Chapter 87: Braised Pork Ribs with Lychee and Taro Paste with Crispy Duck...
Most of the filming for "The Ten-Year Promise" took place in Shanghai, while a small portion of the story involving the male and female leads' high school memories was filmed in Jiang City.
In the original novel, the female protagonist returned to her maternal grandmother's house during her high school years due to family changes and lived in a southern city. The scenery, customs, and local traditions involved in the story had to be filmed in Jiang City to make it more authentic.
The actress playing the female lead, Qiu Siying, is the popular young actress Yang Shuyi. She had just finished filming her scenes and was walking from the set to the rest area next door. Because it was so hot, she was holding a small purple Kuromi fan and blowing it on her face.
Assistant Xiaoyun had just brewed a cup of brown sugar ginger tea. The thermos was left on the small table without a lid to let it cool down. She looked up and saw Sister Xiaoyi walking over. She was wearing a green and white high school uniform with her hair in a ponytail. She was slender and tall, and looked just like a high school student.
Just moments ago, Qiu Siying was a slightly self-conscious and quiet high school student, but now she's the spitting image of the bright and lively Yang Shuyi. She walked over and plopped down on a comfortable recliner, groaning softly, "Finally, the morning scenes are over. I'm exhausted."
After saying that, she reached out and rubbed her lower back. It was an old problem of hers; she always had lower back pain and abdominal cramps during her period, which made her feel listless. She had just forced herself to get into character for the scene, but fortunately, her acting skills and experience made the whole thing go smoothly with few takes.
Xiaoyun quickly handed her the thermos filled with brown sugar ginger water and leaned over to massage her lower back: "Sister Xiaoyi, drink the brown sugar ginger water quickly, it should be just the right temperature now."
"Okay, thank you."
Yang Shuyi took the thermos and drank it. The sweet brown sugar water, mixed with the spiciness of ginger, filled her mouth and warmed her stomach as she swallowed it. She didn't know if it was just psychological, but her stomach felt less uncomfortable.
With Xiaoyun's hands massaging my waist with just the right amount of pressure, I immediately felt more comfortable.
She laughed and said, "It's a good thing I have you, Xiaoyun, otherwise I don't know how I would get through these few days every month."
Because of her monthly menstrual cramps, her lower back would ache even with slight exertion during this period. If she had scenes to film on set or offline events for advertising endorsements, it would be a disaster.
For this reason, Xiaoyun specially went to Beijing to learn massage techniques suitable for relieving menstrual cramps from a famous traditional Chinese medicine doctor, which has helped her a lot over the past two years.
Xiaoyun's hands kept moving. She was already quite skilled at massaging Xiaoyi. She shook her head and said, "Xiaoyi, you don't need to be so polite. It's all my pleasure. As long as you feel more comfortable, that's all that matters."
This is what she, as a personal assistant, is supposed to do. Besides, Sister Xiaoyi treats her well, and the two get along very well and are very close. She is much happier than other personal assistants in the industry.
"We'll rest for a bit and then head back to the hotel," Yang Shuyi said with a smile after hearing Xiaoyun's words. Then, remembering something, she asked, "By the way, have you ordered takeout yet?"
Xiaoyun nodded, "I've ordered it." After hesitating for a moment, she asked, "Should we tell Sister Li about this?"
In this story, the female lead, Qiu Siying, was a rather slender girl during high school. In the words of the original novel, she was as thin as a paper doll, and her complexion was always pale and bloodless. It was only when she went to university and started working that she developed a rosy complexion and a slender yet beautiful figure.
Yang Shuyi usually controls her diet to maintain her figure, but in order to highlight the changes in her work and high school years and better fit the original character, she will have to lose some weight when filming the high school scenes.
From the later stages of filming in Shanghai, her agent, Sister Li, specially arranged for a restaurant to customize nutritious and low-fat meals to be delivered to Yang Shuyi. In addition, she also exercised every day to burn fat, and this was no exception when she came to Jiang City.
However, one can't always be very self-disciplined and restrained, especially during this weak and slightly painful period of the month. There's a strong urge to eat high-carb, high-fat foods, so Yang Shuyi figured she could just indulge herself this once in a while. She thought, "At worst, I'll just spend an extra half hour at the gym afterward."
Before going to her morning filming, she shared a Xiaohongshu post she had saved with Xiaoyun, telling her to place an order and have a delivery person buy it for her, and to remember to buy it early so that it wouldn't be sold out later.
