The breakfast Xu Qinyu prepared for Yang Zhizhi was shrimp dumplings made with multi-grain flour. Even though she used multi-grain flour, she was still able to roll the dough as thin as a cicada's wing. Although it was not as crystal clear as white flour, you could still see the beautiful color of the shrimp inside, and the taste was no different. Because it was multi-grain flour, the dough tasted a little chewy.
In addition to shrimp dumplings, there is also a bowl of milk. Naturally, there is no sugar added to the milk, but almonds are added, so the milk tastes mellow and has a hint of sweetness, which is the sweetness of the milk itself.
The greens are cold-mixed celery shreds, which taste sour, spicy and crispy.
There is no problem eating whole grain noodle shrimp dumplings until you are very full, so Yang Zhizhi ate with an open appetite.
Others can eat anything.
Wei ordered custard buns. She had eaten them once at Pei's house and had been thinking about them ever since. So she ordered two baskets today, along with two servings of shrimp dumplings and a cup of milk tea.
Wei's eldest daughter-in-law also came along. However, the two sons were not present. They also brought food boxes with them, intending to return with breakfast for their families.
As for the Xu family, except Xu Kongmu who went to the yamen, everyone else, including Xu Yunlan's brother, sister-in-law and nephew, came.
They all knew Xu Qinyu's cooking skills, and unlike other guests, they not only ordered food for themselves, but also ordered and paid for breakfast to take home.
Other customers who had never tasted Xu Qinyu's cooking were still hesitating at the counter, "Why is it so expensive?"
"They're using offal for breakfast and charging ten cents for it? Why don't we just rob them?"
"They dare to sell a bowl of fish porridge for eight cents, while the meat porridge at Donglaiju only costs twelve cents. It actually contains meat, but they dare to sell something as cheap as fish for eight cents?"
"That's right. The breakfast price at this restaurant is about the same as at the Jinyuan Restaurant up ahead, but the portions are generous. Look at this breakfast, there are only two in one serving."
Jinyuan Restaurant is a small restaurant at the front of the market. It has many customers on weekdays, and many of them are regular customers of Jinyuan Restaurant.
“The portion is indeed a bit small…”
The customer thought it was too expensive, but the aroma was so tempting. Besides, all the other customers in the store were concentrating on eating and not talking, so he finally decided to order it to give it a try.
Then, like all the other guests, he kept silent, just focused on eating, and occasionally said, "Delicious!"
Wait until the guests behind are still grumbling and complaining.
Chen called out, "Boss, there's not much breakfast left in the kitchen. It's almost sold out. We still have five servings of shrimp dumplings, three servings of custard buns, five servings of steamed buns, and some steamed buns. Everything else is gone, but we do have some fish congee and fried noodles. These are all freshly made."
When the guests heard this, they realized that many of them were gone.
Without caring about anything else, I started ordering breakfast.
In the end, all that was left was the raw fish congee and fried noodles.
Because it was the first day, Xu Qinyu was not quite sure how much the guests would demand for the raw fish porridge. She could cook the fish porridge in five portions in advance tomorrow so that the guests could eat it faster.
The breakfast is gone by the end of the Si hour.
When the guests who came later heard that there were only fish porridge and fried noodles, some were willing to stay and try what kind of fish porridge was priced at eight cents, while some thought it was too expensive and left directly.
However, all the diners who stayed to eat the fish porridge and fried noodles praised them highly.
After Chen and Yuan cleaned the pots, pans, and the living room in front, they could go to the back to rest.
Xu Qinyu basically had nothing to do. Cheng Ge'er had already prepared the fish balls to be cooked in the afternoon, so she could just cook them when the time came.
At dusk, the aroma of braised fish balls attracted many people.
Even the neighbors from Guihua Lane came to line up early before dinner time, for fear that they would not be able to buy fish later.
The shop owners in the surrounding areas were all dumbfounded.
"Why is this new restaurant so popular? There's a line of people waiting in line. Aren't there seats inside? Why don't you go in and eat?"
"Exactly. Could this be a stunt by the boss? Could it be that they hired someone? This is the first time I've seen that."
When the neighbors in the queue heard this, they immediately turned around and said, "Don't talk nonsense. The owner of the restaurant didn't ask us to fool you. The owner is kind-hearted and started selling fish balls, braised fish, and fish heads to us a few months ago. They are cheap and delicious. Now that the owner has opened a restaurant, he still sells them to us at the same prices. A small braised fish is five cents a piece, a large one is eight cents a piece, fish balls are five cents a portion, and the fish head and tofu stew is also based on the size. There are five cents a portion, ten cents, and fifteen cents. They are all cheap, large, and delicious."
