Chapter 170: Steamed Tofu with Minced Pork
Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
The dish of Translucent Beef Slices cooked by Yuan Zhou was really all the rage for some time. With the characteristics of light transparency, paper thickness and the mixed taste of spicy, hot, fresh, fragrant, crisp and tender, it basically became a signature dish in Yuan Zhou’s restaurant that everyone would definitely order. Delicious foods will always be popular among foodies.
Of course, it was also a pleasure to watch Yuan Zhou’s supreme knife techniques during the meal time. The customers could both watch the spectacle and relish the delicacies.
The development of the new dishes instantly increased the number of customers in Yuan Zhou’s restaurant by a large margin. During the opening hours every day, Yuan Zhou basically busied himself preparing the dishes in the kitchen the whole time while Mu Xiaoyun endeavored to greet the customers in the main hall.
Even so, there were still many customers who couldn’t manage to have their meals on the same day. When the customers were too many to be served in Yuan Zhou’s small restaurant, it was the neighboring restaurants that benefited the most. It was also a decent choice to eat something near Yuan Zhou’s restaurant if they couldn’t get their turns.
As a result, the visitor rate of this side street, on the contrary, increased a lot due to Yuan Zhou’s restaurant.
Even the hawkers selling soybean milk on this side street were getting more business because Yuan Zhou didn’t provide drinks for breakfast.
Every time they finished the breakfast and left Yuan Zhou’s restaurant, a cup of soybean milk would be pretty good. Naturally, they had to wait for a while before they drank it, otherwise, the remaining delicate taste in the mouth would be washed away.
However, that was also good to the customers. Due to the absolute delicacies that they had just eaten, they nevertheless had a higher requirement on the quality of the soybean milk. Basically, there were only two or three hawkers who didn’t add water into the soybean milk and hence had a booming business.
Imitation was the only thing that the countrymen weren’t short of. Therefore, no hawkers in the street would add any water into their soybean milk now. After all, they would go bankrupt by doing that.
This was a benign cycle. As picky customers always compared among different hawkers, whoever made superior soybean milk would have more customers. Other hawkers would follow suit and stop adding water, thus the customers could also drink the pure soybean milk.
The whole neighborhood could also benefit from that, for example, Boss Tong.
"Recently the soybean milk has become purer than before." Boss Tong was in a good mood at the moment. She revealed a faint smile on her skinny face and pinched a little piece of paper in her hand.
"Boss Tong, are you going to buy the vegetables so early?" someone b.u.mped into her and asked with a smile.
"Yes, I’m going to buy vegetables." Boss Tong nodded with a smile. The direction that she was heading for, however, was not the vegetable market.
Where she was really headed for was the lottery ticket station. Naturally, the paper held in her hand was the lottery ticket.
"Old Tong, here to buy the lottery ticket?" A woman with fas.h.i.+onable curled hair, the boss of the lottery ticket station, greeted her with a smile.
"I come for the reward of the lottery ticket today," when Boss Tong saw the woman, she immediately said happily.
"Wow, you won the lottery again? How much is the reward this time?" The woman touched her own curled hair and said with an unsurprised manner of speaking.
Boss Tong was a regular customer who came every day to buy a lottery ticket worth 2 RMB. However, she was different from others. As far as the boss knew, Boss Tong calculated the numbers in her store every day whenever she was free.
Basically, she would get some small amount of money from time to time. It was indeed a small amount of money, 5 or 10 or at most 200 RMB. Even so, she was fairly impressive. That way, she was able to earn an extra few hundreds or one thousand RMB every month.
"You check it by yourself. It’s really not bad this time," Boss Tong became even more delighted and directly handed the lottery ticket to the boss.
"Ok, let me check. When do you become so hesitant while talking?" The boss likewise didn’t really care much about that. She straightforwardly received the lottery ticket while smiling, and started to operate on a machine.
One minute later, the woman revealed a look of surprise on her face.
"Old Tong, your reward is pretty much this time. It’s as high as 3000 RMB."
"Yeah, yeah. I really have a good luck." Although she felt quite happy when she got the confirmation from the woman, Boss Tong nevertheless appeared to be humble in speech.
