Hotpot Restaurant Chapter 6
So, the two people who were trapped by their respective financial woes started to draw up new plans for the hot pot eatery together.
According to Lao Lu, the shopfront and inner walls should be the top priorities for the renovation.
That would take all of Meng Xiao Ni’s twenty thousand yuan.
“The shopfront is exposed to the elements of nature, so you’ll need to choose materials that are weather-resistant. Neon signage is trendy nowadays, but those cannot withstand strong winds, thunderstorms, and earthquakes. You’d need to spend another 20,000 yuan to redo it if it gets damaged,” advised Lao Lu.
Meng Xiao Ni thought that was rather sound advice.
“Weather is actually not your biggest enemy. What’s worse is if some shopfront design restriction is enacted, claiming that the appearance and historic integrity of the country needs to be preserved. Then, you’ll have no choice but to demolish everything,” cautioned Lao Lu further.
Meng Xiao Ni recalled news reports of such incidents in other cities, though not in Fengdu.
She felt that the advice was all very sensible, and that it was always better to prevent trouble before it happens.
“The underlying idea of your design is OK, but the execution is no good. Since I’ll be credited for the design, it has to do my reputation justice.” Lao Lu reached for a post-it pad and tore one off, “Leave your WeChat and mobile number. I’ll call you when I’ve finished the design.”
Meng Xiao Ni took the post-it and wrote her mobile number and WeChat ID down.
She was pleasantly surprised by the progress she had made in the building materials market today.
She had initially thought that it would basically be a wasted trip.
After writing down her contact information, Meng Xiao Ni kept her notebook and stood up. “Thank you, Uncle Lu.”
Uncle Lu waved her off, sat back down, and resumed playing the drama on his tablet. “No need, I just felt like doing it… as a form of charity? People need to have chivalrous hearts.”
The drama continued from where it left off, and a bright female voice rang out, “Humans need to have chivalrous hearts.”
Meng Xiao Ni: “…”
Even a bald, middle-aged man, burdened by financial woes, cannot escape the allure of TV dramas.
The spirit of Elder Lu followed Meng Xiao Ni as she made her way out of the building materials market.
It’s been a long time since Elder Lu had met someone he could speak with, and he couldn’t help chattering on. “Actually, I should have gone to the Underworld long ago. But once I go there, I won’t be able to return. I can’t help worrying about that son of mine. I’ll watch over him for a few more years. If he does well, I’ll go off and be reincarnated.”
Indeed, the Underworld was governed by very strict rules and regulations. Meng Xiao Ni had never seen anyone return from there.
She shrugged on her backpack as she tried imaging what the Underworld would look like.
She had absolutely no clue.
She had never met Heibai Wuchang, nor Niutou Mamian1.
She had only met ghosts who were almost indistinguishable from the living.
Ghosts have no physical bodies, so the only differentiation was that they do not have shadows.
Meng Xiao Ni was about to leave the building materials market. Elder Lu fanned himself at a corner and called out, “Hey, come over when you’re free. It’s also a good thing for you to meet different sorts of people here, you can also gain some life experience.”
She laughed and said, “Alright.”
The eatery was still being disinfected. If Meng Xiao Ni went back now, she probably wouldn’t be allowed to enter.
Since she only returned to her hometown once a year, she had lost contact with her old classmates.
As she’s unemployed, she had no colleagues to mingle with.
Now that Meng Xiao Ni had completed her task early, she had no idea what to do with her time.
She boarded the homebound bus, wondering if she should bring forward her plans. She could go around trying the food from other hot pot restaurants, and see what improvements could be made in their own soup bases and dishes.
“Ding ding dong ding dong~ ding ding dong ding dong~~”
Puzzled, Meng Xiao Ni took out her mobile phone, wondering who was calling her.
She’d saved Lao Lu’s mobile number, and the number reflected wasn’t Lao Lu.
“Hello?” answered Meng Xiao Ni.
“Hello, is this Miss Meng? This is the Fengdu County Public Security Bureau. I am the policeman who went to your house yesterday,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
Meng Xiao Ni blinked, confused.
I already had a call in the morning, why is the Public Security Bureau calling again?
“It’s like this. The parrot we caught last night is missing. We’ve already made a report with the Forestry Bureau. If you see it again, you contact the Forestry Bureau directly, or call the Public Security Bureau and asked to be transferred to the Forestry Bureau.”
Meng Xiao Ni was shocked by the news. “Missing? Why has it gone missing?”
“We had kept the bird in a cage, but from the surveillance video, it opened the door and escaped by itself,” replied the policeman, with an equal measure of amusement and exasperation in his voice.
Parrots are very smart creatures.
“I see. I will call the Forestry Bureau if I come across it again,” replied Meng Xiao Ni hurriedly.
