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Takeout didn’t exist here. If you wanted to eat out, you had to go to a restaurant and order two or three dishes. If you were a high-roller with a lot of money and wealth, you could order a table with good wine and good food.
When eating at a restaurant, no matter how stingy you were, no matter how few dishes you ordered, it would still cost at least 50-100 wen. Ordinary people couldn’t afford this.
Lin Lixuan thought about selling takeout food. After all, no matter how delicious steamed buns were, it wasn’t as good as white rice. If Lin Lixuan didn’t eat white rice for a day, he definitely wouldn’t be able to stand it.
But he couldn’t guarantee that this idea would be popular in the county town, so he began to sell simple meals at the store.
One was glutinous rice. A bowl of glutinous rice cost six wen. If you were willing to add another wen, you could receive steamed beans and sauerkraut too. Add two wen, and you’ll get a sausage.
This way, ordering a piece of glutinous rice was only nine wen at most. It was way cheaper than eating at a restaurant, but just glutinous rice wouldn’t fill an adult man.
Although it wasn’t enough to eat, for workers who had other things to do, if they ordered this portion, then with steamed buns, it would be enough to fill your cravings. When steaming glutinous rice, they added a little sesame oil. There was oil in the rice grains. The snow-white glutinous rice was an attractive color. It tasted fragrant and glutinous. If they add sauerkraut or sausage, not to mention delicious, it could be regarded as a great snack.
Besides the glutinous rice, the other meal was rice omelet. The tender egg skin wrapped around the delicious fried rice. This gimmick was enough to attract a large number of people. The fried rice was fried by combining white rice, green beans, radish, bacon, and chicken. Then delicate seasonings such as onions, ginger, and garlic were added. The fried rice was bright in color and had an attractive aroma.
Ger Yan and Lin Lixuan created the glutinous rice and rice omelet after experimenting in the kitchen at home for several days. Although these meals were simple, the simpler the dish, the more important it was to pay attention to the small details. As long as something different was done, it would affect the taste of the dish.
Thanks to Ger Yan’s good cooking skills, he was able to take the best control of the heat and seasoning. In the case of ingredients and seasoning, he knew the best matches for them.
Although Lin Lixuan sold simple food, he still didn’t give up the pursuit of taste. Even if other people imitate them in the future, they might not be able to obtain such taste.
Lin Lixuan and Ger Yan looked at each other and smiled. They finally established the best method to cook glutinous rice and fried rice. Lin Lixuan wrote down the recipe with a brush.
He laughed, then hurriedly took a sup of herbal tea. After eating fried rice for seven to eight days, the corners of their tongues and mouth were starting to form. Now that they perfected the recipe, this matter had finally come to an end.
A normal meal was served on the dinner table. Zhao Liniang was so moved she was about to cry. “We can finally eat a normal meal. No matter how delicious that fried rice is, I still don’t want to eat it anymore.”
When Zhao Liniang ate rice omelet for the first time, she thought it was very novel. She’d never seen rice wrapped in egg skin before, but she’d never even eaten fried rice before. It was oily and flavorful. In the village, it was already good enough if you could eat white rice, but they even fried it. At that moment, her eyes had really opened.
It felt novel to eat on the first day. Ger Yan ate a lot of rice in order to practice. Everyone wanted to eat it for every meal all the time, but after two days, they couldn’t stand it anymore. No matter how delicious something was, they couldn’t stand eating it everyday.
Rice omelet cost 20 wen which was equivalent to the price of a dish at an ordinary restaurant. It was a reasonable price that was cost effective. As long as you paid 20 wen, you could get rice, vegetables, meat, and eggs. An adult would only need one person to satisfy themselves.
If they expanded their store, then they would have a shortage of manpower. Lin Lixuan wanted to hire someone like before, but he wasn’t satisfied even after several candidates. He went to the “talent market” and bought someone. Although buying and selling people wasn’t moral, it wasn’t like he was buying someone for anything bad or evil. He would just treat them as an ordinary worker. Thinking like this, Lin Lixuan was more at ease.
He used 12 taels of silver to buy the deed of sale. Lin Lixuan took the deed of sale. It was the second one he had. The other party was a 15-16 year old young man. He was thin and was probably a poor baby who was sold by his parents after a disaster in their village.
“What’s your name?” With a smile on his face, Lin Lixuan asked the young man in front of him who had shrunken back a little.
The young man wore shabby garments. He had thick eyebrows and lips that looked white, as if it had been washed by something. It was pale like his clothes.
“Huang Daniu,” the young man replied softly.
Lin Lixuan was amused by the name. The young man didn’t know why he was laughing, so he lowered his head in fear.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I’m not an evil boss. I brought you to help me manage my store. That’s all you have to do.”
“But I don’t know how to manage…” He was a good kid, but his voice was as thin as a mosquito.