Xiaoyun struggled with her decision, but after much persuasion, she finally gave in and obediently followed Sister Xiaoyi's advice, ordering takeout through a mobile app and having a delivery person run to the restaurant to buy the food for her.
She originally thought that Sister Xiaoyi would just order a meat dish and rice, but who knew that Sister Xiaoyi would let her order all the dishes on the restaurant's menu for the day, a total of four dishes and a soup! And every single one of them was high in oil and salt and fried.
Sigh...
After placing the order, she couldn't help but be curious and looked into the restaurant that Xiaoyi had asked her to order. She discovered that it was a popular restaurant in Jiang City, with a very good business and delicious food. Just by looking at how many netizens shared it on Xiaohongshu, she knew that these were not paid shills, but pure, natural fans who had no money to influence them.
Xiaoyun followed Gu's Private Kitchen's official account for a while, browsing the notes on the homepage, mainly looking at the food photos posted by netizens in the comments section. She was getting hungry just looking at them and was also looking forward to lunch.
Yang Shuyi shook her head: "No need to tell Sister Li, I promise I'll only eat a little bit to taste it, and I'll spend an extra half hour at the gym tonight, you can trust me!"
She turned to look at Xiaoyun and said with conviction, even making a vow gesture.
Oh my god, who could resist Sister Xiaoyi's soft and cute vow? At least Xiaoyun couldn't. She nodded hesitantly, "Okay, then I won't say it."
Yang Shuyi immediately beamed with joy: "That's fantastic! Just thinking about having such a delicious lunch later makes me feel so happy."
She stumbled upon this restaurant while browsing Xiaohongshu (a Chinese social media platform) using a secondary account.
Yang Shuyi has a little quirk. Because she has to control her weight and figure all year round, the food she eats is very nutritious but not very enjoyable. When she has nowhere to release her cravings and love for food, she has discovered a way to satisfy her cravings.
I usually browse food videos on Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) during my free time or before bed, including but not limited to food exploration vlogs, cooking tutorial vlogs, and travel and food vlogs.
Seeing the tempting dishes and how happily the blogger was eating, Yang Shuyi felt as if she herself was eating, which gave her a certain degree of mental satisfaction, and she suppressed her uncontrollable appetite once again.
She also saves some restaurants in her favorites, thinking that one day she might suddenly crave them and happen to be traveling through the city for work. Then she can find the city's featured restaurants in her Xiaohongshu collection and randomly choose one to satisfy her craving.
Gu's Private Kitchen is a restaurant that Yang Shuyi just added to her favorites last month, and it's also the restaurant she's visited the most times in her life.
It wasn't that the restaurant's post was particularly good; normally, she wouldn't even glance at a post that only included a fixed photo and the menu name.
After accidentally clicking on the link that day, Yang Shuyi was captivated by the various food photos posted in the comments section. She became engrossed in the content and then went through all the notes on the Gu Family Private Kitchen official account homepage just to see those tempting food photos in the comments section.
Compared to the food photos posted by the restaurant's official account, which seem to have been heavily filtered and edited to achieve a dreamlike effect, Yang Shuyi prefers the food photos shared by netizens in the comments section of Gu's Private Kitchen's official account notes. They look like they were taken casually with the original camera, making them authentic and reliable.
The food, which even customers could photograph so temptingly, whetted Yang Shuyi's appetite on countless late nights, and made her barely resist eating whatever she wanted on many nights when she wanted to indulge.
After all, if you're going to eat, you should eat the best. Only dishes like those from Gu's Private Kitchen are truly satisfying. Eating random carbohydrates and fried foods will only make you fat and won't bring you any enjoyment. You'll put in the effort and end up regretting it later.
Ever since she heard that the film crew would be shooting in Jiang City, Yang Shuyi had been looking forward to it. She ate as many low-fat meals as she could, no matter how bland or tasteless they were, because she could eat well in Jiang City.
Now that things have settled down a bit in Jiang City, Yang Shuyi is back to her usual acting style. Plus, she got her period today, so she decided to treat herself. Before filming her scenes, she asked Xiaoyun to place an order and have a delivery person run over to Gu's Private Kitchen to buy groceries and have them delivered.
She knew very well that Gu's Private Kitchen was very popular, and if you went a little late, you would have to take a number and wait in line at the door. If you went too late, the restaurant might run out of ingredients and stop serving customers.
