Chapter 163: Free Publicity
Translator: Xiong Guoqi Editor: DesTheSloth
Not knowing how impatient Head Chef Bai was, Yuan Zhou woke up early as usual and prepared the food for breakfast. It was naturally the Baked Egg Cakes, which could be provided up to 200 pieces every day. For one egg mixed with flour, 5 cakes could be cooked. Such proportion was perfect to provide the best taste.
The first customer Yuan Zhou met in the early morning was the staff of the take-out partner Xiao Wen rather than a real customer.
"You are Boss Yuan, aren’t you?" Xiao Wen ran into the restaurant with quick steps, even ahead of Mu Xiaoyun.
"Yes, I am," Yuan Zhou nodded.
"Good. Yesterday you pasted a notice on the door saying to look for take-out partners. We happen to be in this business. Can we have a talk?" Looking at the people in a long line behind, Xiao Wen said with an embarrassed manner.
"No need. I refuse," Yuan Zhou refused flatly.
"If it’s the timing problem, I can wait until you are free and talk to you later," Xiao Wen was rather persistent.
"I’m sorry. The business hours are going to start now. What do you like to eat?" Yuan Zhou asked politely.
"Boss Yuan, what do you think of my proposal?" Xiao Wen really didn’t understand.
"I’m sorry, but I don’t need it, thus I refuse. Business hours have arrived," after finish speaking, Yuan Zhou said no more and just waited for Mu Xiaoyun to report him the dishes that were ordered.
"But the notice that you pasted yesterday...?" She was interrupted by the customers waiting to order dishes even before she finished talking.
The morning time was always quite tense. When they discovered Xiao Wen didn’t intend to eat, the customers behind her immediately pushed her out of the line. After all, Yuan Zhou’s restaurant was only 30 square meters or so.
"This boss is really odd," Xiao Wen complained at the door of the restaurant angrily.
However, it didn’t really affect those customers and breakfast time still finished on time. The 200 Baked Egg Cakes, naturally, were sold out. After all, he ate 4 cakes and there were only 196 left for the customers.
When breakfast time had barely finished, the phone in Yuan Zhou’s pants pocket rang. He wiped his hands dry and answered the phone. He had thought it from any take-out partners, but the voice that came from the other end told him it was not.
"Bro, just wait for me to send you a great gift," at the other end of the phone, Sun Ming said that from nowhere.
"What do you mean?" Yuan Zhou asked back directly.
"Haha, you’ll know it then," after that, Sun Ming hung off the phone bluntly.
"This guy is always doing inexplicable things." Yuan Zhou held the phone and watched the screen for a while before putting it back into his pocket.
Then he began to clear up the kitchen. Although the system would clean the restaurant automatically, it was the obligation of the chef to keep the kitchen clean, except washing bowls of course.
Sun Ming started to rub his hands together as if he were going to do something big.
The matter that made Sun Ming quite excited was, nevertheless, very simple. In their foodie forum, somebody privately organized an activity, to display one’s own list of cuisines.
This was to recommend indirectly the places where they believed there were tasty dishes. This forum was originally set up for foodies, which could be easily judged from its name "Danshi Forum".
Sun Ming would occasionally wander around in the forum when he was free. For the past half month, however, he had been busy with purchasing goods and checking the stock count, hence didn’t touch the computer at all. Once he had time to log in to the forum and check the latest information, he obviously saw the notifications at the top.
When Sun Ming tapped open the notification and saw the content, it was already fairly late. This was because the first place was about to be decided.
The first place appeared to well deserve the rank. The candidate listed details of several restaurants where he had breakfast, what he ate and the location of the restaurants, as well as the reasons why they were unknown to others.
The lunch was described complexly and sincerely. There were detailed introductions of all restaurants that he had gone to and each dish he had eaten. So was the dinner.
The candidate was apparently good at writing. The description of the cuisines increased people’s appetite as soon as they read it. After checking, Sun Ming discovered that the post had been released five days ago. While scrolling the page downward, he found somebody replied that he had already gone there to taste the dishes and they were truly quite nice.