“How delicious can fish be?”
The neighbors asked, "Can't you smell this fragrance? Can the fragrance be faked? If it didn't taste good, why would we buy it every day?"
"Then why don't you go in and eat?"
"It's such a cheap meal, but the owner said we can only take it home and not leave it in the restaurant. If we eat it in the restaurant, how will the owner entertain other customers? We'll be at a huge disadvantage. The owner is kind, and we can't hurt him."
Soon, fish heads, fish balls, braised fish and other items were brought out, and Cheng Ge'er and Gong Ge'er were buying fish at the door.
Xu Qinyu was preparing dinner in the back.
She has about thirty dishes for dinner.
The signature dishes are fish with pork intestines, charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops, shredded eel with fried oil, stir-fried shrimps, and butter noodles and rice. The butter is made with river crabs, and the crab meat and crab roe are also prepared by Cheng Ge'er and others, and it is the butter made by Xu Qinyu.
There are also pea sprouts in soup. There are already peas here. The pea sprouts were also planted by Xu Qinyu in advance using pea seeds in a clean, oil-free wooden basin. The quantity is relatively small, and the price is needless to say. A serving of bean sprouts in soup costs eighty-eight cents.
Another signature dish is snails in sauce.
The snails we specially choose are the largest ones. No one eats snails here, so some of the snails are particularly large, almost the same size as flower snails, and they are very delicious when used to make sauce.
Among these signature dishes, the charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops are the most expensive. A three-pound portion of charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops costs half a penny of silver, or five hundred coins.
Another thing is butter noodles. A bowl of butter noodles or rice costs two hundred coins.
After breakfast, the owner of the rouge and powder shop, Fan, was looking forward to dinner at Xu's Restaurant.
When it was time for dinner, she came over immediately and said, "Hello, boss. I'd like to order two dinner dishes, just like breakfast. Please send them to the rouge and powder shop next door."
There were so many dishes at dusk that Shopkeeper Fan was dazzled. She recognized the ingredients of all these dishes, but she had never heard of any way to eat them.
After hesitating for a while, Manager Fan finally ordered the signature dish of stir-fried eel shreds and stir-fried bamboo shoots shreds.
She originally wanted to order bean sprout soup. After all, she had never heard of bean sprouts. It was the only ingredient she didn't recognize. But it cost eighty-eight cents. A vegetable was so expensive that she was a little reluctant to spend it, so she ordered stir-fried spring bamboo shoots.
The price of fried eel shreds is one hundred and twenty coins.
The same price applies to the fish with large intestine.
Stir-fried shredded bamboo shoots cost fifteen cents.
Except for the signature dishes which are a bit more expensive, the prices of other vegetarian dishes are mostly around ten cents, and the prices of other meat dishes are also several dozen cents.
Xu Qinyu was making snails in sauce in the kitchen. It was almost May now, and although the weather had not yet become hot, everyone had already changed into thin clothes and could eat some refreshing dishes.
The snails had been spitting out sand for two days, their shells had been scrubbed clean, and the tips of their tails had been knocked off.
It is not difficult to make snails in sauce. Boil large snails in boiling water with ginger slices, Huadiao wine and green onion segments for a quarter of an hour.
When cooking the snails, she started to prepare the sauce, soy sauce, vinegar, and sugar, and then added ginger juice, a little minced garlic, five-spice powder, and the mushroom powder she had dried.
This mushroom powder is a kind of 'MSG' made by mixing some wild mushrooms she found on the mountain to enhance the freshness and flavor.
She did not plan to cook wild mushroom dishes in the restaurant because she was afraid that someone would follow her example and go to the mountains to dig wild mushrooms and cook them at home.
Because only she herself can tell whether the wild mushrooms are poisonous or not. Sometimes, even the same wild mushrooms may be poisonous or not due to different growing environments and places. Many poisonous and non-toxic wild mushrooms look similar, making it even more difficult for ordinary people to tell them apart. If you rashly dig them up and eat them, you may easily get poisoned and die.
Unlike modern society, medical technology is advanced here. Even if people are poisoned by eating wild mushrooms, most of them can be rescued.
Even in modern times, not everyone can be saved from poisoning after eating wild mushrooms.
So whenever she has time, she would pick these wild mushrooms for her family to eat.
Later, when he wanted to open a restaurant, he specially dried and ground the wild mushrooms into powder to use as seasoning.
Add boiled water to the prepared sauce, and finally pour in the cooked snails, sprinkle with a handful of chopped coriander and green onion segments. Put coriander aside and marinate for 15 minutes before eating.
