1984: Starting from a bankrupt Sichuan restaurant

Chapter 252 You're so talkative, why are you so taciturn! (6.2k words combined)

Li Liangcai's wide eyes were filled with shock and bewilderment.

The pork skin is soft, sticky, and chewy; the fatty meat melts in your mouth; and the lean meat is tender, juicy, and flavorful. One bite and your mouth is filled with oil.

The aroma of the bean sprouts is particularly strong, and compared to salted vegetables, the flavor is more mellow, with a slightly sweet and caramelized taste that permeates the meat.

The cooking temperature, seasoning, and knife skills are all top-notch!
This salty braised pork belly is absolutely amazing!
How can this salted braised pork belly taste like this?
He started learning to cook at the age of twelve, and it's been over sixty years now.

Not only could I not make it, I've never even tasted such a perfect salted braised pork belly.

It has excellent color, aroma, and taste!

After thinking for a moment, he picked up another piece of bean sprouts with his chopsticks.

The bean sprouts are finely chopped into uniform granules, soaked in oil, and glistening with a shiny sheen.

It has a crisp and tender texture, a salty and sweet aftertaste, and a rich and layered flavor. It's also very oily and fragrant, and it would be absolutely delicious to mix with rice.

This bean sprout dish is so well made!

Li Liangcai's idea of ​​being the best at salted vegetable stew in the world wavered at this moment.

Their Li-style salted pork belly is savory and flavorful, and has always been one of Feiyan Restaurant's signature dishes.

But compared to this braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens, it seemed less confident.

"Mmm! This braised pork belly is really delicious! The meat is steamed perfectly, savory and flavorful, rich but not greasy! The pickled mustard greens are also of high quality, probably aged for about a year, with a rich aroma and a slight sweetness from the caramel. They've absorbed all the oil, they'd be perfect for mixing with rice!" After tasting it, Huang He's eyes lit up, and he said to Huang Bing, "Son, go get your old man a bowl of rice."

"Didn't you just finish eating?" Huang Bing asked, puzzled.

"You brat, you talk too much nonsense. If I tell you to go beat someone up, you go. Don't force me to beat you up when I'm in a good mood." Huang He glared at him.

"Okay, okay." Huang Bing shrank his neck and turned to get his food.

"Give me half a bowl too," Li Liangcai said. "And call Li Sanwa over as well."

"Huh?" Huang Bing was a little surprised, but quickly nodded: "Okay!"

"Uncle Li, what do you think of Zhou Yan's salted braised pork belly?" Huang Ying asked directly, without beating around the bush.

Huang He also looked at Li Liangcai. He was the owner of Feiyan Restaurant, but he was also a foodie. He couldn't bring himself to say anything against his conscience, but this salted braised pork belly was better than the one at Feiyan Restaurant.

Li Liangcai thought for a moment and said, "The taste is indeed excellent. The use of bean sprouts adds a rich flavor. Of course, it's not unusual to use bean sprouts in braised pork belly, but the bean sprouts he used are of particularly high quality, with a golden color and a crisp and tender texture, which is incomparable to dry salted vegetables."

Secondly, the knife skills, cooking time, and seasoning are all exceptionally well controlled. Look at this meat, it's thinly and evenly sliced, with a perfectly uniform color, like amber, making it look very appealing. Especially the skin, the tiger-skin pattern is fried perfectly, and it tastes wonderful.

Zhou Yan, this kid, has such a talent for cooking, he's practically a celestial being sent down to earth for the Confucian school of cooking..."

At that moment, the door to the private room was pushed open.

Huang Bing brought in two bowls of rice, followed by Li Laosan, who was dressed in a chef's uniform.

Li Laosan looked slightly nervous. As soon as he pushed the door open, he heard his master praising Zhou Yan, and he immediately had a bad feeling.

He knew that Huang Bing had brought a bowl of salted braised pork belly into the kitchen to heat it up, but he hadn't paid attention because he was busy training his apprentice.

