Chapter 61 A Very Expensive Meal
The squabs are served by the piece, a quarter of a squab is sold for 108.
In the white flat porcelain plate, a piece of pigeon is placed in the middle, with two arcs drawn on both sides with sour plum sauce and pepper salt. Three green beans are placed on each arc as decoration, and a piece of green celery leaf is placed on the pigeon.
Just two years of study? Yue Ning separated the celery leaves with a little disdain, put them in the bone dish, and dipped the tip of his chopsticks in the sour plum juice. The sour plum juice was bottled in the market, and the pepper and salt powder were the same.
Yue Ning picked up the small piece of pigeon and pulled it apart. Juice came out. She lowered her head and took a bite. The skin was crispy, the meat was tender and the juice was rich. It was cooked very well. This was the seasoning of Baohualou.
The roast meat is of the same origin, but each family has different recipes. You can still tell the difference from the taste. A crispy pigeon costs 10 yuan at Baohualou, but a quarter of a pigeon here costs 108 yuan.
Yue Ning looked at the people in the hall and suddenly felt that the Hong Kong dollar had grown legs and was running towards her.
"My grandfather's seasoning." Yue Ning said to Cui Huiyi.
"Yes. It was made by a roast meat chef from Huihuang."
The second dish was the bamboo fungus pigeon soup, which was also served in order. The soup pot was opened, and inside were white, green, pink and purple meatballs, a piece of bamboo fungus and a translucent pigeon egg.
Bamboo fungus has its own fragrance. Yue Ning picked up the soup spoon and scooped a mouthful of soup. The soup was pigeon and ham soup, but it was mixed with the flavor of spinach and cabbage. This taste was wrong. She scooped up a green meatball and took a bite. The pigeon meatballs were made by beating the pigeon meat into fine paste, adding egg white and spinach juice. They were supposed to be delicate and tender. In order to prevent the green color of the spinach from turning yellow-green due to cooking, they added baking soda. The taste jumped back and forth, complex and not integrated.
It doesn't mean that other ingredients cannot be added to pigeon soup. Yue Ning uses a lot of Chinese medicinal materials when stewing pigeon soup herself. For example, for ladies with cold hands and feet, she can use the double red vitality pigeon soup with red ginseng, red dates, astragalus and other medicinal materials. If children are sweating, she can use prince ginseng, figs and candied dates.
The Qiao family is so wealthy that they would not waste food, let alone Yue Ning who grew up in the northwest. Yue Ning told himself not to waste it and to finish it.
These spinach balls, these purple cabbage balls! It's really hard to choose. These original pigeon meatballs are better, bamboo fungus and pigeon eggs are OK, she ate all of them, and the soup is left, so it's not a waste, right?
This practice of putting the cart before the horse was common in high-end restaurants in the previous life. Whether it was Japanese or Chinese food, gold foil was used to decorate it. Usually, everyone is afraid of excessive heavy metals, and they pay attention to the ingredients being from exclusive farms and being organic. So gold is not considered a heavy metal? It seems that once it is eaten, the stomach can digest it. The problem is that this thing does not play any role in improving the taste.
Purely for the sake of appearance and color, he ignored the taste and function of the ingredients. It is obvious that it is not unfair for Lu Jinyong to lose to Uncle Rong.
Cui Huiyi whispered, "We said that if you sell carrots for 180 yuan at the meeting, you will definitely be able to sell them well."
"Yeah!" Yue Ning was full of confidence now.
When the abalone came up, the waiter said, "This is the abalone made by the Hirata family. Please enjoy it slowly."
This is a nine-headed Japanese abalone. Although Japanese abalone is not big in size, its taste is recognized as the best in the world.
In the middle of the plate is an abalone topped with abalone sauce, with two green asparagus and a roll of rice wrapped in rice dumplings on the side.
Compared to a serving of fried rice that costs 188 yuan, a nine-head abalone of the same price is really not expensive. Maybe the mainland was still poor at that time, and there were not a bunch of wealthy people, big and small, who were chasing these ingredients to the sky.
Yue Ning cut it with a knife and it felt a little sticky, which was not bad. Whether the abalone can be made soft or not depends on the quality of the dried abalone itself, and the subsequent soaking and stewing are also important.
