Starting with vegetable greenhouses in 1988

Chapter 161 Substitution
After selecting the apple varieties, the three continued to select other items.

The same applies to pears; you should choose the best varieties and the best quality.

There's not much to choose from with citrus fruits; they're already in short supply, so having any at all is already a blessing.

Afterwards, Director Han led the two to the adjacent vegetable warehouse, where they selected common carrots and potatoes, choosing the best varieties and appearances, even if the price was a bit higher.

These fruits and vegetables are common, but foreigners love to eat them too. They are high-volume products and very profitable.

After selecting the fruits and vegetables, it's time for the meat.

Li Zhe didn't choose too many varieties, only three: chicken, pork, and beef.

Director Han took them directly to the meat market.

The chicken ordered included cuts: chicken breast, chicken thighs, chicken drumsticks, and chicken wings. Chicken consumption was still lower than in later years, so Li Zhe initially ordered a small quantity, deciding whether to increase the order based on sales volume.

Pork, specifically pork ribs, tenderloin, shoulder, leg, and hock, is preferred by Europeans, with consumption second only to beef.

Beef, with its central role in Western cuisine, determines the quality of Western dishes.

Although Chongwenmen Market doesn't sell imported beef, Li Zhe still couldn't leave empty-handed.

He checked several beef stalls and found that they all sold local yellow beef, which was firm, coarse, and low in fat, making it suitable for Chinese stewing but not for pan-frying steaks.

Li Zhe asked, "Director Han, besides yellow beef, are there any other types of beef in the market?"

Director Han thought for a moment, then said, "Come with me." He led the two to a butcher shop on the far west side. The owner, a man in his forties wearing a blue cotton hat, was chopping meat with his head down.

Director Han asked, "Old Ma, do you still have any Qin Chuan beef?"

"Oh, Director Han. If anyone else asked, I definitely wouldn't say yes." As he spoke, the butcher, known as Old Ma, took a piece of beef from under his stall. "What do you think of this meat?"

Li Zhe looked at the piece of meat, which resembled beef tenderloin, with faint traces of fat marbling. Although it might not be as good as foreign breeds, it was much better than yellow beef. "Is this called Qin Chuan beef?"

Old Ma said, "I don't know the exact name, but it's a crossbreed of Qinchuan cattle and foreign cattle. This beef has a high fat content, and many foreign restaurants use it."

"Can I buy some of this meat?" Li Zhe wanted to buy some to try.

Old Ma glanced at Director Han and said, "This piece of meat has already been reserved, but since you are Director Han's friend, I can give you two jin."

"Thank you, how much is it per pound?"

Old Ma said, "Twelve foreign exchange certificates per pound, so twenty-four foreign exchange certificates will suffice."

Sun Tao exclaimed in surprise, "Why is it so expensive? That yellow beef is only a little over two yuan per pound!"

“Take a look at the marbling of this beef, and then look at the marbling of the yellow beef.” Old Ma held up the two pieces of meat and compared them. “I also sell yellow beef myself. It’s not that yellow beef is bad, it’s just that the cooking and eating methods are different. If you’re going to eat it the way we do Chinese food, then buying yellow beef is definitely more economical. But if you want to make it into Western food and sell it to foreigners, then you have to buy this Qin Chuan hybrid beef.”

He lowered his voice and continued, "I also sell this meat to Western restaurants for making steaks. Imported beef costs 40 to 60 foreign exchange certificates per pound, but my meat only costs 12 foreign exchange certificates. Do you still think it's expensive?"

Li Zhe immediately pulled out twenty-four foreign exchange certificates and handed them to the other party, asking, "Where did you get this meat? Can you supply it regularly?"

"This isn't from local cattle, and the yield is low, so there's really no way to ensure a stable supply," Old Ma said with a smile, without mentioning the source of the beef.

Sun Tao picked up the beef, and the three of them left the butcher shop.

Li Zhe asked Director Han, who was standing next to him, "Do you know where he got his meat from?"

“His maternal uncle is a cadre at the meat processing plant. He can get a batch every now and then, but not in large quantities. This Qinchuan hybrid cattle is in the experimental stage and has not entered the civilian market. There is no market price, and it is usually allocated by the meat processing plant.”

Li Zhe said, "Director Han, can you contact the supply channels for Qinchuan crossbred cattle?"

Director Han thought for a moment: "How many do you want?"

"A few dozen kilograms a day," Li Zhe said, giving a conservative estimate. In addition to domestically sourced Qin Chuan hybrid cattle, he would also try to purchase imported beef steaks.

“I can try to make contact, but it requires foreign exchange certificates for settlement; it definitely can’t be bought with RMB.”

"no problem."

After selecting the types of meat, Li Zhe and his two companions went to the grocery section.

The grocery section has the widest variety and is the most complex. Westerners' needs differ from those of Chinese people; for example, flour is divided into high-gluten and low-gluten flour, oils into olive oil and rapeseed oil, and so on for condiments.

Fortunately, it was already the late 1980s, and policies were promoting domestically produced substitutes. Most of the vegetables at Chongwenmen Market could be supplied, and for the few that couldn't, Li Zhe had to find other solutions.

After finishing his work, it was already past six in the evening. Li Zhe didn't go home; instead, he took the beef to the Mona Lisa Restaurant.