Unexpectedly, Huang Bing came to deliver a message, saying that his master was waiting for him in the private room.

He's been a head chef for over ten years, but he still gets nervous whenever his master calls him.

"Master, did you call me?" Li Laosan said.

"Here, try this salted braised pork belly." Li Liangcai handed him a pair of unused chopsticks.

Li Laosan stepped forward, and there was a plate of salted braised pork belly on the table. He picked up two pieces, revealing a corner of pickled mustard greens. The meat was bright red, and the aroma of the meat and the fragrance of the pickled mustard greens mingled together, making it look quite delicious.

His master told him to try it, and he dared not refuse, so he picked up a piece of meat.

The meat was steamed until it was so soft that it trembled when picked up, as if it might fall apart at any moment, but it didn't fall out when fed into the mouth.

With a careful sip, the salty, savory, and slightly sweet flavors fill the mouth, while the aroma of meat fat and fermented bean sprouts lingers in the nose. It is tender, flavorful, and exceptionally fragrant.

He picked up another mouthful of bean sprouts, which were crisp and refreshing, and soaked up the oil and meaty aroma, making him unable to resist looking at the two bowls of rice next to him.

"What do you think?" Li Liangcai asked.

Li Laosan nodded: "Comfortable."

Li Liangcai waited a while, then couldn't hold back any longer and glared at him, saying, "Just two words?"

"The highest rating!" Li Laosan said, sounding somewhat innocent.

"I've really met you!" Li Liangcai glared and puffed out his beard. "Let me tell you, what's the difference between your salted braised pork belly and Zhou Yan's?"

Upon hearing this, Li Laosan was somewhat shocked: "This was made by Zhou Yan? Xiao Lei's apprentice?"

“Yes, Uncle Li, these are what I packed from Zhou Yan’s shop.” Huang Ying nodded.

"Truly, new talents emerge in every generation, one generation after another..."

"Can you make it?" Li Liangcai interrupted Li Laosan's remark.

Li Laosan looked at him with a complicated expression: "Master, this isn't how you taught me, is it?"

Li Liangcai said with a stern face, "The first time I taught you how to make salted braised pork belly was thirty years ago, wasn't it? So many years have passed, and you haven't improved at all?"

“Master, it’s been almost sixty years since the first time your grandmaster taught you how to make salted pork belly, hasn’t it?” Li Laosan said quietly.

Li Liangcai fell silent, glanced around, and began looking for a suitable tool.

Li Laosan hurriedly said, "Change it! Change it right away! Replace the pickled vegetables with pickled mustard greens, cut the meat a little thicker, and fry the pork skin a little longer. Try to improve it according to these standards!"

“I think you should give it a try. This braised pork belly is really delicious, especially the pickled mustard greens. It’s so fragrant when mixed with rice!” Huang He picked up a big mouthful of rice and nodded repeatedly. “Look, it’s so oily, but it’s not greasy at all. It’s so fragrant.”

Upon hearing this, Li Laosan's expression became more serious, and he nodded, saying, "Alright, then I'll take it over and study it carefully. There are quite a few customers ordering salted braised pork belly, and some people also like salted vegetables. If we can make it well, we can add a dish of salted braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens to gradually transition to other dishes."

"Wait, wait! I'll get another piece of meat and some bean sprouts!" Seeing that Li Laosan was about to take the plate away, Huang He quickly got up, put a piece of meat in his bowl, and then put two pieces of bean sprouts on top of the rice.

"What's the rush? You can make it just by taking it back?" Li Liangcai picked up the other half bowl of rice and started adding meat and bean sprouts. He said, "Try these bean sprouts. They're of very high quality. I've been to many vegetable markets over the years, but I've never encountered such good bean sprouts. If you want to make this taste, you have to improve the quality of your bean sprouts first."