Yue Ning cut a small piece and put it in her mouth. It was chewy and sticky, like rice cake. It was well stewed and had a sweet aroma. She unwrapped the rice and mixed it with the abalone sauce. She carefully tasted the rice with abalone sauce. What about the minor flaw? It was that the oyster sauce was not homemade. Of course, ordinary gourmets could not taste this.
"Very good." Yue Ning felt it was outrageous that he could get such good value for money in such a place.
The next dish was stir-fried bird's nest and snow crab legs with Iberian ham. When Yue Ning read the menu, he felt that this dish was abstract. When the dish was served, he still felt a little confused. Whatever! He scooped up the mixture of bird's nest, snow crab meat, stir-fried egg white and ham shreds with a spoon and stuffed it into his mouth.
The bird's nest was made salty, and was simmered in chicken soup after being soaked. The fried egg white was also added with milk. The snow crab legs were very fresh and sweet. Are there ham shreds? Yue Ning really wanted to suggest that they remove the bird's nest and change the ham into slices. For the rice with abalone just now, just stir-fry the snow crab and egg whites. Wouldn't it be good?
Of course, this is other people’s business, what does it have to do with you?
The shrimp ball dish came up. The previous dish used egg white, so the egg yolk was used here? The egg was good, the yolk was orange-red, very beautiful, the raw egg yolk was mixed with shrimp oil boiled from the shrimp head, and then seasonings were added to make the sauce. Then the meat of a whole nine-segment shrimp was put into this sauce, with a little salmon roe on top, orange and white impact. Yue Ning just wanted to say, can we be simple, two dishes combined into one, shrimp and snow crab legs scrambled eggs?
The rice used in the dish, which is said to be the most expensive fried rice in Hong Kong, is wrong. Yue Ning wondered if Akita Komachi in Japan had already been mass-produced at that time? This rice has a bit of the flavor of Akita Komachi, fragrant, soft and sweet. White rice is delicious when eaten alone, but it is not suitable for fried rice. It is soft no matter how you cook it. They used overnight rice, but it was still soft, and the fragrance of this rice was less.
She comforted herself that she should be happy! She was more popular than Chef Lu, her cooking skills were better than his, and even the plating that he was proud of was better than his.
The bill was just too expensive, and I felt it wasn't worth it. Apart from the abalone, the rest wasn't even good enough to show off. Adhering to the principle of not wasting, Yue Ning ate the last bite of the meal.
After eating, Yue Ning told Cui Huiyi that she would take her to the department store first because she wanted to pick out a backpack for Yang Zhijie.
After taking her information, Yang Zhijie answered her questions when he had time.
After he tutored her last time, Yue Ning told him that he should charge her hourly according to the price of other tutoring classes. Yang Zhijie refused to accept it.
He said that during the stock market crash in 1973, his father borrowed money to invest in stocks and lost everything, including the house. His father jumped from the building, leaving him and his mother to be cornered by creditors.
It was Yue Baohua who borrowed money from his mother, and it was the neighbors who borrowed his house to live in.
With so much debt, they thought they would never be able to pay it off. But Yue Baohua had a client who wanted to be the agent for a European drug. Before Lan got married, she worked as a pharmacist in a pharmacy. Yue Baohua introduced Lan to work in the client's company.
God knows, Sister Lan is a good talker and hardworking. She went to one hospital and one pharmacy after another and actually became the sales champion of that company. She paid back the money in the past few years and was able to support Yang Zhijie's studies. She also wanted to buy him a house next.
Yang Zhijie said that they and their son are where they are today thanks to the help of Yue Baohua and the neighbors. He feels very happy that he could help her, even if it is just a little bit.
Yue Ning knew that he was grateful, so she didn't need to give him money. She also thought about it for a long time. Between a man and a woman of similar age, what gift would not cause misunderstanding? After thinking about it, she saw that the corners of his schoolbag were worn out, so she gave him a schoolbag. He still had a few years of school to go.
After talking to Cui Huiyi, the two stood up and just as they left their seats, the waiter who served them came over and said, "Ms. Yue, Ms. Cui, are you satisfied with our dishes?"