Another issue is that Gu's Private Kitchen doesn't offer online delivery, so if you can't dine in, you'll have to ask a delivery person to buy the food for you.
Yang Shuyi was busy filming and didn't have time to eat at the restaurant. She heard that Gu's Private Kitchen didn't have private rooms and wasn't suitable to eat there, so she simply asked a delivery person to buy it for her.
After she had recovered a little from leaning back in the recliner, she told Xiaoyun to pack her things and go back to the hotel first.
After resting at the hotel for a short while, Xiaoyun received a call from a shop assistant saying that her takeout had arrived and she should go downstairs to pick it up.
Yang Shuyi leaned back on the sofa, finished the last bit of brown sugar ginger water in her thermos, washed the thermos, turned it upside down to dry, went to the toilet to wash her hands, and came out feeling relaxed, waiting to enjoy the long-awaited food.
After waiting a while, Xiaoyun returned with the takeout and placed it on the desk in the hotel room, which was also the table where they usually ate. She opened the takeout bag, took out boxes of meat and vegetables, and put them on the table: "Sister, wait a moment, I'll go wash my hands before I open it."
Yang Shuyi agreed, looking at the four dishes and one soup laid out on the table. Through the transparent takeout box lid, she could see the tempting meat and vegetables inside, making her even more hungry.
She reluctantly shifted her attention to the takeout bag, which had also been praised by many netizens on Xiaohongshu for its beauty. The pea green color looked very summery and pleasing to the eye, and the five characters "Gu's Private Kitchen" were also designed with great aesthetics.
Then there's that painting. It looks so much like the storefront of Gu's Private Kitchen that she saw online. The cartoon characters are sitting in the restaurant, eating heartily. The colorful dishes on the table look very tempting. You can also vaguely see a busy figure in the kitchen behind the dining area. It is said that this is the owner of Gu's Private Kitchen.
Yang Shuyi decided that she would keep the takeout bag. Regardless of what it contained, it was quite pleasing to the eye just to have it there, and it was also a way to commemorate the first time she had eaten Gu's private kitchen.
Seeing that Xiaoyun hadn't come out yet, probably because she went to the restroom, she couldn't wait and took it upon herself to open the lids of each box, revealing today's dishes.
While waiting for her takeout at the hotel, she opened Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) and read the menu notes posted today by the official account of Story Private Kitchen. Now she's sitting down to eat the dishes one by one.
Braised pork ribs with lychee and cinnamon, crispy duck with taro paste, pan-fried flounder, Chinese cabbage and loofah soup.
"Excuse me, Sister Xiaoyi, I just went to the restroom." Xiaoyun came out and explained when she saw that the meat and vegetables on the table had been opened.
She wasn't nervous at all; she just gave a casual explanation, and Sister Xiaoyi wouldn't hold it against her.
"It's alright, come and eat, I'm craving it." Yang Shuyi was already sitting at the table and taking apart the disposable tableware.
There was only one box of rice, which was obviously because Xiaoyun was worried that she would eat too many carbs, so the two of them shared the box of rice.
Fortunately, Yang Shuyi doesn't have high demands. It's already good enough that she can eat rice. She usually eats brown rice, buckwheat noodles, corn, and the like.
She used a disposable bowl provided by Gu's Private Kitchen. She put a quarter of a box of rice into the bowl, which was about half full. Yang Shuyi clearly noticed that Xiaoyun let out a soft sigh of relief.
She chuckled and shook her head: "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."
"Don't worry, I don't worry at all, sis, you're the most reliable!" Xiaoyun said immediately. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have only scooped out such a small amount of rice."
"It's good that you know," Yang Shuyi said reproachfully.
She picked up her chopsticks and first took a piece of pork ribs stewed with lychee and cinnamon to taste.
I've had sweet and sour pork with pineapple before, a dish made with fruit and meat. It's delicious, but unfortunately it's too high in calories, so I can only eat it once or twice a year.
When you put the neatly sliced, evenly coated pork ribs in your mouth, you'll taste a truly sweet and sour flavor.
The sauce is a bit thick and has a sweet lychee aroma. The pork ribs are very fragrant, tender and chewy but not tough, and they easily fall off the bone. After chewing a few times to savor the meaty flavor and the sweet, sour and salty taste, you can swallow it directly. It's so delicious!
Yang Shuyi felt that the deliciousness of this lychee stewed pork ribs was comparable to the sweet and sour pork with pineapple that she had thought about countless times before, or rather, it should be even more delicious.