Put the marinated snails into your mouth, suck the juice from the snails, and finally roll and suck the snail meat with your tongue, then spit out the snail shell. The snail meat tastes refreshing, salty and fresh, with a sweet aftertaste.
If you have other seafood, you can use them to make small seafood in sauce, which will taste even better.
It's a pity that this is not the seaside, so we can't eat fresh seafood.
After ordering the dishes, Shopkeeper Fan also asked for a bowl of glutinous rice.
A bowl of glutinous rice costs two cents.
In less than a quarter of an hour, two dishes and a bowl of rice were delivered to the rouge and powder shop.
Shopkeeper Fan first took a chopstick of fried eel shreds. The eel shreds were tender, smooth and delicious. The fragrance lingered on her lips and teeth after eating. She couldn't help but take another chopstick. After several bites, Shopkeeper Fan stopped. The fragrance in her mouth had not yet dissipated, and she murmured, "How can it be so delicious?"
She tasted the stir-fried spring bamboo shoots again.
Even an ordinary stir-fried spring bamboo shoots is full of freshness and has the sweet and crisp taste of spring bamboo shoots.
You can taste the most original flavor of spring bamboo shoots. There is not much salt and the taste is light, but it is still so delicious that you can't stop eating it.
No astringency at all.
Even the glutinous rice at Xu Ji Restaurant is particularly fragrant, with each grain distinct and plump, and the rice aroma is rich and chewy, and the rice aroma bursts out in your mouth.
"How can even a bowl of glutinous rice be so delicious?"
Shopkeeper Fan felt like crying while eating. With such delicious food, she was afraid that she would want to stay in Xu's Restaurant and eat breakfast and dinner every day.
Breakfast is not too bad, at most twenty or thirty coins are enough to fill you up, but dinner costs almost two hundred coins.
She hadn't ordered the charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops yet. The shopkeeper said that there were only three servings of charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops and they would be gone once they were sold out.
But one serving cost five hundred coins, so she couldn't bear to eat it.
It costs more than two hundred coins to eat at Xu Ji Restaurant every day. Even if you eat something cheaper in the evening, it will still cost dozens of coins. It costs more than three taels of silver a month. This is if you don't eat the signature dishes. If you want to eat the signature dishes, it will cost six taels of silver a month.
Even Shopkeeper Fan couldn't help but feel a little distressed.
Finally, after thinking about it, I decided to eat as much as I want at Xu Ji Restaurant for the first month, and then go there occasionally to satisfy my cravings.
In Xu's Restaurant, as soon as dinner time arrived, many customers came in one after another.
Needless to say, they all came here to have breakfast in the morning. Since they had breakfast and were very satisfied, they definitely had to come and try the evening meal as well.
When they arrived, there were already customers in the restaurant.
They are the Xia family, the Yang family and the Xu family.
They also ordered the only three charcoal-grilled lamb chops in the restaurant.
Why are there only three charcoal-grilled lamb chops? That’s because these three were ordered by the Xia, Yang, and Xu families before the opening.
Although there were several stoves that could cook several dishes at the same time, Xu Qinyu couldn't be distracted to grill the lamb chops.
So grill the lamb chops in advance.
When she was grilling lamb chops, she also taught Cheng Ge'er how to grill them.
Xia Yuanzhi, the leader of the Xia family, saw that the shop was not doing much business, so he closed it early and came here to have dinner.
The Yang and Xu families had not left the yamen and were not over yet, so a small portion of the lamb chops was left for them, and the rest was eaten by the family members themselves.
Yang Zhizhi's lamb chops were specially selected and marinated by Xu Qinyu.
The leanest lamb chops are selected, and the seasonings used during marinating are also different. The taste is mainly lighter, but you can't eat too much, so only two are prepared.
Because Yang Zhizhi couldn't forget the multi-grain noodle shrimp dumplings she had in the morning, she asked Xu Qinyu if she could still eat them in the evening. Xu Qinyu smiled and said, "Of course you can." So in the evening, she gave Yang Zhizhi two baskets of shrimp dumplings and a bowl of bean sprout soup.
Yang Zhizhi’s way of cooking bean sprouts in soup is different from others.
The soup base for the bean sprouts in soup that other people eat is made from pork bones, while Yang Zhizhi uses fish bones.
The bean sprouts cooked with broth made from leg bones are fragrant, while those cooked with fish bones are fresh.
When other diners arrived and smelled the strange aroma, they couldn't help but ask, "Boss, what kind of food is this aroma? It's too overbearing."