"Do you want to get the reward now or what?" The woman asked while taking the ticket in her hand.
"Now, for sure," Boss Tong hadn’t even gone to buy the vegetables before coming here for the reward. Obviously, she wanted to get it right now.
"Ok, wait for a moment. Let me go inside to get the money," the woman took the ticket and entered the inner room.
With a blissful expression on her face, Boss Tong waited outside.
"It seems that I ought to celebrate my good luck. Only by spending some money would the windfall be secure," while muttering that, Boss Tong was thinking of what to buy.
Shortly afterward, the boss came out with an envelope.
"Thank you," Boss Tong then made small talk again with the boss before leaving.
Having returned to her store, she cleared some things away for a while and packed the clothes that were to be returned today. When she finished, it was about 11:00. Outside of Yuan Zhou’s restaurant, there were already been some people lining up spa.r.s.ely.
"I promised him to go to savor the tasty dishes," suddenly, Boss Tong recalled of the matter of going to Yuan Zhou’s restaurant to congratulate him. Now that she had obtained so much money, Boss Tong prepared to go there for a taste.
"Hua La", she shut the door and went up to line up.
"Boss Tong, you also come here for a meal?" seeing Boss Tong approach, Wu Hai asked politely.
"Yes. By the way, your clothes have been washed. Just come to get them back when you are free," when Boss Tong found it was Wu Hai who often brought his clothes to her store to wash, she answered with a smile.
"Sorry to bother you." Wu Hai was quite courteous to aged people.
Boss Tong appeared to be 50 years old or so, however, there was already some white hair on her head.
Shortly afterward, Yuan Zhou’s restaurant was opened. Then the two of them stopped talking. Coincidently, Boss Tong got the last vacant seat.
"Aunt Tong, what do you like to eat?" Other customers were all greeted by the obedient girl, Mu Xiaoyun. Only for Boss Tong, Yuan Zhou went up to greet her personally.
"Yuan Zhou, the dishes here are really not cheap," looking at the price list on the wall, Boss Tong felt a little astounded by the high prices of hundreds of RMB for each dish.
"Trust me, they are very delicious," Yuan Zhou was fairly confident when he spoke of his skills.
"Is the Steamed Tofu with Minced Pork made from genuine tofu?" Boss Tong looked at the price on the wall and said suspiciously.
"Yes, it’s indeed tofu. Do you wanna try it?" Yuan Zhou said with an affirmative tone.
"Well, tofu of this price…" if it were at normal times, Boss Tong would never order a dish costing 388 RMB per serving. However, it was a little special today. Since she came to spend the money from the windfall, she had no more concerns.
"Serve a plate of that dish for me to have a taste. Let’s make a deal beforehand. If it’s not tasty, this Boss Tong won’t pay," Boss Tong said seriously.
"Don’t worry," Yuan Zhou nodded.
"Ok, good. Do you have white rice here?" If there was a dish, there must be rice.
"Yes, I do. You can order a bowl of white rice from 100 Styles of Rice Cuisine," while pointing at the menu, Yuan Zhou said.
"A bowl of white rice worth 98 RMB? I’d rather go back to my store and get a bowl of the rice myself," Boss Tong drew a deep breath and then said promptly.
It was acceptable for her to spend hundreds on a dish anyway, first to spend some money from the windfall and secondly to eat some genuinely delicious tofu. She wouldn’t say much about that. But for a bowl of white rice worth almost 100 RMB, Boss Tong suddenly recalled that there was still some leftover white rice in the cooking pot at home.
"No problem. When you come back, the Steamed Tofu with Minced Pork will be prepared," Yuan Zhou didn’t really get annoyed.
Usually, no one actually did so, as the difference was too sharp and one would probably get their heart broken.
"Great. Just keep the seat for me. This is the money of the dish," Boss Tong knew the rule of paying first before eating here. Although neighbors had nothing to worry about, she still paid for the dish first, after which Boss Tong immediately left the restaurant and went back to her home to get her leftover white rice.
"I feel that Boss Tong will surely scold you after she eats the dish cooked by you and then those cooked by herself," Wu Hai said with a manner of glee.
"No, she won’t," Yuan Zhou nodded affirmatively.
…