The comments below were all about compliments, which, nevertheless, left Sun Ming unconvinced.
"Even such simple descriptions could get you first place? No, no. The first place has to be mine," Sun Ming didn’t feel good with that.
Then he began to carefully study those restaurants.
"I have been to these few restaurants before. Although the taste is not bad, it’s not as good as described in the post. What the f*ck is the so-called humane taste? As long as it’s cooked by a man, the dish would obviously have humane taste. What’s more, is humane taste even edible?" Sun Ming muttered disdainfully.
The restaurant that was described as having humane taste left an extremely bad impression on Sun Ming. Of course, he had decent reasons.
Originally, Sun Ming was a senior foodie, who often looked for delicacies throughout alleyways. He heard from others that the Hand-Pulled Noodles cooked in this restaurant was extraordinarily yummy and the master was from JinCheng. It was said that the chef had learned in a century-old restaurant over there and hence had a genuine craftsmanship.
For the sake of his reputation, he would surely go for a taste. Therefore, he dragged Monkey and went there in company.
"Sun, are you sure it’s over here?" Monkey didn’t like walking. In just a little while, he asked.
"Yes, trust me," Sun Ming said affirmatively.
"We have already entered the residential quarters. Didn’t they say it’s located outside?" Monkey asked curiously.
"Such residential quarters have paths going inside and outside. Why can’t we just go inside and have a look?" Sun Ming surely wouldn’t admit that he came into the residential area by mistake. Instead, he appeared to be quite familiar with this place.
"Alright," Monkey then said no more and kept walking with Sun Ming in company.
Coincidently, although the restaurant was opened outside the residential quarters, its kitchen was nevertheless located at the very back of the restaurant and the back door led to the inside of the residential quarters. It was already 2:00 in the afternoon when they arrived. The back door of the kitchen happened to be open and a man dressed in chef uniform and with a hat worn obliquely was sitting at the door.
There were few people in the residential quarters; therefore, his actions were rather ungraceful. With the slippers on the ground, he crossed his legs barefooted and occasionally scratched the foot with his hands. The disgusting actions directly made Sun Ming and Monkey throw up.
Before they got time to make some comments, there passed a voice from the main hall of the restaurant, "A bowl of Second-Thinnest Hand-Pulled Noodles."
"Coming," the man stood up rapidly and walked to the kneading board before taking up the dough and starting to knead the dough with his hands without even washing them. The two of them instantly got astounded by the scene.
"This is the delicious hand-pulled noodles that you heard?" Monkey stared blankly at the restaurant in front of them and asked.
"No. I was cheated by others," Sun Ming answered without any hesitation.
"Don’t talk about any noodles with me for the following month," Monkey felt it that this was a bowl of hand-pulled noodles with an interesting taste.
There were simply no other noodles that had better taste than that.
Afterward, they left decisively and turned to eat Old Lee’s Roast Duck to ease up their astonished mood.
That candidate also mentioned another snack of Baked Egg Cakes that was said to be the most authentic in Chengdu district. Sun Ming had already known that Yuan Zhou also served it. Although he hadn’t tasted that yet, how was it possible that anyone could cook better than Yuan Zhou?
The next moment, he rolled up his sleeves and started to write his post.
First, he compiled a post with the subject One-Day Stay in Yuan Zhou’s Restaurant, in which he recorded in detail, the various edibles in Yuan Zhou’s restaurant and how to wittily eat more delicacies. Of course, the special rules in Yuan Zhou’s restaurant were nevertheless indispensable.
This was the one that truly ought to be in first place.
As Sun Ming discovered this competition much too late, it wasn’t beneficial for others to vote now. Suddenly, an inspiration occurred to him. He directly sent the link of his post into the foodie group of Wechat and strenuously called his foodie friends to vote for it.
"Bro, I can only help you to such extent," with a solemn expression, Sun Ming said to the computer.
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