Liuxiang

At noon, there is a restaurant, in the kitchen.

The sound of aggressive kitchen knives hitting the chopping board rang out in the rhythm of wild bees flying.

Yi Baitang glanced casually over the pots and pans in the kitchen, while analyzing with Shang Huaiyan: "I am used to eating food that is heavy in oil and salt."

"Because his job is a construction site foreman." Shang Huaiyan added.

"We need to add appetizers." Yi Baitang said again.

"Because I'm facing the risk of being fired recently." Shang Huaiyan added.He felt as if he was patching up Yi Baitang so that the third party besides the two could hear what they were saying clearly.Then, during the time when the wild bees were flying wildly, he couldn't help but look down on the chopping board, and saw the kitchen knife turning into a silver light and flying up and down, passing Yi Baitang's left hand pressing on the ingredients several times, Can't help but feel a little suspenseful: "Do you want to look down at your movements? Be more careful?"

Yi Baitang tilted his head: "Are you afraid that I will cut your own hand?"

Shang Huaiyan seemed to be sitting in the passenger seat of someone else's car, and he really wanted to turn the head of the driver who turned to talk to him back to the front!

Yi Baitang said lightly, "I won't cut my fingers since I was five years old, don't worry."

Shang Huaiyan was taken aback, and realized the important point: "You have been chopping vegetables since you were five years old? Did you learn to chop vegetables so early, have you always been doing this at home?"

As soon as these words came out, Yi Baitang's mouth suddenly closed tightly, his gaze retracted instantly from slackness, and drooped in a blink of an eye, fixedly staying on top of his hands, with an extremely focused appearance, as if he was afraid that he would blink, The flying kitchen knife is about to cut your fingers!

Damn it, why did you mention this...he didn't want to answer Shang Huaiyan's question at all.

Yi Baitang was secretly upset, so he had to force his eyes to stick to the cutting board, and carefully chopped the last minced meat. After the last knife fell on the cutting board, he looked up and looked aside. Standing on the big fire, there are nine grids of cauldron heads wonderfully divided inside: "The time is up, the soup is boiling."

As soon as the voice fell, the nine grids in the cauldron started to burst into bubbles one after another. Suddenly, white mist rose suddenly, and the hot and sour taste permeated the room.

Yi Baitang made a spoonful of soup from each of the nine grids, and placed them in front of Shang Huaiyan one after another.

The order from left to right is:

Five shredded hot and sour soup with coriander.

Five silk hot and sour soup with star anise.

Five silk hot and sour soup with broth.

Five silk hot and sour soup with chicken soup.

and many other changes...

The taste of the hot and sour soup has been stimulating the nerves, which in turn caused the stomach to squirm. Shang Huaiyan first picked up the cup and drank a big mouthful of boiled water. When he swallowed the boiled water, he felt deep pressure. He seemed to have forgotten to treat Yi Baitang said one thing, but don't worry about it, the taste of hot and sour soup is really appetizing...!

"With the addition of chicken broth and broth, the soup tastes sticky and not refreshing enough."

"Added coriander, astringent..."

"The star anise is full of spices."

"Well, and—"

The conversation in the kitchen is continuing. Outside the kitchen, it is the afternoon when there are no customers in the restaurant. The shop assistants on the left and right are sitting idle on the chairs and shooting flies. Suddenly, they sit up straight one after another, sniffing their noses, with confused faces Said: "Where did this smell come from? It's a bit fragrant. Is it time for dinner?"

After finishing speaking, he didn't forget to stretch his neck and look towards the street to see if the flow of people was coming from the direction of the office building outside the alley.

It's a pity that looking left and right, the guests didn't see many guests, but the left one saw people coming out of Sha County Snacks, and the right one saw people coming out of Lanzhou Ramen. Looking straight ahead, the deadly enemy Chongqing Chicken Pot was also poking around! !

The waiters of the four food chains looked at each other, and sparks flew.

For a whole afternoon, Shang Huaiyan, who had tasted at least twenty or thirty flavors, already felt that his tongue did not belong to him.

He rinsed the taste in his mouth with plain water again, picked up a cup of soup, the moment the soup entered his mouth, before his tongue could react, his nerves moved his vocal cords first, and spit out: "Okay!"

Then Shang Huaiyan felt the taste in his mouth.

It's sour enough and spicy enough, but it's rare to mix it without irritating the throat. The moment you swallow it from your throat, it's as comfortable as taking a sip of wine in the ice and snow, and then the warm flame is burning from your stomach.

Shang Huaiyan was full of praise: "This is it! What ingredients are added to it?"

After trying the same soup with so many subtle differences, Shang Huaiyan was tired from eating it, but Yi Baitang, who was always preparing the soup, seemed to be so calm all the time, without any change.Now he glanced at the cup of ingredients that Shang Huaiyan ate, and said: "We added mustard, and the original spicy ratio has been weakened to a certain extent..."

As he spoke, he raised his hand, took the cup from Shang Huaiyan, and took a sip.

