou Yan picked up a pair of chopsticks and took a piece of braised tofu, about ten centimeters square and one centimeter thick. The semi-finished product was light yellow from baking, but after braising, it was bright red and oily, and the color looked much better than the braised tofu that her aunt had baked the day before yesterday.

Place the cutting board on the cutting board and cut it to the thickness of a coin.

The cut is smooth, and the color of the brine seeps from the outside to the center, gradually fading in color.

A perfect piece of dried tofu

Zhou Yan picked up a piece of dried tofu and put it in his mouth. The slightly dry skin softened after absorbing the brine, while the tofu inside remained tender and smooth with a bit of chewiness, somewhat like dried egg.

The savory aroma doesn't just sit on the surface; it has seeped into the tofu, making it incredibly flavorful and aromatic.

The dried tofu itself is of such high quality!
It saved him a lot of trouble.

Zhou Yan nodded repeatedly after finishing his meal; he was extremely satisfied with the braised tofu.

As expected of the old lady's long-term strategic partner and core supply chain.

"Master Xiao, Master Zheng, you've arrived."

"Zhou Yan?"

"He's in the kitchen, just go in."

Just then, Zhao Niangniang's voice came from outside.
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(End of this chapter)