She couldn't resist picking up another piece of pork rib and eating it.
The sauce coating the ribs is sweet and sour and appetizing, the meat is tender and juicy, and it has a rich meaty flavor with a hint of saltiness. It doesn't get stuck in your teeth, making for a great overall experience.
The sweet aroma of lychee lingered in the air. After swallowing the piece of pork rib, Yang Shuyi picked up a lychee and ate it.
Lychee is also sweet and sour, and it is also wrapped with the fresh aroma of meat. After taking a bite, you can feel the refreshing and chewy lychee flesh, and the juice that overflows is the original sweetness. The lychee fragrance gradually spreads in the mouth and blends with the sweet and sour taste of the sauce, creating a unique flavor.
The lychees had been pitted. After swallowing all the lychee flesh, Yang Shuyi couldn't help but praise, "This braised pork ribs with lychee and osmanthus flavor is really good. The pork ribs are meaty, and they taste sweet and sour without being tough. As for the lychees, the sweet and sour flavor mixed with their refreshing fragrance is quite nice, and the lychee flesh is also very delicious."
"It really is delicious. No wonder you've been thinking about it so much, Sister Xiaoyi. I've seen a lot of people online who love it and praise the food. They have new dishes every day," Xiaoyun said.
She followed Xiaoyi's chopsticks closely and was the first to try the lychee stewed pork ribs. The pork ribs were sweet and sour and very flavorful, and the lychees were also very sweet.
It tasted great while eating, and I couldn't help but savor the aftertaste after swallowing. Before my brain could even process it, my chopsticks reached out and picked up another piece of pork rib.
Yang Shuyi ate another piece of pork rib and felt she had gone a bit too far. Savoring the sweet and sour meat flavor on her tongue, she reluctantly changed the direction of her outstretched chopsticks and started to try a similarly novel dish: taro paste crispy duck.
This taro and crispy duck dish must have been made by frying a whole piece of duck meat and then cutting it into small pieces before putting it inside. It looks very tempting with its golden and crispy appearance, and it's hard to tell at first glance whether the outer skin is duck meat or taro paste.
She picked up a piece and took a closer look at the cross-section of the taro paste crispy duck. It turned out that the skin was made of taro paste and the filling was crispy duck.
The aroma of taro paste and duck meat already wafted through the air. Yang Shuyi took a bite, and under the crispy outer skin was the smooth and delicate texture of taro paste. The taro paste had a strong, sweet and fragrant aroma, and the duck meat in the middle was also very tender and savory. The combination of the two flavors was quite delicious.
This dish was undoubtedly crispy and fragrant. After taking another bite and slowly savoring it, she discovered that not only was the outer skin of the taro paste crispy, but the skin of the duck meat inside was also crispy, while the duck meat was tender yet chewy. It must have been that the duck meat was fried in advance before being wrapped in the taro paste.
Moreover, the duck meat is savory and flavorful, probably marinated with a lot of spices. It is oily but not greasy, and also has the sweet aroma of taro paste.
After finishing a piece of taro paste crispy duck, Yang Shuyi picked up another piece and started eating.
The shopkeeper cut the meat into bite-sized pieces, so you could open your mouth slightly and eat it all at once to fully enjoy the aroma of the taro paste and duck meat blending together. She, on the other hand, ate it more subtly, taking two bites to savor each one slowly.
After finishing the meal, Yang Shuyi restrained herself and didn't reach for the taro paste and crispy duck, since there were still three dishes to come.
Xiaoyun had just tasted the taro paste crispy duck and was completely won over by this sweet and savory meat dish. She kept chewing, savoring the sweet aroma of the taro paste and the savory aroma of the duck meat before swallowing.
The crispy texture is addictive; if you don't use a bowl to catch it while eating, crumbs will definitely fall all over the table.
She doesn't need to control her weight or manage her figure; when she encounters delicious meat dishes, she just eats to her heart's content.
After eating three pieces of taro and crispy duck in a row, Xiaoyun exclaimed, her mouth still full of the aroma of taro and duck meat, "This restaurant is really amazing! The braised pork ribs with lychee and osmanthus were delicious, but I didn't expect this taro and crispy duck to be so delicious!"
Restaurants always have signature dishes. It's not difficult to make one or two dishes well, but it's difficult to make every dish taste delicious.
According to her understanding, Gu's Private Kitchen updates its menu every day, and no dishes have been repeated since it opened.