Shang Huaiyan watched, feeling a bit like an indirect kiss... But before he could think about it, Yi Baitang suddenly frowned, his complexion changed, and he directly poured the soup in his hand into the pool, and then he was determined to be displeased The voice came: "It's not delicious!"

And it's not perfect at all!

not perfect!not perfect!not perfect!

Yi Baitang's heart was so anxious that his face was abnormally cold.

The surrounding atmosphere also seemed to feel that something was wrong at the moment, and a little strange gelation occurred. Shang Huaiyan was stunned for a moment, and then slowly a kind of unhappiness arose, as if the gift he was about to carefully select was rejected. People fell to pieces mercilessly.

This made his tone a little colder:

"If you don't think it tastes good, it won't taste good."

He took out a cigarette from his pocket and planned to go out for a smoke. Before he walked to the door, he did not forget to say: "I think it's delicious, but you don't agree; you think it's delicious, and I don't necessarily agree. You want every Every single dish was done to perfection—”

He shrugged slightly:

"But maybe other people's request is just to drink a bowl of hot soup that can warm your body in winter and keep you going. Perfect is not perfect, what difference does it make to them? What if the repeat customer can't even solve his own problems?" In the mood to contemplate your imperfections?"

Yi Baitang was the only one left in the kitchen.

His gaze stayed in the messy pool, and he suddenly remembered what happened two months ago... It seemed like it happened yesterday.

As soon as he closed his eyes for a while, the images rushed out of his mind, making it impossible for anyone to escape.

Of course, he didn't want to escape either.

Yi Baitang thought with a blank expression.

He remembered the weather that day... Forget it, why do you think so much about such insignificant things as the weather.

Anyway, he had just returned to the village that day and found the man who had been living in the village.

He proposed a contest.

After learning how to cook for so many years, what he has been waiting for is this day - there must be a day when he will step on the corpse of the great devil in his life to succeed.

Of course, before this competition, he also thought that he would fail.

After all, I'm still young, so it's normal to fail once or twice.

He just never thought that he would fail in that way...

The first time that person met him, he laughed contemptuously and said that his chef concept was not good.

What is wrong with him?

The man said that he was not even a chef with such a philosophy of pursuing perfection.

Yi Baitang remembered that he was very angry at the time, and decided to use facts to prove who was not a chef.

In a hurry, they started a special competition.

That is, use exactly the same techniques and materials to make exactly the same dishes.

According to Yi Baitang's understanding, the taste of these two dishes is exactly the same.

And that person said, the more delicious one must be the one I made.

Finally the result came out.

The opponent won.

Yi Baitang's gaze refocused after a moment's slack, and once again clearly felt the heartache at that time.

I feel that I can challenge that person, but I don't even know where the difference is between myself and the other party.

This has got to be the scariest shade of my life.

I can't look directly at the word "perfect" now...

And then... and now.

Become a small kitchen in a small roadside restaurant.

Cooking all kinds of food all day, but don't know what I'm doing.

Is banana ham and orange fried meat really delicious?

Yi Baitang was at a loss.

In fact, I also know that it is not delicious.

Even if I don't know it's bad, I can taste it.

I seem to... It's been a long time since I seriously tasted the dishes I made.

Yi Baitang, who was standing alone in the kitchen, suddenly realized this.

As if a basin of cold water had been poured on his whole body, he suddenly woke up, took a deep breath, emptied his mind, rubbed the past behind him, and then suddenly, he remembered Shang Huaiyan leaving The words that were said at that time.

"What does your perfection mean to him?"

"All he wants is a bowl of hot soup that will warm his body and keep him going."

Warm up and keep going...

Yi Baitang's gaze wandered around the kitchen, and suddenly settled in one direction.

The sky was stained with gray layer by layer, and the last bit of Wei Ran on the horizon was also swallowed up.

Every day of the week, Wang Zhenjiang stepped into this restaurant again.

But this time it seems a little different.

As soon as he entered the store, he saw a bowl of hot soup placed where he usually sat.

He was stunned for a moment, and looked at the small shop. There was no third person in the shop except himself and the boss. If so, he asked one more question: "Is that bowl of soup for me?" ?”

"It's for you." The boss sitting behind the bar said, "It's just out of the pot."

"Oh, thank you." Wang Zhenjiang was a little surprised.But no matter what, this unexpected treatment still made him feel a little relieved.He sat down in his seat, and it happened that there was no phone call today, so he chatted with the boss a few more times, "Boss, I think your business is not very good."

"Yes." Yi Baitang said.

"The rent here is quite expensive, isn't it?"

"do not know."

"It's not easy for a boss to start a career at a young age. He has to manage it well so that he doesn't know what he's doing when he's in his 40s or [-]s."

He sighed deeply as he spoke, and looked up to get some response, but he saw that the boss had already lifted the curtain behind the bar and walked into the kitchen.

He suddenly felt bored, picked up the bowl on the table, and took a sip of the soup in the bowl.

At the same time, Yi Baitang directly moved a straight pot out of the kitchen.

The lid of the straight pot has been lifted, and the white mist is dense. If you take a breath according to the mist, even if you are a patient with a cold and stuffy nose, you can smell the sour, hot and choking smell!