The policeman was happy with Meng Xiao Ni’s ready cooperation. “Okay. That’s all for now, goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
As soon as the she hung up, Meng Xiao Ni’s mind filled with thoughts of the peach-coloured parrot last night.
No wonder this parrot flew into her house on its own accord last night—it’s quite a plucky character!
She sighed softly, “I wonder who raised such a parrot.”
Even though she’d promised to help, Meng Xiao Ni was sure that she would never be lucky enough to meet this rare “ruby red” parrot for the second time. More accurately, it was a peach-pink Bourke’s parrot.
She decided to eat lunch outside. She casually tapped her phone and found a highly rated hot pot restaurant in the city and headed off, all ready to queue up.
Queuing is a natural part of the process of dining at highly rated stores.
The queues at Fengdu’s hot pot restaurants were still rather reasonable. In the first-tier city where she studied, she had to get a queue number before 3:30pm is she wanted to have dinner. Once, she went to get a queue number 3:30 pm, and didn’t even get a place among the first batch of diners.
To have to put in so much effort for a meal was completely new concept to her.
The hot pot restaurant she found scored 9/10 and above for all categories—taste, ingredients, service, and ambience. With such scores, it can be considered to be at the pinnacle of its industry.
When she reached the restaurant, there was already a line outside.
Meng Xiao Ni was a single diner, and seventh in line— she would be part of the first batch of diners.
She took a menu and scanned the options for pots and soup bases.
The standard Jiugongge2 and Yuanyang3 options were all there.
Jiugongge pots made it convenient to cook several ingredients at once, while the Yuanyang pot was mostly prepared for out-of-towners.
Yuanyang pots in Fengdu tend not be just a token offering. It’s made of two circles— the one on the inside is smaller than a palm and contained non-spicy soup base, while the larger outer circle was spicy. A completely non-spicy option was a rare sight in Fengdu.
It’s not impossible to find, but was just very rare.
She considered for a while and decided to go with Jiugongge.
After all, spice is the soul of hot pot.
Meng Xiao Ni, who worked hard to strengthen her soul, was the first group to enter when restaurant opened for business.
Spicy Jiugongge pot, along with the restaurant’s signature dishes, was a little too much for one person.
The prices in Fengdu were not high— the restaurant’s average cost per person of 100 yuan was considered to be on the high side.
“Gongwan4, duck’s blood5, tripe, xiahua6, potato slices7…” If one ordered more than the average cost per person, it would be hard to finish. These would be enough.
Meng Xiao Ni tried to her best restrain her desire to order more, and decided that she should bring her parents along with her next time.
Her parents didn’t like the hustle and bustle of such crowded places, and would rather have a simple meal at home.
“Crispy pork8, bingfen9!” Meng Xiao Ni finished ticking off her orders on the order sheet, and decided she could just takeaway anything she couldn’t finish.
She handed the order sheet to the waiter next to her, and waited expectantly for her food to be served.
In popular restaurants such as this, the hot pots for the first batch diners would have been prepared before opening time.
Moreover, most of the dishes were raw and needed minimal preparation. Not long after Meng Xiao Ni had placed her order, the waiter carried a hot pot and set it down in front of her, and then swiftly served up the dishes one by one.
The gongwan had cartilage and vegetables incorporated in them. Round and uniformly shaped, they looked rather cute on the plate.
Duck’s blood was served in a round bowl, diced into cubes, soft and bouncy like jello.
Tripe came in a big bowl. The base of the bowl was filled with ice and upon that laid several slices of tripe, arranged to form the shape of a small hill.
Xiahua was the cutest of all. Shrimp meat and flour were chopped into a puree and kneaded into the shape of a heart. To eat it, you had to scoop out each portion by yourself and cook it in the pot.
The potato slices were sliced extremely thinly, just about the thickness of potato chips.
The crispy pork and bingfen she ordered at the end were not served yet, but she already had plenty to eat for a while.
The spicy hot pot was ready very quickly— the soup base bubbled and boiled like red lava in the Jiugongge, revealing countless chillis and peppercorns within. A robust fragrance filled the entire hot pot restaurant, easily taking over all of Meng Xiao Ni’s olfactory senses.
The spicier something is, the more fragrant it will be. The fragrance now was intense enough to make one drool.
Hot pot is truly a meal for the gluttonous.
Seasoned diners don’t even need to time the cooking of the ingredients. They know by heart how much time each ingredient needed to be in the boiling pot and take them out instinctively the second it’s ready. Grasping the right timing is the key to bringing out the best flavour of the ingredients— cooked to just the right degree, while maintaining optimal freshness.
Take this restaurant’s potato slices for instance— they take eight seconds to cook; a second less, it would still be raw, and a second more, it would start to lose flavour.
