The Northern Stories of Chef Lao Tan

Chapter 4 The Kanto Family
The next day, Lao Tan was just about to call Lao Si when Lao Si's call came in.

The fourth child said that the Guandong family of Wanfangmen found a chef and asked him to go and have a look.

The fourth child is the production director of a chain restaurant in the provincial capital. He has done a good job and is famous. He was a brother of Lao Tan when he was learning to cook together.There were four of them at the beginning, but now the eldest and second child have quit this business, and only he and the fourth child are still doing it.

The Guandong family is at the Wanfang Gate in Beisantaizi, three kilometers away from Songshan Road.It was formerly a kindergarten, and the predecessor of the kindergarten was Laogen Villa.At that time, Lao Tan was the chef of the villa, and Zhang Li was the manager.

After SARS came, the boss sold out the villa and turned it into a kindergarten.Now the kindergarten has turned yellow, and it has become a restaurant again, where Zhang Li works as the manager.

Zhang Li, Lao Tan's old partner when he was working in the provincial capital, the two have worked together on Seorak Mountain BBQ, Laogen Villa, and Linjiangxuan.Since Lao Tan went to other places, he hasn't cooperated again.

After answering the call from the fourth child, Lao Tan summed up that Zhang Li was working as a manager in the Kanto family, so she should be clear about the situation, so call her first and ask.

Zhang Li said that she didn't know about the recruitment of the chef, and it may have been decided by the boss on the spur of the moment.Tell Lao Tan that the current head chef is a brother who has worked with the boss for more than ten years, and it is impossible to change.Then I introduced the current situation of the Kanto people.There are more than [-] people in the kitchen, and the scale is quite large.It operates local home-cooked dishes and rural dishes.The highlight is that the little stupid chickens are slaughtered on the spot, the wild fish in the reservoir, and the most attractive thing is the little donkey pulling the mill, and the water tofu and tofu nao are made on site.

The existing problems are that the quality of the dishes in the kitchen cannot be improved, the speed of serving the dishes is slow, the phenomenon of guests urging the dishes is serious, and the cooperation with the front desk is not in place, and they are in a disconnected state.

At present, the business is more than 500,000 million per month, and the status of not losing money is not making money.But the potential is great. It should be possible to sell 800,000 a month. If managed well, [-] won’t be a problem.

The overall investment of the hotel is 4 million, and the rent is 800,000 per year.

The owner's surname is Xu, 40 years old.The person in charge is called Zhang Juan, an old subordinate of the boss.The purchaser is the uncle of the boss, the accountant is the boss’s friend Sister Li, and the warehouse management is the boss’s aunt.

Zhang Li was the front desk manager, Li Shuang was the floor manager, and Zhou Xiaomei agreed to be the marketing manager.

Li Shuang, Zhang Li's old subordinate, was the floor manager when she was in Laogen Villa, and she was the branch manager when Lao Tan was in Binhai.

Zhou Xiaomei, Lao Tan's classmate and relatives, is called Lao Tan's Uncle, when he was in Binhai, he was the head store manager, and Zhang Li was a good sister.

After introducing the basic situation of the Guandong family to Lao Tan, Zhang Li said: "Come over and have a look and talk to the boss. I think this place is good and has potential for development. We could both do it when we were in Laogen Villa. That can be done too."

Old Tan said, "Okay, I'll go over and have a look in a while."

From Zhang Li's point of view, there is now a head chef in the Kanto family, and he is the brother of the boss, so it is impossible to change.But what does the fourth child mean when he says that the head chef is recruited there?
Never mind him, go and have a look first.

Half an hour later, Lao Tan stood at the gate of the Kanto family.

It is different from the previous Laogen Villa.The gate of Laogen Villa was a tall gatehouse, with red lanterns hanging on both sides of the gatehouse, and a plaque made of solid wood hanging in the middle - Laogen Villa.

Now that the gatehouse is gone, there are two antique gateposts on both sides of the gate, on which are hung solid wood slats with gold on a black background, forming a couplet.

The first couplet is: three acres of land, one cow;

The second line is: Wife and children are hot on the kang.