Li Laosan nodded in agreement: "That's right. These bean sprouts are crisp and tender, with a rich flavor, and the fermentation is just right, which adds a lot to this braised pork belly. I wonder where Zhou Yan bought these bean sprouts from? Did he go all the way to Yibin to get them?"

"How about I ask Zhou Yan later?" Huang He suggested. Zhou Yan was coming up to him at noon today to get the property certificate.

“He might not be willing to say that the ingredients a chef uses are also part of the culinary skill,” Li Liangcai shook his head. “Asking like that won’t get you anywhere.”

"It's nothing, I was just asking casually. He can talk if he wants to, or not if he doesn't," Huang He said. He grew up in Feiyan Restaurant and had experienced this kind of thing many times.

Jiaozhou is such a small place, and the martial arts world isn't just about fighting and killing; there are also human relationships and social customs involved.

Sometimes when you come across good ingredients, it's hard for one family to finish them all, so it's quite normal to give them away as a favor.

Like that dilapidated tile-roofed house, if it were someone else in the same industry, he might not be willing to sell it.

Six hundred yuan is not a small amount, but he can afford to lose it.

"Are they all crawling around in here?" Zhao Shulan pushed open the door and asked, looking at the people in the private room.

"Yingying brought up a plate of salted braised pork belly made by Zhou Yan. I'll have Uncle Li and Li Laosan try it and see if there's any room for improvement in our restaurant's salted braised pork belly," Huang He said with a smile.

"Salted braised pork belly? Our restaurant's salted braised pork belly has always been pretty good, right? Quite a few customers like to eat it and order it." Zhao Shulan was a little puzzled, looking at the half-eaten salted braised pork belly on the table, with the bean sprouts scattered all over the place, and it didn't look like anything special.

"Try it." Huang He turned the chopsticks around and handed them to her.

“Mom, you’ll know once you try it,” Huang Ying added.

Zhao Shulan glanced at Li Liangcai, who was eating rice mixed with bean sprouts, and then took the chopsticks and picked up a piece of meat.

Having been a restaurant owner for decades, she has always been in charge of quality control for the dishes. You can tell whether the braised pork belly is cooked properly just by picking it up with one spoon.

The meat is tender but not mushy, trembling slightly when picked up, yet it doesn't break easily with a gentle pinch; this is because the pork skin and lean meat provide the necessary support.

If it falls apart as soon as you pick it up, it's overcooked. If it's soggy that it's tasteless when you put it in your mouth, that's definitely not good.

The color is beautiful, like amber, and the cuts are very neat. Look at how the pieces are stacked up, with almost the same size and thickness, which shows good knife skills.

Moreover, the uniform thickness of the meat allows for better control of the cooking time and temperature, which is why learning knife skills is the first step in learning to cook.

The moment the meat entered her mouth, Zhao Shulan's eyes lit up.

They are different!
The meat tastes better than what they sell in restaurants. The skin is soft and tender, the fat melts in your mouth with just a press of your tongue, and the lean meat is tender and mellow. In addition to the salty and savory flavor, the aroma of the bean sprouts is the finishing touch. After swallowing, there is a slight sweet aftertaste in your mouth.

The layers of flavor are amazing.

It has a lingering charm.

In contrast, their restaurant's salted vegetables and braised pork belly are truly characterized by their savory and delicious flavor that makes them perfect with rice.

I tried the bean sprouts again. They were soaked in meat juices and broth, and had a crisp and tender texture with a rich, savory flavor.

"This braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens is so delicious! This is the first time in all these years that I've had such a satisfying braised pork belly." Zhao Shulan put down her chopsticks, her face full of amazement. "Did Zhou Yan really make this?"

Huang Ying nodded: "The new dish that was just introduced a couple of days ago is very popular, and many customers have ordered it."

"Such delicious braised pork belly, you can't even make it at home, let alone find it in restaurants. If it were me, I would definitely order it a few more times," Huang He said.