Wen smiled and said, "This is charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops, just three servings. They were ordered by customers before we opened, so we don't have this dish today. If you want to eat it, you have to order it tomorrow. This charcoal-grilled hand-pulled lamb chops weighs three pounds and costs half a penny."
Half a penny of silver is still a bit expensive.
These diners were hesitant, but some wealthy diners saw the lamb chops on the three tables, which looked crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, and were really appetizing and tempting, so they made reservations for the hand-pulled lamb chops for tomorrow.
Even if it's just a reservation, you have to pay two hundred coins in advance, just in case someone else messes up and randomly orders lamb chops that you don't want.
Other diners thought it was too expensive and didn’t order it.
These diners, at dinner time, ordered dishes calmly, without complaining about the food or the prices, and certainly without complaining about the cheap ingredients like fish and pig intestines.
Most of the guests who come to eat dinner in the evening have eaten breakfast.
I just thought the breakfast tasted good, but the dishes for dinner were also fresh and I had never eaten them before.
The whole restaurant was filled with loud conversation, with people praising the delicious dishes and the fragrant glutinous rice, and some saying they had eaten too rashly that morning.
"This smells so good, how are they made?"
"The chef must be a famous chef from somewhere. His cooking skills are worth double the price!"
"I just thought the breakfast was much better than other restaurants, but this evening meal is truly one of a kind."
In short, by the end of the You hour, there were very few prepared ingredients left.
Fortunately, there were not many diners at the hour of You.
Cheng Ge'er is the chef who prepares the employee meal in the evening.
Wen and Ning Jie'er, who were used to eating food cooked by Xu Qinyu, were actually not used to the food cooked by Cheng Ge'er, but they didn't say anything, and they were reluctant to let Xu Qinyu cook for them in the evening. Seeing Xu Qinyu just coming out of the kitchen and untying the cloth wrapped around her head, the hair on her forehead was sweaty and stuck to her forehead and cheeks, and her face was flushed. Wen's heart sank with distress.
In Wen's eyes, it would be better to say that she treated Yu Niang as her daughter-in-law. She knew that there was no marital relationship between Yu Niang and her son, and they did not live in the same house, so she did not force anything.
He simply treated Yu Niang as his own daughter.
Ning Jie'er also began to feel uncomfortable.
The two asked Xu Qinyu to go back to Guihua Lane to wash up and rest, and she didn't need to worry about anything else.
Xu Qinyu has been with the Pei family for so long, so of course she knows what kind of personalities Wen and Ning are, so she feels at ease with them looking after her.
Plus, the restaurant was closed, so everyone could go home after finishing their evening meal and cleaning up.
Xu Qinyu nodded and went back.
Gui and her two children had already eaten.
Xu Qinyu cooked some extra dishes and also made some steamed meat with soda, which she put in a food box and asked Gongger to send back. The two children and the old lady couldn't go hungry.
When they returned to Guihua Lane, Gui felt a little distressed when she saw Xu Qinyu's appearance. She helped to boil some hot water for her to wash up first.
After washing up and changing into clean clothes, Xu Qinyu lay on the bed for half an hour and finally recovered.
I still have to hire a few kitchen helpers as soon as possible, otherwise it will be very tiring.
After a while, Wen's Ning Jie'er, Cheng Ge'er and Gong Ge'er also came back.
Chen and the other three waitresses also went home to sleep.
Wen and Ning Jie'er came back with a wooden box in their arms.
They brought the cash box back, fearing that it would be stolen if left in the restaurant. After all, there was no one guarding the restaurant at night.
The wooden box contains today's entire sales volume.
When Xu Qinyu heard the wonderful sound of silver and money colliding, she didn't feel so tired anymore and smiled with her eyes curved.
When Wen saw Yu Niang's appearance, she felt helpless.
The whole family waited in the kitchen to calculate how much they had earned that day.
After sending the people back, Cheng Ge'er and Gong Ge'er also returned to the Wen family.
As the shopkeeper, Wen also made an account book to facilitate the monthly reconciliation.
Xu Qinyu counted all the silver and money in the wooden box, which was about thirty-five taels of silver.
Wen murmured, "Did you earn thirty-five taels of silver today?"
Ning Jie'er quickly said, "Mother, there's no such thing as thirty-five taels. We have to deduct the cost of food to make up the money."
Xu Qinyu calculated that the food used today cost about eight or nine taels of silver.
But the remaining twenty-six or twenty-seven taels is not considered net profit, and the gross profit must be calculated.
Gross profit is the cost minus the cost of rent, labor and other expenses.
Since Wen was helping to be the shopkeeper and doing the accounting, Xu Qinyu planned to pay her five taels of silver per month.