“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. I won’t beat you or scold you. You’ll have food and meat to eat. I won’t let you starve.”
Huang Daniu came from the north. Although he was called Daniu, he was actually a thin and tall young man1. Every time this man’s name was mentioned, Lin Lixuan couldn’t help but laugh.
Daniu originally lived in a small village in the north, but last year, there was a flood. The entire village was swept away by the flood. The flood was ruthless, and his relatives didn’t know where he was pushed off to. He himself had lived on the streets. In order to eat, he voluntarily sold enough and followed the broker to All Water County.
Although he sold himself voluntarily, Huang Daniu was very afraid of being bought by someone. He felt that it was enough to follow the broker and have something to eat. He knew that he would be sold one day and didn’t know which family’s servant he’d become.
Fortunately, the master who bought him didn’t seem like a vicious person.
There would be food and meat to eat…
Hearing this, Huang Daniu’s saliva couldn’t stop flowing. Thinking to himself, even if his master beat and scolded him every day, as long as he could eat a full meal, he was willing.
Lin Lixuan wouldn’t beat him. He brought him a few coarse cloth clothes and let him take care of his appearance. He would learn how to manage the store, as well as learn how to make steamed buns and Mandarin rolls. At the same time, he’d learn how to make rice omelet.
Once he was used to this work, he would leave the matters to this person who’d never eaten a full meal before. “Boss Lin, you’re really a good person. I’m willing to work like a horse for you for the rest of my life.”
“Thank you. You don’t need to work like a horse. You just need to help me manage this shop.”
Lin Lixuan had a good eye for people. This Huang Daniu not only had a simple name, he was also a simple person. He would have the strength to work after he ate. He rushed to work at the store, working hard to learn how to eat. Even if he was only given leftovers, he would never deliberately make a mistake and eat more than he was allowed.
Lin Lixuan added a stove and frying pan that was specially made by a blacksmith shop. He asked Ger Yan to come over and train Huang Daniu. Huang Daniu wasn’t very bright, but he was patient and could endure hardships. After a few days, he had mastered the skill of making fried rice and rice omelet.
In mid-April, Lin’s Restaurant launched these two new foods. Lin’s Restaurant’s original target group was the group of county town workers who were used to coming to their store to buy steamed buns and Mandarin rolls. As expected, they were attracted here, and at the same time ordinary residents of All Water County, who were used to coming to their store to buy tofu and vermicelli and dried food tofu, also heard about the new food. They also tried it since they were too lazy and didn’t want to cook.
“In the future, if my wife isn’t here, I’ll have a meal at your store. It’ll save me more money than eating at a restaurant and prevent my wife from yelling at me.”
“Boss, can you give me another sausage? I’m a frequent customer.”
What made Lin Lixuan relieved was that there was a set customer base in All Water County. The people that were attracted were not only workers but also some managers from other stores, for example the stall that sold cigarettes, sold general items, and the shop that sold utensils. They didn’t have time to go home for lunch and would eat at their store instead.
Other than this, Lin Lixuan had also gotten acquainted with some homebody men in All Water County. These were men who stayed at home all day and had no family to take care of. There have been these kinds of people since ancient times.
They didn’t know how to cook, and the dishes they made didn’t taste good. They didn’t have the money to eat at a tavern everyday either.
But this was delicious and they could afford to eat it.
Lin Lixuan suddenly realized: …It turned out there were so many hidden customer bases…
I heard Auntie Niu from next door say there were cheap meals here, so I came to take a look.” A young man in a long shirt ordered a rice omelet and sat at a table on the second floor.
A man beside him replied, “I heard from a general store owner. He had also eaten here and was full of praise.”
The rice omelet was served. First of all, the egg fragrance stirred up the man’s appetite. The egg skin was tender and smooth. The fried rice was even more fragrant. Not only was there green beans and radish, there was also meat, and it was only 20 wen. After eating, his mouth was full of fragrance. The corners of his lips were shiny and the man had to sigh. “It’s so delicious!”
“It’s so delicious, but it’s a pity this place is far from me, so I can’t come to eat everyday.”
“It would be nice if it could be delivered to my door.”
You even want it sent to your door? Do you want the food to be directly sent into your mouth too…?
Lin Lixuan: “…” He listened as these people chatted and considered the possibility of opening a takeaway service. This thought had just popped into his mind. It wasn’t reliable and couldn’t be implemented yet.
There were no such things as small electric donkeys or fast food boxes. These homebodies could only complain to god that they weren’t born in the era of takeaway.
- Haung Daniu is another way of saying big ox. Huang is also a surname, and Daniu is big cow. LLX is laughing because this name is a bit crude and you would image someone who was big and stocky to have this name, but someone who was thin and tall. ↩︎