Meng Xiao Ni took the potato slices out of the pot. The thin potato slices were soaked with spicy oil, adding a layer of glossy red to its original pale yellow. The alluring sight was not like that of an innocent dancer who put on gorgeous red lipstick.
The thin slices, dipped in sauce, were refreshing and spicy. Two diametrically contradictory sensations danced upon one’s tastebuds the same time.
The humble potato, in an instant, became an irresistible delicacy.
It’s deliciousness far exceeds one’s expectations of a simple staple, and had the ability to take one by surprise.
Meng Xiao Ni knew that she shouldn’t continue eating the potato slices any further.
If any food, no matter how delicious, were to be eaten continuously, would easily loose its impact. The meal would then just end with a simple, “It was good”, instead of the marvellous experience it could’ve been.
She extended her chopsticks to the beef tripe, the staple on every hot pot menu.
Most of the tripe served in Fengdu is fresh and of good quality— only needing eight quick dips into the boiling pot, for a total of fifteen seconds. The same is true here. Meng Xiao Ni was not concerned about the freshness of tripe at all, and put it unhesitatingly into her mouth.
As expected, it tasted amazing.
Delicious food has the power to put one in a happy mood.
Not long after, a small serving of crispy pork and a bowl of bingfen was served.
As Meng Xiao Ni alternated between mouthfuls of spicy hot pot and refreshing bingfen, her eyes formed upturned crescents in delight.
In the end, she really couldn’t finish all the food, so she put everything into the pot, and requested for it to be packed.
Of course, takeaways could never match up to the taste of freshly cooked food, but Meng Xiao Ni was not one to waste food.
With a large takeaway bag in hand, she idly made her way to the bus stop.
The fact that Fengdu was not too big a city was something she loved about it.
It didn’t take very long before she arrived at the bus stop near her house. She jumped off lightly from the bus.
“Crooooo—— Crooooo——” a strange birdcall rang out.
Reflexively, Meng Xiao Ni looked up and craned her neck towards source of the sound.
A streak of pink came hurtling towards her.
“Ahhh———!”
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Footnotes
1 Niutou Mamian: 牛头马面, literally, Ox-Head and Horse-Face. Similar to Heibai Wuchang, they are guardians of the underworld in Chinese mythology. As indicated by their names, both have the bodies of men, but Ox-Head has the head of an ox while Horse-Face has the face of a horse. They are the first beings a dead soul encounters upon entering the underworld; in many stories they directly escort the newly dead to the underworld.
2 Jiugongge: 九宫格 Named as such for it’s special pot with 9 grids, this is a specialty of Chongqing. Traditionally, different grids represent different temperatures and different concentrations of lard mixed with chili oil. Most people put similar types of food into the same square. For example, the meats will be cooked together, and the vegetables in their own square.
3 Yuanyang: 鸳鸯 Named after the mandarin ducks, which symbolises aperfect pairing/ marriage in Chinese culture. A popular choice in hotpot restaurants as the split-pot allows for two different soup bases, and makes it easy for both spicy and non-spicy lovers to enjoy a meal together. A typical yuanyang pot is shown on the left, where the distribution is rather equal, and the one on the right is a Chongqing-style one with just a token portion of non-spicy soup in the centre, as Meng Xiao Ni’s described.
4 Gongwan: 贡丸This is a Chinese meatball made from finely minced pork, starch, and sometimes cuttlefish to impart a “chewy” texture and added flavour. Unlike western meatballs that are made with coarser ground meat, gongwan is made of thoroughly pounded meat that gives it a bouncy texture.
5 Duck’s blood: Also known as “blood curd”, “blood tofu” or “blood pudding”. Fresh duck blood is left sitting in a container while the blood coagulates. The solidified blood is then cut into smaller pieces before cooking in a pot of heated water.
6 Xiahua: 虾滑. This is smashed shrimp paste, where fresh shrimps are finely minced and pounded, and may be mixed with starch for a bouncier texture. Instead of being formed into balls like gongwan, the paste is directly placed in a vessel/ moulded into a special shape. The fun part of this dish that the texture and experience depends on how you choose to scoop it out and cook it.
7 Potato slices: Potato slices are a staple hot pot order. They are usually sliced very thinly, so that they can be cooked through quickly. When cooked at the optimum timing, it should be crisp and tender.
8 Crispy pork: While raw ingredients make up the bulk of a hot pot meal, restaurants also offer cooked side dishes. This is one such example. Crispy. Fried. Pork. Enough said. 🤤
9 Bingfen: 冰粉 Also known as ice jelly, this is a Chinese dessert native to Southwest China. It’s a bowl of iced transparent jelly, made from the seeds of the Nicandra physalodes plant, and topped with a variety of toppings such as peanuts, sesame seeds, haw flakes and wolfberries. It’s a light and refreshing dessert that serves as a nice counterpoint to the spicy and oily hot pot.