Cheng'er still got one or two taels, and Gong'er always did odd jobs, such as helping her deliver things. Xu Qinyu gave him five hundred coins every month.
Three waiters earned eight hundred coins, which is more than two taels of silver a month.
In addition to the rent of four taels a month, the price of seasonings is not low. Today, the seasonings alone cost almost two taels of silver, and the seasonings cost sixty taels of silver a month, plus the later commercial taxes and other miscellaneous expenses.
After calculation, the actual gross profit she could get was about 20 taels of silver, and the net profit was 500 to 600 taels of silver a month.
It’s still relatively high.
But it is indeed very hard.
Five or six hundred taels of silver a month is indeed something that ordinary people cannot earn in their entire lives, but Wen Shi only then realized how hard it was for her daughter-in-law to earn money. She felt sorry for Yu Niang and refused when she learned that Yu Niang planned to pay her five taels of silver every month. There was no use for her to have the money, so it would be better to leave it all to Yu Niang.
She knew that Yu Niang wanted to open a big restaurant.
After counting the money and hiding the wooden box under the bed, Xu Qinyu decided to go to bed.
Bai Yu was curled up under the bed. Xu Qinyu squatted beside the bed, patted the wooden box, and told Bai Yu, "Bai Yu, remember to help me keep the money safe. When we make a lot of money in the future, we'll buy a big house with a garden. Then you can run around in the garden and don't have to sleep under the bed anymore."
Bai Yu didn't know whether he understood or not, but he stood up and coiled around the wooden box.
Xu Qinyu smiled and touched Bai Yu's smooth head.
In fact, Baiyu doesn't stay under the bed all day long. It occasionally goes to the mountains to hunt.
But he never gave her anything in return.
It was late at night and the whole family had gone to bed.
Xu Qinyu looked at the bright moon outside the window, which was no longer round, and thought of her fourth brother who had been away from home for three months.
It has been three months, Xu Qinyu sighed, and she didn't know how her fourth brother was doing with the caravan outside. She hoped that her fourth brother was safe and could come back soon.
Wen was lying in bed, thinking of her son.
She thought that everything was fine with Yu Niang and her family, and hoped that Xuan Ge'er would take care of himself while he was away.
After wiping his eyes, Wen closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Early the next morning, the family got up and started working hard to make a living.
In just half a month, the reputation of Xu's Restaurant spread more and more on West Street.
Also because of Xu Ji Restaurant, the business of two larger restaurants and a small restaurant on West Street was affected and became much quieter. Most diners went to Xu Ji Restaurant to eat.
However, Xu Ji Restaurant has limited breakfast and evening meals, and most diners cannot queue up, so they can only go back to other restaurants and small restaurants to eat.
Indeed, within half a month, diners at Xu Ji Restaurant who wanted to have breakfast and dinner here had to line up like the neighbors who bought fish.
Fortunately, Xu Qinyu knew exactly how much of the food she prepared was. She would ask the three waiters to inform the people behind her when they were in the queue, so they would not have to queue.
This also caused many diners to complain and ask the chef why he didn’t make more.
Mrs. Chen, the waitress, could only say, "No wonder our boss was looking for kitchen helpers, but they ran away when they heard our chef was a young lady. Without kitchen helpers, our young lady has to cook all the meals by herself, and there's only enough for dozens of people. There's really nothing we can do."
There was indeed a notice at the door recruiting kitchen helpers.
But in just one town, the kitchen helpers have been cooking for at least several years, and there are only a few kitchen helpers who are idle. I have asked Xu Qinyu before. Xu Ji Restaurant has been open for half a month, and these kitchen helpers must have heard of it. I wonder if they felt that they were too rude to leave before, so they are embarrassed to come back.
Xu Qinyu was thinking that if she couldn't recruit any kitchen helpers, she would have to find a few apprentices and teach them from scratch.
Otherwise, even one brother wouldn't be enough.
The other two restaurants were also anxious, feeling their business was being taken away, but they could do nothing about it. The owners and chefs of both restaurants had also bought food from Xu's Restaurant and tasted it, and it was indeed delicious. The chefs of both restaurants were very impressed with the cooking skills, and even told the owners bluntly, "The chefs at Xu's Restaurant are so skilled that we can't match them even if we were to cook for decades. We can't steal their business."
If they were not all chefs, if they were just ordinary kitchen helpers, they would all want to go to Xu Ji Restaurant to be apprentices.
…
Xu Qinyu's business was going smoothly, and thousands of miles away in the sea, on the sea, a large ship with huge sails was sailing forward against the sea breeze.
There were several people standing on the splint, and the leader was Pei Weixuan.
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