Upon seeing Li Zhe, Shen Yanan was somewhat surprised. Li Zhe rarely came at this time, and he was even carrying a piece of meat. She joked, "Brother, what's this all about? You're coming to my restaurant, why did you bring your own ingredients?"

Li Zhe wasn't after the cheap price; it was mainly because he wasn't good at cooking steak. He'd heard that the two most important things in making steak were the quality of the meat and the cooking time. The quality of beef these days was definitely not as good as imported beef, and he'd never cooked steak before, so it certainly wouldn't taste good.

Li Zhe briefly explained the situation, and his second sister laughed and said, "Little brother, your little shop is pretty good. It's not big, but it has a wide variety of products." Li Zhe smiled wryly and said, "I didn't originally intend to have so many categories. I just wanted to stock some fruit and vegetable products, but it ended up being too much."

The second sister waved over a waiter, who looked familiar to Li Zhe. It was Chen Ju, the female college student he had recruited with him a few days ago.

"Juzi, take this to the kitchen and have the chef make it."

"Wow, Mr. Li really knows how to manage money." She took the beef and smiled at her second sister. "Boss, can we bring our own ingredients to the restaurant to have them cooked in the future?"

Li Zhe: "..."

Are you polite?

Second sister: "..."

The second sister didn't respond, looking disgusted.

Sun Tao whispered to Li Zhe, "Brother Li, why is this waiter talking like that? He has no sense of propriety at all."

Li Zhe said with a wry smile, "These are college students majoring in foreign languages. They're here to communicate with foreigners and increase their opportunities to practice their spoken English. They don't expect to work here permanently..."

"No wonder." After learning the other person's identity, Sun Tao looked at him differently, thinking to himself that this college student was indeed different, speaking with confidence.

At that moment, Su Mingyuan stood not far away, grinning foolishly. Li Zhe waved, "Su, bring the menu over."

Su Mingyuan walked over and handed the menu to his second sister—relatively speaking, he still thought she was cuter.

The second sister handed the menu to Li Zhe: "What do you want to eat? It's on me."

"Let's do it another day, it's on me today." Li Zhe handed the menu to Sun Tao, "Take a look and see what you'd like to eat?"

"Brother Li, I'm fine with anything." Sun Tao pushed the menu back directly; it was too expensive, and he didn't want to look at it.

Li Zhe thought the voice sounded familiar and wondered to himself: I'm not going on a blind date with you, so why are you being shy?

He glanced at the menu. "Three mojitos and a chocolate cake, on my tab."

Su Mingyuan repeated himself, then took the menu and left.

Sun Tao asked in a low voice, "Brother Li, is this also a college student?" He then smiled and said to his second sister, "Boss Shen, you really have a lot of talented people."

The second sister laughed too: "Brother Li, you really know how to find employees; they all speak so nicely."

"Haha..." Li Zhe laughed.

The chocolate cake was served quickly. A waiter asked, "Mr. Li, would you like it cut?"

"Cut it into three pieces," Li Zhe replied. The cake wasn't big, only about six inches, just right as a pre-dinner snack.

"Let me do it." The second sister picked up the cake knife, cut the cake into three pieces, gave the two large pieces to Li Zhe and Sun Tao, and kept only the small piece for herself. She smiled and said, "This is the first time someone has invited me to eat at my restaurant. It's quite a novel experience."

“There’s a first time for everything,” Li Zhe replied. He was quite hungry after a busy afternoon, so he took a bite of cake and nodded. “Not bad, the cake is delicate, and the chocolate flavor is rich.”

Sun Tao, standing to the side, nodded repeatedly: "Delicious, delicious! It tastes completely different from the birthday cakes I've had before."

The second sister said, "This chocolate cake is a new product in our store. I also think it tastes good, but sales are just average."

Li Zhe took the mojito handed to him by the waiter, took a sip, and said, "Second sister, it must be because you didn't do a good job of advertising."

"How could that be? We've been heavily promoting our chocolate cake these past few days, and we even have a discount event for new samples." After saying that, the second sister remembered Li Zhe's previous promotional methods and laughed, "Why don't you think of a way for me to promote it?"

Li Zhe picked up the menu from the side and said, "Is this menu newly prepared?"

"Yes, we've got new items, so we definitely need to change the menu."

Li Zhe felt the menu was rather bland and it was hard to spot the chocolate cake at first glance. "I suggest you change the menu next time and add a small red mark to the featured new items so that everyone can see them at a glance."

"That's a good idea." The second sister nodded, then subconsciously asked, "Anything else we should be aware of?"

“We also need to change the name. Chocolate cake sounds so ordinary…” Li Zhe put down his fork and thought for a moment, “Let’s call it Black Forest.”

"Black Forest, Black Forest..." The second sister stared at the chocolate cake and murmured it a few times. "This name is interesting and descriptive."

Li Zhe continued, "Next time we make chocolate cakes, we can add some thin, crispy chocolate coating on top to better suit the image of a forest."

The second sister immediately pulled out her notebook and wrote it down: "Have them change it tomorrow."

As they were talking, the steaks were ready, and the waiter brought three steaming plates of steaks to the table...

(End of this chapter)