It turns out there is a satisfaction survey. Yue Ning didn't want to belittle her peers: "It's pretty good."
This answer did not seem to satisfy the waiter, so he asked again: "Is there anything else that needs to be improved in terms of taste, service, and environment?"
Yue Ning now began to think carefully, maybe the other person was not just going through the motions, but was asking sincerely.
Yue Ning looked at the diners around her, some of whom were even looking at her.
So she gave some advice? She said: "Personal advice! The Iberian ham fried bird's nest and snow crab legs, the bird's nest is a bit similar to egg white when it is not seasoned. Putting the two together, it actually cannot highlight the layering of the ingredients, and it is a waste of the bird's nest. The abalone is delicious, the asparagus is green, and the rice is wrapped in green leaves. If the Iberian ham slices are paired with the rice and used on the abalone, it will be more suitable. The pigeon soup has a mixture of spinach and cabbage flavors, especially baking soda. Don't pursue color and shape..."
"What do you know?" an angry voice came out.
Yue Ning turned around and saw Chef Lu right behind her.
"Chef Lu, hello!" Yue Ning smiled, "I had no objection at first. I wanted to leave after eating. It was your waiter who asked me! I also said it was a personal suggestion. Do you want to eat? Taste is the first priority. On the premise of ensuring taste, it would be meaningless to pursue more exquisite plating without paying attention to the main point."
Lu Jinyong seemed to be trying hard to control his temper: "You mean, I am losing sight of the main point?"
"Yes." Yue Ning was very sincere. "My father said that if the color, aroma, taste and shape are good, then he is a good chef. If the dishes can attract people with the aroma, then he is an excellent chef. If the color, aroma and taste are all good, then he is a great chef. If the color, aroma, taste and shape are all good, then he is a master with cultural background. So when you gave me advice, you meant the same thing, and I resonate with it. I came here to eat today with the mentality of learning, but I found that you were a little off. You are a senior in the industry. I didn't want to say more, but your waiter asked me to give you advice, so I said it."
Yue Ning reiterated that it was they who gave the opinions.
"Chef Lu, we were about to leave, but you, the waiter, came to ask. Ningning has also repeatedly explained that it is just her personal opinion. If I tell you the truth, why are you still angry?" Cui Huiyi helped Yue Ning.
Lu Jinyong has always been active as a chef on TV and radio, which is better than advertising. Their restaurant is high-end, and the food is about style, which is now deeply rooted in people's hearts. He just took a fancy to Yue Ning's popularity and Yue Baohua's taste. He also selected the dishes he asked her to order today, and showed her the exquisite presentation of the dishes, so that she could know what she is still lacking and come to him to learn. He didn't necessarily want her to stay with him for two years, but when negotiating the conditions, he asked for a high price at the beginning and then lowered it slowly?
I didn't expect that she would leave after finishing her meal. If she had been given a chance to give her suggestions, if she had said a few good words to them, and said that they valued young people with ability and were willing to take her with them, wouldn't this matter be settled? Who would have thought that she would really find fault with their food.
There were so many people at the scene, and Lu Jinyong knew that if he lost his temper, it would damage his image, so he calmed down and said, "I'm sorry, I had a bad attitude just now."
"It's okay!" Yue Ning immediately smiled brightly, "Thank you for your kindness. I didn't respond to your kindness because, firstly, my grandfather is old and Baohualou can't do without me. Secondly, I haven't mastered Chinese plating yet, so I'm still focusing on what I'm learning now. You're learning the plating method from foreigners, and I personally think that Chinese food is more suitable for artistic Chinese plating."
Yue Ning's words stirred up the anger that Lu Jinyong had just suppressed. He asked, "So, I still need your advice?"
"In martial arts novels, peerless masters will even fight on Mount Huashan. What's more, for cooks like you and me who are still exploring, it is necessary to communicate and learn from each other. On Saturday, I will try my best to learn from you. If you have any suggestions, feel free to give them to me." Yue Ning looked at him with provocation in his eyes.
Lu Jinyong smiled: "Saturday? Okay, I'll wait."
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