Zhao Shulan's expression turned serious, and she turned to Li Laosan: "Master Li, can you make this braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens?"

Li Laosan looked slightly embarrassed: "I... I'll give it a try."

Zhao Shulan said in a deep voice, "Zhou Yan may move the restaurant to Jiaozhou next year. With his frequent appearances in magazines and newspapers, his fame will definitely grow bigger and bigger."

We must face the gap squarely, maintain our unique characteristics, and strive to improve our other dishes as much as possible. Even if we can't reach their level, we should at least try to get closer. Only in this way can we retain our customers.” Li Laosan straightened up a bit and nodded, saying, “The proprietress is right. I will study it carefully when I get back.”

"When Zhou Yan arrives later, I'll also ask him for some advice," Huang He said with a smile.

"How dare you ask me such a question?" Zhao Shulan glanced at him.

"What's the big deal? We have a good working relationship." Huang He waved his hand dismissively, picked up his chopsticks, and continued eating.

Li Laosan called over several key members of the kitchen staff, gave each of them a pair of chopsticks, and began to carefully study the salted braised pork belly dish.

"Good heavens, it's clearly supposed to be salty braised pork belly, how did it taste like this?"

"I don't taste anything else in it, just salt, sweet soy sauce, and salty soy sauce, yet this braised pork belly is so delicious!"

"There are always people better than you and mountains beyond mountains, that's really true! I thought my master and my advisor's salted pork belly was already the best in Jiaozhou."

The chefs were also amazed by the food.

If you don't learn to cook, you'll only think this salted braised pork belly tastes good.

If you learn to cook, you will understand how much ingenuity and puzzling things are hidden in this seemingly ordinary plate of braised pork belly.

Led by Li Liangcai, with Li Laosan as the leader of the task force, the chefs from Feiyan Restaurant gathered around the table and began to carefully analyze this dish of braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens, studying it from the aspects of knife skills, seasonings, and cooking time.

"Is that even possible?" Huang Bing was stunned. He had been worried that Li Laosan and the others would be unhappy.

"Yingying, you still have a sense of crisis, you know to face the gap and work hard to catch up." Zhao Shulan looked at Huang Ying and said with great satisfaction.

Huang He finished a bowl of rice with pickled mustard greens and said with the same satisfaction, "That's right. Even if we can't do it as well as Zhou Yan, but are at an eight or nine-tenths level, then our Feiyan Restaurant will have another signature dish, which is definitely better than other restaurants."

"Here, take this twenty yuan as a reward." Zhao Shulan took out her wallet, pulled out two ten-yuan bills, and handed them to her.

Huang Ying happily accepted it and urged, "Thank you, Mom."

“Mom, me too…” Huang Bing rubbed his hands as he came forward.

Zhao Shulan looked at him and said, "Don't even think about it. I know you too well. If you could remember these things, you wouldn't be Huang Bing. You're just trying to scam some pocket money from me."

Huang Bing: ...

Indeed, no one knows a child better than their mother.

He was envious of the pocket money Huang Ying earned, but he was also impressed.

Huang Bing changed the subject, looking at Zhao Shulan and saying, "By the way, Mom, my knife skills are almost perfected. I can now cut the braised meat in the shop just fine. I'm thinking of riding my motorcycle to sell braised meat. What do you think?"

Zhao Shulan and Huang He exchanged a glance and walked towards the door, saying, "Come here."

Huang Bing followed eagerly and entered the next private room.

After Huang He and Huang Ying came in, Huang He closed the door and looked at Huang Bing with a serious expression, asking, "Do you really want to sell? Doing business isn't as simple as you think. Riding a motorcycle to sell braised meat means you'll inevitably be exposed to the sun and rain. Can you stick with it?"

Huang Bing nodded: "I've thought it through! No matter how hard or tiring it is, I will persevere. I can't keep asking you for pocket money for the rest of my life, can I?"