Moreover, Xiaoyun could taste that the deliciousness of these two dishes was not only due to the chef's skill, but also to the freshness and high quality of the ingredients, which made her feel at ease eating them.
Yang Shuyi smiled with a touch of pride, "Of course, how could the food at the restaurant I chose be bad?"
She said, "This pan-fried sole is also quite delicious, especially tender."
Yang Shuyi just picked up a whole sole and put it in her bowl. To be honest, she had never eaten this kind of fish before. It looked about the length of a palm and the thickness of two fingers. After being pan-fried, it was golden and orange, and it looked quite crispy and fragrant.
She used chopsticks to remove the fish head and placed it on the lid of an empty takeout box that already contained bones. Faced with the choice between poking at the fish meat and picking it up with chopsticks or simply picking up the whole fish and biting into it, she chose the latter.
Pick up the headless sole with chopsticks, bring it close to your mouth and take a bite. You can immediately bite into the fish meat on both sides of the fish bones. The outer skin is crispy and slightly crunchy, and you can taste the freshness of the fish meat, as well as the salty flavor.
When Yang Shuyi first started eating, she didn't dare to bite too fast, afraid that there might be small fish bones hidden in the fish meat that she might accidentally choke on. Only after she finished biting the fish meat and swallowed it did she realize that there didn't seem to be any small fish bones.
She then ate another bite of fish, chewing and savoring its fresh, tender, and salty flavor. She didn't find any trace of the small fish bone until she swallowed it.
Yang Shuyi understood that this arapaima should be the kind of fish with few bones, mainly consisting of the large bone in the middle of the fish's body.
She ate with peace of mind, chewing more freely than before. The fish was tender, fresh, and flavorful, with just the right amount of saltiness that didn't overpower the fish's natural taste.
If Yang Shuyi hadn't already finished half a bowl of rice with the braised pork ribs with lychee and the crispy duck with taro paste, and hadn't broken her rule to scoop out more rice, even though Xiaoyun also scooped rice into her bowl, it would have been very delicious if she had mixed a mouthful of white rice with the fish and meat she had almost chewed in her mouth and swallowed it together!
She was eating pan-fried sole by herself, completely immersed in the fresh and savory flavor of the fish. The skin was crispy and slightly charred, making it crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. She couldn't stop eating it, one bite after another.
Sometimes, when she ate too quickly, she couldn't bite the fish meat off the bones and ended up biting the bones into her mouth as well. On a whim, Yang Shuyi decided to bite the fish meat and bones together.
The fish bones were probably cartilage, because they were somewhat crispy from frying. They were easy to chew and mixed into the fish meat, making them easy to swallow without any discomfort.
Yang Shuyi was pleased with herself for discovering this trick, and then she ate the pan-fried sole with even more abandon, biting and eating as she pleased, and it was all very delicious!
After telling Xiaoyun how delicious the pan-fried sole was, she looked at the takeout box and saw that there were at least six fish, including the one she had just eaten. So she picked up another sole with her chopsticks and put it in her bowl to continue eating.
Xiaoyun enjoyed the delicious food, but also kept an eye on what and how much Xiaoyi ate.
I didn't say anything when I saw her eating the braised pork ribs with lychee and the crispy duck with taro paste in moderation. But now that I see her finish a whole fish and then pick up another one, I can't help but open my mouth to persuade her, but I swallow my words back.
Well, it's rare for Xiaoyi to eat this, and she promised to go to the gym for an extra half hour tonight. Besides, sockeye fish is a high-protein food, although pan-fried sockeye fish is slightly higher in calories. Eating one more shouldn't be a problem.
She smiled and agreed, "Okay, let me try and see just how delicious this fish is."
Xiaoyun also picked up a pan-fried sole and ate it. Following Xiaoyi's example, she first removed the head, then picked up the whole fish and bit into it. The skin was crispy and fragrant, the flesh was tender and flavorful, with a perfect balance of saltiness and savory, and absolutely no fishy taste. It was incredibly delicious!
She began to understand why Sister Xiaoyi wanted to eat another fish after eating a whole one. No one could resist the temptation of pan-fried sole after tasting it!
While Xiaoyun was engrossed in eating fish, Yang Shuyi had already reached for the only green vegetable on the table—Jade Pillow Cabbage.
She only realized after eating it that it could actually be considered a meat dish, with a rather rich filling.
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