The horizontal batch is on the main building at the back: Guandong family.

Lao Tan is very familiar with everything here. After all, he has worked for a year. The original Laogen Villa was the first restaurant in the national chain. He was the first head chef, and he was also famous for a while.Going back to the place where I worked in the past, I can't help feeling a little bit emotional.

After entering the gate, there is no rush to enter the main building, first go around the main building.

The east side of the main building is the staff garage, the west side is the security room, and the back is the staff dormitory.

The staff dormitory is on the second floor of a 40-meter-long building. In the past, all the staff lived on the second floor, and the rooms below were all unoccupied.The second floor is still the dormitory, and the first floor from west to east is the fire water tank room, breeding room, warehouse, vegetable room and staff canteen.

The door of the breeding room was open, and a black donkey was grazing, when he saw a stranger standing at the door and sneezed loudly.Old Tan smiled, thinking it was very good. With this donkey, the compound looked like a crop yard, with a rural flavor.

Turn around and go back to the entrance of the main building, open the door and go in.

The greeter wearing a blue floral jacket smiled and asked, "Hi sir, do you have a reservation?"

"No, come here and talk to the boss about something." Old Tan said.

"Hello, our boss is in the office on the fourth floor, I will lead you up."

"No, I'll go up by myself. Go ahead, I'll take a look first."

The greeter smiled and nodded, Lao Tan walked in, thinking that the greeter was well trained by Zhang Li and qualified.

In the center of the hall is the food booth. On the left side of the booth is a large pot of stewed vegetables, on the right is a tofu shop, and behind it is a cold dish and noodle booth, forming an arc-shaped ordering area.

Next to the ordering area is a chicken coop and a fish pond. There are more than [-] small stupid chickens in the chicken coop, and river carp, catfish, black carp, and grass carp are raised in the fish pond.There are two wooden barrels beside the fish pond, which contain wild big loaches and bullfrogs.

The style of the entire order area is very Kanto, with solid wood decoration, giving people a rough and unrestrained feeling.

The dish display stand is rectangular, with a bottom height of [-] centimeters, and a stepped three-tiered vegetable stall on the top, with forty dishes on each floor.

Lao Tan walked around the booth twice, and 90.00% of the dishes on it were home-cooked dishes, including pot-wrapped pork, sliced ​​meat, sweet and sour pork tenderloin, sweet and sour pork ribs, Mushu pork, soft fried pork tenderloin, braised pork ribs, etc. A few trendy dishes, such as the moonlight in the lotus pond, and cashew celery.

Zhang Li said that the serving speed is slow, and customers always rush to serve.There are reasons why the dishes are served slowly. One is that the chefs are not strong enough to fry them;Dessert dishes are troublesome dishes, which are generally slow and time-consuming.

Lao Tan took a closer look at the dessert dishes on the booth. There were candied sweet potatoes, candied yams, candied yams, candied jujubes, colorful glutinous rice dates, candied taro, sanded taro, and snowy bean paste, a total of eight dessert dishes.

Lao Tan thought that there are too many dessert dishes, and ordering one for each table is enough for the chef to work, which will definitely affect the speed of serving the dishes.And there is also snowy bean paste, which is the most labor-intensive dish, and it would be nice to have it when you are busy.In addition, there are many dishes, one hundred and twenty dishes, and these are only hot dishes, not including cold dishes and pasta, and there are more cold dishes and pasta.

Although the store is big, [-] square meters, there are too many dishes.In this way, too much material is prepared, the workload of the chopping board is heavy, and time is wasted on side dishes.Raw materials cannot be sold out every day, forming a backlog, and there is a phenomenon that the business is booming and not making money.

The cost is all on the raw materials, and if the freezer is not sold out, it will not be profitable.

There are too many dessert dishes and too many dishes, which may be the reason for the slow serving.But without seeing the situation inside the kitchen, Lao Tan didn't dare to draw conclusions easily.

He came to the big pot stew stall.

Inside stood a woman in her forties, with a blue floral turban on her head, a blue floral double-breasted jacket, and a floral apron around her waist.The clothes are dressed up by the sister-in-law in the rural areas of the Northeast, clean and neat, very eye-catching.