Huang Ying took out a small handful of pumpkin seeds from her pocket and started cracking them open beside her.

Zhao Shulan thought for a moment and then asked, "So, what identity do you plan to use to sell braised meat? As the young master of Feiyan Restaurant? Or as the braised meat distributor of Zhou Erwa Restaurant?"

Huang Bing scratched his head: "Mom, what's the difference?"

"Yingying, can you translate this?" Zhao Shulan said.

Huang Ying spat out the sunflower seed shells in her mouth and said with a smile, "The difference is huge. If you sell braised meat under the name of Feiyan Restaurant, the price must be in line with the current price of braised meat at Feiyan Restaurant. This price is not very competitive in the braised meat market of Jiaozhou. Even if the taste is good, it will not sell well."

If you sell under the name of Zhou Erwa Restaurant's braised meat distributor, and price your braised meat according to Zhou Yan Restaurant's pricing, you'll definitely make money once you build a reputation. But there are only a few Jialing 70 motorcycles in the entire Jiaozhou area. If you're so conspicuous, who wouldn't know you're from Feiyan Restaurant?
"Wouldn't that be blatantly telling everyone that our Feiyan Restaurant's braised meat comes from Zhou Yan? This would not only make our braised dishes harder to sell, but it would also be difficult to explain to our customers, ultimately impacting the restaurant's business."

Huang Bing was stunned for a moment, and after listening, he looked miserable. "So... that means it can't be sold?"

Huang Ying smiled and shook her head: "It's not that you can't sell them. If you really want to sell them, you can hang up our Feiyan Restaurant signboard and ride your motorcycle to the liveliest place in Jiaozhou City every day to sell them."

"Sell as much as you can, and give two jin of braised pig's head meat to customers to sample every day. The old man will reimburse you for that, and he'll also pay you two yuan a day. What do you think?"

Huang Bing thought about it carefully for a moment, then nodded and said, "Is there really such a good thing? Do you mean it?"

"What's going on here now?" Huang He asked, looking puzzled.

Zhao Shulan shook her head helplessly and said, "Your brain isn't even as sharp as Yingying's. She wants Huang Bing to ride his motorcycle around every day to advertise for our Feiyan Restaurant and attract customers."

Using motorcycles to attract customers, the quantity of braised meat sold is not important; the goal is to use tastings to encourage customers to dine at Feiyan Restaurant. Tastings are a very persuasive method; once customers sit down at Feiyan Restaurant, they won't feel that the braised meat is too expensive.

"Ah! This is a great idea!" Huang He couldn't help but clap his hands and cheer after hearing it.

The group quickly reached a consensus.

Zhao Shulan looked at Huang Bing and said, "Then you can start selling tomorrow. Start with braised pig's head meat, five catties as a minimum. I'll give you the start-up capital, but you have to pay me back after you make money."

"Okay!" Huang Bing nodded decisively, indicating his approval.

After discussing it for a while, the family came out of the private room and saw a bicycle parked at the entrance of the restaurant. Zhou Yan got off the bicycle and went inside.

"Zhou Yan, you're here quite early," Huang He greeted with a smile.

"I came up as soon as I finished working at the shop, so as not to waste too much time in the afternoon and not have time to go back and cook dinner." Zhou Yan replied with a smile, and greeted the two of them: "Boss Huang, Aunt Zhao."

"Brother Yan," Huang Bing called out, taking two quick steps forward and lowering his voice, "My father has agreed to let me sell braised meat. Tomorrow, I'll start with five catties of braised pig's head to test the waters."

"Okay, I'll arrange it for you tomorrow." Zhou Yan nodded, starting with five catties of pig's head meat, which was quite practical.

At this moment, the door to the next private room opened, and Li Liangcai and Li Laosan came out, both looking at Zhou Yan.

"Zhou Yan, it's been a long time," Li Liangcai said.

