Return To 1998

one afternoon.

The van slowly parked on the roadside parking space in front of Dowling Grill.

The doors of the cab and passenger seat opened one after another, and Ge Lianghua and Xu Tongdao got out of the car.

The two walked into the store one after the other.

Xu Tonglin, Xi Dongyang, and others were walking through the hall. They heard footsteps. They looked over and saw that it was Xu Tongdao and Ge Lianghua.

All smiling.

Xu Tonglin got up, took some rolls of paper from the tissue box on the table, and wiped his hands, Come on? I'll pour tea for you!

Tongdao Xu smiled and did not refuse.

He and Ge Lianghua have been here a lot recently, about once every two days on average.

Every time they came, Xu Tonglin was always the first to get up to pour tea.

The weather in September is very hot, and the air conditioning of the van they drive is not as good as the electric fan, so he is really thirsty.

He didn't say a word, looked at the kitchen with Ge Lianghua behind him, and asked, Where's Chef Li? Are you still busy in the kitchen?

The chef Li in his mouth was Li Xiaoshan, the head chef dug from Wudu by Tongdao Xu.

For more than a month, Li Xiaoshan has been researching recipes for hot pot bases, dipping sauces, chili oil, etc. The last time they came, Li Xiaoshan said that the research was almost done.

They said yes that day - when they come back today, Li Xiaoshan will officially make a hot pot for them to taste.

A very formal tasting.

Although before, every time they came, they could often try the hot pot base, or dipping sauce, or the taste of chili oil newly developed by Li Xiaoshan.

But each taste before, is separate.

For example, taste the taste of the newly researched hot pot base alone.

Or a newly developed dip.

Or chili oil.

Combining several of them together, what is the taste of the official hot pot made? Ge Lianghua didn't try it, and Xu Tongdao didn't try it either.

Well, early this morning, he personally went to the vegetable market to pick out pork leg bones, beef leg bones, chicken bones, and fresh big crucian carp and other things.

It is said that they are all used for hanging broth, and it seems that they are preparing some dipping sauces in the kitchen at this time...

Xi Dongyang, who was still wearing strings in his hands, answered Ge Lianghua unhurriedly.

When he said these words, Xu Tongdao walked into the kitchen with some anticipation.

Li Xiaoshan, who was thin and wore a white chef's uniform and a black cloth apron around his waist, was cutting garlic on the chopping board at this time.

Li Xiaoshan patiently sliced ​​the garlic, which was not much bigger than a peanut, and when he heard the footsteps, he turned to look at Xu Tongdao.

He gave a smile, nodded, said hello, then looked away and continued to cut the garlic under his hands.

Tongdao Xu watched with a smile.

A piece of garlic was cut into fingernail-thick slices by Li Xiaoshan, cut into small piles, closed with the knife edge, and patiently cut these slices into shreds.

This time the cuts were a bit rough.

But this is also normal. If it can be cut into filaments of uniform size, it will be abnormal.

After shredding and slicing, his knife skills became frantic. After a while of horizontal chopping, vertical chopping, and oblique chopping, he chopped the small pile of shredded garlic on the chopping board into minced garlic.

Tongdao Xu, who was standing beside the kitchen door with a smile, saw this and asked with a smile, Are you all ready?

The reason why he asked this was because he was so patient when he chopped minced garlic from Li Xiaoshan, and when he came up with such tricks, he saw that Li Xiaoshan should be quite idle.

If you are busy, who has the leisure to chop garlic like this on a horse? Also slice first, then shred?

Li Xiaoshan took a white disc and shoveled the minced garlic that had just been chopped on the cutting board into the plate. When cleaning up the cutting board, he smiled and nodded, Well, it's almost done, cut a few more spicy millets. That's alright, do you want to put the bottom of the pot and boil the vegetables now?

Tongdao Xu's smile remained the same, Well, let's go! In order to be more accurate, I didn't eat a single bite of food at noon today, I just ate an apple, and I was very hungry.

Okay! Wait a minute!

As Li Xiaoshan said that, he quickly took a few millets and put them on the chopping board. After a while, he cut them all into small circles.

...

When he was making the hot pot soup base, Tongdao Xu didn't leave the kitchen, he just stood not far away and watched with a smile.

Watch him put ginger slices, garlic slices, green onion slices, shallots, red dates, wolfberry, angelica, sauerkraut, rock sugar, newly researched hot pot base, monosodium glutamate, pickled peppers, etc. Then he lifted the lid of a half-meter-deep stainless steel bucket, and scooped out the milky white soup from the bucket.

When the stainless steel bucket lid was lifted, Xu Tongdao sniffed his nose and smelled the strong aroma of bone broth.

Very pure!

With his years of experience as a chef, as soon as he smelled the aroma of this bone broth, he knew that this bone broth was really a broth made from various bones, not a fake blend of various additives that many hot pot restaurants like to use. goods.

When Li Xiaoshan took the bottom of the pot out of the kitchen, Xu Tongdao walked over out of curiosity and fished it out of the stainless steel soup bucket with a long-handled spoon.

He found quite a few bones in the bottom of the barrel.

There are pork bones, thick beef thigh bones, chicken frame bones, and three large crucian carp wrapped in white sand cloth.

Hanging soup he will also.

In ordinary small restaurants, there is no such procedure as hanging soup stock.

Because small restaurants are taking the route of high quality and low price, if they use soup stock, the cost will rise rapidly, and the price of dishes cannot be maintained at a low price.

Otherwise, you will definitely lose money.

But larger restaurants, restaurants that pay attention to word of mouth, generally like to use broth to season dishes.

To put it a little longer - in the era when there was no MSG and chicken essence, the main means for chefs to flavor dishes were various secret soups and sauces.

Of course, the ones that use the most broth are still hot pot restaurants.

But the one that likes to fake in the soup the most is also a hot pot restaurant.

There is no way, most of the hot pot restaurants are also taking the cheap or low-cost route. If you really use the real soup, the profit will be thin, and there is a high possibility of losing money.

Tongdao Xu... If it weren't for his Ximen Yipin Hotpot Restaurant, the most popular Datong Food Street in Shuiniao City, if it weren't for the fact that there were plenty of customers there every day, he would not dare to be in his own hotpot restaurant. Use genuine stock.

This stuff is too expensive.

...

Li Xiaoshan prepared two hot pot soup bases for everyone.

One is the bottom of the red soup pot, and the other is the bottom of the clear soup pot.

In addition, he also prepared more than a dozen kinds of hot dishes, such as chicken wings, ham sausage, mutton rolls, beef rolls, tofu skins, etc.

In addition, he also personally asked everyone's taste, and personally helped everyone prepare a taste plate that suits everyone's taste.

By the time his flavor plates were all prepared, the soup base in the two large copper pots just happened to be boiled by the charcoal fire.

Ge Lianghua had prepared liquor and drinks for everyone.

Li Xiaoshan stood aside and gestured, Everyone please!