There are three large pots at the stall. The first pot is stewed with sauerkraut and big bones, the second pot is stewed chicken with mushrooms, and the third pot is for hospitality dishes.

Old Tan smiled when he saw the hospitality dish. He studied this dish when he was in Laogen Mountain Villa. After selling it, it became popular in Santaizi, and gradually spread to the city. It was also popular at the beginning, and many restaurants came to learn it.When they arrived at Binhai, the guests didn't recognize it, and there were still regional differences in many dishes.

After carefully looking at the hospitality dishes in the pot, Lao Tan shook his head a little.It is out of shape, the xuelihong is too long, and the taste is not good.The meatballs were of the right size, but they were not the meatballs he asked for. It looked like they were made with ready-made meat fillings to save trouble.The eggs are also boiled and put in directly, without frying and smoldering, it is no different from boiled eggs, it is a bit of a sham.

There is also one of the biggest failures - oil big.

Then came to the cold dish stall.

The cold dish room is a bit small, and there are five employees, some are setting up the stalls, and some are peeling cucumbers.There is a basket of cucumbers and a bag of white radishes piled up in the middle of the floor. Due to the small space, the employees walk around from above, making it appear crowded and messy.

Outside the open glass is the exhibition stall, and four pots of side dishes have been placed.They are Laba garlic, soy sauce side dishes, Maggi radish and homemade pickles.

There are also four stainless steel square plates, two of which are filled with freshly smoked pig's trotters and chicken feet, and the other two are empty, probably not yet smoked.

The cold dish room is next to the pastry room, and there are five employees in the pastry room, all of whom are doing preparations.

There are no stoves in the cold dish room and pastry room, and Lao Tan thought that it would be inconvenient to work without thermal processing and delay things.This is a design mistake during decoration, which is a flaw in the kitchen.

Cornmeal pancakes, sauerkraut steamed dumplings, celery steamed dumplings, gold silk pancakes, cornmeal hair cakes, black rice flour cakes and small steamed buns are displayed on the pastry stalls.

They are all staple foods of coarse grains, they look good, and have a rural atmosphere.

Come to the tofu shop.

The entire tofu shop is completely designed according to the rural tofu shop, which is very smokey.

There are two houses in total. There is an old stone mill in the middle of the outhouse, a donkey sheath is placed on the stone mill pole, and buns in the donkey sheath are hung on the wall.There is a door near the window, and it is estimated that the black donkey entered and exited through this door instead of going through the hall.There is a pennant hanging beside the door, which reads "Excellent employees who work hard and bear no complaints".

Old Tan laughed, and said to himself that he didn't want to work hard, and the donkey didn't dare to resist.

Near the south wall of the back room is a big pot for boiling soybean milk, on which tofu is being pressed.A middle-aged couple was inside, the man picked up pressed tofu from the tofu cage, and the woman cleaned up.

There are two large thermos barrels at the door, which contain tofu nao and water tofu.

The chicken coop, fish pond, and tofu shop are connected together. Coming here is the same as going to a farmyard, which has a very rural atmosphere.

This area is the highlight of the entire a la carte area, the most attractive.Most of the children in the city have never seen a donkey. It should be a treat to see a donkey when eating here.
It’s a very happy thing, and I can also see the whole process of making tofu. It’s an unusual experience to eat fresh tofu.

After watching the entire ordering area, Lao Tan was about to go upstairs, and Zhang Li happened to come down from the second floor, and saw him walking over with a smile.

Lao Tan looked at Zhang Li who was walking towards him with a smile on his face. He hadn't seen her for five years. This woman is even more beautiful.

A decent business attire well outlines the woman's lines, and her uneven figure exudes a mature flavor.The short hair is capable, the eyebrows are raised, a pair of beautiful eyes are full of warmth and wisdom, and the corners of the mouth are raised to reveal the inner joy unreservedly.

The two walked up to each other, smiled at each other, stretched out their hands at the same time, and held each other tightly.

(End of this chapter)