"So it's Grandpa Li, long time no see." Zhou Yan smiled and glanced at the five or six chefs sitting in the private room behind the two. There was only one dish on the table, with some leftover bean sprouts.

Goodness, is this some kind of seminar on pickled mustard greens and braised pork belly?
Huang Ying is indeed a qualified second-generation restaurant owner; her sense of smell is very keen.

Zhou Yan didn't care about this. It wasn't his original dish, Salted Mustard Greens with Pork Belly. The recipe was recorded in detail in the "Sichuan Cuisine Recipe", down to how much soy sauce to use.

Even following a recipe doesn't guarantee a good result, let alone a finished dish.

"We just tried your braised pork belly, and it was absolutely delicious! You did a great job!" Li Liangcai gave Zhou Yan a thumbs up, making no attempt to hide his appreciation.

"His skill level is quite high." Li Laosan nodded in agreement. It was the first time he had met Zhou Yan, and he looked even younger than in the photos.

It's hard to imagine that a 20-year-old chef could grace the cover of Sichuan Cuisine magazine and make such delicious braised pork belly.

Feiyan Restaurant and Leming Restaurant are fierce rivals, but their chefs actually get along quite well.

For example, Li Liangcai and Kong Qingfeng had a good personal relationship and often drank tea and ate together. When entertaining distinguished guests, they would invite Kong Qingfeng to cook one of his signature dishes.

I may be envious, but I don't really have any ill intentions.

"You flatter me, both masters," Zhou Yan said, cupping his hands in greeting, a slight smile playing on his lips.

The chefs in the private room also gathered around the door to look, and their expressions were somewhat complicated when they saw how young Zhou Yan was.

That's what you call young and accomplished.

"Even the braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens from the Kong school isn't this delicious!" Li Liangcai looked at Zhou Yan and couldn't help but ask, "Did you figure this out yourself?"

Zhou Yan replied with a smile, "It's what my master taught me. I made a few changes according to my own preferences, but in the end, it's still my master's method."

"Your master is really lucky," Li Laosan remarked.

“That’s right, your master is really lucky,” Li Liangcai remarked.

Li Laosan pursed his lips, "You shut-up! Why are you talking so much!"

After chatting for a few minutes, Li Liangcai went home, and Li Laosan and the others also dispersed, maintaining a good sense of boundaries and not asking how to make salted pork belly.

"I've prepared all the documents. Just sign them, and I'll take you to complete the transfer. It won't take long." Huang He walked behind the counter, opened a drawer, took out two sheets of paper and a property certificate, and beckoned Zhou Yan to come over and sign them.

Zhou Yan read through the agreement and, after confirming that it was correct, signed his name and pressed his fingerprint on it.

The saying "practice makes perfect" holds true.

Zhou Yan can now press his handprints quickly and accurately.

Buying a house is something that makes people quite happy.

It gives me a sense of accomplishment in planning a bright future.

Of course, this is on the premise that the foundation costs 600 yuan.

Huang He took Zhou Yan to complete the household registration and pay the handling fee. The whole process was completed in less than an hour.

It's clear that Huang Xiaoji is quite skilled at it.

After all, the house had only been in his hands for less than a month, and he had lost more than 200 yuan when he transferred it to Zhou Yan.

He's such a terrible bastard.

Back at Feiyan Restaurant, Huang He brewed Zhou Yan a cup of tea, rubbed his hands together, and said, "Zhou Yan, there's something I'd like to ask you, but I'm not sure if I should."

"Then let's not talk about it, to avoid making everyone feel awkward." Zhou Yan smiled, "You want to ask about the braised pork belly with pickled mustard greens?"

"I know the rules, and I certainly won't ask how to do it; that's the chef's job," Huang He said with a smile. "However, I'd like to ask where you bought your bean sprouts? The bean sprouts I buy aren't as fragrant as yours."

　There will be an extra update today, but it will be a little late. You can check it tomorrow morning!
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(End of this chapter)